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Content review for this game:
Pertaining to content listed in the upper right corner of this site.
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Intro - Half-Life 2 - Half-Life 2: Episode 1
Half-Life 2: Episode 2 - Portal - Team Fortress 2 |
Half-life 2: Episode 1
is rated "M" for Mature.
Blood and gore: When you or an enemy is shot, thick moderate to extreme amounts of blood jet and spurt out, splattering onto nearby walls and floors. Blood and bodies do linger. There is no option to turn off blood in this game. You also see several bloodied, burned, severely disfigured, genetically altered, severed, and zombified (detailes below) human and Combine bodies scattered throughout the game. Many of the human bodies are so damaged, you can't even see facial features.
There is an enemy alien species in this game called the "Headcrab," and in their default form resemble a headless plucked chicken, with a huge mouth where a stomach would be. They latch onto their victims' heads, (who are mostly human), take over their still living bodies, and essentially turn them into zombies. They scream with agonizingly deep, raspy, but squealing voices, as they slowly drag and lumber their bodies toward you, and strike with close-by objects and their limbs. Also, for unknown reasons; after the Headcrab has been attached for a while, the zombie's body is slit from neck to waist, showing its interal organs and rib cage. Also worth mentioning is, the Headcrabs spurt a mixture of red and green blood, with the green blood being a more gooey consistency. The next Headcrab type uses the same technique, but appears to take almost completely decomposed bodies as their hosts, resulting in them looking more like skeletons, with a small layer of muscle. Because of having less weight, they are extremely fast and will rush at your character, mercilessly tearing at his body with their claws. The last Headcrab type hangs on the ceiling and resembles a huge mutated mouth, with large sharp jaws and teeth. It has a long, thin tongue that hangs from its mouth to the floor. When the prey steps under the tongue, the mouth reels it in with its tongue, swallows it whole, with very bloody results. If you shoot and kill this enemy, it will turn inside out and regurgitate what it's eaten (including bones), in a large bloody, green pile of muck.
Blood & gore specific to Half -life 2: Episode 1 below:
Also worth mentioning, is that the Antlions shed green, goey blood, and break into large bug-like chunks when you shoot them. And when Zombines explode, their heads come off and all that's left on their body is the lower half of the skull. I will explain who and what these enemies are in the Intense Violence section of the review.
In one part of the game you explore a former "hospital" and see its previous "patients." But the hospital is more like a experimental torture facility, with the bodies of its former victims on operating tables. The bodies are heavily bloodied, beaten, disfigured, and well, just plain gory. In fact, this area of the game is chock-full of dead bodies, with blood, gore, and overall carnage filling the whole area.
Intense violence: The game takes place in a depressed, near apocolyptic world, where an oppressive dictator and his men, the "Combine," rule the streets, tormenting and controlling its citizens. The violence is moderately graphic, realistic and intense. The majority of the game has you evading the enemy, so it always gives you a sense of urgency, and the atmosphere is involving and immersive, with no cutscenes in between, and supporting characters that feel very real and sympathetic; furthering your attachment to the world, and its violent situations.
Your character will be killing dozens of enemies with a variety of weapons, including a crowbar, shotgun, rocket launcher, Gravity Gun (which I explain lower in this review), and much more. You will be fighting two separate factions of enemies, the main being the "Combine," who are the corrupt "Civil Protection" that patrol the city, and are the main villain's henchmen. They wear full body armor, and what appears to be a gas mask that covers their entire face. The mask must have some sort of voice box, because when they speak they sound like they're talking through a heavily distorted ham radio. They (from what can be gathered) are a human/alien hybrid, genetically enhanced for their work.
The Combine also use a device called the "Man-Hack," and it's about the size of a soft ball, and uses very sharp blades to maneuver in the air. It uses these blades to knock into the human enemy and cut them, thus being known as the Man-Hack. As for the other enemy, the "Headcrab" species, I already explained them in "blood and gore," because of their more gory nature. The Headcrab are enemy both to the main character and the Combine.
The last enemy type are called "Antlions," and resemble an ant but are as large as lions, hence the name. They are a non- sentient species, meaning they act like wild animals. Your character does gain the ability to control and command them with a device later in the game. But, beyond that, they have no obvious alliances.
Intense violence specific to Half -life 2: Episode 1 below:
The enemy I'm about to explain is first introduced in Episode 1, and is also present in Episode 2. They are a combination of a Combine and a Headcrab, and are aptly named the Zombine. When they see your character, they will either pull a grenade from seemingly nowhere and rush your character in a suicide attempt, or just try to bludgeon you to death with their arms.
The next enemy isn't really an enemy, but more like the mindless servant/drones of the Combine. They keep the Combine facilities in regular maintenance, and are physically harmless. They are called Stalkers, and resemble a human skeleton with skin stretched thinly over the body, and have a metal plate where the upper half of the face should be. They were originally human, but were captured, and then forcibly turned into Stalkers by the Combine.
- At a very early point in the game, your objective is to get through a forcefield-shielded door, but on the other side is a Stalker working on a computer panel, keeping the door shut. You have no choice but to use weapons that can pass through the forcefield and kill the Stalker, thus opening the door. Both of the main characters feel reluctant to kill the stalker because of the reasons mentioned above.
- Later on, the main characters board a train to escape the Combine, but soon realize it's a Stalker train. The Stalkers are hanging in individual compartments, suspended like hangers in a closet. Soon the train crashes, and when the main character comes to, a stalker is screaming inhumanly and disturbingly in his face. As the main character gets to the back of the train, he sees that the female character is pinned by another stalker, who is also screaming in her face. When you finally get her unpinned from the Stalker, she is visibly disturbed, has her hands on her face, and asks for some time to recover. Throughout this whole area, you are, regrettably, forced to kill many of the Stalkers to progress.
Near the beginning of the game you acquire the "Gravity Gun," and can use it to repulse or drag and hold objects with its gravitational force. Early on it takes on a high-powered status, enabling it to attract and repulse much larger objects, including humanoid bodies. In this area of the game you mainly use it on the Combine, and when used, it will drag them to you from hundreds of feet, and then violently repulse them into other combine or walls. You can also use them as shields against other Combine.
Last of all, NPCs (non-player-characters) can die, and most often will, if you don't protect them. The main supporting characters can also die, but if they do, it's game over and you have to start from the last save point. Also you cannot shoot, hit or kill any allies in this game.
Language (specific to Half-life 2: Episode 1): There are 13 uses of h**l, 4 uses of d**n, 1 use of a**, 1 use of s**t, 1 misuse of Jesus, and 10 misuses of God.
Mild suggestive themes: The ESRB didn't mention this in their rating, although it is brief. the intro screen has a speech playing on an intercom in the background. The Combine have supressed the humans ability to reproduce, so they can't grow in number and form a larger resistance. So at one point he says, "In laymans terms you should [literally] do your Part [for the human resistance]."
Closing comment: This is a great but short followup to the previous Half-life 2, and of course the blood, gore and language are still present. Also, Alyx, the main NPC (non-playable character) is with you throughout, and she feels and acts very real, which makes you feel that much more attached to the environment. Last but not least, this game is a bit more intense and graphic then the last, so again, I recommend this game for ages 17+.
