SD/Games – Violence, Maths & Strategies
I’ve been playing a lot of games when I should have been writing, this week.I don’t always write about the games I’ve been playing, but my PC activities are about to complete a mini loop, as a recent re-install of Windows utterly wiped my several hours of “Empire Total War” saves, and so I’ve fired it up again.
Half Life 2 – Episodes 1 and 2
Speaking of closing a loop on some video gaming, I must have been one of only a handful of people who loved “Half Life 2”, and never played the subsequent Episodes 1 and 2 that Valve followed it up with. I finally addressed that this week – The Orange Box has been sitting there waiting for months, now, and it was about time.
And they’re good… the same good, solid, addictive gameplay that we saw in the exemplary main game, with some truly awesome set-pieces in each.
Episode 2 has more scenario variation than it’s predecessor, and a final running battle with some hardcore opponents that’s a lot of fun, but both progress the story of Gordon Freeman and the invasion of earth from another dimension in a way that feels like it covers a lot of ground, for such short installments.


