I finished the much-anticipated Half-Life 2: Episode 2 over the weekend. I have to say I wasn’t very impressed. If it wasn’t for Team Fortress 2’s inclusion in the Orange Box I’d be feeling pretty ripped off. I was eager to see more of the Half-Life story unfold, and in this, Episode 2 did not disappoint. The atmosphere and graphics were stunning as always. The gameplay? Unimpressive. Perhaps it’s just my impression, but Episode 2 seemed to deliver noticeably less content than Episode 1, and much of what it did bring to my desktop was lacking in excitement.

There are two things I don’t much care for in a first-person shooter: jumping puzzles and boss fights. Guess what Episode 2 was full of? At least they didn’t combine the two (maybe that horror will show up in Episode 3), but at least half the gameplay was effectively a boss fight of one kind or another. For me, singleplayer FPS games are about having a virtual adventure full of derring-do and swashed buckles, not stacking crates or emptying magazine after magazine into some übercreature until it can finally take no more. Jumping puzzles are either boring or irritating, and boss fights are both.

The inclusion of so many boss fights felt like a lazy move on the part of the designers. Maybe Valve was too busy crunching out the TF2 release to really flesh Episode 2 out, and the bosses were put in as a hasty (if polished-looking) bit of filler. I’ll probably buy Episode 3 when it comes out, but only on a probational basis; if it follows its immediate predecessor, it’ll likely be the last bit of episodic content I purchase from Valve.