Yes, I finally beat the Striders. More on that, later.
Episode Two is better than Episode One. Unlike One, Two actually has new (and beautifully rendered) environments to explore, as well as a few new enemies to deal with. You get to drive a cool car, and there's more twists and turns in the storyline.
However, there's one fault. The Striders. There's a segment where you have to kill a bunch of Striders before they get to some base you have to protect. This segment was the most frustrating thing I've seen in a Half-Life game since Xen. That's right, I invoked the X word just now.
The only way I beat this segment was that I abused the Hell out of the save game feature. Since you can save whenever you like, that gives you, the player, power. Power you're gonna need. When I finally beat the Striders, this was my reaction:
"(sigh of relief) That felt like a final boss battle."
Guess what? I was right. Right after that, the game ends, on a cliffhanger, no less. Still, the Half-Life game I like to call Half-Life 2: Episode Zero is still better than Episode Two. It did have Striders, but not like this.
Here's hoping Episode Three is the end-all, be-all Half-Life experience.
