Half-Life 2: Episode One [PC]

Episode One begins where Half-Life 2 left off, with our hero Gordon Freeman and Alyx in a bit of a pickle. Valve invokes a little deus-ex-machina to rescue Gordon and Alyx from the reactor at the heart of City 17, then promptly... sends them right back in to stop the core from exploding. The mysterious G-Man is nowhere to be seen for almost all the game, so it's just you and Alyx.

Shooters with computer-controlled sidekicks are tough to get right, as anyone who played Daikatana will attest. Thankfully, Episode One delivers an experience bereft of "I can't leave without my buddy Superfly!" incidents. Alyx shoots straight, is handy with an electronic gizmo to reprogram doors or roller-mines, doesn't get in your way or left behind, and is within arm's reach for at least 90 percent of the game. For once, she's sufficiently well programmed that you'll be glad she's there: in fact, it's almost like you're playing co-op with a real person at times.

As if her AI didn't make her lifelike enough, she makes a beautiful demonstration of Valve's facial modeling and animation skill. While we're not out of the uncanny valley yet, we're certainly starting to scale the far side of it. Alyx moves just right, accompanies her well-recorded lines with convincing expressions, and seems more human than some real people we know. She even manages to flirt with Gordon a little; and while you'd think flirting with a completely mute character would be difficult, it doesn't seem to present her with too many problems.

Point your view at a light source, and you'll notice Valve's latest graphical addition to the Half-Life engine. High Dynamic Range lighting, or HDR, represents the difference between very bright and very dark areas in a way that closely models the performance of the human eye. Assuming your hardware supports it -- and any relatively recent graphics card should be able to handle the load -- Episode One exceeds Half-Life 2's already lofty standards of graphical realism.

Episodic games are short; that's the point. While determining what you feel to be an appropriate quantity of gameplay for your $20 is up to you, Episode One is noticeably shorter than the recently released Sin episode. It's also noticeably more polished, better-paced, and generally superior. It's also a little over four hours of gameplay.

Is that a good deal? Bear in mind it comes complete with two multiplayer games, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch and Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, a conversion of the classic Half-Life's multiplayer mode to the Source engine. Also included is a commentary from the developers, synchronized in DVD-style with the game's action. We'd have liked to see a little more improvisation or humor from the game's creators, but nevertheless, it'll fascinate anyone interested in Valve's development practices.

You'd hope, being a shorter game than usual, Episode One would steer clear of repetitive, "filler" content, and that's almost true. There's one sequence, where you have to escort repeated squads of friendlies through a gauntlet of Combine opposition, that could certainly have been a little shorter, but it's more than made up for by the outstanding pace of most of the game.

True, there's little here that we didn't see in Half-Life 2: no new weapons, one new enemy, no environments that could really be called original. But it's put together with so much skill and attention to detail that it's impossible to gripe too much about originality. Episode One is the work of a team at the top of its game, and its level design, pace, visual style, and audio are practically beyond reproach.

For those few hours Episode One offers, you'll be rewarded with one of the most intense and riveting action experiences since Half-Life 2.