I finished up HL2:E1 this morning
June 03, 2006 by Adam in Adam's Games
 I finished up HL2:E1 this morning. The worst part was that it was short, which I suppose is the nature of episodic content. The level of polish was amazing, though. They really got carried away with scripting and animation. Each section of the game seemed incredibly well polished and fun.
I'm still not convinced of the value of an episodic approach over the traditional full story approach. It's like television versus movies, I suppose. Still, if Valve continues to do such a great job with thier mini-games, I'll keep buyin' them.
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It's been pretty quiet in the world of gaming
June 02, 2006 by Adam in Adam's Games
 It's been pretty quiet in the world of gaming. I think there's this unspoken rule that during the Summer months, kids should be outside playing and not sitting in front of the computer. Well, a new game came out, a semi-sequel to Half-Life 2. It's a three-part episodic sequel, $18 for 5 or so hours of gameplay. It's a pretty new concept in a world filled with $60 games and $35 expansions.
I've been playing Half Life 2: Episode One for over an hour now. It's pretty darn' good. The folks at Valve have the knack of mixing things up a fair amount, so a particular style of gameplay doesn't get stale. They're also working on the concept of "single player co-op", where your companion Alyx acts pretty much like another player. She's awful chatty, that's for sure.
Mainly the game is extremely well polished, with huge numbers of animations, interesting physical world puzzles, and some intriguing story movement. I'm being good tonight and calling it quits, well before ten o'clock.
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