Half-Life 2: Episode Two

This game certainly gets to the point of its story just like the previous expansion pack for Half-life 2, the only issue I have with it is how it ends as it feels anticlimactic. Even if we eventually get a follow-up, it's on Halo 2s level of bad cliffhanger endings which isn't helped by the fact this is a mere expansion pack rather than a full game. It's worth your time, just be prepared for an empty conclusion to the game.

This is a better expansion than episode 1 in almost every way. We get a brand new map, with a story that is immersive and HUGE lore reveals. THIS is what a Half Life game feels like. Along with a ton of new enhancements to the already almost perfect engine. The ending was heavy and impactful as well. Episode 1 felt like a bridge leading up to this. I can say I am pleasantly surprised as this is the best expansion to a base game I have ever played

Episode 2 was a great journey as the other editions of Gordon Freeman´s journey. It is more action-packed than Ep 1 and the base game and there is not much time to catch your breath. For me that was a slight weakness of the game. It could have been streched out a bit to be more balanced.

I played all the games in succession and it has been a ride. The way the story is presented makes these games a real masterpiece. And to know these games were ahead of their time makes me appreciate them even more even though my rating is stripped from nostalgia and thus quite a bit lower than probably deserved.

True gem of a series. Play on hard.

Episode Two is the absolute peak of the Half-Life series and one of the best shooters ever made. I say this even with its short length in mind. It plays better than the best parts of the original HL2 (which, as a whole, was already incredible enough) and advances the story better than any other Half-Life game. The Half-Life story likely wouldn't be as lauded as it is if it weren't for this game, as Episode Two injects the narrative with a new layer of complexity using only a few lines of dialogue. Huge revelations are made, and that cliffhanger ending - one of the worst (best?) cliffhangers of all time - has kept the hype for Half-Life 3 alive thirteen years on.

Perhaps not a popular opinion, but this honestly feels like a stronger game than the base game, even despite it being about half the length. I like to describe this game as being "an amazing game but without all the in-between, boring bits". Episode Two is so concentrated that is length ceases to be an issue. Each segment is so enjoyable and different from the last that it is astonishing how consistently good the ideas are. Acid antlions, the grub tunnels, the antlion turret battle, the breathtaking White Forest and radar cache discovery, that bit with all the zombies with Alyx on the mounted gun - I could keep going. The point is that everything works. Everything.

While I have been pining for the next Half-Life game for years like everybody else has, my perceived perfection of what served as the final game for so long made the wait a little more tolerable.

Episode 2 is a big improvement over one and actually feels more fleshed out and varied. It plays like some of the better segments of Half Life 2 and has a pretty good story. Most of this DLC is about fighting the alien species and traveling between different locations and it is semi open World. This is a bit weaker than the core game and is fairly short as well, but its not bad as stand alone DLC, but now that Half Life 3 isn't coming anytime soon, I have a feeling it would either take Gabe's death or retirement to actually put a new Half Life game back on the table, this is pretty much the last Half Life game we got and ends on a huge cliffhanger.