izigame.me

After playing through this for the first time in almost two decades, I feel this one is undoubtedly the worst entry in the Half-Life saga. Valve has proven quite capable in their other entries, so one misstep isn't so bad, but what a misstep it is. In this chapter, you accompany Alyx as you attempt to escape City 17 before the Citadel blows. However, it was poorly executed on all parts.
Alyx Vance goes from a spunky and capable companion to an often times obnoxious and cowardly AI sidekick. Her dialogue is terrible, filled with many gee-golly-gosh moments that add nothing of substance to the gameplay. Often standing in the way and almost mocking Gordon for his efforts to survive become annoying very quickly. Her inexplicable ability to knee zombies so hard in the gut that they double over is funny once as it looks like she's planting a knee in their crotch. But it keeps happening, and despite Gordon's superior armaments, is far more powerful than he is though she can die if overwhelmed.
Half-Life 2 is known for its sudden plot twists, using cleverly timed moments and good writing to put the player in jeopardy in ways that feel organic to the world around you. That concept goes out the window here. In one scenario early in the game, Dog signals to Gordon and Alyx to climb into a decommissioned van so he can throw them across a chasm into a Combine structure. While this moment proves entertaining and consistent with moments that came before, Gordon and Alyx just happened to land on a weak floor panel that hides an all-too-convenient slide that whisks them down to the lower levels. What purpose did it serve? In many areas, you face obnoxious swarms of zombies, often times coming out of areas where enemies were cleared or not there at all and no way for them to hide or get into the room. The game is filled with many more of these kinds of events.
Is it trash? Nah, but it falls way short of the standard set by its predecessor and is vastly overshadowed by Episode 2 in terms of everything. I don't blame them, though, as they had lofty expectations to meet and were probably burnt out from the HL2 development gauntlet. All in all, I can't recommend it as a necessary play through. For completionists and perhaps just to fill in some gaps in the story? Sure. But they will likely walk away with few, if any, memorable moments and may just be happy they're done with it. Or maybe I'm just being too harsh.
Thankfully, Valve hit a home run with virtually everything else, except finishing Gordon's story.