Half-Life 2 Gets Episode 1

Valve has announced that, instead of entitling their first downloadable mini-expansion to Half-Life 2 'Aftermath', the pack is now simply Episode 1. From the Gamespot article: "When asked whether the name change is indicative of a change in direction for the Half-Life 2 franchise, Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi replied, 'episodic.' When asked the follow-up question of whether the new name meant that beginning of a regular flow of content, Lombardi replied, 'yes.'"

Comments

Half-Life 2 Episode 1 features a new...

[Anonymous Coward]

...talkative weapon Jar-Jar the Crowbar. His friendly jabbering promises to make busting up crabheads and boxes more popular then ever.

Re:Half-Life 2 Episode 1 features a new...

[Midnight Thunder]

...talkative weapon Jar-Jar the Crowbar. His friendly jabbering promises to make busting up crabheads and boxes more popular then ever.

On the condition the wielder hasn't had a mental break-down first.

Overpricing Ahead?

[bateleur]

So evidently they reckon SiN Episodes is going to be making big money.

They're probably right too. It's much easier to sell a game for $100 if you split it up into ten $10 "episodes". Combine this with the advantages of sidestepping traditional retail and I can definitely see the appeal.

Too Vague.

[Dubpal]

While I see the reasoning behind the name change, I'm not sure I like it.

"Aftermath" was a title that gave direction. It's the story after the events of Half Life 2. For the majority who haven't been following the development of the expansion, and knew nothing of the original title, the new moniker "Episode 1" seems to beg the question "Of what?".

Retail

[Dr. Eggman]

I would just like to remind people that earlier interviews noted that retail stores would sponser "episode packs," a combination of 3-4 episodes, rather than each individual episode.

Not that I plan on buying retail, but I thought I'd just throw out that possibility just to freakout the retail buyers.

Better choice I think

[wick3t]

First Counterstrike, then Aftermath. I think it's unnecessary for Valve to give their games the same names as Red Alert expansion packs.

Re:Better choice I think

[Sigma 7]

First Counterstrike, then Aftermath. I think it's unnecessary for Valve to give their games the same names as Red Alert expansion packs.

The RA expansions are basically hard to find anyway, and thus the naming system should be okay. We'll be fine as long as Valve doesn't choose "Yuri's Revenge" as the next title... Which they will on April 1st.

Hey wait a second.....

[Premo_Maggot]

I thought Half-Life 1 was episode 1??

One of the real losses is the bargain bin.

[(H)elix1]

If they ship this only via steam, there will be no bargain bin like you see in the retail channels. I've been burned a few too many times when they charge an extra $30 for five to seven missions as an add on - at this point, I just wait for the add on to hit the cheap deals. Poke around on Steam's web site. You would be silly to buy the backlog of the titles, plus HL2, for $80 when you can pick up the entire anthology for $20 or less, plus whatever price you can get the full cut of HL2 for $20-30 at the store. If they go download only, there is very little chance they will hit that level.

The other bit is games tend to be way to short these days. C&C: Generals really needed the add-on pack, as did Warcraft 3, as did many others to feel like a 'real' top tier game. You get what, 7 missions per nation/race/etc, with the several being unit trainers? HL was worth every penny. Opposing Forces was ok and added a lot of fun to multiplayer. Blue shift left me feeling robbed. I waited on HL2 until it hit the bargain bin, and if not for Counter Strike, would have felt shorted had I paid full retail. (lord knows I'm still bitter about Doom3) The point being, while they may be honest - this bit is a mere chapter or so in a longer story - I really resent the current trend to shorten games to generate a better revenue flow and try to price it for optimum wallet extraction. Maybe it works... Won't with me. I won't give them $10 for each three hours of game play.

Re:One of the real losses is the bargain bin.

[The OPTiCIAN]

This started as a reply but gets ranty.

> I really resent the current trend to shorten games

Wow - I feel the opposite. I have memories of wading through level after level of old games and just wishing it would end. There was a Final Fantasty game for the gameboy that was bad, and Crusader: No Regret was enormous. I spent an age playing No Regret and gave up on it eventually (I think I had a hdd crash that killed my save files or something). Later I learned I was probably far less than half way through the game at that point (part of this would be that I insisted on playing on the insane difficulty level but it was stil just huge). I think games are moving towards a model where they have a tighter plot and less mindless filler, and that's a good thing. Consider some of the old 8 bit games as well - you didn't have a hope in hell of finishing a game like Jet Set Willy.

I agree with you that Half Life 2 was just too short. An aspect of this might have been the poor quality of the plot wrapup and closing levels. Some early bits were excellent - the priest in the zombie village; the coastal outpost where you get the buggy; the bug section. But everything after the moment the player has killed the bug in the gym feels like an afterthought. There was a similar feel about the Xen section of the original.They're getting there but there's lots of room to improve.

It's hard to finish a game well though. The original No One Lives Forever was fantastic from start to end, but apart from that, I can't think of many endings that have impressed me. The Interactive Fiction _Spider and Web_ was pretty cool. I imagine the ending of nethack would have to be cool through sheer satisfaction. I think a lot of the problem with endings is they just realise the aims of the game without making a point. That's fine for mario games. But where's the conclusion about the nature of the human spirit at the end of the half life games, or the fact that even if the combine were evil "at least they made the trains run on time"?

Ha ha ha ha ha

[sunbeam60]

That was a funny joke.

Half Life 2 was incredibly well received, both in terms of reviews (metacritic, rottentomatoes and sales numbers.

It sold massively, created a new method of distribution, which other vendors have embraced and cuts out the middle men so hated on Slashdot.

It was first to feature real-time radiosity lighting, scaled from DirectX 6 to 9 and pushed the character animation and expression envelope considerably.

Do you ever look in the mirror and ask: "Maybe I am wrong this time?"

Re:Ha ha ha ha ha

[cecom]

Yeah, yeah, if only Half Life 2 didn't require an Internet connection to play a single-player game . Most people who buy it probably don't even realize it, except the hundreds of unlucky souls who bought it the first day and went home only to find out that the activation servers were overloaded.

To clarify, apparently Half Life 2 requires Internet connection even after it has been activated. It needs to talk to its servers at least once every couple of weeks, or ir refuses to start.

I remember reading a complaint from soldiers on a military ship - they didn't have an Internet connection while at sea, so they couldn't play the game. Too bad for them :-)

IIRC, Half Life 2 also requires opening a tunnel through the firewall. Again, this also applies to the single-player version.

This is totally unacceptable and it is really sad that the consumers and game reviewers at large have completely ignored this problem. I am looking forward to the day when the tiered Internet will require people to pay for the single-player game that they bought one year ago...

Re:Ha ha ha ha ha

[Masami Eiri]

When will you people realize this isn't the case? Yeah, you need it the first time you install, but after that, you can play with Steam in offline mode. Its not that hard.

Canonical Order Clarification

[DanTheLewis]

Half-Life is Episode IV: A New Gordon.

Half-Life 2 is Episode V: The G-Man Strikes Back.

Half-Life 3 is Episode VI: The Return of the Headcrab.

Aftermath is Episode I. Counterstrike is off canon. Day of Defeat is like those Clone Wars cartoons.

Don't blame me. Valve decided to do it out of order.