Description
Half-Life 2: Episode One continues the story of
Half-Life 2. It begins immediately after the end of this game, and follows Gordon Freeman (the player) and Alyx as they attempt to escape City 17 in the wake of the defeat of the Combine forces and the battle in the Citadel.
Gameplay and Gordon's weapon arsenal are identical to
Half-Life 2. Enemies too are familiar, with only one new zombie variant. A notable gameplay feature is the behavior of Alyx, who fights along Gordon's side for virtually the entire game. While the player still provides most of the offensive firepower, Alyx does provide a beneficial presence, and is far from the typical cannon fodder AI.
The game has four to six hours of gameplay, and also features a "Commentary" mode, which enables hotspots on each map where the player can listen to developer commentary explaining how or why certain things were done.
Alternate Titles
- "戰慄時空2首部曲：浩劫重生" -- Chinese spelling (traditional)
- "半条命2：第一部" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
- "Half-Life 2: Aftermath" -- Working title
- "Bantiao Ming 2: Diyi Bu" -- Chinese title
- "하프라이프 2 에피소드 1" -- Korean spelling
- "ハーフライフ２ エピソード１" -- Japanese spelling
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Trivia
Dog
Valve development commentary in the game mentions that players seemed to love Dog, so they made him the first thing the player sees at the start of the episode.
Dr. Breen
Apparently, some citizens enjoyed some of the Breencasts. In the game, one citizen can be heard saying to another; "I don't miss Dr. Breen, but I do miss his show. Remember when he had the jugglers on?". This is possibly a reference to the satirical webcomic
Concerned (the author of
Concerned, however, denies this, believing it to be something of a stretch and citing the absence of jugglers in his strip).
German version
There are changes in some German versions of the game:
- All blood by humans (including German Freeman) and blood which is part of the level design was coloured green
- Almost all enemies instantly disappear after being killed. An exception are some dark parts were burning zombies are used as light source.
- The cries of burning zombies were toned down
- During the part were Alyx finds the first zombine, the corpse she refers to was removed
A detailed list of changes can be found on
schnittberichte.com (German).
Awards
- Games for Windows: The Official Magazine
- March 2007 - #4 Game of the Year 2006
- PC Powerplay (Germany)
Information also contributed by
Mark Ennis.
