HALF-LIFE CAGED
MOD Return to Gordon’s original adventure
Thanks to series writer Marc Laidlaw, we finally kind of know what would have happened in HalfLife 2’ s theoretical third episode. With that loose end wrapped up, we can begin to explore other stories in the Half-Life universe. Stories such as Half-Life: Caged, a big new mod for the original game. Caged is the work of Future Games Select and Cayle George, the latter an ex-Valve developer who worked as a level and game designer on Team Fortress2 and Portal2. He knows what he’s doing, then, and as a result this substantial singleplayer campaign is better constructed than many fan-made mods. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get out of jail, something you achieve by first diving into the prison’s sewer complex.
Be honest: You’ve missed the days of finicky platforming in first-person shooters, and if not, well, I have some bad news. There are plenty of precise jumps required in Caged, but they’re perhaps appropriate in a game released before the millennium. This being the first Half-Life, the weapons don’t pack much of a punch, either. However, in another respect, Caged is bang on-trend. There’s an excellent, ’80s-style soundtrack provided by synthwave artist Lazerhawk, and a developer commentary by Cayle George. It’s also comes with paid DLC: Tongue-in-cheek content that replaces the default toilet plunger weapon with a special ‘executive’ version.