It really was. I finished it in a bit of downtime at last weekend's LAN. I'll add my voice to the "maybe it was just a little too short" crowd and suggest that a $15 price point would have been more suitable. I guess I breezed through it in maybe four hour's play time, but content-wise, there's probably two hours tops. I think Valve may have realised this - it would explain a totally unnecessary part toward the end of the game that seens you (Gordon) backtracking three or four times between two buildings, escorting a squad of City 17 evacuees. It certainly wasn't a landmark in game design.
The rest of the game though - pure gold. It was linear as hell, didn't answer many questions, had a complete cop-out of an introduction and was completely, utterly wonderful.
Having Alyx with you throughout the entire episode was a masterstroke of gaming genius. She provided some wonderful narration and helped with the plot continuity with some well-acted conversations with Eli and Dr. Kleiner, as well as her one-sided monologues with Gordon, who remains as mute as ever.
There wasn't really anything new in the game - all the old favourite weapons are used with nothing new added, the couple of new foes don't provide anything out of the ordinary and the scenry is pretty much more of the same from HL2. However, every set-piece is great to play and the entire experience just felt more polished than many similar FPSs. Six months until Episode Two.
As for the LAN, pretty enjoyable. We mostly played the old favourites: Quake (3 and 4), UT2004 and co-op SWAT4. Thankfully, no Battlefield was ventured into - the entire BF series is dead to me now, and would be banned from LANs entirely if I had my way!
I had a gaming first at the LAN as well - Guitar Hero. I play guitar for real, and while I won't pretend that i'm any kind of Hero, I at least thought that playing a pretend guitar game wouldn't be too much of a problem. You know, kinda like air guitar. You can always tell a real guitarist when they play air guitar, as they pretend-strum in time and move their left hands into imaginary chord positions. Non-guitarists just kinda let their left hand hang limply in the air whilst they flail around the dancefloor.
....Anyway. Guitar Hero. Real guitar skills are no use here, my friends. Stay way. It doesn't look cool, it's not clever in any way shape or form, and none of the songs are originals (much like Donkey Konga in that respect). Mashing those five fret buttons should remain the reserve of DDR fanatics only. I'll stick to playing proper guitar badly, it's easier to look cool whilst doing it.
I can't believe I sucked at Guitar Hero.
For shame.
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