Having been so caught up with the beta for the amazing Team Fortress 2 I was almost taken by surprise when I remembered that Half-Life 2: Episode 2 was coming along with it! Once I remembered I made plans to take most of yesterday morning to get through as much of the game as possible. My computer, however, had other plans. I ended up spending a good chunk of time at work reinstalling Windows and getting things “reset” with the PC. When I booted it up this morning it was running like a dream and that allowed me to spend about an hour or two getting reacquainted with my friends in the Half-Life universe.

Read on, but beware of some light spoilers!

After a brief video that recounts the goings-on in Episode 1 we’re awaken to find that the train we were riding out of the crumbling City 17 has ran off the rails. Luckily Alyx is there to use our beloved gravity gun and set us free. (This also marks the first time in the Half-Life world that you start out with something besides the iconic crow bar) We soon see that though the tower has collapsed the beam of light at its center is still shooting into the sky. Turns out that the combine are trying to open up a mega portal for some reason or another. Either way, we have to get some data back to Alyx’s father so that they can close it.

It’s not too far into our journey that Alyx winds up severely hurt and dying that we find ourselves inside a larve-infested mine shaft. This area is at once completely human and totally alien. There are new critters that you can stomp, shoot or crow-bar for a little life boost (if you get them all there’s an achievement for you! Yes…I said “achievement”) and it’s not long that we’re introduced to a bastardly new enemy, the acid lion (I forget the actual name). Very close to an ant lion, but they should a deadly juice at you from a distance and don’t close in on you like the ant lions do.

Essentially, it’s the same Half-Life 2 that we’ve been playing already, but it looks a little bit nicer and the overall design just keeps getting better. It’s hard for me to sit with a game for a long, solid chunk of time and not want to turn it off for a break. Something about the way Valve makes a game makes me forget I have that problem.

So far, I’m about 90 minutes to 2 hours into the game and I’ve already had a few “wow” moments. I didn’t want to come to work today, despite every temptation just to sit in front of my PC and not get up until it was over. There’s something special about this series. It’s in the way you interact with what’s around you and how you approach things not from a video game way of thinking, but how you’d accomplish the same goal “in real life”.

Hopefully I’ll be finished it soon and can talk it about at greater length in one of the next BitCast episodes.