After finishing up Half Life 2 I realised that it’s actually fun, if you can withstand the glacial initial levels. As such I decided to give the episodes a shot. Now I know this won’t be a surprise, but they’re generally fine even if they don’t change much. In Episode 1, we essentially repeat a bunch of Half Life 2’s more memorable moments. While in Episode 2, we actually get some new features and ideas, even if they’re not particularly mind-blowing. There’s one thing to bear in mind across Half Life 2: Episode 1 & 2. Namely that they weren’t intended to be the last parts of HL2. Instead they were really just teeing things up for HL:EP3/Half Life 3. As such they’ve got fun little chunks of gameplay. Yet as they didn’t have a huge amount of development time we don’t get much in the way of substantial changes.

Starting with Episode 1, we basically get a few new ideas interspersed among three different scenes. During the first part of the Episode we’re back in the combine’s citadel, amidst the newly liberated City 17. You’d think our job is over, but now we have to prevent an intergalactic meltdown. This involves dealing with one new “enemy” type who aren’t hostile, before we successfully prevent a core meltdown. After this glorious use of Gordon’s scientific background, you then get a quasi-Ravenholm section which drags on for a while. This is where we get the only new enemy introduced in this episode, namely the Zombine. Which is a zombie, but a combine. The main twist is that they have wayyyyy more health and also try to suicide bomb you. This section involves a lot of using the flash-light, alongside a platforming puzzle where you hop over a bunch of radioactive goop. Eventually it culminates in a holdout scenario where hordes of zombies keep spawning and trying to eat your dork ass while you wait for a lift. After all that nastiness, you waddle around City 17 helping rebels, checking out a hospital full of zombies and eventually lead a bunch of rebels to safety via the train station. These rebel sections are probably the most entertaining, although I did quite like the hospital section. Oh and for die-hard RPG fans don’t worry. Because this section repeats the strider battles, and a gunship battle. Some might consider this a bit lazy. But again, Episode 1 was bashed out in a little over a year so I’m inclined to be relatively forgiving. Generally though Episode 1 is… just fine. Nothing particularly special and outside of a few pieces of characterisation there really isn’t much here. One new enemy, one new quasi-enemy, a bit of lore and a couple of memorable set pieces hidden amongst the three-ish hours of content.

Then we’re onto the second of the two episodes, which starts off with your bb girl getting stabbed to fuck. No you didn’t teleport to Glasgow, instead you were assailed by a new type of enemy. Don’t worry though, because you spend about an hour fannying around an Antlion hive. This is done so you can get the doohicky that will save her. During this section, there is a cool idea where you need to avoid an Antlion guard on steroids without killing it. Alongside a bunch of slightly boring sections where you have to deal with another new enemy. This one being an antlion with a ranged attack! That also damages you if it’s too close to you when it dies. So that’s… cool. There’s also another hold-out section, but this time against loads of Antlions. You then escort a Vortagaunt around for a bit, before getting to play a driving section. Now you might remember how the vehicles were kinda jank in the first game. Fortunately they are exactly the same. Yay! Then you fight the aforementioned Antlion guard on steroids alongside his friend, before dealing with a shorter zombie section and a bit more driving and then you eventually get to the rebel base. Up to this point, there really isn’t that much new outside of that annoying acid spraying Antlion.

Then the episode abruptly comes to life, at least a little bit, as you survive an ambush containing those new hunters that were teased so much. In terms of gameplay, they’re a cross between the Antlion guards and normal combine because they have plenty of health and a range of strong-ish attacks. Much like the base game, this DLC has a somewhat slow start with all the Antlion cave nonsense but picks up towards the end even if it hits many of the same notes. Ambush, Sniper fight, Gunship fight, Strider fight set piece, abrupt ending. Bish bash bosh. There’s also some plot shenanigans going on where the G-Man basically says “hey once you’re done with this Episode some crazy shit is gonna happen”. Why? Well that’s a fair question, basically the Combine (not the Zombine) are going to open a super portal and screw up Earth… again. So you need to shoot a rocket into space to stop it. This will apparently have “unforeseen consequences”, which apparently means the cancellation of Episode 3. So as of the time of writing, I can safely and definitely conclude (at least temporarily) that Half Life 2: Episode 1 & 2 are more of the same. I don’t hate them, although I have to confess that they have reduced the shine of Half Life 2’s last chapters a tad. You see, while the narrative is still interesting and definitely has it’s moments, knowing it ends on that unresolved cliff hanger dulls it’s impact. It’s a great hook for the next instalment, but alas that instalment will seemingly never come.

With all that being said, the weapons are still a bit rubbish. While the handful of new enemies are a mixed bag. The Zombine are just zombies, but if you leave them for too long they’ll try and suicide bomb you. The Antlion guardian is just a guard, but with more HP. The acid spitting antlions are just antlions, but a pain in the arse. Finally the hunters are an interesting idea for a stronger, hybrid enemy but frankly they manage to be both over-used and not used enough. You see they’re an interesting addition to a squad, but often you’re only fighting them. Generally speaking, while the extra levels aren’t bad and do have their moments, there’s rarely much that’s special. I mean these episodes serve as vehicles for the plot. But the plot doesn’t get resolved, so only the gameplay is really left. And that gameplay is both very similar and yet slightly tweaked. Alas those tweaks are only really good when it comes to the set pieces. Which are still entertaining, and the dialogue is still good but… In many levels you’re basically just standing in an area, waiting for enemies to stop spawning.

So in conclusion, it’s hard to recommend Half Life 2: Episode 1 & 2. If you are looking for more Half Life 2, then it’s a no-brainer but you don’t need to tell you this. The writing, set pieces and world design remain as strong as ever. At the same, the combat, weapons and variety are fairly weak. These episodes are primarily made for existing fans to hype them up for the next instalment, so if you aren’t an existing fan then there’s not much to recommend here. There are some nice scenes, but we all know it’s not going anywhere. If you really wanted more Half Life 2, then here it is. Otherwise I wouldn’t really bother. Either way, Half Life: Episode 1 & 2 are available for just over £1 during the Steam sales so I’d grab them then (and only then) if you are interested.

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Half Life 2 is one of those games that will forever life in fame, or perhaps infamy depending on your opinion of our forced march into a digital-only future. Despite being an incredibly HYPED game and one that generally remained popular for years after it’s release, these days it’s mainly known about because it’s never ever getting a sequel. Which is a bit of a shame, because Half Life 2 is a decent game and while it’s various revolutionary features are now par for the course, that doesn’t mean it’s bad or unable to compete with those games that came after it. The facial animations are still pretty good, especially for the era and it’s gravity and physics shenanigans are still capable of producing enjoyable moments. It’s a shame that the game has so many see-saw “puzzles”, but at least it gets the memo that we’ve done it already by about the halfway point. Plus to be fair, at the time all this physics was genuinely pretty cool and for better or worse, the combat wasn’t quite so hot at time of release either. All of this makes reviewing Half Life 2 a bit of a pain, because you can view it in a few different ways that all equally valid. You could see the game as a linear 6th gen FPS experience in which case it’s fine. You could look at it through the eyes of it’s time in which case it has really cool features. Or you could view it as the harbinger of the current Steam quasi-monopoly which has not only dominated the PC gaming space but has influenced the console space to the point that Microsoft/Xbox are abandoning physical games. After getting in trouble for trying to abandon 2nd hand games all the way back in 2013. Vindication for Don Mattrick at last?

Regardless of Half Life 2’s wider ramifications, I’m just going focus on my experience playing the game. Which was years after release and my first time playing the game would have been in 2009, after my TF2 clan-mates (throwback) were SHOCKED that I hadn’t played it. Due to the fact that Half Life 2 was one of THE big PC releases of the time and was still a big deal all the way through to the release of the Orange Box. To be honest, I never bought The Orange Box because I didn’t care about Half Life 2 at all and instead ended up buying a physical copy of TF2 for fairly cheap (think it was 15 pounds?) and then getting Portal a year later for Christmas because it seemed cool. As such I got gifted a spare key for the game from someone’s copy of the Orange Box, played it for a couple hours and was baffled as to why everyone cared so much about the game. This was due to two reasons, firstly the opening of Half Life 2 could be charitably described as slowww and also the game really was seen as one of the greatest FPS games EVAR at the time. As such I just thought people were silly and moved on, kept playing TF2, enjoyed L4D1 and L4D2 (after whining about the $60 price tag of the latter). Only now after combing through my backlog and deciding it to give it another chance have I actually enjoyed the game. AFTER making it through the first third, which was also really slow and only gives you the crap weapons.

Which is one of the bigger issues with the game, because if you strip away the narrative and the physics then you’re left with a FPS game that has… uh… not great combat. Especially when the early levels only have a handful of different enemy types, with a handful of weapons you can use to deal with them. That’s not to say that the game has bad combat because it actually gets pretty good later on and there’s an interesting section towards the end where the game really leans into it’s physics based combat. Just that your crowbar, pistol and SMG all suck. Honestly take it from me as someone has finished literally hundreds of FPS games, the basic HL2 weapons are really bad to use. Adding insult to injury, the game has a low maximum ammo pool for most weapons, so you’re only able to get through around 5 magazines of SMG ammo from the absolute maximum. Which is a problem when it’s not very accurate and doesn’t do that much damage, much like the pistol. Fortunately the game picks up especially around Ravenholm when you get the Shotgun which remains pretty decent. Speaking of which Ravenholm introduces a bunch of zombies and really encourages you to use the gravity gun, so it’s where the game starts to come together. If you can make it through Ravenholm, then all of a sudden you’ll be in a hybrid D-Day / Starship Troopers battle, conducting a prison break and fighting a civil war in the streets. The game really picks up in the second half, so I can see why I thought it SUCKED after getting bored by the early stages of Ravenholm. If only I’d had a little more patience, and eaten a couple less pies my adolescence probably would’ve been better. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 after all.

So how does the game get better? After all, the first couple of hours would seemingly be what the game’s all about. Namely the occasional vehicle section, punctured by physics puzzles, faffing around and getting in combat encounters. You’ve got the zombies, some bugs and the combine who are mainly human soldier guys with the exception of some cyborg combat vehicles (half alien half pewpewpew). Well the main thing it does is stop locking you in rooms while someone talks to you, which it still does later on but with less frequency and with more interesting chatter. It also continues to introduce new enemy types, up until the closing stages of the game which are used to make combat encounters more interesting. The game remains highly linear, but with a few exceptions this isn’t a huge deal as areas make it fairly obvious where to go – and when you get lost, there’s some bonus ammo lying around. In an interesting nod to how games used to be, I found that a couple of times the route you were meant to take was actually somewhat hidden away. A small vent tucked in a corner or a door that seems to be blocked off, but is actually covered in physics objects that can be moved with the gravity gun. As a consequence the game flows well, but still requires you to think a little. As for the combat, as you start getting better guns it shockingly enough gets more enjoyable. You’re organically juggling through your weapons as the situation requires, instead of just using the SMG until you run out of ammo for it. It’s one of those cases where more is actually more. You learn more about the world, there are more enemy types to deal with. You have more weapons to deal with them, which requires juggling your ammo due to the tight maximum ammo restrictions. As a bonus the later stages are just more interesting in my opinion, obvious Ravenholm is cool and unique but the rest of the game hits a similar level.

Which means that OK the combat is good once you hit the halfway point, but what about the rest of the game? Well the graphics are perfectly fine for the time, although the Xbox version does have some long loading times and choppy frame-rates compared to any quasi-modern PC running the Steam version. The price is exceedingly reasonable these days, because it is a twenty year old game but still worth mentioning in a world where Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 (the original) is still asking for 30 quid. The soundtrack is actually enjoyable, somewhat dated in terms of how it’s used, but it’s good at creating at an atmosphere and some of the tracks are certified club bangers. I’d even go so far as to say that the writing is good, as the characters are relatable and feel organic. Most of them are only used sparingly, but are still memorable due to strong performances. As for the setting and lore, it does a good job of showing not telling and many aspects of the game are deliberately left vague. The only thing I can really fault outside of the game’s slow start would be the noticeable gear-shift that the game has under the hood for it’s multiple loading screens. It’s not a huge deal, but the game does have a little moment every time you hit a stage transition (with multiple per level). The music abruptly stops, the game hangs for a moment, and then you pushed forward with the physics and power usage of your flash-light resetting. It’s especially noticeable when you’re in a vehicle, because the abrupt shove to the game’s physics often leads to some jerky handling.

In conclusion then Half Life 2 is a pretty solid game that has a very slow start. Seriously I can’t get over how much the game actively redeems itself once you get to Ravenholm and especially once you’re got to the latter stages of that level. Up until then it’s pretty bland, but once you actually get interested in the setting and can fully utilise the combat mechanics Half Life 2 really opens up. Everything else about it, aside from the console port is pretty good for the era. As for it’s much touted physics simulation, while it does add something to the gameplay I’d say it’s on the edge of just being a gimmick. The real reason to play the game is for the setting and maybe for the latter combat encounters. It remains very linear throughout, but that’s not always a bad thing. As such I’d give Half Life 2 a modest recommendation, with the caveat that you need to be willing to sit through the first 5 or so levels before it opens up.

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===Quick Aside for the uninitiated===

For those not in the know, Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is a free-to-play online class based shooter that’s been kicking around since 2007. The Mann vs Machine (MvM) mode itself has been in the game for over a decade now and features up to 6 human players facing off against waves of AI robots as they attempt to carry a bomb to the human player’s spawn point. These robots drop cash when they die, which must be picked up and which the players can use to upgrade their weapons and characters so that they can survive the ever more difficult waves of foes.

I suspect most people won’t be aware that while TF2 has been largely abandoned by it’s developers, it still has a surprisingly active MvM modding community and that these guys have been producing seasonal events (such as Operation Last Laugh) at a consistent rate for years now. I’ve never written about any of them before, but after wrapping up this latest April Fools day themed one thought I’d take a quick moment to draw some attention to their efforts.

===Aside over, you’re on your own now!===

Operation Last Laugh as the name implies is a community event that isn’t taking itself seriously and is essentially a mechanism through which map creators can take the piss and make memes come to life. As such each map and even each wave is very, very different from each other to the point that I’m going to write a quick paragraph on each map and then let you decide which to play. One final side-note I should mention is that there are 7 maps in total, if you complete all of them you get an in-game cosmetic medal and that you can also donate to charity (which grants you another, separate in-game cosmetic medal).

Operation Last Laugh: Cacophony of Cants

Cacophony of Cants is a moderately challenging map that does it’s best to keep the players guessing. It starts quite gently, then begins imposing barriers (which restrict where you can move) and pushing in waves of tricky bots that force you to think on your feet. From my experience players tended to die here more than they would on normal maps, but this was mainly due to the lack of movement space and the imposition of a time limit which encourages more reckless behaviour.

There is also a final TWIST involving a final boss, but I don’t want to say too much. All I’ll say is that this map features a lot of melee bots so don’t expect to let resistances carry you!

Operation Last Laugh: Collateral Damage

Watch out for that SENTRY BUSTER!!!

Collateral Damage is a map dedicated to Engineers to the point that every player must play as one. This map is pretty interesting, as it essentially forces you to exploit the explosive radius of each Sentry Buster to deal damage to the bots that besiege you. If you try to play this map normally, you’ll find yourself getting shredded and unable to prevent the bomb from being deployed.

As such the rounds become a juggling task, as you need to keep moving your sentries so that they’re close to where the bots are going to be, then once the Sentry buster starts it’s detonation animation you need to move it away so you can redeploy it to where the next group of bots will be. It’s great fun and the number of busters is vastly increased to allow you to mainly deal damage via the busters AoE damage.

One last thing to note is that there are multiple customised Sentry Busters, with a variety of effects. Some deal AoE healing to the players while others are on fire and set every player nearby on fire. There are even “boss” sentry busters that don’t die when they explode and another one that appears in the final wave that I won’t spoil

Operation Last Laugh: Croissant Combat

Croissant Combat as the name implies is a Spy only map, which has a wide variety of custom weapons for the players to choose from. The map takes away your existing loadout, and instead you have to buy every weapon you can use from the upgrade station. Some of these are merely variants of the existing Spy loadout, such as tweaked versions of the stock spy-knife, stock revolver and the Your Eternal Reward knife. Alongside these there are some sillier weapons including a weeaboo knife and two different rocket launchers, although there is no disguise kit or sapper available.

As for the rounds themselves, the map starts with a “round 0” training round against some targets (to confirm that you have some accuracy with the revolver) before launching into the memes. There aren’t really any challenging waves sent your way, with the closest being a round in which you need to wait for a reverse-tank to move from your spawn to where the robots spawn. Ultimately this is a fairly easy but amusing map.

Operation Last Laugh: Mann Versus Machine

Mann Versus Machine is the name of the map and the game-mode, and I can safely state that this is the only normal thing about this map. The map itself is weird, with an unusual layout, a small size and a lack of vision. Each wave only gets weirder, with one wave requiring you to fetch items hidden around the map while others feature shrunken down enemies and extremely fast sentry busters.

Like most of the other maps in this event there are also a few memes sprinkled throughout, although the main one is a boss battle where you need to defend an item located next to your spawn from a certain someone that was fairly popular on YouTube

Operation Last Laugh: Miss io n

Fitting somewhere between a Halloween map pack and an April Fools one, Miss…io…n is a heckin spookerino map that plays around with a bunch of horror cliches and generally doesn’t take itself very seriously. Unlike most of the maps mentioned, this one is first-and-foremost an attempt to break everything apart and as such doesn’t have that many rounds that are traditionally wave based.

Instead you need to escape from spooky monsters, survive “jumpscares” and ultimately survive a gauntlet of powerful enemies to flee from MvM forever. This map is definitely amusing and is challenging in it’s own way (I think it’s the one with the most group wipes from my experience!) despite being very different from the others. It’s very much worth playing, if only for the novelty, although it does require you to READ the text instructions lest you get butthurt and ragequit like one or two of the randoms I was paired up with.

Operation Last Laugh: Revengeance Status

This map is a blast and is just as rammed full of memes as the others, BUT is actually challenging without resorting to any weird gimmicks like Infinite HP enemies or introducing novel mechanics. Instead it’s more of a normal experience, albeit with a few modest twists which serve to ramp up the challenge while making the map more memorable.

• The first twist is that you are playing as the bots and are thus tasked from moving up from the Troop Crawler all the way through to the “human” spawn. This wouldn’t be too hard, as you are on the offensive you need to keep advancing which makes things more difficult for your engineers and medics.
• The second twist is that sections of the map will be blocked off by barriers, which can make things harder as you’ll have less space with which to escape from the “human” hordes.
• The third twist is that each “wave” also has a time limit, so you can’t just hang back and take things at a slow pace. Although from my experience this time limit wasn’t much of a threat, but your mileage may vary
• The final twist, without wishing to spoil, is that there is a final boss “wave” that is fairly challenging but definitely not impossible. As such you’ll need to use all that $$$ to purchase your damage upgrades.

This map was the only one rated “Advanced” and it generally shows, although it was probably the most enjoyable of the maps offered in my humble opinion. It still has solid gameplay without sacrificing the memes and is fairly memorable as a result.

Operation Last Laugh: Sensational Syrup

Sensational syrup initially seems relatively sane, with one or two waves where you bully bots pretending to be friendlies as they rage at you in chat. Then there are custom enemies and some shenanigans but nothing massively untoward, until…

You start playing Wave 4, when a bunch of… adjustments are made which are a throwback to TFC. These changes are particularly challenging for Engineers to deal with, as they lose access to their PDAs and thus can’t build anything new! The adjustments themselves form the meat of the map as they require players to be more flexible and work as a team to fight back against a few fairly challenging waves.

You do regain access to your traditional load-outs for the final wave, which is the most difficult of the bunch. It’s nothing you won’t be able to overcome, but the combination of snipers and auto-homing rockets does make it a bit tricky!

In conclusion then Operation Last Laugh is a collection of surprisingly well designed maps, albeit with an above average amount of chaos involved. I’ve played through a few events by the Moonlight TF2 event and honestly Operation Last Laugh is one of my favourites. It’s really fun and I hope that anyone reading this review in the future is able to get the files and play through at least some of these maps with some friends!

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