A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

After nearly three months I've resumed my chew-through of the three Half Life 2 games that come with the Orange Box. Finished Episode One yesterday (which is really the second part of the story, after the eponymous main game) and am a good ways into Episode Two now. I definitely get the impression that these games would be more fun to play a year apart from each other, the speed at which they're published. Clearly, when I come to the current episode's Zombie Level or Antlion Level or Turret Defense Scene I am to think "Hooray! I have missed doing this!" and not "Enh, I did this yesterday."

My biggest complaint involves the Vortigaunts. These are the spindly, naked, psionic alien critters who are allied with the human resistance, and they have a more overt presence in Episode Two than in the earlier games. In the main game, they are all delightfully voiced by Louis Gossett Jr., but in Episode Two, they're portrayed by some guy who is trying to sound like Louis Gossett Jr. and ends up sounding more like the Cookie Monster. On top of this, the writing seems weaker than the previous games' scripts. The Vortigaunts' dialogue seems informed less by Kosh and more by Whorf, now. Oh well.

O the suffering. I still enjoy it quite a bit!

I have been playing too much Half Life 2, during this, the first week (of two) I've set aside for the greater glory of Volity. Before putting it away one last time, I made sure to unlock the 5-point XBox achievement you get for killing a headcrab by throwing a toilet at it.

The story and structure reminds me a lot of Marathon. This is not a bad thing. I'm unsatisfied with the characterization of the protagonist, though. Judging from NPC reactions he's a brilliant and creative scientist, but from PC actions he's a silent, staring robot who is only able to follow orders and kill things: a standard-issue FPS dude. This same setup played into the plot of Marathon in a clever way, but here they just pretend it ain't so, nearly to the point of self-parody.

I was amused to find the turrets from Portal as enemies, and then meta-amused that I thought of them as such, since this game is two years older. (And the turrets are, sadly, far less polite.)

Other than last night's yuckiness I've been really enjoying my XBox. It's everything I hoped it'd be, from both fun-having and game-wonking perspectives. I have added my (cough) GamerCard to the jmac.org games page, and here it is again:





Yeah, "zendonut" was taken. I came up with that username when I was 28 (for my first AIM account) and while I still use it where I can, it may be the last silly internutty handle I'm capable of creating. I have so far run into nobody else using anything resembling their full legal name as their XBox handle, which makes me feel unique, and old, but not in a bad way.