Half-Life 2: Episode One
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This game is available on Steam. Launch it now or buy it here. |
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 This game has a 27.2 MB trailer available for download. |
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Previously called Aftermath, Episode One is a continuation of Half-Life 2 focusing on developing Alyx as a character. It is known to feature HDR lighting and improved AI for Alyx and the citizens. See links for more details.
Contents
Short Description
In Half-Life, the G-Man made you. In Half-Life 2, he used you to defeat Dr. Breen and start the Resistance. In Episode One, he's lost control.
The Story So Far
Half-Life introduced the world to bespectacled young physicist Gordon Freeman, Ph.D. A simple research assistant at the Black Mesa Research Facility, Gordon is thrust into the center of a cosmic war by a teleportation experiment gone badly wrong. Alien creatures from distant alien hellholes scramble through a shattered dimensional barrier and set about butchering the Black Mesa staff as a prelude to exterminating life on Earth. Government forces quickly arrive to eliminate the alien threat. Unfortunately, their methodical killing spree targets every human witness as well. Thanks to an experimental hazard suit, Gordon is able to navigate this violent confusion of creatures, staff, and homicidal soldiers, finally reaching then destroying what appears to be the monstrous source of the infestation. The victory is short-lived, however. Gordon's heroics catch the attention of a sinister interdimensional bureaucrat. The G-Man, as he's come to be called, seals Gordon in stasis far from Earth, thought, and time itself.
Gordon emerges from the darkness, nearly two decades removed from his last conscious thought. The G-Man has reawakened him, though the briefcase-toting official's intentions are murky at best. Gordon is back on Earth, but it is an Earth marred almost beyond recognition by a succession of alien overlords known as The Combine. Gordon finds himself a powerless, faceless citizen of City 17, a grim metropolis in what was once Europe. Whether through luck or the G-Man's subtle influence, he's soon the center of a burgeoning resistance movement led by rebel scientists from Black Mesa, including Gordon's friends, Dr. Isaac Kleiner and Dr. Eli Vance. More importantly, Gordon is reunited with his protective hazard suit. With the help of Vance's daughter, Alyx, and her enormous pet robot, Dog, Gordon embarks on a fugitive journey that pits him against Combine war machines, alien horrors, and the modified human collaborators who enforce The Combine will. Though he is able to rally the resistance into open war against their totalitarian oppressors, Gordon ends up imprisoned in a massive Combine fortress called The Citadel. Here he meets the Combine's traitorous human liaison, Dr. Wallace Breen. Gordon escapes, and with Alyx at his side, puts an end to Breen's treachery by destroying The Citadel's teleport reactor. As the blast engulfs Alyx and Gordon, the G-Man, his mysterious goals apparently satisfied, reappears to once again toss his pawn into timeless cold storage.
Consciousness returns. Gordon and Alyx discover they've somehow escaped both the reactor explosion and the G-Man's malevolent grasp. Before they can ponder their miraculous survival, the crippled Citadel lurches back to life just long enough to initiate a self-destruct sequence. With Alyx at his side, Gordon must flee a city in chaos before the Citadel's final detonation turns City 17 into a toxic, mutant-infested crater.
Availability
This game is available for purchase on Steam for $19.95 (USD) bundled with Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, and Half-Life 2: Lost Coast.
It is also available in stores by Electronic Arts as part of the Half-Life 2: Platinum Collection.
Playing Half-Life 2 Modifications
Owners of Half-Life 2: Episode One will be able to play HL2 based mods.
Valve has announced that there would be several teaser videos focused around Alyx released on Steam before Half-Life 2: Episode One comes out.
- Launch Teaser 1 - Alyx. Cool Under Pressure.
- Launch Teaser 2 - Alyx hates zombies. Even more than you do.
- Launch Teaser 3 - Alyx. She doesn't have a crowbar, but she's got your back.
- Launch Teaser 4 - Alyx. DØg's best friend.
