HHHH HHHH AAA LL FFFFFFFFFFF HH HH AA AA LL FF HH HH AA AA LL FF _______ HHHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAA LL FFFFFFF ------- HH HH AA AA LL FF ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ HH HH AA AA LL LL FF HHHH HHHH AAA AAA LLLLLLLLLLL FF LL IIIIIIIIII FFFFFFFFFFF EEEEEEEEEE 2222222 LL II FF EE 2 22 LL II FF EE 22 LL II FFFFFFF EEEEEEE 222 LL II FF EE 22222 LL LL II FF EE 2 22 22 LLLLLLLLLLL IIIIIIIIIIII FF EEEEEEEEEEE 222 2222222 Half-Life 2 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ PC Version +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ =============================================================================== +-------------------+ | Table of Contents | +-------------------+ I. - How to Contact Me II. - Version History III. - Copyright Info. and Legal Information IV. - Purpose/What This Guide Will Cover V. - The Main Menu A) New Game B) Load Game C) Friends D) Options E) Quit VI. - The Controls VII. - Weapons VIII. - Enemies IX. - Allies X. - Walkthrough A) Chapter 1 - Point Insertion B) Chapter 2 - "A Red Letter Day" C) Chapter 3 - Route Kanal D) Chapter 4 - Water Hazard E) Chapter 5 - Black Mesa East F) Chapter 6 - "We Don't Go To Ravenholm..." G) Chapter 7 - Highway 17 H) Chapter 8 - Sandtraps I) Chapter 9 - Nova Prospekt J) Chapter 10 - Entanglement K) Chapter 11 - Anticitizen One L) Chapter 12 - "Follow Freeman" M) Chapter 13 - Our Benefactors N) Chapter 14 - Dark Energy XI. - HL2: Deathmatch XII. - Simple Cheats XIII. - Frequently Asked Questions XIV. - Credits TIP: ¯¯¯¯ Because this guide will be so vast, if you just want to skip to a certain sec- tion for information on it or because you are having trouble there, and don't want to have to skim down the whole thing, do the following: Hold down your "Ctrl" key on your keyboard and press the 'F' key. It will bring up the Find Box. Now, type in any of the Roman Numerals above (with the period) followed by the title, exactly as you see it and hit "Enter". It will automat- ically find the one above in the Table of Contents, so click "Find Next" on the Find Box and it will skip all the way down the guide to exactly that section. Sure makes things easier, doesn't it? Here's an example.... Let's say that Chapter 15 is Credits and I actually cared enough to put that in the Table of Contents (which I don't and didn't), you would type "O) Chapter 15 - The Credits" into the Find Box. It would find the one above (if it was there... which it's not) in the Table of Contents, so you would need to find the next one by pressing "Find Next". It would then go all the way to the end of this guide, right to that section. Simple. If you want to go to a certain section like the weapons section instead of a chapter in the game, just type the Roman Numeral and the - and the section name as you see it above. =) =============================================================================== +--------------------------------+ | Section I. - How to Contact Me | +--------------------------------+ Name - Josh Eaton E-mail - jjeatonusa1@netscape.net YahooIM - joshua_eaton1120 =============================================================================== +-------------------------------+ | Section II. - Version History | +-------------------------------+ Version 0.00 - (November 27, 2004) - Started. Version 0.10 - (November 28, 2004) - Weapons, Enemies, Allies, & up to Ch. 4. Version 0.20 - (December 03, 2004) - Finished Chapter 4. Version 0.30 - (December 05, 2004) - Finished Chapter 5. Version 0.40 - (December 10, 2004) - Finished Chapter 6. Version 0.50 - (December 18, 2004) - Finished Chapter 7. Version 0.55 - (December 21, 2004) - Finished Chapter 8. Version 0.60 - (December 22, 2004) - Finished Chapter 9. Version 0.65 - (December 22, 2004) - Finished Chapter 10. Version 0.70 - (December 26, 2004) - Finished Chapter 11. Version 0.80 - (December 27, 2004) - Finished Chapter 12. Version 0.85 - (December 28, 2004) - Finished Chapter 13. Version 0.90 - (December 28, 2004) - Finished Chapter 14. Version 0.95 - (December 28, 2004) - Completed the "Simple Cheats" section. Version 1.00 - (December 28, 2004) - Completed the "FAQ" section and "Credits". Version 1.10 - (December 29, 2004) - Updated "FAQ" Section. Version 1.20 - (December 29, 2004) - Spell-checked. Fixed all errors. Version 1.40 - (December 29, 2004) - Completely changed layout. Version 1.60 - (December 29, 2004) - Added tons of new questions in the "FAQ". Version 1.80 - (December 29, 2004) - Added a Half-Life 2: Deathmatch section. Version 1.90 - (January 02, 2005) - Changed the Copyright/Legal Info Section. Version 2.00 - (January 15, 2005) - Fixed some big and frequent typos. =============================================================================== +------------------------------------------------+ | Section III. - Copyright Info. and Legal Info. | +------------------------------------------------+ Alright. Here's how it works. This guide will first be publicized on GameFAQs. It is Copyright 2004 to me, Joshua J. Eaton. You, the reader, may use it for whatever you want. However, you may only use it for reading and your own per- sonal use. You may NOT take it and place it on your website, nor may you give it out to anyone. At present, this guide is only allowed to be posted on this website: www.gameFAQs.com . DO NOT take or use this guide for anything without my personal consent. If you see this guide on any other website other than the said one above, please contact me about it. Thank you. =============================================================================== +--------------------------------------------------+ | Section IV. - Purpose/What This Guide Will Cover | +--------------------------------------------------+ This guide for the PC Version (and probably the X-Box version provided it comes out on the X-Box) of Half-Life 2 will cover every single thing about the Half- Life 2 game. It will cover the controls, weapons, enemies, allies, and finally, the actual guide itself. I've written several other guides before and I try to make them as easy to read as possible. Above, just under the Table of Contents, take a look at the tip if you haven't already. It should help more. But enough talk, let's get started, shall we? =============================================================================== +----------------------------+ | Section V. - The Main Menu | +----------------------------+ When you start up your game and it finishes loading, like every other game on the planet, you will have a main menu. Well, this section will briefly go over it. So let's go. NOTE: While playing, hitting the "Esc" key will bring up a similar menu for you, allowing you to load your games or save them, etc. New Game - When you click New Game, a window will come up asking you what chap- you want to start on. Once you advance to new chapters, new ones will be playable. This guide will be written from Chapter 1. Load Game - Like most other games nowadays, you can save your progress and re- turn to it later. If you've saved anything, you can click here and go back to it. Friends - I honestly have no idea what this does. I'm assuming that it lets you find your friends for multiplayer, but at this time, there is no mul- tiplayer gaming for Half-Life 2. Options - Here, you can change some things around such as the difficulty, key- board settings, mouse stuff, audio stuff, and video/display stuff. Just click on the tab at the top to go to each. Quit - Quits the game and returns you to your desktop. =============================================================================== +----------------------------+ | Section VI. - The Controls | +----------------------------+ Below is a list of what keys on the keyboard perform what actions in the game. You can change these keys in the Keyboard tab under Options. During the game, simply hit the "Esc" key to bring up a menu that has "Options" on it. Key Action ------- ---------- W Move forward S Move backward A Strafe left D Strafe right Spacebar Jump Ctrl Duck Shift Run Alt + W,S,A, or D Move slowly Ctrl + W,S,A, or D Crawl R Reloads E Use/Pick up C Send/Call squad G Switches to Gravity Gun F Toggles Flashlight Z HEV Suit Zoom-in Left-Mouse Click Primary Fire Right-Mouse Click Secondary Fire =============================================================================== +------------------------+ | Section VII. - Weapons | +------------------------+ This entire section of the guide will simply be stolen from MY guide on all the weapons that I wrote previously for this game. If you just want information on all the weapons and such, I suggest you just go read that guide which should be posted soon if it already isn't. But, here it is anyway. I just feel like making this guide cover every single thing. ------------------------------------- PART 1 - Weapon Names and Numbers ------------------------------------- When playing the game, you can hold several different weapons, all of them in fact when you get them. The easiest way to switch between them is to simply hit the corresponding keyboard number, 1, 2, 3, etc. Some numbers have multiple weapons under them and to get to them, you merely tap the same number again. For example, to get to the Pulse Rifle, tap the 3-key twice. So with that said, here we go. NOTE: I know that there is a Super-Gravity Gun, but when you get it, you lose all your other weapons, so you really can't switch to it, thus it will not be included in this guide. Keyboard # 1 ------------ Crowbar Gravity Gun Keyboard # 2 ------------ 9mm Pistol .357 Magnum Keyboard # 3 ------------ SMG (Submachine Gun) Overwatch Standard Issue (Pulse Rifle) Keyboard # 4 ------------ Shotgun Crossbow Keyboard # 5 ------------ Grenade RPG Keyboard # 6 ------------ Pheropod (Bugbait) ------------------------- PART 2 - Ammo Details ------------------------- This section will basically just tell you how much ammo each gun's clip has and how much ammo for that gun you can hold in supply. Weapon Name Clip Size / Supply Max - Secondary Ammo ---------------------------------------------------------------- Crowbar Infinite Gravity Gun Infinite 9mm Pistol 18 / 150 .357 Magnum 6 / 12 SMG 45 / 225 3 Pulse Rifle 30 / 60 3 Shotgun 6 / 30 Crossbow 1 / 9 Grenade 5 RPG 3 Pheropod Infinite ----------------------------------- PART 3 - Weapon Power and Speed ----------------------------------- This section will simply go over the power of each gun on a scale of one to ten on how easily it kills enemies, also factoring in you missing (grenade or rocket or shotgun from long-distances). This section will also go over how fast the weapons shoot/you use them. It will be in rounds per second (RPS). Ob- viously, if you see a decimal point, it means that the weapon shoots at least the first number, but not so far as the second number. This is simply because of calculations. But, I'll give you an example. Let's say a gun fires 3.45 RPS (rounds per second). That means it fires at the least, three rounds, and given how long the seconds are that you are counting, maybe another one, but it's not likely. Got it? Okay, so here we go. Gun Name Power/10 Speed ------------ ------------ --------- Crowbar 2/10 N/A Gravity Gun N/A N/A (It just moves things) 9mm Pistol 4/10 1.8 RPS .357 Magnum 9/10 1.2 RPS SMG 5/10 11 RPS Pulse Rifle 7.5/10 7.6 RPS Shotgun 8/10 1 RPS (depends on how close) Crossbow 9/10 .55 RPS (about 2 seconds per bolt) Grenade 9/10 .60 RPS (about 2 seconds per grenade) RPG 10/10 (hit dead on) N/A (hit dead on) (you guide it...) Bugbait N/A N/A (it controls Antlions) (the Antlions do damage) ---------------------------------------- PART 4 - Primary/Secondary Functions ---------------------------------------- This section will go over each of the weapons and describe both of functions. Some weapons do not have a secondary function, so I won't bother saying so in the list below. I'll just say the primary and move on. The left mouse button uses the primary function and the right mouse button uses the secondary. ----------- Crowbar ----------- Primary - The Crowbar's primary function simply swings the bar... it hurts and can easily break things, such as wood or an enemy soldier's skull. --------------- Gravity Gun --------------- Primary - Sends out a bolt of energy to a nearby object and sends it flying off in the direction you're facing fast enough to kill some enemies! Secondary - You can use this function to pull any object up to a certain size towards you and hold it. You can then press the same button to either drop it or the primary button to blast it away from you. Ammo, HEV Suit Energy, and Health, if needed, will be taken. -------------- 9mm Pistol -------------- Primary - Shoots a single bullet at your target. Simple. Secondary - Now this is a neat trick. If you hold down the right-mouse button and then press and hold the primary fire as well (now holding both mouse buttons), nothing will happen. Wait about five seconds though and let go of the right-mouse button while still holding the left one and your pistol will shoot out a bunch of bullet at the exact same time, basically putting 5-10 bullets (more if you hold longer) in the same place. It makes it accurate and A LOT more powerful. --------------- .357 Magnum --------------- Primary - Shoots a single bullet at your target. Also simple. ------- SMG ------- Primary - As long as you hold the button down, bullets will fire rapidly. It's a machine gun. What do you expect? Secondary - Shoots a grenade that explodes on impact. Too bad you can only have three of these, eh? --------------- Pulse Rifle --------------- Primary - As long as you hold the button down, bullets will fire rapidly. It's also a machine gun. Secondary - Charges for a second and that blasts a large pulse of energy out that will bounces around, touching or getting near just about any living thing in the room and vaporizing it. ----------- Shotgun ----------- Primary - Blasts a shell into your opponent. It's actually pretty accurate too. Secondary - Blasts out two shells right into your opponent. It hurts... a lot. ------------ Crossbow ------------ Primary - Shoots out a single "arrow". It takes awhile to get to far-off opponents, so make sure they aren't going to move. Secondary - Zooms in like a sniper-rifle would and that's the only difference from the primary function. ----------- Grenade ----------- Primary - Throws a grenade that will beep faster and faster until it explodes. It takes about 3-4 seconds. Secondary - Rolls the grenade on the floor. It will still beep and explode in the same time. ------- RPG ------- Primary - Fires a rocket that you can control with your laser by simply moving your mouse and looking in a different direction (pointing the laser). ------------ Pheropod ------------ Primary - Throws a Pheropod and when it lands and explodes open, the antlions will go to that area and attack things there. Secondary - You squeeze the Pheropod and it attracts your antlions back to you. ------------------------------ PART 5 - Weapon Usage Tips ------------------------------ This section will simply gives you a few tips on where or how to use each wea- pon in some useful ways. Crowbar - Basically just use it to break apart some wood or some skulls if you happen to be close enough to a Combine. Gravity Gun - Throw some barrels or boxes at enemies! It runs them right over. Or, you can pick up some saw blades and cut some zombies in half. 9mm Pistol - Headshots is all I can say. .357 Magnum - It kills combines in one hit and is great long distance since it is so accurate. =) SMG - Use this when you have a bunch of zombies or Combine guards in a small area. Just blast them full of bullets since you have such a large clip. Pulse Rifle - Use this at medium or long distances. It's more accurate if you fire short bursts instead of holding down the trigger. Shotgun - When traveling up stairs or down narrow hallways or something, use this. It's pretty accurate, and in a small area, you can barely miss. Crossbow - I personally rarely use this, but you can if there're some Combines hiding behind some shields or something. Nail them in the head. Grenade - Throw these into windows or into groups of enemies. =) Easy clearing. RPG - Save these for gunships or striders, or, launch them into groups of ene- mies from afar. Pheropod - Those these babies at your enemies. They'll have antlions on their asses faster then they can say "run!" =============================================================================== +-------------------------+ | Section VIII. - Enemies | +-------------------------+ This entire section of the guide will simply be stolen from MY guide on all the enemies that I wrote previously for this game. If you just want information on all the enemies and such, I suggest you just go read that guide which should be posted soon if it already isn't. But, here it is anyway. ---------------------------- PART 1 - List of Enemies ---------------------------- This section will list each of your enemies in the game and what they do to try and kill you. Enemy Name What They Do --------------------------------------- Headcrab - These are the little yellow-whitish-brown things that crawl on the ground and jump at you to hurt you. They can sometimes also fall off of a zombie's head if you don't kill it right. Fast Headcrab - These are headcrabs, but they are evolved forms. Their legs are longer and they look like spiders (except with four legs). Some of them are poisonous as well, so watch out. Barnacles - These things hang from the roof and have long "tongues" that hang down. If anything touches those "tongues", they get sucked up and chewed on by the Barnacle. Combine Soldier - Just guards... with guns. The weapons they have are different (stronger) as you get further in the game. Basically, they just shoot at you and try and kill you. In some parts of the game, they will be manning machine guns, so watch out. Antlion - They rise up in groups from the sand when you touch it and then att- ack you with their claws. Advice: Don't touch the sand. If you do, run like hell backwards with your shotgun blazing. Queen Antlion - There's only a few of these in the game, four I think, but they are enormous antlions that take A LOT of ammo to kill. All they really do though is rush at you and smash into you with their enormous heads. Watch out. They like to maul. Zombie - These are the people with headcrabs stuck on them that have completely taken over their bodies. They can't do much to you if you keep your distance since all they can do to attack is to swing at you with their arms. Fast Zombie - These are zombie who have been made from super headcrabs. They are faster and stronger and take more to kill. They come right at you and just slash and maul you. Fast Headcrab-Throwing Zombie - Kind of self-explanatory. This is a regular zombie with a bunch of fast headcrabs that it carries and throws at you. Watch out though, the headcrabs are extremely poisonous and can be thrown long distances. Strider - You can't miss these. They're enormous things with long, skinny legs that walk the streets. They have big brown heads and fire bullets non-stop at you. They can also impale you with their legs, so watch out! Manhacks - These are little things that attack you in groups. They are machines and are black with red lights and spinning blades. Rollermines - You really only encounter these on the buggy levels and I've never stuck around long enough for one to explode, but they do. They come rolling at you, are silver and neon blue light, and stick to your car, most likely to harm you inside. Turrets - These can be set up just about anywhere, or pop out of the ground if you trip a laser. They seemingly have an infinite supply of bullets, so watch your step. Combine Tank - These are the huge, black, armored vehicles that shoot rockets at you during the airboat missions. Basically, they shoot rock- ets and they hurt. Helicopter - Everyone knows what a helicopter is, but these ones basically have a charge-up gun. It will fire 100 bullets at you, charge up, and fire again. It can also drop bombs into the water for you to run over and get thrown around by. Gunship - These are huge ships in the skies that just rain bullets down on any- one who opposes them. They're a bluish-black-gray color and have big propellers on their backs as well as anti-rocket guns. -------------------------------------- PART 2 - Effective Killing Methods -------------------------------------- This section will tell you the best ways to kill all of the above enemies given your limited amount of weapons. Most would say to just use a rocket-launcher on everything, but I say, you only have three rockets at a time. Then they would say to cheat and get more, and I would say "cheater!" So anyway, here we go... most effective ways to kill/destroy each enemy. Headcrab - Just shoot it. It only takes two normal bullets. Fast Headcrab - The shotgun does wonders on these little pests. Blow them away or pump them full of lead with a machine gun. Barnacle - You can normally avoid these, so why waste your ammo? Anyway, they are really easy to kill, so if you get caught by one, a single shot- gun blast will do the job, or, for those of you ammo-conservers, a few pistol shots. Combine Soldier - There are so many great ways to kill one of these and all of them depend on where you are. If close-range, use the shotgun for sure. If long range, the Pulse Rifle is good. If really far away, I'd suggest the .357 or the crossbow. Antlion - Shotgun kills them in one hit. Use it. Otherwise, use the SMG. It has 45 bullets and since they normally come in groups, you'll need the ammo. Queen Antlion - Explosives. Use the SMG's secondary grenade launcher combined with some clips from the Pulse Rifle, and keep away from it! Some double-blasts from the shotgun can do good too, but it's an ammo-waster since you can only do it three times. Zombie - The best way to take out a normal zombie is to just hit it in the head with a shotgun shell from close-range. Or, if you want to conserve ammo, a few pistol shots to the head ought to do it, but make sure shots go to the head, or else you won't kill the headcrab. Fast Zombie - I use the SMG on them since they normally attack in numbers of 2 and 3, but if you can get good headshots, definitely use the shotgun. Fast Headcrab-Throwing Zombie - As said, the headcrabs that these punks throw are poisonous and they have three or so of them, so my advice is a grenade or an explo- sive barrel to set everything on fire. Other- wise, use A LOT of shotgun ammo. Strider - Rocket launcher. Simple. You'll need quite a few rockets too, so, get ready for some fun. Grenades from your SMG can also kill them, but those are harder to aim. Use rockets. Manhacks - It only takes four bullets from a pistol or SMG to destroy these little buggers or a single shotgun blast. Don't waste Pulse Rifle ammo on them. If you have the Gravity Gun, use that to pull them to you and then just sling them into a wall. Rollermines - You only really encounter these in the Highway 17 chapter of the game, so just use your Gravity Gun to throw them over a cliff or far away. Turrets - Since these things do nothing but fire at you, use grenades to knock them over, or if you can, a blast from the Gravity Gun. For the ones that pop out of the ground, get a grenade down inside them. Combine Tank - Until you get the gun mounted on your airboat, there's no much you can do to these. You need A LOT of ammo to take one out. It isn't really worth the effort unless you absolutely have to. Helicopter - As far as I know, you only have to battle one of these to the death, and that's when you have the airboat. So basically, there, avoid the bombs it drops and just keep blasting it with your gun you have mounted. Gunship - Three rockets takes these down. They never get close enough for you to use grenades from your SMG and are constantly moving. They have anti-rocket guns, so make sure to swirl your rocket around them be- fore making it slam into the gunship. =============================================================================== +----------------------+ | Section IX. - Allies | +----------------------+ In Half-Life 2, unlike in the first, you actually have several allies aside from just some security guards now and then. Below is a list of each of your allies and a small bit about them... more like a character thing, but only of the friendlies. Barney Calhoun - He used to be one of the security guards in Black Mesa from the original Half-Life and starred in Half-Life: Blue Shift, a game where you played as him trying to escape. He's one of your good friends and you'll see him now and then throughout the game. Barney is also the leader of the human revolt in the game. Alyx Vance - She is the daughter of Eli Vance and you only hear about her and see her for the first time in Half-Life 2. Alyx becomes quite a close companion with you and will help you out in many aspects as well as fight along side you in some. Eli Vance - Father of Alyx Vance and the old head scientist at Black Mesa. He lost a leg when he escaped back then, but is still up to his usual work. He also plays a huge role with Barney Calhoun in leading the revolt. The people listen to Eli, which is why he's so "valuable". Judith Mossman - She works with Eli Vance in Black Mesa East, but her views on things may not be what they seem... or are they? Play and find out. Anyway, she was the woman who you, as Gordon, beat out of a job at the original Black Mesa because of some experience in something, so even though she doesn't show it, she hates you. Dog - Dog is a robot that Eli Vance built to protect Alyx when she was little. He's very intelligent and extremely strong and will help you out very little in the game, but he's still an ally and a very cool one at that. Vortigaunts - These are friendly aliens whom you freed when you killed Nihi- lanth in Half-Life 1. They mean you no harm but don't really help out much either. Father Gregory - You only see him in Ravenholm and he's a priest for the old church there. But since the place has been over-ridden with zombies and aliens, he's a loner with a shotgun, just trying to stay alive. He'll help you out a lot in Ravenholm. Revolt People - These are all the humans that revolt and help you out, follow- ing you and gunning down enemies as well. =============================================================================== +--------------------------+ | Section X. - Walkthrough | +--------------------------+ Half-Life 2 is divided into chapters, as will this section of the guide. This section will easily be the biggest and will contain spoilers in it all over the place since it guides you through the game. If you haven't gotten to a particu- lar part, I suggest that you not read that part. Half-Life 2 is an incredible game and should be experienced to the max, and in order to do that, one mustn't have everything spoiled for them. Now, finally getting to the main part of this guide, without further wait, this... is Half-Life 2. ------------------------------------ | A) Chapter 1 - Point Insertion | ------------------------------------ When you first start your new game, the famous, or infamous, whichever you pre- fer, G-Man will wake you up with the following speech which I am going to put here simply because I just love it! "Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise and shine. Not that I wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest and all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until... well, let's just say your hour has come again.... ... The right man in the wrong place can make all the diff- erence in the world.... So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." Anyway, once he's done speaking, you will be on a train with two people. You can go up to the first guy standing by the door and talk to him and he'll say something like "I didn't see you get on." The other guy sitting down, once you talk to him with "E", your use/talk/pickup key, will say something like "I've been relocated so many times... I dunno... I guess you just get used to it." Eventually, the train will come to a stop and you can get off. Follow the two men or run ahead of them, either way. You'll come to an area and will see a guard shove someone who's only trying to get his bag. These guards are called the Combine. They are basically police officers with a lot more pow- er than those we know today. They can abuse people, kill them, etc, without any repercussions. As you'll soon figure out, the human race is now small and petty and the Combine, humans as well, are just some who have joined the side of the ones who have caused the near-extinction. Anywho, go through the revolving metal door and hang a left and head down the hall. You'll come to an area with a bunch of tables and a few people. Turn right and make your way through the fences to the guards and go through the gate that you're told to (the one to the right). The other side will close and lock and a door on the right will open. Uh oh. What's going on? A Combine guard will say "You, citizen, come with me." So follow him. He'll lead you down a hallway to a room and put you in it. The Combine that answered the door will leave and the one who took you in the room will remove his helmet and reveal himself as Barney, one of your old bud- dies from Half-Life 1! He tells you that he's undercover as a Combine and con- tacts Dr. Eli, another person from Half-Life 1. There will come a knocking on the door soon and you'll have to leave. Barney will open a door for you and you can leave. Go up the ladder in the room you are now in and pick up a box with your Use key, default 'E'. Set it down by the window by pressing 'E' again and then dump onto it with Spacebar. TIP: If you jump with Spacebar and also duck with Ctrl, you can make it onto things you normally can't, as well as jump further. It makes sense. If you jump, then tuck your legs, you clear more area, as well as can put those legs on stuff, such as the said box above. Once on the box, jump out the window and head right through the door. Sit back and relax for a few seconds as the next mini-part of this chapter loads. Once it does, head straight up the steps in front of you and go through the door and turn right. A Combine will block your way and throw a can on the floor and tell you to pick it up. Do so and throw it in the garbage can next to him. He'll get out of the way and you can continue. Head straight all the way and turn left to keep going to a pair of double doors. Open them and head outside. Go to your right, down the steps and down the street until you can see a big tank and sev- eral Combine guards standing around. To your right now should be a wide alley. There is a dumpster under a ladder. Jump on the dumpster (using my tip above will help you do this easier), climb the ladder, and jump over the edge to get past the fence that blocked your way. To your left are some more Combine and they have some people pinned to a wall. Go right and there'll be two people standing outside a building. They'll talk about how the Combine are taking over another apartment building. Continue past them into the crappy playground. Just past the slide is a door on the left. Go in it. Head to the next closed door in that small hall to get another loading sign. When that's done, open the door and go in. Head up the stairs to the first real landing and go in it. Some Combine guards are knocking on someone else's door and will kick it in. Go past them when they enter and up the next flight of steps to the next landing. A guy will call you into his apartment. Apparently the Combine are now taking over this building too, AND, they want you! Head through the door that the girl goes in, turn left and head in that one, then left again to another threshold. Go in and you're in a small bathroom that will lead directly to the hallway. Go down the hall and haul your ass up the stairs here. Combines will be coming up as well after you, so move quickly! You'll go into another room and a guy will tell you to head to the roof and he'll block the door himself. Run up the stairs to get another loading sign. When that's done, head up the other steps and you'll be in an attic-looking room. Turn left after coming up the steps and run out onto the roof and head straight and up the ramp. Soon enough, you'll be getting shot at, but don't worry, no damage can or will be done to you. Now af- ter heading up that ramp, turn left and head to where you see a barrel and a paint can or two on the "edge" of the roof. Keep doing and hug the wall on the right and go down the roof and across the boards there. Now, DON'T FALL. If you do, then you're practically screwed and will have to load the last auto-save point (coming into the attic). Keep hugging the walls and continue along the small edges of the roofs until you come to a window that you can hop in. Do so. Go across this attic now and down the steps that will crack and break when you get to the bottom. Oh well. Go in the next room and a ton of Combines will come in after you! There's noth- ing you can do, so just stand around and let them beat you senseless... no, seriously. Do that. The screen will go white and you'll hear a girl beating up the guards and saying "ha! take that!" and such. Feel bad yet? A chick beat them up and you got your ass kicked... Anyway, the screen will come back into focus and you'll see this girl's face in your view. This is Alyx Vance. She'll be playing a big part in the game as an ally. Her father is Dr. Eli Vance, the top scientist at Black Mesa (Black Mesa was the place in Half-Life 1 where you worked and had to escape from) who es- caped. Anyway, Alyx will address you as Dr. Freeman (because that's you, Dr. Gordon Freeman) and will tell you that you two have to hurry because the Com- bine will wake up soon (they never do though, no matter how long you wait). She will open an elevator door and you two will go down it. At the bottom, she'll take you to a big yellow poster and show you a guy that you honestly don't know (even from Half-Life 1). His name however is Dr. Breen, the old ad- ministrator at Black Mesa who is now running the administrator of City 17, the place you're at. Anyway, the wall with the poster will then open up and you two will go through to a narrow hallway. At the end, you'll get a loading sign, and then begin the next chapter. --------------------------------------- | B) Chapter 2 - "A Red Letter Day" | --------------------------------------- You and Alyx will go through the next door into a wider hallway. She'll jump over a railing instead of taking the stairs for no reason. Follow her down the hall as she talks. At the end, she'll "buy you a drink" and the soda machine will open up and you can go into the lab. Dr. Kleiner, another scientist that survived Black Mesa, will be looking for his pet headcrab, Lamar. When he sees you, he'll start talking to you and him and Alyx will start talking about you. He will say that they owe a great deal to Gordon (you) for what you did in Black Mesa and all. Barney will then enter soon and him and Kleiner will talk about a teleporter that they finally have got working. Barney will then open up a big door and you Lamar will jump out and attack him, then run off into the vents. After that, Barney will open a glass thing and you can step into your HEV Hazard Suit. This suit basically gives you armor. You have health, as every FPS game character does, and your suit is armor. You then charge it up at the little black thing in the corner of the room on the wall. Throughout the game, you will find these as well as ones for your health. You will also find medkits and little blue things for your HEV suit as well in boxes and such. Anyway, after that's done, you'll go into another part of the lab with everyone else and Alyx will step into what must obviously be the teleporter. It will start up and then a plug will come out of the socket. Simply pick it up and put it back in and then when Dr. Kleiner tells you to, throw the switch on the pan- el that's right next to that plug. Alyx will be teleported to her father who you all are communicating with on the TV screen. Now it's your turn. Walk into the teleporter and Kleiner will raise it up and get it started. Bar- ney will throw the switch and just then, Lamar will break through the vent and jump into the teleporter beam and everything will go wrong! You'll be teleport- ed to several different places and then away to a different place. You'll even get to be in Dr. Breen's office and underwater. Eventually, you'll end up just outside of where Dr. Kleiner is. When the teleporter stops and you have full control again, jump over the rail to your left and go through the fence and hang a right between the big electric black things. Go up the stairs and through the door and straight ahead to get another loading sign. Once that's over, keep going and Barney will call you back a bit. He'll be up on a ledge. Let him talk and when he's done, he'll give you a crowbar, your first weapon. =) Take the crowbar and keep going and smash the wood blocking the threshold of the fence. Keep going and head up the stairs and turn right and fall down the broken part of fence as the robot thingy snaps pictures. Head left and get up in the train. Use your crowbar to smash apart that wood and the boxes to get to the other side of the train car. Jump out and to your left is a big blue shield thing and a train is coming. Wait for it to pass and then follow it. Now there is a stopped train on your left. Stay close to it and when it ends, go around it and go up the steps and into another train car. Go up the ladder in this car to the roof of it and jump to the roof of a green train car next to you and from there, over the fence past it. Keep going and break apart some more wood and go into the long passage down some steps and you will get another loading sign.... -------------------------------- | C) Chapter 3 - Route Kanal | -------------------------------- After coming down the stairs, you can only go right. Do so. On the wall on the left is a health charger. Use it if you need it. All the Combine guards shoot- ing at you probably did some damage. After you're all charged up, go through the threshold after it and turn left to see two Combines beating a man as his wife/girlfriend is forced aside. Use your crowbar and go up to these Combines and beat the hell out of them. One of them has a gun, the 9mm Pistol, that you will automatically pick up. Proceed past the woman and use you crowbar to break the wood and continue up some stairs. A single Combine is on his way down. A headshot or two from your pistol will have him rolling down those steps. Continue on up until you get to a wide set of steps that lead up outside and has another Combine coming down them, shooting. Kill him as well and make your way up the steps. Up here you'll find three barrels with red fire signs on them. These signs mean that those barrels are filled with something flammable and explosive. Two shots from your pistol sets the barrels on fire and 3 or 4 seconds later, they explode. Three shots from your pistol will simply just blow it up, no wait. Pick up a barrel and place it in the threshold on the fence at the top of the stairs you just came up. Now continue left (as if you'd just come up the steps) and on the right you can head down some steps. You will hear a train coming. Wait on the stair platform for it to come by and slow to a stop. From here, you can jump on top of the train and make your way to the other platform and ladder to the right on the other side of the tracks. When you get there, a few Combine guards will have come up those steps where you placed your barrel. Time to put it to use. =P Shoot your barrel three times quickly to blow those guards to hell, then head on back to them to collect some ammo. On your way back, a couple more will most likely have come up. Kill them as well. Collect all the ammo. It's worth it to have lots and since they have such poor aim and their bullets do little damage, there's no need to worry. Now that you have some good ammo and all, go back across the train and use your crowbar to remove the wood from the threshold of the house. Go in it. On the left, some floor is torn up and there is a medkit laying there. Pick it up if you need it. Now continue on and in the next "room" (there is no roof and half the windows are missing... can't really call it a house) are some more barrels. Set them in a corner and blow them up so you don't have to worry about them. They are useless. Leave the house out that entrance that the barrels blocked and open the gate on the left. Wait for a few guards on the ledge behind the chain-link fence to ap- pear and be shooting at you before popping a few bullets into all those barrels that also happen to be up there. That will teach them a lesson, eh? Anyway, continue on and jump the bent fence and head right. Hang a right directly after it and keep going and duck with the "Ctrl" key into the vent. Break open the small supply box to get a medkit and make your way the only way the vent goes. Use the crowbar to break off the vent's cover on the other side and crawl out. Head to the right and keep going until you can jump off. Do so and keep heading in the only direction you can (due to the blue shield thing). There are two flammable barrels. A guard will come down in perfect shot for one of them. Just shoot it three times to blow him away. Keep going and another guard will roll a flaming barrel down some steps at you. If you're quick enough and see it, you can shoot it before he rolls it and take care of him. If not, get out of the way and kill him after it explodes. Head up those steps and around the corner, killing what guards that come as you go. Straight ahead is another flammable barrel and some stairs that a guard will come down. Kill him and head up the steps. Use your crowbar to break apart the boxes ahead of you and go down the stairs. When you come out, you'll be on the other side of another blue shield. =) Jump off the ledge you're on and on to the railroad tracks below. Way ahead of you are three Combine guards. There are some supply boxes with health and such nearby as well. Make your way towards the guards quickly, killing them if you want or if they get so close that you have to. Just as the tunnel ends, on the right is a fence with a part you can go through and onto a short, broken cat-walk. Go onto it and then jump into the water. Swim in the only direction you can through the big bent open bar-gates until you get to the other end where you'll see a big, red train car with a ladder on one side of it. Climb up in and on top of the car is a hole you can drop down into the car by. Do so. When you get down there you will see an alien called a Vortigaunt. They are friendly aliens that used to be slaves in Half-Life 1 until you freed them. Anyway, the guy in there will tell you some stuff and then the alien will charge your HEV Suit by 30 power. So nice of him. =) The guy will then open up the train car and you can step out. Head left a bit and break the piece of wood that's blocking your path, or move it, whichever. Continue past the fire to get a loading sign.... Past that there is a big barricade of wood. Time to get to work. Get out your crowbar and start beating it away. Eventually a ton of it will break and you can get through. Once past, you will see a blackbird fly a- way and get caught by something hanging from the roof. That's a Barnacle. Just avoid it or kill it if you want. It's only 4 or 5 bullets. Anyway, continue on and you'll see a bunch of innocent civilians get killed by the Combine. On the right, you'll see a man on the other side of some bars in a sewer pipeline get shot and killed by some Combine on the other end. Kill them; there's two. After that, keep going and turn right. Up a bit is another two Combine, one of which is manning a big machine gun that's mounted to a cou- ple of shields. Get in some upper-chest and headshots on him quickly before he pumps you full of lead. Then kill the other. Now look right. There's the sewer opening. Head down it and into a room with a radio and lots of medkits and bat- teries (for your HEV Suit). The radio will sound between two different people until one dies. Next to it is a ladder. Go up the ladder and quickly man the machine gun behind the shield by pressing your Use key while standing right behind it. Now prepare for a fight! Use the machine gun to kill some guards that will be coming around the same corner you did, appearing on the bridge directly ahead of you and up high, and to the upp- er left. It's quite easy and fun and you always have all the health and battery power down below afterwards. When that's done, get all your health and suit power up as much as you can and go back up the ladder. As you come up it, look left. If you didn't already shoot the barrel up on the wooden ledge with the machine gun, do it now with a couple pistol bullets to make it break and give you a small bridge made of ply- wood to cross. So cross it and keep going across that ledge until you jump off it. Head past the big concrete pipes all around until, avoiding Barnacles. One of the pipes you will have to duck and crawl through. When you get out of the hall-like thing you're in, a big black vehicle will go by on the bridge in front of you. You're in the right place. Turn left and head to the open sewer. A girl sitting in a concrete pipes will tell you to keep going to the next station. So do so. You'll drop out of the sewer and there will be another on the right accessible via a ledge. Straight up is a big vent looking thing with two Combine guards on it. Feel free to kill them now while they don't notice you (until your first shot). Jump up onto the next ledge and into the sewer pipe and keep going until you drop out into some water. The top of the vent in this area will blow open and people will start throwing barrels in at you the followed by a flaming one. Go under water and wait for them to explode and open up the next big pipe you can head through. If you didn't kill the guards before, they'll definitely be shooting at you now from the hole way up above. This new pipe that the guards opened up for you will lead you outside. When you look right, two guards will be shooting at you. Kill them and keep going past the green dumpsters and flipped truck. Kill the guards up on the street ledges as they appear. You should see, past the flipped truck, a bridge with some bar- rels under it that are explosive. Shoot them to blow open an area for you to go to. Head to it and climb the small pile of trash and go into the next sewer. You will have to move a few barrels first. Now watch out. The ground here is very slippery. Down in front of you are two Barnacle's tentacles. You can use those barrels and throw them into them to give you a path by them. Past them (your turned left) is a flaming barrel. Take it and throw it down the slippery hill towards all those great friendly Barnacles you can see. Shoot it once on the way down and a second time after a Barnacle has grabbed it and is sucking it up. This will set it on fire and it will explode and kill them all when it gets up to them, giving you free area. Head up through the sewer and out into the water. Watch out now because there are lots of Combine guards throwing a ton of flam- ing barrels into the water. So hide underwater until this is done and then come up and kill them. You can get on a piece of wood that the barrels made fall in- to the water. From here, jump to the ladder, climb it, and jump in the water on the other side of the big metal fence. Swim to the end and kill guards above you on the ledges and bridge behind you as you go. When you get as far as you can go (a big wall), turn around and look right and you can get up on the wood- en "docks" (sorry excuses for docks, but still) and can jump from one to the other around until you get in the other sewer. When you come out of the sewer and into the next area, there will be a loading sign. Now in this area you will no doubtedly see a big piece of plywood teetering on a concrete pipe. Your goal is to find the (nine) bricks that are lying around and place them on the end of the plywood that is up, in order to get it down. You then get on that end, run up it and jump to the ledge and run outside. But wait, what's this? A helicopter! Now seriously, run like hell past it (left) and down the small slope and as soon as you can, hang another left around all the trash. Make you way onto the walk and past the Barnacle and up the stairs to the blue door with all the barrels in front of it. No doubt by now you've seen the power of the helicopter's gun. Quickly start moving the barrels and get inside that door! God down the steps and *whew*, no more chopper... for now. Keep going on the metal catwalk-like floor until you can go left or right. The ladder on the right will take you down and you can get some supplies (medkits and such). So get that stuff if you need it. The path left leads you into a sewer with some water and barrels (and bodies!). When you first come here, look right and grab the flammable barrel and throw it down the slippery slope. The Barnacles down there will grab it. Do the same as before and shoot it a couple times half-way up and it will kill them. Make your way down the slope and hop over the railing on the left. Go up the path and turn right (left is barred off) to see a body with a flammable barrel behind it. Grab it, throw it down this next slope and blow up more Barnacles the same way as before. Go down the slope, hop the rail- ing, and go up to the door. When you get out of the door, run like all hell to the left. The helicopter will be back again and shooting! Keep running left and past the "Danger" sign on the wall and up the stairs and into the new passage in the sewers. There will be a dead guy and a bunch of regular barrels now. Go down some steps past those and into a long hall where you will get another loading sign. Head down the hall and you'll come to a flammable barrel and some boxes. Shoot the barrel and let it destroy the boxes. Keep going and break the wood on the barricade and talk to the guy in that room. He'll go to the door and peek in through the sliding slot and Manhacks will soon burst in. These are small, annoying robots with spinning blades that charge you and almost always attack groups. Wait for them to come to you and then just beat them with your trusty crowbar. When that's done, the guy will talk again and tell you to keep going. So go down the hall of the now open door and you'll eventually come to a gate that you can open, but, there will be more Manhacks behind it. Take out your pistol and destroy them. They can't get to you because of the gate, but you can shoot through it. They only take four bullets to go down. Continue down that hall and hang a left. Now run backwards! Backtrack, because as you just, more Manhacks are coming and there are flammable barrels they can (and will) set on fire! Once those are all blown up and you've beaten to death the Manhacks, continue down the hall and turn right (left is a dead-end) and go down the hall here. The second door on the left leads you to a small room with some supplies. The first one leads you to a gate you have to open. When you do, run like hell to the other side. Jump the box and barrel and duck and open the gate there as quickly as you can. Use your crowbar to break apart the wood that is blocking your way and quickly close the gate! If you did it fast enough, you will have avoided the five Manhacks that come in after you. If not, well, kill them. When done, continue down the hall onto the ledge and down the ladder into the small bit of trickling water in the sewer (I say this so you know you're in the right place). Look down the path and you can see a visible flammable barrel. Shoot it once and then continue. Now keep your crossair on it. When the Combine drops down from above on his cord, shoot it quickly twice more to kill him and then pump the other two that come around the corner ahead full of lead. Head- shots, as said, do wonders and save ammo. NOTE: If you turn around at this point, there are two small sewers, one of which is open and you can duck in. Way down in the back is a box and behind it is half a zombie that comes after you, but behind him (kill him) is a battery for your HEV Suit and a grenade. Upon your exit to continue though, another Combine will drop down on a cord for you to kill. Continue down the main hall where the two Combines came around the corner. Turn the corner and you'll see some bright blue water with a weird metal thing spin- ning in it. Now looking at the water, look down in it and to the left. There is a passage there. Jump in and swim with the spinny thing until you can swim down and get in that passage. It's easy. Swim through it until you can surface for some air real quick, then continue around a corner and surface. Ahead of you (turn around if you don't see it) is a big brown pipe that leads outside. Foll- ow it and two Combine guards will drop down on cords. Kill them and go up on the grass and two more will come running out of a door behind that fence there. Kill them as well. Now get on that big brown pipe from the grassy area and follow it back. Mind the steam coming out of because it will hurt you. Also, kill the three Barna- cles there so they don't catch you. Anyway, back here is some supplies and when you follow the pipe all the way back, there will be a single Manhack behind a some bars. Kill it so it doesn't attack you later. Now, on the right is some wood. Break it and drop down off the pipe and duck and go down into the water. Turn left and go out and surface. Find the ladder in the left far corner (from where you surfaced) and climb up it. You're outside now. Continue forward a bit and as soon as you're spotted, the Combine will start rolling flaming barrels off of a truck at you. Hug the depression in the wall as these roll into the water you just got out of, or go underwater and hide. When the barrels are done, surface and kill the guards up on the ledge. Contin- ue under the bridge and kill the other two that are up on the ledge to the left and the one on the bridge in front of you. Look right and go down a bit of stairs and into the sewers again. Go all the way down the hall (on the right, in two places is supplies) and some Manhacks will appear behind a gate, but, they can get past this one if they go over it.... Aren't they getting a bit annoying by now? Anyway, kill them and go through the gate and up the few steps. Continue down the dark path (turn on your flashlight) and get some of the supplies back here and locate the vent. Break it open and crawl in. Come to the end and fall down and shoot the vent you're now standing on. You'll fall a bit onto some stacked barrels. Uh oh... look at all those flammable barrels. There must be at least 20 of them in this room and as if that's not bad enough, you'll be attacked by Manhacks as well. When the Manhacks first start to flood the room, shoot the barrels. Hopefully this kills a few of them. The others you'll have to do yourself. Anyway, when they're all dead, climb the only ladder on the only pillar in that room. Jump from the top of the ladder onto a pipe and duck on the pipe and fol- low it back and down onto the ledge you wouldn't normally be able to get on. Head to the right and you'll come to a red light. You're right where I want you to be. =) Keep going down that tiny hall and you'll be in a room with tons of pipes and you'll be standing on a catwalk that's connected to the wall. Follow the catwalk around until you can get on a pipe. Use the pipes to make your way down to the two parallel silver ones. If you mess up, use the ladder to get all the way back up and try again. Once on the two silver pipes, look where they lead. Oh gee. A red wheel that you can turn. Well... what're you waiting for? Go up to it and hit your Use key to turn it. This raises the water. Use the ladder now to go all the way back up to the catwalk. Backtrack until you're in the room where all the barrels were. More Manhacks will attack now. Kill them. Now use the ladder you did before, but this time, go down into the water. Swim towards the big sewer pipe and through it and surface quickly. You're running low on oxygen by now. Now what you want to do here is to get out your crowbar, jump back in the water and go all the way down, and start breaking apart those pieces of wood. Eventu- ally you'll break enough of them that you'll release a big circle thing that'll float to the surface. Now climb the ladder nearby and jump from the ledge to that circle thing and from the circle thing to the other side. Continue up the steps and through the hall and just as you come to an area with a fence in front of you, you'll get a loading sign. Climb the ladder to your left and jump from it to the wood. Follow the wood to the ledge (this takes you over that fence). Now jump from there down into the bit of water. Now, facing the fence, head right. Two Combine guards come down on cords. Kill them. Use the barrel here to jump on and then jump up onto the ledge. There's some supply boxes here. Continue down the hall now to fight some Manhacks. Past everything you'll find some supplies in the back with some Bar- nacles as well. Just past the boxes and Manhacks though is a threshold on the right. Go in it and up the ladder. Go from the ladder to the ledge and then cautiously walk along the wood and aluminum until you come to a new ledge with some supplies on it. Get those and then drop down. Go down the hall here and in front of you is a yellow and brown pipe. Now look on the ground. It's filthy and looks really bad, but you can walk on it. BUT, do not walk into the liquid, yellow-greenish-brown water. It's toxic and will easily drain your health. Anyway, continue forward to a guy who will yell about headcrabs and then talk to you a bit before the radio comes on saying that you, Gordon Freeman, must make it to the airboat to get to Black Mesa East. The guy there will tell you that you can have some of his ammo in a crate. The ammo is for the machine gun, or, SMG, that you must have at this point. Anywho, continue on, avoiding the toxic water and you'll find two people that yell something like "they're shelling us" before they die and a big rocket comes plunging into the ground. Just after that, headcrabs (two or three) will crawl out of the rocket's back, so kill them. (Oh and by the way, the constant ticking sound you hear is your HEV Suit detecting high amounts of radiation... the toxic water.) Moving on now... continue back and follow the path. You'll see a man behind a fence with a headcrab on his head and he's screaming for help. You can waste ammo and save him by killing the headcrab, or let him die. Either way. Anyway, at this point, turn left and left again and keep going. Now watch out for headcrabs. They rise out of the ground all over the place from this point on. Anyway, keep going and you'll encounter two zombies who'll wake up and come after you. The best way to kill them is to just shoot them in the head, that way the headcrab dies too. Now continue on and avoid the toxic water still and you'll come to a swinging electric cord. Avoid this, but cross the wood it's swinging over. It's easier than it sounds. Once done, a zombie will break through the wall on the left. Kill it. Now head inside the red train car but be very careful not to touch any of the sides. On the other end of it, another rocket=shell will crash and three head- crabs will come out, so kill them too. Once out of the train car, cross the small metal beam lying across the toxic water. A zombie will pop out of the water, so kill him as well. Keep going and get on the wooden planks and follow them back until you're on what looks like a real nice dock. Keep going and you will meet a woman who has just finished gassing up an airboat. She'll tell you to get in and head for Black Mesa East. Do so with your Use key. Airboat Controls -------------------- W Move Forward S Move Backward A Turn Left D Turn Right Mouse Looks Around (for now) Now take the airboat and drive it out and follow the only path you can through the toxic water. Turn the corner and get used to driving it since you'll have to a whole lot for awhile after this. Once you have the hang of things, find the ramp that gets you up on dry land. You'll have noticed that the big gate you need to get through is closed. Well, once on land, get out of your airboat with the Use key and go over to the gate. Go up to the valve wheel thing and press and hold the Use key until the gate is all the way open, otherwise, it'll just fall closed. Now hop back in your airboat and go in and down the tunnel a bit until you get to a loading sign.... --------------------------------- | D) Chapter 4 - Water Hazard | --------------------------------- After the loading sign, head straight and you'll go down a slope and through three barrels and then some wooden pieces nailed between posts (you can drive right through it all). Ahead you'll see a big red barn (the G-Man is standing on the corner of it, just so you know). Turn slightly left at the barn and on the left is a ramp. Jump it for fun. =) Now your path for now is to just bas- ically stay in the water and head between the posted you see as markers. After a couple, there will be a big wooden ramp. Jump it and turn right. Up on the bridge, a guy calls out to you and throws you some supplies. If you need it, get out and get it. Just after him, you'll come to a ramp that you can't get up, so stop your boat right in front of it and get out of it. Facing the ramp, look left. There's a sewer pipe. Go in it and follow it back (it's dark, use a flashlight) until you come to an opening where there are two blue barrels at the end. Pick them up and throw them down in the water. Now jump down with them and you see how part of the un-jumpable ramp is underwater? Take the barrels and swim under a bit and put them underneath it where the other one already is. That makes three. You need four. Get out of the water and if you're standing, looking at the ramp you will see a way you can go on the left exactly next to it. The last barrel is on that flat part of concrete. Now that the ramp is raised, get in your airboat, back up some and jump the ramp into some toxic water. You turn left and will see a big ship pass over by you. It's a dropship. It's dropping off three Combine guards ahead of you... but they don't know you have an airboat moving at 40 miles an hour.... Keep go- ing and you'll get to them. They'll be shooting at you and will be lucky to hit you as you're running them over. After them, follow the water on the right, next to the wall until you turn the corner and there's a huge ramp on the far left. Go to it and jump it into more toxic water. Now go back and stay on the right and high up on some wooden ledges ahead of you, you'll see some Combine guards. Simply drive your airboat under those ledges to know them all down and kill them. After that, you'll fall into some normal water. Hang a left and go under the bridge and you'll get a loading sign. Stay in the water and follow between the posts until there is a bridge broken in half with a single Combine guard on the right side of it. Hang a right with your airboat after the bridge and park it next to the stairs there. Get off, get on the ledge, go up the stairs and the ladder right next to it, kill the Combine, and go in the only door up there. At last, some peace... or not. Dr. Breen will soon come on that big TV and start talking to the citizens of City 17 about you, though he will never mention your name. Go into the next room once he's shut up (or completely skip him) and kill the two guards here. In this room is also a machine gun mounted on some shields. Remember it. There is also a green box with grenades in it. Keep going past the big black Combine tanks and go in the next door and then the next one where you will face a single Combine and a ton of Manhacks (four or five actually). Kill them and then exit through the door in this room. (There is a box with grenades in it in this room also.) Once out the door, about 50 yards in front of you is a single Combine manning a machine gun. Use some grenades to throw way down at him to kill him. You can also sneak behind some of the things around to get to him. Past him is another door though. Go in that and in this room are three more Combine guards. One is straight ahead (but down since you're on stairs) on the floor behind something, another is behind the pole on your left, and the other is up on the stairs on the right. Kill them all. Now go down the stairs you're on and up the others and through that door as well. Look right. There are some flammable barrels. Blow them all up to watch a big chunk of metal tied together fly down and break open the gate and sound an alarm. A dropship will also pass over you. Now backtrack all the way back to your airboat. In the room with the stairs, no one is there, but outside, you will want to quickly man that machine gun be- cause seven or eight (maybe more!) guards are down at the other end. Once they are dead, keep going back. In the room with the big black Combine tanks and the first grenade box are also a good five or six guards. Kill them and you're done for now. Go down and get in your airboat. Head straight and through the gate you broke open. Follow the water now and head through posts and under a bridge with Combines shooting at you. You'll go down a big slope and about 100 yards ahead on the cliff-side is a black Combine tank shooting rockets at you, so as soon as you can, hang a right and don't stop! Follow the water and watch for the Barnacles hanging from one of the bridges. Also, Combines will drop down from ropes from the bridges. Simply run right into them as they do to kill them. There is one more bridge after the one with Barnacles and after it, hang a left. There's another tank shooting rockets! Head through the two posts going straight at it and as soon as you're through them, turn right and head that way. A big fire will spread across the water, so use the ramp on the right to jump over it. You'll go under a big bridge and hang a right after that and keep going straight no matter what. The Combine tank up on the cliff will take car of the cars in your way. Drive through the wood nailed across the posts and into one of the tunnels (they go to the same place, doesn't matter which one). Head through some water to get another load- ing sign. When that's done, head straight. On the right is a big green hill that just wraps around the wall and turns you left. Now in front of you is some stuff in the way. No problem! Look right when you get to it. Just simply go around it. You can ram right through the post in the water. Now in this little tunnel once past that is another green hill turning you left again to a straight-away with green hills on alternating sides as you go, kind of just to make you swerve for no reason, I guess. Anyway, at the end is two openings, both go right outside. Once out, a Combine far off on a concrete ledge will start shooting at you. Turn right and you'll see a big ship that's been grounded. By this time, the alarm should have already sounded. No matter. To the left of the ship is a place to park your airboat, sort of a small inlet. Do so and go in the door right there. Head down the hall to the table where you'll pick up the .357 Mag- num and some ammo for it. The door just ahead of you will open within seconds and three Combine guards will be there to shoot you. The Magnum will kill them in one shot each. Go in the door they opened and keep going the only way you can (a fence is on the left, wall on right) until you can turn right and go up some stairs. At the top of the stairs is a single Combine. Kill him and now run like hell! The oh- so-friendly helicopter is back! When you come up those stairs, head straight and between the red and blue cargo containers and you'll have to turn right (due to the red one in front of you). A Combine is straight ahead and a Manhack may attack you as well, so watch it. Take a left at the blue dumpster turned on its side. It's there for you to hide in as the chopper shoots at you. Do so if need be. When the helicopter stops shooting, run out of the big blue dumpster and past the barrels, around the red cargo container on your right. Ahead of you is a big wooden structure now and some boxes that you can hide under now as the helicopter starts shooting again. Directly in front of you is an open cargo container. You can run into that next to hide. There is also a couple of boxes of supplies in there too. When you come out, at about your 1 o'clock position, there is two Combine guards. Kill them just like all the others. The magnum works wonders. =) At this point, turn left and go inside the warehouse (big opening, can't miss it). In the far right corner (you can go through a containment thing or between two of them to get there) is a set of stairs. Go up them and straight ahead, there are two Combine guards. Kill them and turn right and across the room will be several more. Use your magnum to take them out with precision accuracy, or save your ammo and use the pistol and unload a few clips into them. Either way, when they're dead, jump across the tops of the cargo containers to the other side where they were. Collect a butt-load of ammo and go down the small hall that the Combine were coming out of and up the stairs. Watch out now because the helicopter can shoot through those windows. On the other side of the room from which you just entered via the steps are a bunch of boxes. Break them apart with your crowbar and go through the threshold and look to the right. Kill the Combine there and then the two coming up the stairs. Head down the stairs and there's an opening where you go back outside, but on the wall is a charger for both your suit and your health, so charge both of them up since you've no doubt lost some health and suit power if you had any before. When you're all charged up (or the chargers go dead and can't charge you any more), run outside and go around the right of the cargo thing in front of you and then straight forward until you get to a big pile of rocks. Turn right here and you'll see a gate with a sign above it that says "Gate 5" and something a- bout "industrial" whatever. Kill the two Combine that appear under this and then head through it. Head down between the fences on both of your sides until you can turn left or go up the ladder on your right. First, go up the ladder. Kill the two Combine at the top and push the button on the control panel with your Use key. A buzzer/alarm will go off for a few seconds. Now go back down the ladder and go the other way and continue down the narrow path. Jump the rail at the end and quickly swim back to your airboat that, if you parked it where I said to, will be directly ahead of you. Mind the helicop- ter still shooting at you, so move quickly. Get in your airboat and back out and turn left. Keep going past all the wooden poles on the left. Now, the tun- nel on the left past those is where you came from, so go right, through the big flood-gate that you opened when you pushed that button on the control panel up that ladder. Speed along the smooth water with a deadly helicopter on your tail until you can hang a right before some ships that are piled up. Keep going straight and under the bridge. About this time, the helicopter will be ahead of you and will start to drop black balls in the water. These are like mines. Don't hit them or you'll lose a bit or health and be thrown around some in your boat. Anyway, make the left that you have to and head straight. Ahead of you is a wall that slants up and on the right is a section like a concrete dock that goes into it. What you have to do is drive up that wall, turn right, and come down the other side of it on the other side of that concrete dock. It's easier than it sounds, trust me. Anyway, once down on the other side, speed along straight and turn the corner (left as it is) and go in the sewer tunnel. Head through this until you see light on the other end and get a loading sign. After the loading sign, prepare for one of the best parts in the game. Exit the tunnel you're in and head out into the light where the chopper is and hang a left. Follow the water for now and speed along until the helicopter passes over you. Now it will start to drop bombs in the water again. Avoid these, but use them to practically guide you now. It's a one-way path, but they and the heli- copter are the best things to "follow" for now. Your first turn will be a left (after the one I already said) and you'll see a ship grounded on your left and a small wooden boat you can pass over in the water. Ahead is another ship on your right and you turn the corner after it left. It's a big turn. Now ahead is a dam made of logs that you can easily get around by going up the small bit of land on the left. Right after it though, turn right. Your only path now after the dam and the right turn is straight and into a piece of concrete sewer pipe. There are tons of them in a line that you race along. Eventually you'll get to a really long one that wraps a right turn and now straight ahead is one that exits this series of tunnels. When you come out, you'll be in the air for a second before landing on top of another piece of rounded pipe segment. Don't fall off... it's annoying if you do. Just manage to stay on the three small pieces for a few seconds at high speed until you go flying into the long, whole tunnel straight ahead. This is another long sewer that you follow to... yes, you guessed it... another loading screen. When the loading screen is done, exit the tunnel (by following it to the exit, duh) and ahead of you will be a fork in your path (the chopper is still follow- ing you and shooting). Take the right since the left is blocked. Directly ahead of you now is a couple of logs on the left that get you past a huge piece of dam. Go up them as fast as you can and you'll end up on a ledge you can follow to the water below. If you fall off of it, you'll fall like, two feet, and can still follow that part to the water below. So really, whether or not you actu- ally make it on the ledge doesn't matter. Anyway... When you land in the water after about a twenty or thirty foot drop, make a right and you'll go under a bridge. Straight ahead is a square passage for you to enter. Do so and you'll come out on the other end (after turning a left in the passage) to a long straight away. There are slanted walls on the sides, so the helicopter's bombs can be avoided quite easily. When the long straight-- away ends, hang a left and break the wood across the posts and keep going. Watch out for the Barnacles hanging under the next bridge, and right after it, make a right. You'll pass under a really big bridge that has a small ledge on the right (just for description by me that I'm mentioning it... so you know where you are). Keep heading straight and head right around the big red cargo containers that are in the water and up the big ramp. Make the easy jump to the concrete right here next to a big red warehouse. You can stop and go inside, but nothing much is inside except a small elevator for you to lower yourself into the water that you're about to land in (if you pass up the warehouse) and some supplies. Any- way, keep going and you'll fall into some water. Turn left and ahead of you, a miss-le will bomb an industrial plant of some sort and a huge red smoke stack will fall into the water and break into a bunch of pieces. When the stack starts to fall, stop your airboat and wait for it to break. Once it has, you can clearly see the part of it sitting in the water that you have to jump to get over it. Once you do, you'll follow the water right and ahead, way up on the ledge is another big black Combine tank shooting missiles at you. Dodge those, but head straight at it so you can go inside the big sewer pipe directly under it. Follow this pipe around a turn to a loading sign. Now straight ahead is blocked, but take your airboat up to the last small pool of muddy water before the big barred sewer. Get off and go a bit into the water where there is a supply box and a zombie will pop out of it. Kill him and then on the land just before the water, look left and there's a ladder. Go up it and onto the ledge and from there, drop down to the top of the concrete sewer pipe. Walk on it and across the small wooden bridge to the yellow aluminum roof. From that, down onto the wooden scaffold. See the wash machine now? Go up to it and push it (just walk against it) until it falls off the ledge. Now jump down to where it fell (which is on top of a rusted metal thing). Jump off of that and locate the yellow lever just next to that rusted metal thing. Pull it (with the Use key) and watch as it falls and the ramp raises. =) Get on your airboat once again, jump this ramp and make a left. Follow the tunnel back to the locked gate and a woman starts to speak, obviously knowing you, then a man. They'll open the gate and you can park your airboat inside here. Get off of it and follow the man into the room he wants you to. He'll show you a map that you most likely won't understand since you're so far from the area he points to. He'll then tell you that you stand absolutely no chance against the helicopter without a gun yourself, with the Vortigaunt (the alien) is mounting to your boat now. So go out, get in your boat as the two people say to, and get ready to leave. They'll open the gate that is now right in front of you, and you have to take that tunnel outside. There's a tun of junk and boxes in this tunnel you can practice using your gun on. Just outside of it is the helicopter you can also shoot at. Your ammo recharges itself, so there's no need to worry about that. Just ahead of you is some more pieces of wood nailed between posts. Break that and head up the red aluminum ramp and turn right. Go through the gate ahead and it, and the one in front of you will close. Turn around and shoot the Combine that are up on the ledge to the right and the couple on the left with your new gun. Now go a bit backwards (forwards now that you're facing that way) and up the piece of fence in the water to the ledge. Keep going straight on the ledge until you're off it. You'll land down in some toxic water. Ahead, up on a ledge, is another black Combine tank shooting at you. Using just about all 100 plasma bullets you have (they recharge though, remember), you can destroy it... or you can just run like hell around the corner and keep going. You'll make a left and there will be a small "island" of high land in the water that you go around to a tunnel straight ahead that has a bunch of Combine in it and some flammable barrels. Simply kill them or blast the barrels or speed by them. Either works. Just af- ter the first right turn in this tunnel though, you'll see that it drops down, but just before doing that, you get a loading screen. After that, you'll still be in the tunnel, just a bit lower. Follow it out and there will be another tank ahead. Keep going and under the passage. It will turn right and when you come out, you'll see a big blue airship (it's actually a Dropship) pass over you. Keep going straight and into another passage that turn you right. When you come out, watch for the two bridges with Barnacles hanging from them. Straight ahead, you'll come to another fork. To the right is a Combine and some supplies (and a fire truck on its side) and then a dead end. To the left is where you want to go. Once you've taken the left fork, stay on the right and go up the curved hill on the wall to jump the ramp into the tunnel. In this tunnel are some zombies, but you can just run them right over. Watch out for the single Barnacle hanging from the middle as well. Follow the tunnel until you come out and fall about twenty feet to some more water. Turn right here and ahead of you, flames should spread across the water. You can go up the right on the land here to avoid them or drive right through for a tiny reduction in your Suit power (nothing major at all, lol). Head up the ramp that flammable barrels are rolling down. Avoid hitting as many as you possibly can before turning left at the top and going down the other side. (Watch for all the Combine shooting at you from the high ledge where the barrels are coming from.) Head down the ramp now and watch for the Barnacle hanging from the bridge and the Combine on the left. When you get close to the bridge, another will come down on a rope. Kill him or ram him, whatever. When you get near the corner where you turn right, two more will come out from behind it. Kill them as well and make the right and head straight and into that sewer pipe ahead. Keep an eye out for the Barnacle in here as well. When you exit this pipe, turn right and make a left around the big ship on your left very slowly. Up now, on the dock to your about 10 o'clock is a big black Combine tank. Unload all your bul- lets on it and maybe a few more to destroy it. Back up and hide behind the ship is any rockets come near you. Then sneak out and blast it some more. Now straight ahead of you in the water is another grounded ship. Speed over to it and hide behind it. As you're speeding over, another tank from behind you will be firing at you, so now use this ship to hide behind as you turn around a bit and unload a clip or two at it. Once it's dead, that's all for the moment. Now, look around this area for two red cargo containers. To the right of one of them is a hole in the big fence that you, as Gordon (not on the airboat, I mean), can sneak through. Do so and go around and inside the cargo container and simply shoot one of the two flammable barrels in it twice with your pistol to blow open the closed side of it. Now get back on your airboat and drive through and head back behind this part (under the dock) and you'll jump a ramp into a tunnel. Follow the tunnel out to a long area with a ship at one end. Just before the ship though is a tunnel to your right you can take. Do so and you'll get a loading sign. Once the loading sign is done, just head straight out of this little dark pass- age and turn left. Now you have a huge area. This area is... well, your new, for now, battleground. Continue forward until you hear an alarm sound a couple of times and see the helicopter come up over the big gate and wall. By now, in the water, you should see a bunch of flammable barrels floating around. Get rid of as many of them as you can so they aren't a nuisance later when you're driv- ing around trying to avoid bombs. Anyway, that chopper is your main enemy now. Kill it or be killed by it. All you really have to do is unload 4 or 5 clips from your airboat's gun into it, but watch out. It has guns of its own, and after awhile, it starts dropping rows upon rows of bombs down on you as it passes over. It's almost like raining bombs. So, dodge these as best you can or shoot any that are coming directly at you. If one nails you exactly, with low health, it could very well kill you. If you just hit one in the water, it'll just knock you around a bit. Anyway, shoot down the chopper. You finally get to, so do so. When it goes down in flames and pieces, sigh, take a break, and congratulate yourself on a job well done... and admit it, that was fun! Anywho, look for the gate now that the helicopter flew over. It says "Nopm 5" in red letters on top of it. Go to it and face it. Get off your airboat and lo- cate the ladder on the left. Go up it and open the gate. You will have to hold down your Use key on the valve until it clicks and locks the gate up. When it's done, get back in your airboat and go through. Right ahead of you, no more than fifty feet or so is a broken dock that is now a big ramp. Simply jump it onto the land above and park your airboat. Now in front of you is what looks like a circular concrete oil tank that goes near nuclear power plants, but it's really just a raised helicopter pad. Behind that is a red warehouse with two Combine shooting at you from just outside it. There is also a single Manhack. Kill them all. Inside the warehouse, you will find two more Combine, but a TON of ammo for all your weapons, grenades, and two chargers; one for your suit and one for your health. =) Quite a reward af- ter the chopper, eh? Once restocked on things, exit the warehouse and go behind it. Run across the small wooden bridge here and follow the only path you can take (past some boxes and barrels) until you get to a ladder that goes down and puts you behind some fence with barb-wire on top of it. Go down the ladder and all the way to the dam gate control console. It's the only thing there and you can see it sparking some, so you can't miss it. Flip the switch on the right and you'll hear a gate open. That was easy. Now, make your way all the way back to your airboat in front of the warehouse and take it all the way back to your helicopter battle- ground. Now look for the actual dam. If you face the "Nopm 5" gate, it's to the right about 60 degrees. You'll notice that there are two logs that form a jump that go towards it, and now that you've opened the gate, through part of it. So, jump it! You'll go flying through that gate part of the dam and will fall in your airboat about 100 feet, probably more until you hit the water. When you do, you'll get a long loading sign.... ------------------------------------ | E) Chapter 5 - Black Mesa East | ------------------------------------ Turn right after falling from the dam and go up to the dock on the left. Park the airboat and say goodbye. You won't be using it any more after this... t'was fun while it lasted though, right? Anyway, climb up the ladder and face the big building. Now go right and go around the back of it, through the fence opening and into the small dead-end (door on other end) room. The door behind you will slam shut, the lights will click off, and other lights will turn on. Two cam- eras will come out and a woman's voice will start talking to you. Eventually, she'll realize you're Gordon Freeman and the scanning process will end. This woman is Dr. Judith Mossman. I won't tell you much about her now because if I did, I could ruin the story way too early. Basically, she works with Eli Vance, the guy you saw briefly on the television screen back in Dr. Kleiner's teleportal lab. Anyway, when you get to, follow her. She'll lead you through a door and then down an elevator, talking about how advanced their technology and experiments are now. Once down the elevator, you'll finally meet Dr. Eli Vance. He and Judith will talk for a bit and then she'll leave to go into a room. Follow her and she'll tell you to go back to Eli. Do so. A few moments later, Alyx will come into the room to greet you. She'll climb a ladder and work on something until Judith comes back into the room and they start arguing. It's obvious that Alyx doesn't like Judith. But oh well. Eli will tell Alyx to take you and show you how to use the Gravity Gun. Judith will call it the Zero Point Energy Field Manipula- tor, but whatever. I'll call it the Gravity Gun. Follow Alyx back through the one door. As soon as the one to Eli's lab closes, she'll start criticizing Judith. You two will come to another door that she'll unlock and then go down another hall. On the right, she'll stop and tell you that the dark path is the old passage to a place called Ravenholm and that no one goes their any more. You two will then come to another door shortly after that you'll enter. It's another scanning room, except it doesn't scan you this time. The only thing that happens when the door behind you closes is that you get a loading sign. When the loading is done, Alyx will open the next door and on the other side, will talk just a bit about the Gravity Gun before handing it to you. Now this is a very, very neat toy, one that makes Half-Life 2 incredibly original. The Gravity Gun (I may refer to it as "GG" too) can basically pick up tons and tons of things. There are a lot that it can't pick up, such as bodies, people, or cars (though it can push cars around), but the things it CAN pick up include guns, health packs, batteries, paint cans, jars, pots, barrels, flammable barr- els, signs, boxes, bricks, pieces of fence, saw blades, oxygen tanks, etc. You can even draw those things to you from a distance (right mouse button, as Alyx describes). You can then press the left mouse key, the Primary function, and send the held object flying away at a good 100-200 miles an hour... usually right into an enemy. If you don't want to draw an item to you, and are close enough to it, you can just press the left mouse button to give it a huge energy jolt and send it flying. You can do this to a lot of things that are too big to pick up, like cars...... Now at many points in the game, you will need to use the Gravity Gun, or may even need it quickly. That is why instead of pushing the 1 key on your keyboard every time and going below the Crowbar for it, you can simply reach your finger over and press the 'G' key. Well, this is a little hard for some you with short fingers, so to make it easier, you can always change this key in the Keyboard tab under Options (hit 'Esc' key to get to a menu with "Options" on it). I personally have it set on the 'Q' key since that key isn't being used by anything else. It works and is easier, trust me. Anyway, play around with the GG for awhile until Alyx runs over and gets on a small roof and tells you to pile up some stuff and get on it. Well, do that and then follow her. Drop back down to the ground and go left around the big gas tank and she'll proceed to call Dog, a big robot that Eli built to protect her when she was little. Dog is, by a stretch, one of the coolest characters in the game, and you'll see why much later. Just be glad he's on your side. Anywho, Alyx will want you and Dog to play catch. The object of the "game" - if you wish to call it that - is to draw the boxes towards you after dog throws them to you. Do this a few times and then Alyx will tell Dog to get his ball.... Uh oh, what could this be? Anyway, his ball turns out to be a Rollermine. It's an object you see awhile later in the game that is a bomb and enemy, but this one is fine. It's silver with neon blue lights and is about the size of a basketball. You can play fetch with Dog if you like, or to speed things up, can just throw it over the high ledge/cliff behind where Dog was getting boxes from. Alyx will say "Where's your ball Dog?" and then will have you play catch again... but Dog doesn't have anything to throw, so he picks up that huge green dumpster...... Now you know you can't catch that. Thank heavens Alyx stops him! Just after she does, Dog over-reacts some and as it turns out, the Combine are scanning the area! Run and follow Alyx back to the airlock chamber with Dog. Get in and the door will close and Alyx will start talking to her dad on the small screen. Eventually he'll get cut off as he's telling you two not to go through Ravenholm. When he's cut off, Dog will rip open the door and Alyx will take off. Follow her and part of the roof will cave in between you and her, making you take a long (very long) detour. Dog will lead you to the tunnel that goes into Ravenholm. Go down it and move the boxes and crap on the right and go down the stairs. Move the green filing cabinet at the bottom that's blocking the way through the fence. Go over to the thing that looks like an elevator (with a dead body on it, might I add). Well, it is an elevator, but it's not working. So look on the side of it for the ladder. Shoot the lock off the gate thing that's over it and climb all the way up into a room practically made of wood. Locate the dark hall and turn on your flashlight and make your way down it just a bit before getting a loading sign.... -------------------------------------------------- | F) Chapter 6 - "We Don't Go To Ravenholm..." | -------------------------------------------------- Make your way out of the dark hall (very short distance) and you'll be in the beginning of Ravenholm. Ravenholm is a place that the vast majority of people who used to live there, have left. The ones who stayed are turned into... well, you'll see. Move forward to the big tree that has half a person hanging from it and to your left is a zombie laying down who, if you get close enough, will get up and come towards you. The best way to kill a zombie completely is to get it in the head. Otherwise, the headcrab on it's head will just detach itself and also come after you. So remember: headshots. Continue forward and you can break some wood and get inside a building. In here as you'll see, all over the walls are saw blades. Ready to have some real fun with the Gravity Gun? Move the table that has the oxygen tanks (also able to be picked up) and grab a saw blade (or oxygen tank). In the next room you'll meet several zombies. Just blow them apart/set the on fire with the oxygen tanks or cut them in half with the saw blades. When they're all dead, head down the next and only passage in this room and turn left. Kill the zombies that come around the corner. After the zombies here (with a couple of flammable barrels), exit out through a very dark thin hall into a small courtyard with a tree in the middle of it and then a smaller one as well (tree, I mean). You will hear a guy talking if you listen closely. Now, the only way you can go is past a big spinning... thing. Well, something as thin as that thing and mov- ing that fast must be dangerous, so duck (with the 'Ctrl' key) and go under it. To the left, two zombies will come down the stairs. Kill them or backtrack and let them walk mindlessly into the spinning blade. Go up the steps that the zom- bies came down and move the wood in front of the threshold. In here is another spinning blade thing, but it's not moving... oh well. Anyway, to the left near the corner is an exit from this room. Go to it. To the left, some zombies will come out at you, so kill them. Exit and watch for the zombies now. Continue to the right and look for the few flammable barrels. Use them to kill the zombies coming around the corner. Con- tinue on to the next room with barrels and exit to the door on the right. Drop outside and kill the single zombie leaning against the barrel. Make a left and there will be a green car against a wall and an enormous fire ahead of you as well as some burning zombies stumbling towards you, being shot by the guy high up on that building. Go up the stairs a bit, just right before the fire and then go left. You should see ahead of you a gray gas tank. Go behind it and turn the big red valve (not the little switch that causes sparks and does nothing) to turn off the gas and stop the fire. Now go in the door that turning off the fire revealed, right there near you. In this room are several zombies up the one set of steps that you can easily kill with the barrel or two in the room. Find the set of stairs now though that has dressers and wardrobes blocking them. Use the GG to move all the dressers and such and make your way up the flight of steps. Kill the zombie leaning against the barrel and turn left and go into the next room after moving the dresser blocking the threshold (doorway, by the way) to it. Make another left in this room and go through the threshold into even the next room, killing the Fast Headcrabs (which are actually just slow since these ones are Black Headcrabs) first. In the next room you'll find a switch that is mak- ing sparks and another black headcrab. Kill it and pull the switch to turn off the electricity to a fence you'll later come to. Now make your way out of this building the same way you came in, but be aware of the few more black headcrabs that you'll encounter, two of which will fall just before you step back outside where the big fire was. Now, the street in this area is at an incline. Head up it. On your right, two zombies will break apart some wood on the door and come after you. Kill them. Inside the room is some supplies and such (and a zombie behind a cage you can set on fire!). When you get what you need, head back up the street until it becomes even again and there's another fire blocking your way. Well, in plain view is the gas tank, so just turn off the gas and the fire will go out. Con- tinue down the small alley part and kill the two and a half zombies here (yes, there's half of one). Go up the ladder on the fence (which used to have elec- tricity flowing through it until you turned it off) and down the other side. Head up the ladder on the left wall on the other side of the fence to a catwalk landing. Here, there is another ladder, so head up it as well. Now if you're facing the building wall still, simply turn around and you can see the roof of another building. Jump from there to it and head the only direction you can for now (right). Again, the guy will start talking (he'll come out of part of the roof of the building ahead of you). He'll tell you that you can use his traps, but don't get caught in them yourself. Simple enough. So now go to the very edge of the roof that you're on and peer over the side. Slightly to the left you should see some wood making a small bridge across the street, now far below, to a window. Jump to the wood, follow it to the window, and hop in. Go through the threshold on the left I believe and kill the single zombie and the three or four headcrabs below the broken floor you're on before jumping down there. Once you're down, looking for the part of wall that simply has wood nailed across it to block your way. Break it and exit here the only way you can. Now in this area, there are lots of zombies. But, that's what you have the two switches for that drop the cars down on them to smash them into bloody little pancakes... no, really. Seriously. Anyway, there are two cars in this area that will fall straight down (and crush anything below them) when you pull the yell- ow lever located 10-15 feet from them. Use these cars (and some guns) to kill off the zombies here. Now, from where you came there was one car, and then you found the second one, right? Past the second one is a street upwards that leads to a dead end closed door. So, what you have to do here is pull the lever for that car, and when it falls, run over to it and jump on top of it. The pulley machine will activate shortly after like it did every other time and will lift you up. Now once up there, just locate the small wooden ledge on the wall of the building and jump to it. You will hear the man's voice again say something like "Better than better!" and he'll then tell you his name is Father Grigory. Anyway, follow the wood to the window and jump in it. Go in the door in this room and down the hallway to- wards the next door to get a loading sign. Ok, once done loading, open the door and kill the fast headcrab that rushes at you. There are some barrels on the left of the steps if you need them, but you most likely won't. Now go up the steps to hear some gunshots. Go in the door on your right and watch out for the zombie lying around in this room. Outside the window are some more zombies, and yes, that's where you have to go. So go out and look right after Father Gregory leaves and kill the zombies there. Now look down on the ground and kill as many zombies and fast headcrabs (the ones that look like spiders with four legs) as you can. Use the flammable barrels to your advantage. Once they are dead, jump to the ledge directly across from the window you came out of. From there, jump to the ground. Now locate the car. See which way it's facing? Head in that direction and go up the silver ladder you'll see on the wall. Now get on the thin steel beam on the right (there's two) and follow it until you can go in the window. The left beam will take you to an attic with some supplies and a headcrab or two. Once in the window, go in the door in this room and you'll be in a room with some tables that all have dead zombies on them, as if someone had been operating... weird. Anyway, go down the stairs at the other side of this room and kill the six or seven zombies coming at you. They're slow, so you can always just back up and kill them as they come up the stairs. When they're dead, continue down the stairs and turn the two corners that you can and head towards the threshold be- fore getting another loading sign. Now just across from the threshold you passed through is a small room with some supplies in it, health mainly. Go right from the first threshold and you'll see some awful things jump from roof to roof and you'll hear some screams. Those things are Fast Zombies. Watch out now, because one may attack. It'll come straight at you though, so no need to worry. Just pump it full of lead. Anyway, turn left as soon as you can and go in the door. You'll be in a room now that has a lot of washing machines. Follow the room back and turn through the door to be in front of a bunch of boxes. Behind them is a zombie, so don't be going too fast past them. Continue around the next corner to a set of stairs. A zombie is coming down them, so kill him. At the first landing, another zombie will break some wood across a threshold. Kill him. In that room is a couple of headcrabs. Now in the green door on that first landing are two more zombies, but also some supplies I believe. When you're all done hear, simply head back up the rest of the stair case. At the top are two headcrabs and a door directly in front of you. Kill the headcrabs and head outside on the roof part you're now on and go left some until you see Father Gregory over on a catwalk. Go close to him and he'll tell you that you've raised hell in Ravenholm and will toss you "a more suitable weapon", the shotgun. Pick up some spare ammo for it on this roof as well. Once you have the shotgun, look off the roof and locate the big circular tank of water. Jump from the roof into it and climb out using the ladder. Climb up the next ladder and prepare for a fight. About ten of fifteen fast headcrabs will now come at you from almost every direction. Your best strategy is to just blast them in the head with your shotgun. Do so quickly or else you'll have them all around you, thrashing at you. Once they are dead, go in the door on this roof and close it behind you quickly. Find and click the elevator switch (two red buttons) in this room and then look up. See the glass? Wait for a mom- ent and two zombies will come through it. Kill them. Now wait for the elevator since it takes forever to get up to you, and then get in once it's there. Push the switch inside it and continue looking at the cars below as you ride down at about 1/2 a mile an hour. Once almost down, you'll see a big limping creature. This is a zombie that actually throws headcrabs at you, and BEWARE. The headcrabs it throws are highly poisonous. They will take your health all the way down to one and the only thing that will save you is the antidote that your HEV Suit administers. So, kill this guy fast, or better yet, just run past him. Your path is up the pieces of wood on the cars and over the fence. Follow this area back to a room that has a single headcrab in it, a locked door, and a dead guy on a bed. There is supplies here as well. Now exit and continue down your dark path to a loading sign. Now, this next area is huge. There are tons of zombies and even some poison-- headcrabs throwing ones. I'm simply going to guide you straight to and through what you need to do (hey, all of that rhymes!) to move along to the next part. Feel free though to explore the dark alleys and kill more zombies if you like. Anyway, head straight and out onto a street. A couple of flammable barrels will roll off a roof in front of you and do nothing really, not even explode. I am guessing they are for your use. Anywho, turn left and go down the street and past the hanged guy. Ahead of you is one of those spinning blade things, but it is stopped. Go up almost to it and turn right. Ahead of you are a couple of flammable barrels. Go past them (left) and up the stairs and into a small shack type of building at the top. It has some medkits in it and a few oxygen tanks you can use to set some zombies on fire. >=) Exit the small shack through the only way you can and pull the yellow lever us- ing your Use key. This will move a platform across some wires for you to use later on. I just had you do it first, now, to save some time. Now jump over the rail in front of you back to the street, right by the stopped spinning blade. Go past it and there is a locked door directly ahead. Make a right at this door and go into the grassy area. Now be quick! Jump up the boxes here and onto the very low concrete roof. From here, head forward some and jump onto the ledge that has a flammable barrel on it and a ladder. Go up the ladder and you're on a thin ledge attached to the walls of the buildings. Lucky you. Follow this ledge only a bit and you will come to a box that has a piece of wood on it that leads you to the next tin, dark roof. On this room now is ano- ther piece of wood that takes you to yet another roof, and then from there, a thinner piece that takes you to a wooden catwalk type thing with three flamm- able barrels on it. You can go two ways now. One, you can go left and onto a red roof with some supplies and ammo. If you do that, then you simply have to turn back around and go do number two; go past the barrels (or use them if you want) and jump from the wooden catwalk to the platform that you moved with the lever earlier. From this platform, jump to the wood on the other side that has the two medkits on it. From here, look straight ahead of you. There is another (lower) roof that has a ladder on it. Head in this direction, but beware of the several fast zombies that will be jumping at you from the high roofs on your right. Kill them quickly so you can take care of others as they come. Once up the ladder, Father Gregory will talk to you again and tell you something like "did I not tell you to seek the church?" Well, once he leaves, jump across the street be- low to the catwalk that will break as soon as you touch it. Don't worry though, no harm done. Go in the room here atop the metal catwalk. Go through the door in this room and kill the three or four zombies that limp towards you. Head through the threshold (up four small steps) into the room that they came from (there is a radiator and two wash machines in this room... just so you have a detailed description of where you are again). Now locate the set of steps that go down and kill the few zombies at the bottom of them that are coming up after you and then go down them to get a loading sign. At the bottom of the stairs, go to the right slightly. (Going left takes you down some stairs to the room that had the dead guy on the bed.) Head up the ladder and kill the two headcrabs in this room and collect some ammo and such from all the boxes. Exit through the only door here and go left and across some wood. A fast zombie will come down and attack you before the wood, so kill it. Once across the wood, you'll go up a tin roof and back down the other side and should see another fast zombie running up some stairs ahead of you. Kill it be- fore it gets the chance to jump at you and slash you. Now go forward some and look down at the ground. There is a poison-headcrab throwing zombie down there, so kill it and all its little poison headcrabs be- fore you jump down. Once down though, go to the stairs and head up them all. When a door at the end of a catwalk comes into sight, look behind you and ano- ther fast zombie will be coming up the steps. Back against the door and just wait for it to come right in front of you before blasting it. Now turn around and head in the door and up the stairs in here as well to a ladder on the land- ing. Head up the ladder and you'll open the thin metal roof-door and emerge high up on a roof overlooking much of Ravenholm. On this roof is three medkits and some shotgun ammo. Mind the red pipe right in front of you when you first emerged. Now to the right is Father Gregory. Let him see you and he'll go fetch the cart for you. You'll see what that is in a couple minutes. For now, fight all the fast zombies that come after you. I am not sure whether or not they come from all different directions, but for me, every one of them came up that one red pipe I told you to look for. This makes your job really easy since you can just aim down it and kill them with a mere pistol as they climb up; shots to the headcrab skull now are easy from above. Anyway, eventually you will hear some cranking and creaking. That is the cart coming to you. Continue killing zombies until it arrives and then do as Gregory says and climb up in it. While still standing in it, pull the yellow lever that is right there still on the roof, but dead next to it. You'll be carried over the big fence to Father Gregory and will be safe from the zombies for now. On a table near Gregory is some more medkits and ammo. Let him talk to you about leading you to the mines, and then follow him when he wants you to. (It was right about this point that I noticed Father Gregory is wearing a pair of red Converse, a very popular shoe brand nowadays... just something I found inter- esting, sorry.) Anyway, follow Father Gregory just a bit and you'll come to a loading sign. After the loading sign, follow Father Gregory straight and up the piece of wood over the fence. A few paces ahead, he will stop and way ahead, you'll see some fast zombies up on the hills coming at you two. Kill them and the others that come when they get to you. I'm not sure if Father Gregory can die or not, but I know Alyx can later on in the game, so if I were you, I wouldn't let the zom- bies attack him too much. Kill them and help out. When they are all dead, foll- ow him again and he'll go up another piece of wood and over a bigger, steel gate that will lead to a cemetery. Go up to him and there will be a lot of regular zombie moans and screaming and he'll say "Aim for the head!" Look to the left of him and you'll see a good ten or fifteen regular zombies hobbling towards you all. Well, they're far enough away that you could probably just kill them with your 9mm if you wanted to as Father Gregory uses his shotgun. Anyway, once they're dead, he will run ahead. Follow him once more. He'll turn a corner and stop on a small stoop type thing and start killing more zombies. Do the same. After he starts moving again, follow him again and he'll go up some steps to a part and will shoot zombie from there. You can use your Gravity Gun at this point and grab some of the flammable barrels that are all around and kill off some of them like that if you want to save ammo. Anyway, when that set of zom- bies is dead, Gregory will run down the steps and behind a few gravestones and another set will start. So kill them as well. Once that's done, he will run a- round the corner and tell you to go quickly as he holds the gate. A gate will rise just enough for you to duck under. He'll come and talk to you a bit near it, basically wishing you luck and then will go back to killing zombies. Go up the hill behind you and in the green door and forward some to get a loading sign. ... Thought you were done with the big bad scary Ravenholm stuff, didn't you? Ha! Well... almost. You just have the mines to go. Anyway, open the next door after the loading sign and go in the room. Go over to the huge hole in the floor and peer down. VERY long fall, isn't it? Well that's why you need to be careful. So, carefully jump to the first board on the wall, and from there, down to the next. Continue all the way down until you get on the catwalk still quite far above the ground. Look around and locate the shack in the corner. Use the catwalks and stairs and such to get to it. Inside are three supply box- es for you. Now leave and head straight (back over the broken part) and keep going straight until you can go down some. Well, do so and you'll be on the ground. Now watch out. The mines are simply crawling with fast headcrabs, so as quickly as you possibly can, run like hell (while blasting some of the headcrabs if you want) over to the other set of stairs by a fire. Run like hell up them and kill any of the headcrabs that try to follow you up. Now you see the fire down on the ground? See the gate near it that you normally couldn't get by? Well, go over it. Jump from the catwalk to the big pieces of wood over the gate. Use all the framework that the wood makes and get to the other end of this short tunnel rather then on the headcrab infested floor. Mind that there are a couple of flammable barrels down there you can use to dispose of a few of the headcrabs if you want. Follow the wood back until you have to drop to the ground. Now if you took care of the headcrabs, it is probably in your best interest to get a running start and jump over that big hole and pick up some supplies on the other side before going down it. If you didn't kill any headcrabs in this area, quickly jump down the hole to land in some water... some very murky water at that. Swim through the water until you can surface and catch your breath. Watch out for the single Barnacle string here. Once you have replenished your oxygen, get up on the wood and jump in the next part of the water. Jump in and swim through it until you surface again by a fire. Follow the mine-cart tracks to the left of the fire now and right up to the cart. Now, you can pull the lever on the cart to send it flying up the tracks, or you do this the easy way (trust me, if you pull the lever, you're going to waste time and have to continually dodge that cart as it goes up and down those tracks). The easy way and probably the best is to just walk past the cart on the right and walk up the side of the string that would normally pull it up, had you pulled the lever. Now all you have to do is kill the zombies that come out from the corners as you go up. They come out early, so it's not like it's any big surprise. Just kill them and make your way up to the top of the tunnel where you can see light at the end of it. Head towards it to get a loading sign about halfway there. When it's done loading, head outside and ahead of you is a stopped train. The only way you can go is right, so do so. On the stopped part of train ahead of you, a fast zombie will run on top of it at you. Kill it and continue along. Soon you'll be able to see a blue laser aiming down at the tracks and will hear some shots being fired. See that big thing with all the windows above? There is a sniper in there on the other side. Just slowly go under that little overhang thing and you can throw a grenade up and into his window and he won't ever see you. So, when he's dead (no, you don't get his rifle... or any other in the game for that matter), keep going to the next part of train, but be absolutely sure to stay on the left of it, and to duck down. There is another sniper, but this time, he is facing your direction and trust me, his shots do some big damage. Three or four will kill you. Continue inching along, ducked, under and on the side of the train until you come to a pole that you can't pass. Now it's time to take a chance that you won't get shot. You can easily see the next train on- ly a few paces ahead of you. Go under the one that you're next to and run like hell behind the next train. The sniper will shoot a barrel on top of it to make some huge pieces of metal rod fall on the other side. Now, duck down and go under the train on the left. Keep going until the end of this piece of train. A single regular headcrab will jump at you. Just kill it and ahead of you is a red train car you can continue to. Stay also on the left of it and go until the end and you should now be safe from the sniper... you can always take a grenade and chuck it into the window anyway and kill it. Once he's dead, continue on past the next train that is on its side and then the next part of one. You'll come to a red containment car that you can go through the middle of. There are three Combine guards on the other side who kill a cou- ple of zombies. One of the guards is up on a flat-top train and has a new gun for you once you kill him. It's the Pulse Rifle. It's basically a machine gun, but a lot more powerful than the one you already have, and its secondary function is a small white, glowing orb that bounces off of just about anything for about 10 seconds before exploding. Any enemy it touches during those ten seconds is vaporized. A very cool gun indeed. Continue on past the next red containment car and the area will open up some. On the left is a light blue van with some medkits in it. Past that is a junk- yard for cars and several flammable barrels as well as some Combine guards with Pulse Rifles. Kill them all as quickly as you can and head into the small park- ing lot of crap cars. More Combine should come out of the door of the building in the parking lot, so kill them too. Then head on over to the door and inside it. On the right is a supply box with an orb for your Pulse Rifle in it. Keep going and you'll come to a warehouse that you'll be inside where some Com- bine guards are fighting some citizens with guns. Kill off the guards and then listen to the two people talk about how the guy Winston is hurt. Then the black guy will want you to follow him, so do so. He'll knock on a door and a woman will open it and inform you that Dr. Eli Vance (Alyx's father, remember) has been captured. The guy will go over to a monitor and you and he will talk to Alyx on the other end. She'll tell you that her dad's been captured and that she needs your help and will ask the guy about some buggy. He'll radio to a girl to put it on the dock for you and then tell you to stock up on medkits and ammo before you go and will unlock a door for you. So, stock up on things that you can in the room and go through a door to a loading sign.... ------------------------------- | G) Chapter 7 - Highway 17 | ------------------------------- Open the next door and straight out on the long wooden dock. A woman will start talking to you and tell you to get in the buggy, the car sitting on the dock. Go up to the side of the car and press your Use key to get in it. The woman (operating the crane) will lower the magnet and pick you and the car up and slowly move you way out over the sand where all those nice friendly (ha!) ant- lions are surfacing. Good thing you're in you're car, huh? Whoops! The idiot dropped you! Apparently the controls on the crane failed and she dropped you and the car down and you've flipped over. If you don't do some- thing quick, you're antlion food. Quickly hit your Use key to get out of your car. Switch to the Gravity Gun and let the gunners take car of the antlions. Use your GG's primary blast to flip your car back over and get back in it now! Buggy Controls ------------------ W Move Forward S Move Backward A Turn Left D Turn Right Shift Turbo Spacebar Brake Mouse Looks Around Mouse Button 1 Fires plasma gun Quickly now drive away. Everything may look the same, but do try and locate the road. It's the sand that it slightly blacker then the rest. Get on it and foll- ow it to all the way to the big hill that it goes up, all the while either run- ning over or shooting antlions dead. Once up the hill, try and keep your buggy straight as you near the broken bridge that you'll have to jump. When you have a straight line drive up the bridge, hit the Turbo (default key: Shift) and you'll easily make the jump. Now don't stick to the road. Head up the dirt-road path on the right to a new paved road and a tunnel ahead. On the left is a small shack where you can gath- er a lot of medkit health and some ammo is stored for your SMG in the back of your buggy in case you want to stock up. It's a good idea to since it's infin- ite. Now get back in your buggy and drive down the tunnel to get a loading sign about 3/4 of the way through. When you come out the other end, quickly hit your brakes (spacebar). Ahead, you will notice the inexistence of a large chunk of the road. You could drive off there, but you risk flipping the car and having to get out and flip it back ov- er with the GG as antlions maul you. So, the easiest way is to just head down the slope on the right and into the sand. Once you get in the sand and off the rock, head straight and up on a hill not too far at all you'll see a house. Be- fore the hill is a broken up wooden dock in all the sand (that is very high due to the lack of ocean water since the Combine aliens are draining it). You have to go around this. When you get up the hill, you'll notice a machine that is pounding the ground. Some way or another, this machine keeps away antlions. They'll come close to it but never close enough at all to do anything. Anyway, there's not much to do or see in the house (assuming you get in through the basement entrance around the side), but there is a headcrab throwing zombie in there if you care and a chest full of grenades for you. Anyway, along one side of the house is a pretty crap- py fence. Blast it away with your car's gun or drive right through it and down into some more sand with more of your antlion friends. Ahead of you, you should see an enormous boat/ship that is grounded. Drive by it or jump one of its sides or something and ahead again, about 150 yards or so you can see another house up on a hill. Go up the hill and you'll be by it. Up here is a house and a small shed-like building. Up in the house are some Com- bine guards for you, and even a pair of binoculars you can look through. Now go out the back door and you'll be on a balcony. Look out at the shore to your left some and you should be able to make out another house. More left, you can see a small river, and if you keep turning, you'll be facing the front of the house where your buggy is. (There are some supplies in the small shed.) So go get back in your buggy, keep going and you'll inevitably come once again to a house. There are a couple of Combine guards here as well and some supplies (as well as a hanging canoe) inside, but watch out because the antlions can be inside there from the bottom. Now keep going in your buggy after here and you will pass by another large ship (with a blue side) and after that, will see some docks and a very small town up on a ledge on your left. You can't get to there from where you are on the beach, so keep going until you see another big dock that actually goes to just about the ocean and you can head left. Well, do so and you can drive right into the small town. Get out of your car near the blue van with no wheels and a man will talk to you and tell you that some guy is in the basement waiting for you and that they're expecting something called "gunships" in a few minutes. Follow him towards the house and go inside and over to the man talking with an accent about the rocket launcher he has in his hands. He'll tell you that it has a laser-guide so you can pin-point exactly where you want to hit. Sounds useful... and fun. When he asks who will be brave enough to take it, step up to him and he'll give it to you. Soon after, an alarm will sound. Quickly run back outside (you can go out through the door you came or climb the stairs in this room to go out that way) and look up in the skies. Soon you'll see a very large, bluish colored, gunship. These babies take three rockets to blow down and even have anti-missile guns, so you'll have to steer your rocket in all kinds of weird motions in order to actually hit the damn gunship, all the while it shoots at you and everyone. Since you can only hold three rockets at one time, there are many places all around the area where there are spare rockets around. In one house, I even think there is a chest where you can get them. Once your have shot down the gunship, gather more rockets so you have a full stock, hop in your buggy, and go through the small town to the road. A gate should be open for you to go up and through. The man nearby tells you that Eli Vance is counting on you and the woman sitting on the guard-rail wishes you luck in Nova Prospekt. You'll find out what that is soon enough.... For now though, get in your buggy and drive up the road and follow it around the hill- side. Eventually, you'll come to a fork in the road where the left stays on the road for about 20 feet before you fall and the right heads down into a grassy area. Take the right (left will kill you or make you start over) and drive for a bit in this small canyon before you come to a loading sign. After the loading sign, keep going straight and you'll be in some sand and more antlions will be popping up and such. Stick to the right when you see the big bridge and go under one of its arches on the right. A very large crane up on a dock will come into view soon as well. Drive past the grounded ship and dock and park your buggy under the crane's shadow. Get out and run back towards the big ship and up the dock planks. Kill any antlions that stand in your way as well as the few Combine that are here. Head up the dock and continue past the small shed that has two supply boxes on the outside of it. Kill Combine guards as they come, but continue on. Up higher on the dock will be two more that are shooting at you and will throw grenades too. Kill them and head up. Now look up on the thing that the crane is on. There is a Combine there too. A magnum shot is accurate enough to kill him easily, or a rocket (but don't waste that!). Now keep heading down the dock to- wards the crane and climb up the very long ladder up it. Once up, look for the small ladder that puts you inside the crane. Crane Controls ------------------ W Moves Crane Forward S Moves Crane Backward A Moves Crane Left D Moves Crane Right Mouse Button 1 Drop Magnet Once you get the hang of the crane, turn it right to the warehouse. A big door will open and some Combine will come out and shoot at you. Now you see those incredibly large red and blue cargo containers? Have some fun. Pick them up and drop them on the Combine and crush them flat or drag it over them. Either way, kill them and move the containers away from the door. Now look for the bridge that is up. Simply swing the crane into it so that it falls down and you can get across to that warehouse. Now wait, you're not done. Remember how you parked your buggy near the crane shadow? Well go get it. Pick it up and drop it on the dock with that warehouse across the bridge. Get down and out of the crane and head on over there. A few more Combine will come out of the warehouse. Kill them and go inside and to the other end and in the small shack at the end. Flip the switch and head back to- wards your car. You'll notice another large door opening on the right from you flipping the switch. Get in your buggy and drive it in the warehouse and out of it through your new opening and up the ramp. Kill the guards up here by running them over or shoot- ing them with your car-gun, or don't even kill them at all. Drive forward to the warehouse on the right and inside is a ramp that leads up to some windows that you need to jump through. Doing this with turbo is a lot of fun. =) Any- way, once through there, just follow the road until you see another big drop- ship rise up from behind the hills. Keep going and hit your turbo on the ramp made of concrete that you see in order to jump the very large gap in the bridge that you went under before. Now keep going along the road, gunship following, until you come to a huge pile-up of cars. In a white van is a box of rockets for you. So get out of your buggy and shoot down that damn gunship. I've found that making the rocket trav- el in small swirls (circles basically) towards the gunship confuses it and you will almost always hit it. So, have fun here and blow that sucker out of the sky! When that's done, clear away the pile-up of cars with your Gravity Gun's primary energy blast and then drive on through in your buggy. Continue on the road and you'll go in a long tunnel and will get a loading sign. Drive out of the tunnel and go forward and past the car in the middle of the road. You'll see a small silver Rollermine (like Dog's ball) and it will come at you and attach itself to your car. Simply get out of the car, grab the Roll- ermine with your Gravity Gun and throw it over the cliff. You'll encounter some more of these as you drive down this road, but for now, just do exactly that. Keep going and be careful be there are some sections without guard-rails on the sides of the road. Continue over a big collapsed part of the hill and keep dri- ving. Very soon, you'll come to a kind of garage on your right and part of the cliff wall will explode in front of you. After that, several Combine guards will come out and will be shooting at you. Kill them and go in the actual house here if you want some supplies since it actually has a lot. Beware of the three Combine in the attic though and the more that will be coming down the road... and the one in the back yard. Once you're done here, hop back in your buggy and contin- ue on to the big truck just barely hanging on the ledge. Three Combine will attack from nearby it, so kill them. There's a flammable barrel under the truck that you can shoot so it will fall off the cliff and get out of your way. When that is done, do the only thing you can and slowly and carefully continue down the road. Drive past the couple of cars around a corner and further down the road you'll see a gas-tank truck that's been blown open and a few cars blocking your way. Drive up to them and move them (all except the truck... you can't) with the GG and then walk up that hill on the right side of the road. Up here you will find a crossbow! There's also a box of supplies with some grenades in it. Anyway, now look out at the next town you can see from up here. You see the big, high billboard? Well, the secondary function of the crossbow zooms in, so do that and aim only slightly (about an inch (not game-inches, your inches)) above the Combine's body. Shoot and he'll die get pinned to the billboard. Cool, huh? More may come running, so if they do, just snipe them from there. Now climb down and get in your car and continue past the big truck and all the way down the road until you come to a big blue force field blocking your way. So, get out of the car and walk around the side of it and explore this little town. You can blow up the gas station things if you want. Watch out for the Rollermines in the backyards (there are two) and all the Combine guards that come out of the houses and such. When everything is quiet and desolate again, look up and locate the power line that runs from the force field to the big black Combine tank. Go up to it and give it a few blasts from your GG to send it off the cliff, unplugging the power line at the same time. Now go back to your buggy, get in, and drive on through the town and up the long straight part of road and in a tunnel to a loading sign. When the loading sign is done, exit the long tunnel and you'll see a big drop- ship rise up and leave a town and fly away. Don't waste rockets on it, they're useless. Instead, keep driving down the road. You'll pass a house on the right that a single Combine will come out of. You can just run him over and keep dri- ving. Eventually you'll come just before a town and will see some white posts on the left. Drive between then and up the hill to the train tracks on that enormous metal bridge. Park your car on the left track in front of the force field. Now go down into the town and in all the houses and such and kill the five or six Combine in them. In one house, the big one, there is a headcrab throwing zombie upstairs, but you have to jump on a table to get on the broken steps. Anyway, once everything is dead, locate the house that has about half of its floor missing. Drop down through the floor to the lower ledge and watch for the headcrab and headcrab throwing zombie here. Look left and you can go up to a green door that leads mainly under the bridge. Go in it and gather up the HEV Suit batteries and some health and then locate the next green door and go and open it and take about half a step to a loading sign. When that's done, just head straight through a threshold and into the next part where there is a box of rockets. Stock up if you need any and then head up the stairs to a room with some supplies for you again. Now head out the door and you'll be in a small shack type thing and can go out on a catwalk to the right and left. Left goes nowhere, so go right and look to where it breaks off. See the piece that looks too far to jump to? Well it's not, so jump straight to it and go up it and all the way to the next house-like shack on the landing. In- side are a couple of rockets and some health packs and a single headcrab. Now don't go out the other side of the shack, it's pointless. Keep heading in the direction you were and down the bit of catwalk remaining and right onto the actual steel I-beams of the bridge. Head down the one going left so you can get to the catwalk over there that is also broken. Go up it and follow it until you can go down a ladder to a platform with a box of rockets and some rockets as well as a dead guy and a crossbow. Now look further up the bridge to the next house. Two Combine will come out in a second and start shooting at you, so use either your rocket launcher or the crossbow to take them out. Now go to the edge and look down a bit. See that small piece of catwalk that leads to the I-beam that will take you to others to that Combine's platform? Jump to it and follow the I-beams, being careful and going slow, up to the area where those Combine were. Inside the house here are a couple of headcrabs and some health as well as a door that leads to a long catwalk. Go out it and foll- ow the catwalk, minding the broken section (just jump it), to the other end of the bridge. =) Go in the house thing here and down the stairs. Go our the threshold (on con- crete) and forward through the next threshold and kill the two Combines on the catwalks to the right. Continue on through the next door and kill the Combine as they come around the fence. Then go around the fence yourself, out the door and onto the catwalk. Follow it around and climb the ladder at the end of it and kill any Combine that come at you now (should be about three or four of them) as well as the one way up in the tower behind you as you come up the lad- der. Now go in the big house thing up here. Inside are two more doors you can go through. One leads to some stairs that some Combine come down. Go there, kill the Combine, and go up to the blue force field at the top. Use your Gravity Gun to pull the plug on the other side of it to shut it down. There is ammo all over in the boxes here and an HEV Suit and Health charger on the wall as well as a button that you need to push to turn off the force field all the way back where you parked your car. When you push that button though, you'll hear some helicopter-like sounds. A gunship is com- ing. I advise that you take any ammo you didn't pick up, any chairs, et cetera and break the windows in this room with them and the Gravity Gun (or use bull- ets, either way). From here, you need to fight the gunship. Send rockets out at it until you run out of them. If you're a good shot, you can take it down with the three you should have, which is a good idea now. If not, then you're pretty much screwed until you get back to that platform that had all those rockets on it. So run out of here and head back, avoiding the gunship as much as you can, assuming that it's still around. When you get back to that long catwalk with the small little piece missing, hull ass across it and in the little building. From here, go out on the platform straight ahead and use the broken pieces of catwalk all the way down to the rocket-based platform to get there quickly. Mind the gun- ship. When you get down to the rockets, use them! Fight the gunship from here until it's destroyed. Now use the catwalk parts and the steel I-beams to make it back to the other side of the bridge. It's the same path, but backwards now. Make sure to stock up on some rockets at that box before the green door. When you get there, go in and turn left to the next door to get a loading sign. When the loading sign is done, open the door and holy crap! What's this?! Kill them quick! Damn antlions! They followed you all the way there... little punks. Anyway, once they're dead, continue straight down this path and under the house that was lacking a part of floor. Go up the slope and you'll be back in the dinky little town. Kill the Combine that are now all over the place too. Now go to the bridge wall and up that long slope you drove your car up before, to the train tracks. Get there hop in your car, and drive down the train track on the right now since the force field is gone. =) Once you've gone down the track a bit, you'll hear a train's horn... uh oh. Hit the brakes (spacebar)! Now go backwards! Quickly! Don't use turbo because that will send you forward. Soon you'll see a train loom into view. As soon as you can, back the car back onto the left tracks and watch as the train zooms past you. When it's gone, you're safe. Get back on the right tracks and continue driving down them. When the train on the left ends, you'll be able to drive down the side of the hill/mountain/whatever. Do so and you'll see a ton of bro- ken pieces of road from above all over, but one piece you can drive up and into a tunnel that will take you to a long loading sign.... ------------------------------ | H) Chapter 8 - Sandtraps | ------------------------------ Continue on down the tunnel until there's a pile of cars. Navigate your way through them, running over as many of the zombies as you possibly can so that you don't have to get out of your car to kill them. Eventually though, you'll have to, so do so. Use the regular SMG machine gun since you have tons of spare ammo in the back of your car. There are regular zombies and fast zombies down here, so be careful. When you've killed them all, use your Gravity Gun to move cars out of the way so you can drive your buggy out of the tunnel and back into daylight. *Whew* Continue down the long road until you come to a ton of boxes and a flipped over truck and white car. Move the car with your GG or drive right on into it to move it, but keep driving after and you'll pass by a big white house. You can go in it, but there's not really anything in there except two Rollermines on the top floor. So keep driving and stay on the road until you get to a large barricade. A few (two or three, I dunno) Rollermines will come up after you as well as two yellow and black stoppers from the road. There's nothing of inter- est in this area but a bunch of Combine and an HEV Suit battery in the last wooden house on the right, so drive on through the wooden fence ahead of you. Keep driving and mind the huge chunk of road missing ahead. Drive around it to the left and keep driving until you come to a big flipped gas truck. Carefully drive your buggy up the hill on the right of it and down the other side on the road. By now, you will have already seen the two dropships that flew by. The first one put the two Rollermines on the ground that should be coming after you and the other dropped off four or five Combine soldiers behind that big gate. Kill them as they come around it on the right or left. Once everyone is dead and the place is quiet again, locate the big house to the left of the road before the gate. Now inside in a corner is a thing with a two red lights and a green one. That green one has a little toaster-looking thing that makes it green. You need to find the other two. Luckily though, you've got me to tell you where they are. Now the first is right in that house, on a metal bed frame. Just pick it up and put it in one of those slots. The second one is outside underneath an upside-down bath tub that you will have to flip over with a primary blast from your Gravity Gun. Once the two extra batteries are placed and the lights are green, that big gate will open itself. So go hop back in your car and drive on through and in the tunnel to get a loading sign. When you come out the other end of the tunnel, keep driving and you'll come to a town with a lighthouse. Drive into it a bit and a man will call you over to him and tell you to put your car in the garage because they have been picking up radio signals that the Combine are looking for it. Say bye-bye to your car. You'll only see it once more, but you won't be in it at all. Anyway, right into the action it goes. Everyone will hide behind things as the first dropship full of Combine soldiers comes over the big hill behind the garage and lands. Each dropship has about five guards, so have fun. All the people around all have a gun as well, so they'll help you out. The next dropship will come in over the road you came down. Kill the Combine that come out of it as well and wait for the next one that comes in and lands up near the lighthouse. When that one is done and gone, another will come it behind the garage where the first did. After that, one of the men shouts that a gunship is coming and that there is a rocket launcher and ammo for you up in the lighthouse, so hull ass to it and go in the door on the side of it (the door is on the right when you first go up the few steps to the lighthouse). TIP: If you already have some rockets, hitting a dropship with them and then a grenade or two from your SMG will cause the container with the Combine in it to explode, making it so you won't have to fight them from that drop- ship. =) Anyway, once you get to the lighthouse and go in, climb up all the steps to the top. On one floor you'll find some health packets, so grab them if you need them and keep going to the next floor where you'll find supply boxes and two green chests full of rockets. Gather some of these and head up the next flight of steps to the top, outside part of the lighthouse and blow that gunship out of the sky! When that's done, go back and stock up on your rockets and a guy will come up the stairs for you. He'll tell you you're going to take the cliff path before another gunship comes. So follow him down all those steps and even more into a "basement" of the lighthouse. He'll open up a secret door that leads out on to a narrow cliff side. Walk out on it and go to the edge on the right and look over it. Jump down to the ledge there with the box of supplies and then look up and kill the Combine that's shooting at you. You can then watch the big drop- ship fly away with your car held underneath it. Say bye-bye for good this time. Anyway, now you get to jump from cliff to cliff until you reach a long and dark hallway that you pass through under the cliff. Don't worry though, no monsters or Combine in here; just a loading sign when you finally get to some light on the other side of it. When you come out the other side, stick to the left until you come to a guy who yells to you to stay on the rocks. You have two choices now. One, you can jump down into the sand and antlions will attack the guy who is just barely alive, or you can stay on the rocks and the antlions will come up anyway and attack him. The guy who is still alive, hunched over on the rocks will tell you about a Vortigaunt camp and something called Bugbait, but since Laslow is dead (that guy laying there), there's no point in him going on. So you go on yourself. Stay on the rocks and stones and jump from each one to each one until you come to one that is too far to jump to, but has some wood and a piece of metal on the ground next to it. Now here's where things get a little tricky. You can use those things to pick up with your Gravity Gun and place them back on the sand. You jump to one, pick up the other, and go to the next until you're back on some rocks. Continue jumping from rock to rock until you come to a long rock that wraps around a hill. Follow it and jump to the next rock and then to the next one and you'll come to a piece of wood you can walk up to the next top landing (it has green grass on it). TIP: If you want to save ammo, you can use your Gravity Gun's primary blast to knock antlions backwards and usually on their backs for a few seconds. It gives you time to run away. Now look down over the edge and you'll see another long piece of wood that is kind of like a really crappy bridge to the next rock. Jump down on it and turn right around. Now to your left you can see some bricks and a barrel and on the right, a big wooden box. Back up a little and use your Gravity Gun to grab that stuff and set it all on the edge of the wood where you're standing. It's kind of like weighing down that end of a see-saw, like you did way before in the Route Kanal chapter. Anyway, when that's done, take a quick, running start up the wood and jump off to the next grassy rock. Go forward a bit and you can go left or right. Right takes you down to a house after a bridge and trust me, it is NOT worth going this way. You'll waste so much time getting back to the spot you're at now that it's not even worth your time for the slight bit of ammo down there. So, go left and drop down onto the next rock and jump to the next one and continue until nothing lays before you but sand and a big red house with some wooden bridges and such leading to it. But... there's no way to get to it without touching the sand. So look around and you'll find a door and a long piece of metal scrap. Drop them both down in- to the sand and jump down on one of them. At this point, you have to use each of those in the strategy I told you before. Jump to one, then place the other ahead of you and jump to it. In the distance, you can see a big black machine that pounds the ground and keeps antlions away. You've seen it before, remember? Well, you can go up in the red house for some ammo if you want, but your goal is to slowly make your way to the white house just before it. It will take awhile, but it's better than having six or seven antlions attack you all at once. Once you get to the small white house, go out behind it and push the red button on the yellow generator thing to turn on that black sand-pounding machine. Now go out in front of the white house and make a run for the machine. It's close by, so you're safe and can make it if you run (with Shift). Once there, kill any antlions that are directly ahead of you and then make a run for the next grassy rock area and run up it. Kill any antlions that went around the machine to come after you. Use the explosive barrels if you have to. Now this next part, you'll come to the edge of the cliff and can drop down to the right, then down a bit more, and before you will lay a huge sanding area and almost no way of getting across it. But no worries, there's only a giant Antlion Queen waiting for you. And by the way, it takes about five rockets from a rocket launcher to kill, so have fun! Lol, anyway, the best way to beat it is to first use all of the explosive barrels to your advantage before the queen throws them at you. Then you'll definitely want to pump several SMG rounds into it as well as some of the explode-on-impact grenades from it. If it's still not dead by then, use a Pulse Rifle clip and some shotguns ones and even a bolt or two from the crossbow. When it's finally dead, a Vortigaunt will come out of a door and go over to the dead queen. He'll shock it or whatever and you can then pick up a new "weapon" called Pheropods. These things allow you to control antlions, so they will no longer be a problem to you. Quite a gift after what you just went through, is it not? Anyway, when you have the Pheropods, otherwise known as Bugbait (hey! That guy was talking about Bugbait before!), follow the Vortigaunt into the Vortigaunt camp (hey! That guy was talking about a Vortigaunt camp before!) and gather some supplies from the numerous boxes all over. Then follow the Vorti- gaunt up the hill and into the next area. A man will tell you that Nova Pros- pekt lies just ahead and that no man could get in himself, but with an army of antlions... he he. Well, not an army, but you'll see. Anyway, in the next area, the Vortigaunt will take you down some hills to an area with a hole in the ground and a dead Combine hanging from a pole. A single light will turn on and the Vortigaunt will tell you that you can control ant- lions and now you'll learn how. Toss a Pheropod or two into the big hole and the two antlions that you have now will follow it. Neat, huh? Next, another light will come on and you have to make the antlions attack the dummy Combine by throwing some Bugbait near it or on it. After that, the Vortigaunt will run off up the hill and you'll leave your antlions only before he tells you that you can call them back to you by using the right-click of your mouse. Now that is handing. A small, controllable army. =) The Vortigaunt will then raise the logs blocking your way and you can pass into the long cave, taking your antlion buddies with you to a loading sign. After the loading sign, continue out the cave to the sandy beachy area once a- gain. Just ahead is one of the sand-pounding machines that your antlions won't go near, so go up to it and climb the ladder on it and turn it off with the button. A voice over a loud PA system will announce that it has turned off and that something must be there. Congratulations, you just rose Hell. Continue on and turn off the next sand-pounder as well and move slowly around the corner. Up on the hill, you will see a big black house-base thing and some Combine will come down after you. Now's your chance to put your army of (now four... the max you will ever get) antlions to use. Just heave a couple of Pheropods over near the house thing and watch the antlions kill and demolish those Combine. Now continue on a bit and you'll see the first massive piece of rock in the wa- ter some. Get in the water before it and continue around it to the next one and continue around it as well. Up on the hill in this area is another base thing, but this one has a gun on it. Keep going and make your antlions distract the gun while you climb the ladder and turn off the sand-pounder right in this area as your antlions die. But don't worry, more always sprout out of the sand. So you basically do have an army. Anyway, as your antlions distract the gun, run up and behind the base and kill the guy inside controlling the gun. By now, an alarm will have sounded, but it may be hard to hear through the music, but that will stop soon. Behind the base thing is a small area that also has some supplies and a couple of Combine as well. You may need the supplies, so gather it up. Now continue on past the sand-pounder that you turned off to the next area. Stay as close to the water as you possible can, even in it some (but not too far out because of the little worms that will chew you to pieces faster than sharks!). Keep on the very edge of the shore, hiding behind rocks and killing Combines and you sneak (ha!) past the big base up on the cliff-side with the guns. Your antlions will distract those for the most part. Now just after that base and before the next one up on the cliff as well, there is a path that you can take up the side, straight up between them basically that leads left to the first big base. Kill the Combine coming down that hill as well as the ones in the base to stop the gunfire. From here, you don't have to do much else on the beach at all. Look around behind the base, just after coming up that hill, and you'll see a door you can go through. Do so. Now way ahead, past some rubble and a gate, there will be a red light. Keep go- ing and you'll turn left and two Manhacks will attack you. Continue on (I know, it looks complicated, but there's really only one way through) and a bunch of Combine will attack you and your antlions. Kill them and mind the explosive barrels. Keep going until you end up outside again and can go up a small hill and can turn right at the top. Ahead of you is that other base. Wait for more antlions to come or toss a few grenades in it to kill the Combine. If you think this is combat and hard, just wait until you get to the actual outside of Nova Prospekt. Anyway, once you've killed the Combine in this area and base, continue forward to the next base that is already shooting at you. Go up in it or lob a grenade or something to kill the Combine in there. Go in and turn left and you'll see a big field before you and another base at the other end. Wait for your ant- lions to get to you and then throw a Pheropod to the right and hull your ass to that base fast before the Combine get in it and can start shooting at you! Your antlions should take care of a lot of them, but one or two will be heading for the base. Kill them quickly. (You will also see a dropship leave this area... just so you know where you are compared to this guide.) When all is quiet again and not a creature is stirring but your vicious, Com- bine slaughtering antlions, continue on. There will be a large sewer pipe on the left that you can't do anything with, so go right and follow the grassy cliff until you can slowly walk out on a log and jump to the next one cliff. Do so and walk up it to the campfire and the couple of sleeping zombies. Kill them and then break that bridge's posts so it falls and you can walk up it to the next part of the cliff. You're getting higher and higher. Oooo, what fun. Anyway, keep going up this cliff-side and you'll see two enormous pipes that lead upwards to some catwalks that have Combine soldiers on them. The best way to do things here is to just use the crossbow to take them out. There's only three of them, so it's easy. Once they're dead, continue towards the big con- crete pipes and climb the ladder behind them to the first catwalk. Walk around it and then jump over the railing to the cliff with the two supply boxes below. Follow this cliff to the next one and jump the large gap (you can make it) and then you're going to have to climb. Jump continuously from small ledge to small ledge up the side of the mountain until you go into a big sewer pipe. A fast zombie will come running out at you, so beware of it and kill it fast. Keep heading in the sewer pipe a bit and you will get a loading sign. When the loading sign is done, continue down the pipe, turn left and go into the next one. Follow it until you turn right to the next and follow that until you turn left into another. Now at the end of this one, prepare for one of the biggest battles in the game. There are Combine soldier galore, a couple of gun- ships, explosive barrels, spotlight towers, et cetera. Exit the sewer pipe and locate the ladder. Climb up it just a bit and then look around. Use your cross- bow to take out the Combine that are up in the spotlight towers that you can see for now. When the few here are dead, climb up the ladder all the way. Heave a Pheropod out into the open and antlions will basically storm the place. Take cover and toss some Pheropods up at the towers to have them kill the Combine in them. There are three towers in this first area, so clear them out. The spotlights are also machine guns, so use the environment to your benefit and take cover behind things while your antlions kill off the enemy. When the towers are clear, make your way to the farthest one from the ladder and locate the stairs nearby. Toss a few Pheropods up into the area and let the antlions kill the Combine up here. Run up the stairs and under the little piece of roof there and if you need it, grab the rocket laying by the supply box. A gunship will come in overhead and will start killing off antlions. Use this time to blow it out of the sky. Then hull ass in the direction opposite the stairs your came up and on the left will be a room with some Combine guards in it. Kill them and go inside and use the HEV Suit and Health charger units in there. By now, a second gunship has come in. Leave the room via the door and continue around the corner. Kill the Combine up in the windows in those rooms and mind the explosive barrels all around. Don't be near one when the gunship is shooting at you. You can take cover in a flip- ped over blue dumpster in this area. It has a couple of medkits in it for you too. At this point, you will have five antlions in your control now, so that's cool. Once you're sure the Combine are dead, run out of the dumpster and up the stairs. There are a few boxes around and some rockets as well as a green chest with tons of rockets in it. Shoot down that gunship! When that's done, a place in the wall further on a bit will explode and you can go over to it and inside. Congratulations. You just infiltrated Nova Prospekt. Continue on forward just a bit and turn off the gas to the fire. Your antlions won't follow you in here, so say bye-bye to them for now. Continue on and duck under a pipe and turn the corner and turn off the next bit of gas (the valve is hanging from a pipe on the right) and jump over a pipe and continue past it. You'll now be in an actual concrete walled room with nothing but a door. Open it and go on through to the next threshold on the left and go through that and forward and some roof will fall behind you, closing you in. Go forward a bit more to the gates to get a loading sign.... ---------------------------------- | I) Chapter 9 - Nova Prospekt | ---------------------------------- Follow the gates back a bit and collect the ammo from the supply boxes before going in the next door. As you will soon see, Nova Prospekt is an old, abandon- ed prison. It's pretty creepy for a long while until... well, you'll see. Any- way, continue on and go down the stairs to the lower part and find the cell that has a big hole in the wall. Jump up and into it by ducking in mid-air and watch for the headcrab that will jump at you from the left. Continue through the next hole and you'll hear some Combine talking and a weird, high-pitched alarm-like sound. You'll be in a small office-like place with two Combine dead nearby. Exit here and head right (left is a dead end) and you'll see through some cell bars a sentry gun shooting antlions as they come up from the floor. Go up to this sen- try and give it a good double-blast from your shotgun to knock it down from be- hind. This will let your antlion friends come up, but too bad, they can't get to you and will act on their own will for now. So turn around and continue on through the threshold with the red "Exit" sign above it. Climb the stairs until you can duck down and climb out over a gate. You can now watch some sentry guns get knocked over by an antlion behind some bars and you're only path is to head straight. So do so and turn the corner left and follow the small hallway until you can go in a door on the left to another small office with an HEV Suit and Health sta- tions and a camera that you can watch and change by pressing the Use key on it. On one of them, you'll see a huge Queen Antlion take out a couple of Combine... uh oh. But anyway, leave here and continue and make the left that you have to and go up the stairs. At the next floor is a room on the right with a door that can be moved with the Gravity Gun. There is some ammo in a supply box inside. To the left on this next floor are two more sentry guns that you can just walk up to and knock over with your crowbar to save ammo. Continue past them to the door and in. Go down the stairs and then down the ladder and you'll be in some water. Just tread along to the other set of stairs and go up them. Watch out for the Barna- cle on the first turn of the steps and then the one on the path to the next room. Climb up the broken piece of floor to the next part (it has a checkered floor... just so you know where you are). If you head forward just a bit, a couple pieces of glass will fall from above. This should give you a clue.... Look up and watch those skylights as you keep going and wait for them to break and for the four fast headcrabs to come down and attack you. Kill them and go through the double-doors. Head forward a bit and drop down to the next floor. As you can see, there are three floors in this part. Stay on the second one and head straight and into a room where there are two sentries up on the ledge in front of you and some stairs to the left that you can go up. I think you can use your Gravity Gun to pull the sentries down to you and throw them into a wall to turn them off. If not, then run up the stairs and across the straight part. Head up the next set of steps and knock them over with your crowbar. Now do you see how you just climbed up to the fourth floor? Well go back to the third one in just that room and locate the double-doors you can't open. Well, the left window is board up. Break the boards and jump through and get the supplies in this small room. Then continue back to the third floor where the guns were. Go in the only dir- ection you can (right (after coming up the stairs)) and follow the hallway to the end to get a loading sign. Continue into the room and watch out for the headcrab in there. Clear the boxes away from the door and go through it. You'll see a huge area on your right, but the fencing prevents you from going down there, so go straight and just follow the hallway to the end and jump over the railing on the right to the floor. Now is about the time when you should switch to the SMG (if you have some gre- nades in it) because you'll hear some clinking and clacking... do you know what that is? It's the huge queen antlion coming and busting through the double- doors on your right! Fight the queen antlion to the death! Use the same strategy as before, but more bullets and less explosive barrels due to the lack of their presence! There is some ammo in some supply boxes near where it broke through if you need it. When you finally down the beast, don't go in the door that it broke through. Look to the left instead and head through there to a room full of regular barrels and a mere two explosive ones. I didn't tell you about these because the room is so small that you probably would have killed yourself using them on the queen. Anyway, look right after coming in the room. Go over there and there should be an antlion or two waiting for you. You'll then enter the big room you saw be- fore, which is accessible also through the way the queen burst through. I lead you this way though because there is a supply box with some ammo on the left wall a bit ahead and after that fight, you're bound to need it. Anyway, explore this room until you find a pair of double-doors that is blocked by a bunch of stuff. Take out your GG and start moving it all until you can go in the doors. Do so. Once in the room, some antlions will rise out of the ground and you will have them on your team now as well. Don't feel so lonely now, huh? =) Anyway, from whence you came, go right and into the next area. Prepare for a huge battle! Toss some Pheropods at all the Combine and let your antlions do some work. You can concentrate on taking out the few sentry guns and killing the Manhacks that get sent in. Once things are dead in this area, go left and into the next one where your antlions are probably battling things out with all the Combine and destroying them. Help out some and kill the Manhacks and some Combine. When everything is nice and peaceful again, go up to the big blue force field in this area. Pull the plug on it with your Gravity Gun from the other side. Go in the room and through the door. Move the green filing cabinets and look for the red switch on the wall. Flip it and then proceed through the next door in this small little office. Turn left and go to the stairs. Under them are two boxes hiding a supply box with an orb for your Pulse Rifle in it. Get it and then go up the stairs. Send your antlions forward and over the laser tripmine and then continue and turn left. In the room you're in now is a camera you can watch, but the main thing to find is the two little red buttons. Press them and a gate will open below and a cou- ple of Combine will come through. Now turn around and go out the other way (it is left) and jump over the railing here and backtrack some to where that gate just opened. Kill the Combine or have your antlions do it and then run forward and straight at the sentry gun. Knock it over with your Gravity Gun and then run back for cover. Now carefully look at the wall straight ahead (from when you came through the gate). See the vent near the floor? Run to it, duck, and go in (you have to run because there are two other sentry guns on the other side of a blue force field that you can do anything about). Once in the vent, you're safe. Climb through it into the next room that has a big, spinning fan. Locate the shovel on the ground and just stick it in the fan to jam it. Duck and crawl under it and to the next vent. Remove it and crawl out. Kill the Combine here and pull the plug on the wall to turn off the force field. Go out and knock over the sentry guns so your antlions can come to you. Now go back in the room that had the plug and go to the end of it. Look left to see tons of antlions run by. Now look right and go that way to a loading sign. After the loading sign, you'll be before a great set of stairs. Go up them only about halfway and then throw a Pheropod into the room all the way up. Your ant- lions will run it and trip the laser-mine for you. Now go up and in with them and kill the Combine guards all over. You can hear Dr. Breen talking in the background now. Don't stop to listen. You can later. Head forward some and on a table on the left is an orb for your Pulse Rifle. Keep going and turn right when you can (there is a sign with a big "B4" on it). Shoot the flammable barr- el that you can see until it explodes. Now head to the threshold it was under and look through the window on the side of it to see two sentry guns. Now take out a grenade, duck down, and move into their view and toss one with the right-mouse-button (secondary fire) and it will roll across the floor to them and explode, putting both out of work. Now head into the room and straight ahead with you little army of now five antlions and go up the stairs in the next room, minding the two Manhacks that come down after you. At the top of the stairs, go the only way you can and kill the Combine guards that show up. Keep heading straight on the narrow prison cell path and make sure to take out the Combine guy manning the machine gun behind those shields. A well places magnum shot or crossbow bolt ought to do it nicely. Continue on and toss a Pheropod up the stairs behind the machine gun. Go up them a bit and then back down to kill the Combine that walk across the small catwalk straight ahead of it with the machine gun. Once that's done, go up the stairs and around the bend and continue forward. Send your antlions in the room on the left to get rid of the laser-mine and go on then and turn the corner. Send some more antlions down that long hall (it's full of tables and such) to kill the Combine in it as you take cover behind a table. Once that's done, keep going down this hall and turn right when it does. Keep going and follow the only path you can along the catwalk and when you can, turn left into the room. Dr. Breen's voice will get louder and you will have to kill a couple of Combines in this room as well as a sentry gun that is in the closet/filing cabinet. More guards will come from outside, but your antlions will take care of them. Listen to Dr. Breen if you want. His speech starts off with "I've been asked to say a few words..." In this room is another three switches, one of which is red. Flip it with your Use key and then turn around and leave the room and head straight as a ton more Combine soldiers come after you. Help your antlions in killing them and then go back in the room because there is an HEV Suit and Health charger in it on the one wall. Once you're all charged up (or have used it all from both), leave the room and head straight out and just as you're about to enter another big room, you'll get a loading sign. Go forward and into the office. Watch the Combine guards take positions on the camera and then regain any health you are still missing from the charger on the wall. Leave the office now and head down the long hall, past the dead queen antlion (uh oh, how'd that get there?), turn the corner, and let your antlions kill the three soldiers shooting at you from behind the beds. Continue on and you'll see two sentry guns. Duck down and roll a grenade in between them to get rid of them and then keep going down the hall. Make the first and only left and take cover behind one of the small blue dumpsters. Combine will rush the big room from the stairs at the other end. Send in your antlions to kill them, taking some shots yourself when you can. Head around the left side of the room and take out the sentry gun with your GG or your crowbar. When everything's dead, continue up the steps that all the Combine came down and go through the open double-doors at the top. Grab the flammable barrel with your Gravity Gun and turn the corner. Toss the barrel at the two guards and then send in your antlions. Go in yourself as well after they trip the laser- mine. There are two sentry guns in the hall on the right. Take them out by rolling a grenade in and then proceed (not down the hall, but further on the checkerboard floor) and take the first right. Follow the hall back and past a door on the left until there are two windows on your right. Look in them and you'll see the two sentry guns in the far corners of each room. If you have any grenades, lob them in there. If not, you'll have to go in yourself and hide behind lab tables to take them out. Either way, take them out! Once in the lab (looks like a high school chemistry class, huh?), watch out for the gas coming in through the big hole in one side. Don't go near it because a sentry gun far on the other side will shoot it and make it explode into flames, causing you some major damage. Instead, go all the way around it to the door on the same side and send your antlions through to trip the mine on the other side in the short hall. Then continue yourself. Mind the two sentry up on the stairs on the left (one of those probably blew up the gas if you weren't careful). Run down the hall (wall on the right, shelves on the left) and turn at the end into the big area. Kill the Combine assuming your antlions haven't already and then take out the sentries with your Gravity Gun. Go up the stairs a bit and head left and go up the other stairs, killing the single Combine at the top. Use the HEV Suit and Health chargers in this small room/office to charge up. Locate the window that is already broken and climb out it, dropping to the floor. By now, you can already hear the gunshots of some Combine shooting at something... oh no. Soon after, you'll watch a bunch of Combine come running into the room, followed by a queen antlion (I've been told they are really called Antlion Guards, but... Pheropods... regular antlion armies... c'mon, they are queens!). The queen will just kill the Combine, then turn to you! It's another big, fun fight! At least this time you've got some explosive barr- els you can toss at her! use the barrels to your advantage, but keep clear and away from what she throws at you and from her charges at you. When you have no more barrels, unload a clip from the SMG into her and then some shotgun blasts. She's not that hard, but... well, you know how to fight 'em by now. So kill her off and then breathe a sigh of relief. Collect some ammo from the dead Combine and then find the corner of the room with the green dumpster near it. Use your Gravity Gun to move the stuff here and go through. Collect the ammo from the supply boxes; one is a grenade for your SMG. Congrats. You're out of the prison and almost done. Continue on and you'll be between two towering things of metal with some sky visible at the top. Can't be too safe, but Hell, let's go in anyway! Go down the few steps, kill the single zombie, and then head on in between the two big metal black "walls". Head past the fire a bit and keep looking on the left, up just a bit for a passage you can get in... well, you can't really get in it just normally, so before those big metal walls start to close in on you and crush you into tiny little Gordon-bits, grab a box and jump on it and into the small hole. Avoid the fire and watch out for the headcrab. Follow the hole back some and then drop down to get a loading sign.... ---------------------------------- | J) Chapter 10 - Entanglement | ---------------------------------- When you land on the ground, exit this little cave-like hole and go forward a bit to drop down onto some rubble. There is a big black metal wall on your left now, but don't worry, it doesn't move. *whew* Continue forward the only way you can and what's this?! That's Alyx! Hey! Wait up! - You'll see Alyx working at a computer-like thing and then will see/hear some gunshots and she'll run off and a big train will pass. Run forward and drop down and go right. Follow the hall back and there will be more gunshots and then Alyx's voice will say "Hold it, there!" Look up and she'll be there, talking to you. She'll jump down and say that she's glad you made it and that her dad is up in some holding area, and then will say "Let's get out of here", pull out a device, and will open a big door. Follow her through and to the other one she'll open. It's an elevator, so step in with her and as you ride up, she'll admit to you that she has no idea what she's doing or where she's going ("I'm flying blind here"). When the doors open, get ready for a fight... a small one, but still. Use your shotgun and run up close-range to the Combine here (three of them) and kill them. Don't let them shoot at Alyx much. SHE CAN DIE! So kill them off. You can take the damage for a hot chick. Who knows, maybe you'll get some. *wink* Any- way, when they are dead, she'll run into a room on the left and say she can get into their security system via that big computer panel thing. She'll work on it and "bring in" her father, then tell you "let's go meet him". So leave the room and she's disable the blue force field (don't you wish you had one of those little devices?) and run ahead of her to the end of the hall and go up the stairs on the right. Kill the five or six Combine up here quickly and then wait for her. Then follow her into a room (she'll open it) and you and her will talk to her dad, Eli. He'll tell you that you and Alyx need to get out of there and Alyx will argue and say that she can recalibrate (change) the Com- bine's teleporter or whatever and that she's not going to leave him. She'll then send him off to the teleporter room. Follow Alyx out and she'll open a door for you and leave you all by your lone- some self once more, telling you that she'll patch into your HEV Suit's radio soon. So go in the door she's opened and down the narrow hall towards the boxes and you'll see a door on the left. Now, in there is some ammo, but also two of the fast headcrabs. Go in if you want. Either way, continue on and up and over the boxes and through that door. You'll be in a room with a camera in one corn- er and a closed jail cell-like gate as your only exit. Alyx will contact you on your radio and will be on the TV/camera screen. She'll open the gate. Now run to the right all the way to the other locked gate. She will try and open it but will be unsuccessful, and will tell you to head back to the office. Do so and she'll tell you there is a vent behind the shelves. So get out your Gravity Gun and move the shelves, climb in the vent, turn on your flashlight ('F' key by default) and crawl along through them to the other end. Mind the small falls and the few headcrabs. When Alyx comes on your radio and tells you about censors, you should see the vent ahead. Back up, pull out your Gravity Gun, and rip it off by drawing it to you. Now throw it out of the vent and it will set off the laser trip-mine that was there, keeping you from being blown to pieces. Exit the vent and kill the fast headcrabs that are all over. Turn right to the set of double-doors you can't open and jump to the right window. As you can see, on the other side, there are two sentries. Use your Gravity Gun to take them out now (jump to see them through the bit of broken glass, and use the primary blast to knock them over in mid-jump). Once that's done, turn around and go to the big, locked gate. Alyx will open it for you. Go straight forward and into the office. There is a supply box in here with two batteries for your HEV Suit and some shotgun shells. There is also a big green chest full of grenades. Collect them now. Alyx will be on the TV and will tell you to look at it. Combine will come up to the gate (the other one in this room) and open it and come through. There are five or six of them, so go out and kill them and then go to the gate they opened. Roll a grenade down the hall to take out the two sentry guns at the end and then proceed down it your- self. At the end of the hall, go in the threshold on the left and kill the Combine behind the shield and then the few others (there's only three others... one stayed in the room to the right) that come in after you. Go in the next room and kill any remaining guards and there will be a blue force field blocking your path. Take out a grenade and throw it past the force field and into the room that the plug goes into. It will explode and turn off the force field. Go into that room and into the next and knock over the sentry right around the box sitting at the corner turn. You can then safely walk down the next hall because you have already taken out the sentries here (remember the window trick?). In that hall with the knocked over sentries, right in the beginning on the left is a doorway you can go through. Do so and go down the hallway with the checker- board floor to a loading sign. After the loading sign, Alyx will contact you and tell you that you are coming up to an occupied control room. Follow the hall around the left turn and go up the stairs. There are two Combine on the left, one at a computer panel with his back to you. Kill him first because it's easy. Alyx will then tell you that there are a bunch more Combine coming to you... and when she says a bunch, she means a BUNCH. She'll then reprogram the two sentries in this room (they are off, don't worry) to attack the enemy, so turn off the little field blocking them (via the red button) and grab them with your Use key and set them up to guard the two sets of stairs here in this room. Here is a small ASCII drawing so you know where is best to put them... "X" is the sentry position. Stairs you came up | | _________| |_________ # = Object (the console and sentry holders) X = Sentry position ________ X X ________ 8 = Combine entrances | | U = You |## U | |## ##| | ##| | | | | | ### ### | ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Now have the sentries facing the stairs that the Combine come up. If the a Com- bine guards gets close enough to a sentry (or "turret" as the game/Alyx calls them), they will knock it over. Your job is to keep your sentries standing. You can help them out a bit if any soldier gets too close to them. Don't place them too close to the steps though because then they are easy to knock over. Alyx will tell you that she can't shut down fields from where she is, so she'll come to you and that you need to "hold the fort" until she gets there. So, let your sentries kill off the Combine guards that come for a long while, picking them up if they get knocked over. It's fairly simple, but watch for grenades as well. After a bit of time, a few Manhacks will be sent in after you as well, so watch out for those. When Alyx finally gets there, she'll drop down through a vent in the ceiling. The Combine are gone for now. Alyx will go over to a console and will try to find Judith Mossman (that woman in the white that was back at Black Mesa East, the one Alyx argued with). When she finally finds her, you'll watch Judith ar- gue with Dr. Breen (who won't be visible), completely giving herself away! Dr. Mossman is a traitor! She turned in Eli! She was going to turn in you! Now Alyx is pissed. She'll tell you to go on ahead and she'll turn off the blue force fields further on (you can see them on through the window in this room). So go down a set of stairs that the Combine were coming up, either one, and go to where the blue force fields are/were. Go past them and head left and go all the way down the hall and turn the corner (left). There is a ton of junk at the end, but a door you can open on the right, behind a box. Go in and down all the stairs and through the threshold into a very small office. A few headcrabs will come crawling in, so kill them. Leave the office to a room full of pipes and locate the door on one side. Open it and go down the hall and through the next door. Now there are some stairs before you and railing on the left that overlooks a flooded room. The idea is to get to the other side of the room without touching the water since the console down below has electrified it. You'll lose some ma- jor health very fast if you end up in that water. So here's what you do. Jump over the railing on the left onto the pipe. Fall down onto the next one slight- ly below it and mind the headcrabs. You should be able to see a Barnacle's stringy tongue hanging down as well. Look for it on the roof and kill it so you can jump from the pipe, through his dead tongue (since it's dead) and over to the safe ledge. Now, in this room, there are two pieces of wood, the big square ones. Locate them (one is floating in the water under the stairs that were before you when you first came in and one is at the bottom of the stairs you can now go down that lead straight into the water). You should be able to also find the ladder that takes you down to a concrete slab just barely above the water's level. Just ahead of this concrete is the "other side of the room" where you need to be, but a lot of water between you and it. So, use the pieces of wood in the same strategy you did in the Sandtraps chapter and place them in front of each other and simply jump across them to the other side. =) Go up the small steps and through the threshold and into the next room that has the "Danger High Voltage" sign outside of it. Kill the sleeping zombie in here and then gather the ammo and batteries from the supply boxes. There is also a Health charger on the wall. Now leave this room and turn left and kill the oth- er zombies near the dead Combine guard and the ones in the next room and then go in there. Go up all the stairs until you get to a door. Go in it and on the right is a doorway blocked by some boxes and huge filing cabinet on the other side, you use your GG's primary blast to move those. Go all the way down the hall (checkerboard floor... just so you know where you are) and up the steps. (Straight ahead is an office with an orb for your Pulse Rifle and a grenade.) Once up the steps, turn left. Go through the open gate and kill the few Combine shooting at you and then jump over the rail to the floor. This puts you on the other side of those gates that were on the floor below. =) Alyx will contact you again and tell you that a ton of soldiers are coming and to look for more turrets. Just to your left or right after jumping over one of the rails is a small hallway that has an HEV Suit and Health charg- er on the wall as well as three turrets. Combine are going to be coming from everywhere, so here's another ASCII of the room and where you should place your sentries. X = Where you should place the sentry. < and > indicate firing direction. U = Where you should be. # = Console @ = Pole % = Sentry storage / HEV-Health Chargers A = Ammo chest for SMG + = Where Combine come from (^ = upper floor Combine) |¯¯| + |¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯| + |¯¯| |__| | | |__| | | | | | @ |__________| @ | | | | | | @ @ | | | AA | @ | | @ |¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯| || | | | || <--Closed gate. | @ | | || | | | | | @ | | @ #| | |__________| #| | @ | %% %% | @ #| |__^ __| | | Programs. 2 - Don't type anything. Go to File in the upper left corner and down to Save As. 3 - Save the blank file as "valve.avi" (with the quotes) to your desktop. Close Notepad. Close Steam. 4 - Open "My Computer" and go to your Hard Drive that the game is stored on (most likely, it's the C: drive). Open that up. 5 - Now look for a folder called "Program Files". Open that and then look for a folder called "Steam". If you can't find one, then look for one called "Valve". The "Steam" folder is in it. Open it. 6 - In the Steam folder, look for "SteamApps" and open it. 7 - Now look for your Steam account's name. Open it. 8 - Look for the "half-life 2" folder (spelt just like that). Open it. 9 - Inside that, look for the "hl2" folder. Open it. 10 - Now look for the "media" folder. Open it. 11 - Now drag the blank file on your desktop into the media folder and drop it. Something will ask you if you want to overwrite the existing one. Say yes. 12 - Now right-click the new "valve.avi" icon and go down to Properties. 13 - Inside Properties, under the "General" tab, check the "Read-Only" box. Click Apply. Click OK. Exit. That will make it so that you will never have to see that face and small video again. Now, the game will still have a long loading screen for the main menu. Let's fix that now... do the following: 1 - Open Steam. Right-click it and go to "Play Games". 2 - Right-click on Half-Life 2 and go down to Properties. A window will pop up. 3 - Click on the "Launch Options" button. Another small window will pop up. 4 - Type "+map_backround none" (without the quotes) in the box and click OK and then close everything. 5 - Restart Steam. The game's main menu will now load much, much faster. =) Q - The game still slows down sometimes and I've done everything above. What should I do? A - You can try defragmenting your hard drive and doing a disk cleanup. To do those, right click on your hard drive in "My Computer" and go to Properties and be under the "General" tab. Click the "Disk Cleanup" button and follow the instructions. For defragmentation, go to the "Tools" tab in the same window and click on the "Defragment Now" button. It can take several hours to do, so make sure you have a movie or two to watch. Q - The Steam servers are busy. What does that mean/What do I do? A - It just means that a lot of people are trying to do what you are and it is hogging up the servers. Just wait awhile and try again. Q - My game says "A.I. Disabled" and no one will move or do anything! What do I do? A - This is a very common glitch in the pirated versions of the game. If you have pirated the game, please dial '911' on your phone and let them know. They will assist you. If you did not pirate the game, then type "ai_disable 0" (without the quotes) in the Console (see the "Simple Cheats" section of this guide to find out how to enable the Console). You may need to change the 0 to a 1 or vice versa. Whichever works. Q - How do I take screenshots and where are they? A - While playing the game, pressing the 'F5' key will take a screenshot. If you want to get your screenshot, go here: My Computer > Hard Drive > Program Files > Valve > Steam > SteamApps > YourAccountName > half-life 2 > hl2 > screenshots You can then drag them to a different folder or your desktop if you want. Q - I have the store-bought version (retail) and can't find the CD Key! Where is it? A - On the back of CD 1's paper case. It's the top number that is 25 letters and numbers long. An example would be XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Storyline / In-Game Questions +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Q - Does this game come with Counter-Strike: Source (CS:S)? A - All versions, including the store-bought version, come with CS:Source. Q - What about Half-Life: Source (HL:S) and Day of Defeat: Source (DOD:S)? A - Only Steam's Gold and Silver editions come with those two games. Visit the website at www.steampowered.com/ for more information. Q - What is Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (HL2:DM)? A - It is simply Half-Life 2 multiplayer. Q - Does this game come with Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (HL2:DM)? A - No, it does not come with it. However, you can download it through Steam for free with a Steam account that legally has access to the single-player Half-Life 2 game. Q - Do I need to play Half-Life 1 before Half-Life 2? A - No. Half-Life 2 takes place approximately 10-20 years after Half-Life 1 and has nothing to do with it. Q - What are those aliens with the red eyes and why do they help me/humans? A - They are called Vortigaunts. In Half-Life 1, they fought against you until you killed their ruler, Nihilanth, and set them free. Now they feel that they owe you something. Q - So what exactly happened back in Half-Life 1? A - You were Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist who went into work at Black Mesa one morning and screwed up an experiment. It opened a portal to another world called Xen. For a long while, your fellow scientists had been stealing things from Xen, resources actually... for experiments. When you opened the portal, the Xenians decided to wage war on you, under the con- trol of Nihilanth, their ruler who was bribed by the Combine. Because you had on your HEV Suit, you were able to survive and attempt escape, killing many of the Xenians and even Nihilanth. Q - Who/What are the Combine? A - The Combine are a race of aliens who have an intergalactic empire. They move from place to place, taking over planets and consuming their resources like they are doing with Earth. The Combine are actually fat, slug-like creatures due to the fact that they have become so dependant on their tech- nology to do things for them. The Combine soldiers/guards I refer to in the game are genetically altered humans COMBINED with Combine and other alien genetics to create an elite fighting force. They take the best qualities of each race they have taken over and combine them to form a super-race. Q - Can I get the Super Gravity Gun (the blue one) in the beginning of the game or before the end? A - Yes. Enable your Console (how to do so can be found in the "Simple Cheats" section of this guide) and type in the following things, hitting Enter af- ter each one. sv_cheats 1 map d3_citadel_04 changelevel d1_trainstation_01 give weapon_physcannon Q - Who is the G-Man? A - No one knows. There are many theories about him and what he does and who he works for, but not one of them are confirmed. Q - What the hell happened at the end? A - The G-Man froze time, took you out of harm's way (that citadel collapsing would have surely killed you), and placed you in a slow-time warp to be called upon later... Half-Life 3, perhaps? Q - What happened to Alyx (and the others)? A - Just like the "Who is the G-Man" question, no one knows. Q - Will there be an expansion where you play as Alyx/Adrian Shephard/Barney? A - No one knows... except maybe Valve, but they made the game. =============================================================================== +------------------------+ | Section XIV. - Credits | +------------------------+ I'd like to thank a few sources who inevitably helped me write this guide. They are as follows: 1. GameFAQs for posting this guide on their site. 2. The GameFAQs user "Cloud Runner 777" for reminding me about Manhacks, tell- ing me that the silver things are Rollermines, and reminding me about Barna- cles. 3. The GameFAQs user named "John Goering" for telling me about the Secondary Function of the grenade. 4. The GameFAQs user named "Leftos" for telling me (via his guide posted here on GameFAQs) the secret to loading the main menu much faster and letting me post my version of it and credit him for it. 5. The GameFAQs user named "TheDeadManFan" for correcting my ai_disable answer in the FAQ Section. 6. Valve for making such an awesome game! =============================================================================== This Guide has been brought to you by: TTTTTTT HH HH EEEEEEE T H H E T HHHHH EEEE T H H E TTT HH HH EEEEEEE SSSSSS TTTTTTT EEEEEEE EEEEEEE LLL SS T E E L SSSSSS T EEEE EEEE L SS T E E L L SSSSSSS TTT EEEEEEE EEEEEEE LLLLLLL PPPPPP HH HH A N N TTTTTTT OOOOOOO MMMMMMM P PP H H A A N N N T O O M M M PPPPPP HHHHH AAAAA N N N T O O M M M P H H A A N N N T O O M M M P HH HH AA AA N N TTT OOOOOOO MM M MM