In a winter packed with big-name shooter releases there was never really any doubt who’d win out. In value, pedigree and sheer gameplay magic The Orange Box delivered on every count: TF2 is the funniest multiplayer experience many have ever experienced, Portal is so self-consciously koꦡoky that it has now infected every corner of the internet, and Episode Two continued the Half-Life saga with remarkable aplomb.

While the long delay of the game’s release stretched the idea of what episodic gaming actually is, Half-Life 2: Episode Two rꦜemains a triumphant expansion to the universe, taking your character Gordon Freeman and his sassy sidekick Alyx on an epic trek to the White Forest resistance base.

On an e⛄ventful journey, Alyx is attacked and left unconscious by a new deadly opponent - a Hunter - while Gordon discovers a complex underground Antlion cave system with the Vortigaunts, and the battle for Earth is taken out into the open with the help of a new super-powered muscle car and a helping of lethal Strider Busters.

The man in charge of bringing Episode Two to your brain was project lead David Speyrer, who joined Valve just as 🐽work on Half-Life 2 started back in 1998. Speyrer began our interview by explaining how the development team always examined scenes carefully in Ep2 through playtesting, and ruthlessly cut anything that confused the player - even if it meant changing ideas already revealed to the gaming public...