Half-Life: Every Game Ranked Worst To Best

4. Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Half life
Valve

Valve's episodic model ran from 2006 to 2007. With Episode One's occassional doses of mediocrity the previous year, all eyes were on The Orange Box for the next major entry.

While it may have been overshadowed in the eventual release, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is an excellent shooter expansion, finally moving outside of City 17 and broadening its scenarios to great effect. Picking up right where Episode One left off, Gordon and Alyx continue their journey to regroup with the Lamda Resistance at the White Forest base. What follows is a tightly-paced thrill ride with new enemies and rural environments.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two, unlike its predecessor, makes many marked improvements on the base game. The writing has more heart, the levels more varied and the set-pieces more spectacular. A reworked helicopter chase and the standout defence of White Forest against a legion of striders are just a couple of the more extravagant moments in the Episode.

Of course it was all capped off by a brutal cliffhanger that left fans in the dark for so long. For a time we all thought it would be the final release and the series would never return. Half Life: Alyx beg to differ...

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A tough but fair writer and critic broadly covering games, movies and just about every type of entertainment media. Spent a good part of the last seven years blogging and more recently, making amateur videos under "The Cainage Critique". You can follow my work on my website https://robc25.wixsite.com/thecainagecritique and my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCftJ6WcozDaECFfjvORDk3w