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It's a classic staple for these reviews, including a bit about the graphics and the audio. Given that, lets jump into some fun details.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 jumps into a revision of the Source engine yet again, this not being a bad thing really, anytime a company is determined to constantly upgrade their engine with the changes of the hardware market is quite a nice perk. Motion-Blur, Depth of Field, Color Correction and more are all present within this new title, so much so that it's actually almost commonplace to expect it in other titles without requiring a jump up to DX10 given that Source is still running on DX9.0C with SM3 support as the peak level.

One thing happening right off the bat is a sense of true space, the soft shadows through the areas, the varied light sourcing improved upon since Episode 1, the detailed tree models and figures getting what seems to be poly count boosts since the original HL2 and just an refined sense of design. Stepping out of the industrial realm of buildings all around to the point where it was almost a question of where the Sci-Fi element of the game went and into creepy worm tunnels full of baby maggot like creatures that constantly squish and ooze energy.

On that point the subterrainian levels in Episode 2 are probably one of the most impressive things going on outside of the final sequence area in the game, the amount of detail to lighting, reflections, textures and behaviors of materials is great, wet areas do reflect well, worm areas have a strange sheen to them and are very well played to their design. The water of course works fine as well and light trailing from sources or moving sources is done great as well, it almost makes me wish I could get more flares from previous titles and throw them around to see how the world behaves with them.

Portal is a straight shot with the graphical department, the game shows off a lot of the power of the Source engine and goes to new heights with the actual portal creation, I did notice that depending on the situation things can get a bit out of control for the game behavior, the portal depth though is what ends up being the regulator to it all and brings a peaceful compromise to the madness. The game outside of that is very polished graphically, everything is crisp and cut well with very complex maps designed to challenge even some of the most seasoned players in challenge mode. The SDK should allow for even more to occur and given all the fun being had with the physics response the mapping should be entertaining in the next few months.

The audio department is up to par, the game features multiple tracks as the tension of Half-Life 2 Episode 2 spans out, strider fights, hunter challenges and general escape sequences are full of energy that just seeps right into the background of the game without being overpronounced. In portal this takes a different tone, the game is dry and the most audio coming out of the game is from GLADoS as you pass through the trials of the game. The scripting to the audio though is amazing and done to the point where I was finding myself slowing down just to be sure I heard all of the comments that there were to be had.