Half-life: Episode Two Commentaries

July 11th, 2009

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If you’ve followed my other articles about the Half-life series up till now then my reaction to Half-life: Episode 2 might not be such a huge surprise. To quickly retrospect; Half-life is the aged original, primitive and wonky by today’s standards, but no less a cornerstone for the industry. The implicit storytelling, large, interconnected world and seamless narrative were revolutions in design at the time, establishing the franchise’s high pedigree, yet beneath all the narrative kicks, Half-life was a relatively vanilla first person shooter. Half-life 2 is the critically acclaimed band-aid solution; an amalgamation of the same uninteresting first person gameplay mixed with nifty, albeit inconsistent and tacky, distractions. These distractions segment the various chapters of the game (ie. gravity gun for this area, antlion bait for another) making the title feel like a circus of discrepant ideas glued together, still not enough overcome the lethargic gameplay, as made embarrassingly apparent by the early sections of the game. Episode One tore away from the Half-life 2’s fragmented approach to gameplay, focusing on diversifying set pieces and minor confrontations. Partner Alyx played her part as an individual catalyst for rejigging the former framework. She worked (and still works) better as a narrative piece than an instrument for the gameplay. While breaking away from Half-life 2’s cheap thrills, Episode One was an unrealized remix of Half-life 2, which is where Episode Two enters.

Episode Two is not a complete realization of Episode One’s breakaway, it’s maybe 75% of the way towards thrilling but never quite hits the spot. Still, in comparison to Half-life 2, Episode Two represents a marked improvement, a highlight in the series. Think of it as Episode Two as a streamlined version of Half-life 2, set in a completely original environment.

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The last point is something that will immediately standout to continuing players. Instead of trawling the European-esque cityscapes of City17, Gordon is now out in the wilderness. This new environment is lovingly crafted with a fine layer of grandiosity characterizing the environment in Valve’s signature style. The new visual aesthetic is teamed with some impressive improvements in graphical fidelity to the Source engine, making for another visually striking entry in the series. The new style is well suited to the episodic format as it’d likely lose flavour if it were drawn out any longer. It’s aided by locales that splinter away from the Alaskan-themed forestry. Gordon is rather preemptively thrown into a series of underground catacombs, shifting gears almost from the journey’s get-go. Once he is reacquainted with the over world, the rest of the game plays out above ground, save for the interior areas of White Forrest and a scattering of small towns, outposts and camps along the way. Each of these pit stops, these changes in location, have two functions. The first is to allow the game to visually chew its food and never become to entrenched in the one aesthetic or colour scheme. Gameplay-wise the environments stake off familiarity and grind, provide their own inherent challenges for play. The caves are claustrophobic playing areas, inhabited by menacing Ant Lion Guards yet balanced by the abundance of sticky glowworms which heal Gordon’s health and light up the glossy interiors. The wilderness areas are large and expansive, allowing for Hunters to give chase or offering enough room for Gordon to drive a car around. Set piece events, such as the final defense of the White Forrest station are suited and designed around their locales. As such the environments appropriate the confrontations, ie. the crux of the game. Already we can observe how the design has been re-centred on the environment and not whatever gimmick at hand.

You see, the gimmicks employed in Half-life 2 now conglomerate to form the start-game toolset for the episodes. Some of them are sacrificed (antlion bait), some reapplied (squad-based gameplay) and others made default (gravity gun) – Valve have streamlined the experience which inevitably forces them to redesign the crux of the the episode’s design; the moment-to-moment gameplay. Meaning that since they now have a decent base to work with and Valve can finally begin to design a decent first person shooter, which Episode Two is the first of.

Additional Readings

Half-life Planet – GameSpy

Half-life 2: Episode One The Story so Far

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Play Impressions: Kirby’s Dream Land 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One

June 25th, 2009

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Kirby’s Dream Land 2

There’s honestly very little to say about Kirby’s Dream Land 2. All you need to know is that it’s a black and white skinned Kirby title using the same template as Kirby’s Adventure. Because of this Kirby’s Dream Land 2 feels more like a sequel to the polished NES classic than the Game Boy original, and manages to individualize itself well by introducing three peripheral characters. Those characters – Rick the Hamster, Kine the Ocean Sunfish and Coo the Owl – cut in and out of the adventure and work as appropriate substitutes for a number of consumable abilities absent from Kirby’s Adventure. Since your animal friends layer on top of whatever ability Kirby has on hand they do add another tier of complexity to the title. Team this with a series of hidden rainbow pieces in each level (which open up an alternative ending) and despite it’s loftier hardware, Kirby’s Dream Land 2 is expanded enough to form a more than competent sequel to Kirby’s Adventure which, considering the polish of Kirby’s Adventure, says a lot. Other familiar tropes of the series are kept in tact such as the wonderfully characterized introductions preluding each world and mix of familiar characters.

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The one thing that Dream Land 2 lacks (colour) can be compensated for on the Super Gameboy. Like Pokemon and Donkey Kong, whacking Kirby’s Dream Land 2 into your Super Game Boy will give the game a unique colour scheme different from the default swatches. Supposedly there’s some added spiff elsewhere too, not a bad deal if you prefer playing it on a TV. I played it on both.

Lastly, it’s nice to see Nintendo fix the disparity between the boxart graphic and in-game designs with this title. Kirby’s Dream Land 2 in this regard matches the game wonderfully, instead of appearing like an attempt at realistic abstract.

Half-Life 2: Episode One

If Half-life 2 were put to VHS, then Episode One would be the extended long-play. In a nutshell it’s more of the same gameplay from Half-life 2’s later half, delivered in a remixed fashion with greater emphasis on set pieces and Alyx who now accompanies you throughout the 5-6 hour experience.

One might think that her part as a co-operative buddy might work in as another gimmick to colour the vanilla base of the series – in the same way that vehicles, ant lion bait and the gravity gun operated in Half-life 2 – unfortunately her presence surprisingly affects the core gameplay very little. You don’t need to babysit her much at all. She rarely dies, always follows you and can hold her own in a gun fight.

So what exactly is it that makes Episode One all that great? As discussed previously, the framework requires some sort of gimmick to make itself interesting, so what is it this time? Well…there isn’t really any prominent tricks, per see. What Valve deliver is a greater emphasis on improved moment-to-moment confrontations, teamed with a remix of some old mechanics from Half-life 2. Fundamentally the game offers very little new material, yet it’s approach to general gameplay is greatly overhauled. In Half-life 2, the game gave you an instrument (antlion bait, vehicle, gravity gun) and then pushes you out into a landscape largely composed of filler – it’s like you have to make your own fun. In Episode One, the wide lose-yourself-in-them landscapes are replaced with tighter quarters which is mostly dominated with more interesting segments of gameplay. Filler is now the glue between the action sequences rather than the other way around. Examples of these sequences may include a scenario where the lights go out while you need to survive an onslaught on zombies, where Alyx covers you as a sniper while you barge on ahead, where you see the gravity gun to grab falling debris there’s even a similar set piece to the cascade resonance from the original Half-life. Compare this to walking/driving around for extended periods of time to stumble upon an enemy camp, shoot a handful of Combines, zombies or Combine zombies and then continue walking around in the middle of nowhere. It’s easy to see in which game the fun lies?

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This new found emphasis on moment-to-moment gameplay also serves to break down the chapterized feel of the game. In Half-life 2, each chapter sported a gimmick and stuck in the player’s mind as a series of compartments which the game organized as such. In Episode One, that structure shifts to a more scattered approach, relating to individual moments more so than instruments. This makes the title, although short, feel more endearing and continuous. Unlike Half-life 2 I have a difficult time ordering the events of the game. Valve have in this sense changed to way we consume the game.

Overall though, it can be seen that Episode One should be evaluated on the moment-to-moment action. While it does provide an assortment of interesting sequences which maintain a high enough pace, Episode One flounders in the end with a lame squad shifting exercise and a shortsighted boss battle. Furthermore there’s nothing much in Episode One that wasn’t in Half-life 2, which is disappointing. The best part is ultimately the re-evaluated approach, by spreading emphasis between gimmicks and confrontations, this gives Valve greater design leverage. Episode One does a good job at capitalizing on this, but not enough so to overcome what I believe to be Valve’s persistence to make these games realistic to the point of uninteresting. It’s a more accomplished and organised title, no doubt, but it’s a game in transition.

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Half-Life – The Journey

June 21st, 2009

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There’s a saying that won’t quite come to mind, it goes along the lines of “life is about the journey, not the destination” The Half-life series epitomizes this mantra very well. The journey of Half-life can sometimes be as much of a detriment as it is a merit, whatever the case, that’s not the discussion point for this article. Instead I want to investigate how the series crafts a believable journey.

Much of this runs parallel to the stringent realism of the Half-life games. For one, both games run in a completely interconnected world where each time Gordon is given a simple task (reach this area). While he passes into obstacles along the way, his one goal remains the same, emphasizing the bond between one journey and one outcome, rather than a series of missions with a developing goal. The game centralizes this one goal with Gordon reaching civilian camps or Black Mesa foot soldiers to have them rephrase his objective, the means in which to achieve it and how he is closer to reaching that objective.

Half-life’s world is so remarkable because of it’s coherence. Unlike some games which force a suspension of disbelief, everything that occurs in the Half-life games is logical and realistic of that world. If you infiltrate an abandoned enemy base, only a few lowly soldiers will be present. Those Combine soldiers will likely summon reinforcements (or the noise of gun fire will alert other groups), those reinforcements will take some time to arrive to the scene, will be organized into squads of controlled numbers and swarm the area in respects to other squads. In other games, enemy units just spawn and attack in a structure-less fashion and once they find you they don’t co-ordinate their attack patterns in realistic ways.

The whole game is told exclusively through a first person viewpoint and as mentioned previously relies on clues to prompt the player to investigate context. It’s a completely organic method of story telling. The player learns everything about his surroundings through his own observation and narrative is never made compulsory. By fixing the player into this perspective the game does nothing to detract from the experience and overarching journey.

Furthermore the games don’t distract the player with game-based norms which are outside of Gordon’s view. This is perhaps why there is so much quietness in Half-life, because the game mostly concentrates on what is within Gordon’s environmental sphere and not the players. Gordon can’t hear the ambiance crescendo as he walks into unsuspecting danger.

Ah, this is a rather lax analysis, but I’ll leave it there for now. I still have the two episodes to play so maybe my ideas will come to fruition in the meantime.

Additional Readings

Column: ‘The Interactive Palette’ – Grim Fandango and Diegesis

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