And so it begins again in familiar fashion. With an all-important code in Alyx's possession, she knows all-too-well that the Combine forces are tracking them and will be on their tail in a matter of minutes if they don't push on to the White Forest. Emerging from the twisted carriage, you're quickly reunited with your faithful partner Alyx, who seems to have - perhaps predictably - escaped entirely unscathed from what appears to be a pretty devastating collision. After the claustrophobic confines that characterised your escape from City 17, this feels like a dramatic release, underlined no end by the menacing vistas and spectacular 'Portal storms' that threaten all sorts of unspoken havoc in the near future.Ĭlimbing out of the wreckage, your journey picks up precisely where Episode One left off. You certainly won't feel short-changed - and wouldn't even if it were being sold separately. not far short of the kind of gameplay hours offered by several full-priced offerings recently.
Clocking in at a fat-free seven hours, it's about 50 per cent longer than the first one, i.e. This Vortal CoilĮpisode Two is the product of a developer that wants to make damned sure you see this one all the way to its frantic conclusion. For a game as short as Episode One, that's a slap in the face. For the first time in the company's history it released a headline product with an average review score outside of the '90s, and its own online stat tracking system on Steam found that a worrying proportion of its devoted audience switched off long before the end. "Not epic enough!" said another made up person. Maybe, deep down, the reaction to Episode One was just as significant in the decision to move the goal-posts. It's disappointing because, well, we really wanted to believe that they could do what no other FPS developer had ever done and turn out three episodes of a triple-A game in the space of a year, as was the original plan.īut when, over Tacos, you hear Robin Walker's admission that the reason Episode Two slipped was simply because "it wasn't good enough", delaying it was clearly the right thing to do.
'Fun' in that it's oh-so-typical of Valve to be so far off with its release date predictions for the follow-up again that you can't help but give them a cheeky wink every time a new date emerges. Is that a metaphor for Episode One? It's been both fun and slightly disappointing to rib Valve for the way in which its bold episodic experiment 'hit the buffers' as soon as it began in May of last year. Episode Two kicks off with Gordon Freeman climbing out of the twisted metal of a smoking train wreck.
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