Viqor played Half-Life 2: Episode One

Played through all of HL2: Episode 1 while waiting for Portal 2 to get released. It is a pretty short game, but definitely entertaining and very well designed, in some ways better than Half-Life 2. In particular, Valve has taken great care in leading the player's attention towards major events and objective points, making it very clear most of the time what you are supposed to be doing and where you need to go, something that Half-Life 2 occasionally faltered in performing, although I do think that overall, Half-Life 2 is a much better game. Visually, the game has held up extremely well, and is a pretty significant jump in quality over HL2 (which still looks very good, six years on) especially in the lighting department: both in particles and shadows, both of which are shown off extensively throughout the second part of Episode 1, which takes place in utter darkness.