Pros: Half-Life 2 kicked butt, and E1 is more of the same!
Cons: More of the same, and it doesn't last as long; $20 is high.
The Bottom Line: Half-Life 2 is arguably the best first-person-shooter, so a continuation isn't bad, but a better plot and new enemies would be nice. $20 is a little steep.
aloofyouth's Full Review: Half-Life 2: Episode One (Add on) for Windows
Half-Life 2 is well-reviewed, so I assume that anyone purchasing Half-Life 2: Episode One ("E1") knows all about the Half-Life 2 story.
E1 is well-put together, but it's also very brief, with only four chapters. I have left the spoilers to the END of this review, but it's not a secret that Alyx, the female sidekick from Half-Life 2, survived the explosion at the end of Half-Life 2. Alyx reprises her sidekick role, this time with more intelligence, humor, and of course, unlimited ammo from a rapid-fire handgun reminiscent of Robocop. She even picks up a Combine sniper rifle at one point. There are some areas in E1 where you have to go it alone, but Alyx is usually not far away.
GRAPHICS:
Character textures are twice as detailed (e.g., Alyx has twice as much detail). High Dynamic Range (first seen in the free Lost Coast episode available for free download off Steam for purchasers of Half-Life 2) is used a lot to create dramatic sunsets, "bloom" simulating how the eyes react to and then adjust to bright lights, etc. It allows much brighter lighting contrast for a quasi-photorealistic look.
To give you some idea of what's needed: I have a 256 MB overclocked GeForce 6800XT card that runs at 439/1200 MHz GPU/RAM and can run the game with max effects except Anistropic Filtering (only x2) and Anti-Aliasing (only x2) at 1024x768 resolution at an average framerate of about 60 frames per second. A 6600GT or above would be optimal, then, and you could probably get away with a X800 if you really had to.
GAMEPLAY AND ENEMIES:
Valve either would not or could not introduce new weapons or foes, with the exception of a "new" foe that is a twist on the enemies you fought in Half-Life 2. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I thought it was a little repetitive and that more than one new enemy type would spice things up.
Enemy AI is pretty decent, considering that it is largely unscripted. Soldiers will try to flank you, antlions will try to surround you, etc.
SOUND/ACTING:
The Valve team did a great job with Alyx's lines; she reacts dynamically to each situation, from shouting a pained "noooo!" when you get yanked up by a barnacle to commenting about flashlight batteries if your flashlight runs out of power at a bad time. It's about as close to a multi-player buddy game as you can get with today's technology in a single-player game. As with the original Half-Life 2 game, her voice syncs up with her face, and Valve has even given Alyx and other humans additional facial expressions for extra realism.
PUZZLES:
The usual gravity puzzles are in this game, but if anything, they are EASIER than they were in Half-Life 2. Or it feels that way because you've seen some of the same puzzles before (e.g., the see-saw). There is also a cheesy portion of the game where large pieces of metal fall on you as Alyx screams to look out and to deflect them away with your gravity gun; it felt really out of place for a FPS to have to deal with cheesy stuff like that.
One decent thing about the puzzles is that some of the puzzles have multiple solutions, so it doesn't feel as linear. But make no mistake, E1 is just as linear as Half-Life 2.
Also, Valve tries to "train" you in how to interact with the world in a safe environment before making you use your newfound skills in combat. E.g., early on, you will discover a way to use enemy roller-mines for your own purposes, and that skill comes in handy later on against enemy soldiers.
VALUE:
E1 is a decent bang for the buck. An experienced gamer should be able to complete E1 in about 4-6 hours. However, there is a "commentary mode" where you can replay the game and also click on boxes and have game designers explain why they did this or that. It's kind of neat, sort of like playing a DVD commentary track on, only it's for a video game.
TECHNICAL DETAILS------------------------------
I ran Half-Life 2 and E1 on a 2.8 GHz dual-core Pentium D820 machine with 1 GB RAM, a NVidia GeForce 6800 XT with 256 MB of DDR-3 RAM(heavily overclocked to something like 439 MHz GPU and 1200 MHz RAM), and they both ran smoothly, with only a few hiccups here and there during E1 during particularly active fighting sequences.
SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE---------------------------
The opening of the game is a bit slow, but it quickly speeds up, and Ravenholm fans may like the zombie-infested level and how Alyx says all sorts of funny things and even pretends to a zombie by growling at one point to have fun with you.
Valve either ran out of ideas or has way too much time on its hands, so I really don't like how E1 doesn't explain much of anything. Alyx gets saved in a deux ex machina way that is not very satisfying, and throughout E1 you are basically stalling for time to get out of City 17 before the entire City gets bathed in deadly radiation. Along the way, you see a new enemy that mind-blasts you and runs away, but that's the only interaction you get. At this point I have no idea who or how the Combine, G-Man, Xen, etc. connect, because I feel like Valve is about to pull the rug from under us yet again.
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