Episodic Video Games

I ended up taking off yesterday because I haven't felt good all week. Not like last week anyway. After walking the course last week during golf, I felt great the whole week. This week, it's wearing off. I'm back to being tired after lunch. I guess I should try to maybe exercise without having to go golfing. Maybe.

Anyway, a new game happened to come out yesterday also. Half-Life 2 Episode 1. It was pretty good, though nothing like HL2 in terms of quality of gameplay. Although Gamespot says the gameplay is better than HL2. I like them long, and this one lasted less than 4 hours! I stopped playing a few times for a few minutes to go get coffee and stuff. Started after 1pm and finished by 5pm. I would say it definitely had its moments, but the time was just way too short. But, it is the better of the two "Episodic" games I've played this month. "Sin Episodes : Emergence" came out too, and that actually lasted longer because it was a little more difficult, but it only had one moment that I can recall. More on that later. Basically with HL2E1, you start the game by trying to get on a train to leave City 17, and at the end you're on a train leaving City 17. There are a few twists between then though :) And it's definitely not the same train. I have no complaints about it only that it was less than 4 hours... oh, and that you use the stupid powerful gravity gun for most of the beginning. To its credit, you use that gravity gun for more problem solving tha you do for fighting. You feel like a god with that thing. Nobody stands a chance against you.

Sin Episodes : Emergence had that one moment I can remember. Basically, you have no health left, and hardly any ammo, and you have to kill a bunch of guys with miniguns using your 7 bullets. That was fun.

HL2E1 had many more moments. The part before the end was my favorite. You're cranking this valve to open the door, and the one thing you learn early on (like, 3 hours before) is that you have to crank it so the door opens all the way, or else it'll come back down. So you're cranking this thing, and looking down this trainyard. Alyx, your partner in crime, sneaks under before it's opened all the way, and you're like "WTF Wait!" So you keep cranking. Then right where I was looking, this giant thing drops down with 2 guys next to it. It was one of those tall long legged things... stalker? I forget. Anyway, you're like "@#$@!!" and try to duck and still crank the valve. Right away it shoots at you and breaks the valve. "@#^@$@#!!" So now you're stuck fighting this thing. All you have are three rockets in your rocket launcher, and this thing takes around 7 to kill. But, there are always boxes with rockets around a spot where something will show up that takes rockets to kill. This is a hint too. Like, if you pass a box of rockets, you're like "Guess I'll be killing something that requires rockets in this spot in a few minutes." Which was the case when you had to escort people to another train that everyone else but you were taking out of the city.

I liked the game I was just pissed when I'm on the train leaving, and some crap happens and the screen is white, and the credits roll. I pre-ordered it so I only paid $18 for the 4 hours. It comes with no extra content, but it does look beautiful. High Dynamic Range Rendering (HDR) rocks.

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