Half-Life 2 Walkthru/FAQ hexrei@NOSPAMPLEASEnwtekno.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feedback/Contributions Any additions, corrections, or comments can be sent to me via email. I will be glad to include your information and give you written credit for your submission. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Revisions/Updates: 1.3 Finished Chapters 10 and 11, minor corrections 1.2a Further updates 1.2 Finished Chapter 9, most of Chapter 10, minor corrections and additions 1.1a Finished chapter 8, most of chapter 9, minor corrections and additions 1.0b. minor spelling revisions and clarifications, revisions, 1.0a. release. Chapters 1-7 Finished -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Authors Note I played this game through on Difficult, so things may be slightly different on lower modes. Generally, things should be easier, but feel free to send me notes about differences for inclusion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walkthrough: Chapter 1 Point Insertion Wait through the G-man's little speech. You find yourself in a passenger train car outside City 17. Listen to Breen for storyline, or not. I like to play a little game here called "Beat the Civil Protection goon". Grab a suitcase, box, etc with your use key, and then throw it at the CP's head. Fun! He'll chase you around with his riot prod for a while- don't worry, he can't hurt you much. Pass through the rotating door, then follow the hallways to the room with departure/arrival times listed. Enter the caged area, go where the CP's prompt you. You will end up in a small office where the CP leading you reveals himself to be Barney, from HalfLife 1. Exit through the back door, climb the ladder, then put a box in front of the window so that you can climb out. Follow the obvious path until you reach the guard who knocks the soda can off the trash bin into the floor. Pick up the can and place it in the trash. I prefer to pull it back out afterward and lob it at the CP's skull. Sure, it earns you a riot prod jab, but it's worth the pain. Exit through the front door of the train station, then head right down the street. Take the a right into an alley where you can climb a ladder to a catwalk to pass over a fence. Continue through the alleys to a courtyard, where a door to a building is open near some CP's standing guard. Enter the door, then go upstairs, where a squad of CP's are raiding an apartment. Head to the end of the hall and go up the stairs to the next floor, where a man will be trying to get your attention. Follow him, and start running! Chapter 2 Red Letter Day Guards will be after you now, so run to the end of the hall go up yet another flight of stairs. A man will be waiting here for you to enter before closing a door. Do this, end then follow the stairs up to the attic. Exit through the rend in the attic wall, and leap to the next roof. Either skirt the gutter or run up the ramp to the next roof's gutter, where you will have to walk a long ledge under pistol fire until you reach an open window. Downstairs, you will meet Alyx Vance for the first time. Cute for a pile of polygons! Follow her into the elevator and then down the hall, where she will open a door for you and then tell a little bit about the history of the world since the alien invasion. Go through the soda machine cum secret passage to the laboratory, and meet Dr. Kleiner and his de-beaked pet, Hedy Lamar. Watch the antics for a bit if you wish, then hit the button and slip into your HEV suit. Comfortable and utilitarian! Dr. Kleiner wants your assistance in sending Alyx, oblige him by fixing his blown plug and flipping the switch. Listen to Barney's sass, then hop in for your own trip through the teleporter. But oh no! What is this? Something going not quite as expected? In a teleporter machine? In Half-Life? Unforseeable! You'll end up on a catwalk behind a building in City 17. Avoid the scanners and weave your way through to a door blocked off with boards. Listen to Barney and obtain a crowbar. Deal with the boards, Freeman style. Cue thumping beats, cue squads of CP's firing at you while weaving between train cars. They are mostly hiding out of reach- don't bother with them unless you are a masochist. Just find the train car with the ladder up, be sure to avoid the passing train, and then leap off it to the next car, then over the fence to a door with more boards to dispose of. Chapter 3 Route Kanal Exit into a hallway where a man is being beaten by guards while a woman screams. Beat down the CP's and get a pistol with which to smite thine enemies. Go up the stairs and shoot the surprised enemy there. At the bottom of the next staircase, put a few bullets in the head of the guy at the top. At the top of the stairs, wait for the train to come, then leap on top of it. From there, jump to the opposite side of the trainbed. Blow up the CP's that appear via the handily-placed exploding barrels near all their firing positions. Break open the doorway to the house, then run through to the rear, where more CP's will be awaiting their fiery dooms. Climb over the broken fence section and run toward the alley. Crouch to enter the vent and follow it to its end. Enemies will fire from the train across the way. They should fall after 3 or 4 headshots even on Difficult mode. Jump down into the train bed, kill more guys, go up the stairs and avoid the rolling exploding barrel. Keep heading up the stairs, down the hall, and then up more stairs, killing CP's all the way. Break the boxes blocking your way and then go down the stairs and jump down to the train tracks. Kill the guys charging from both directions, make sure to use the health station to refill, grab the boxes of goodies, and then bail off the tracks into the aquifer running parallel before the train makes you into a pancake. Swim to the end, then climb into the abandoned boxcar and listen to what the two characters have to say. They will provide an exit out the back- take it. Break the wood blocking the way, then walk past a rolled semi to watch a barnacle devour a crow. The best way to get by a Barnacle without wasting ammo is to pick up a junk object and toss or place it onto it's tentacle. Then pass by unharmed. Watch the poor humans get slaughtered by the nasty combine turret. Assuming you don't want this to happen to you, take a quick right, stay behind the boxes, and head into the tunnel entrance to your right. Follow the tunnel, and you should come up behind the CP, in perfect position to take them all out. Don't miss all the goodies around and below the Combine turret position! Man the turret and kill CP's if you like, but make sure to shoot the barrel suspended on the rail to the right, in order to complete the walkway. Then follow that walkway back over the wreckage. Watch out for barnacles! Keep following the tunnels past another resistance member to a room full of water. Jump in, grab the supply boxes, and wait for the enemy to drop exploding barrels in. Dive to the bottom until they've exploded, then jump through the hole they blew in the tunnel grate. Follow that tunnel to it's end, then move out into the junkyard, watching for enemies above. Take out the bridge with the exploding barrels at the base, then find the section of caved in tunnel with three barely-visible barrels blocking the tiny gap, and push the barrels to gain entry into another tunnel. Careful, the ground is slippery and barnacles are all over the place. Don't bother wasting ammo unless you enjoy it, just toss debris into their line and move on. Jump out into another aquifer, kill enemies as best you can among the barrels being flung at you, and then climb the ladder over the fence into the next section of water. Climb the ramp then leap from dock to dock until you enter another tunnel. One of your first physics puzzles is here. Place blocks onto the shorter end of the seesaw so that you can use the opposite side as a ramp up to the next area. Take the first left, and avoid the helicopter. Once you get to the junkswamp area, start running like mad from cover to cover, avoiding helicopter fire. Take the left unless you really need the health to the right. Follow the walkway up to the door, move the barrel, and enter. Follow the hall, and make sure to go down the ladder first to get the health before heading up toward the supply crate. Crouch at the left end of the waterway and follow it to the end for more health, if you need it. Head right and then down the long slippery passage full of barnacles, then jump the railing to the left. You will find another long slippy passage full of barnacles. Grab the exploding barrel nearby and roll it down the passage. Let a barnacle grab it, then shoot it a few times as it pulls it up. A few less barnacles to deal with. Jump the railing at the bottom to the left, then follow the hall to the doorway. Head left out the door to the end of the catwalk. The helicopter seems content to watch for now. Take a left into a stone hallway. Follow the hallways through a loading screen to a bunch of debris that must be destroyed to move further. Do this, then continue and bust through the barricade to another resistance member who will give you more information. Use your crowbar to thrash the manhacks that come crashing in, and make sure to grab the two supply crates and the cache in the upstairs corner before leaving. Open a chainlink gate and destroy more manhacks. Follow the passage further, make sure to hit the small supply room here if you're low, then head outside briefly. Move the barrel and enter the next door before the manhacks arrive. Close the door, and then jump downward to the sewer. Kill the enemy that drops down and take his SMG. Kill the rest of the enemies that appear, then detonate the barrel blocking the lower passage. Crouch to enter the passage. Crawl to the end and meet your first zombie. Exit and kill more Combine troops, then jump into the giant mixer at the end of the passage. Swim to the tunnel on the left side of the mixer pit, and follow it down, stopping for air as necessary. Exit at the top of the water tunnel and then follow the big pipe, killing CP's as they appear. Climb up at the open-air end of the pipe, and then run back down the pipe to the end of the hall. Watch out for the steam vents here, and the barnacles nesting above it. It's best to simply kill the barnacles before attempting to move across. Make sure to grab the health on the ledge nearby! Run to the end of the pipe, break the boards to the right, then drop down and crawl under the pipe. Kill the manhack and grab the goodies. Crawl back under the pipe and look for a vent. Drop down the vent into the water, then swim out and climb the ladder. The troops with the truck at the top will roll exploding barrels down on you. Try to shoot the first one before it hits the ground, that way they all explode on the enemy. Take the right, kill more troops, then duck into the stone hallway. Follow it to the end, into the room with the red lighting. Grab the supplies and then crawl into the vent. Drop down, break the tile, and and you'll fall through onto some barrels. Watch out, there's explosive barrels everywhere, and manhacks will be flooding into the room soon. You can climb the incline in the corner, and be safe from the majority of the explosions as well as having your back to the wall for fighting manhacks. Also, up on that ledge, you can jump from the railing to the pipe which is easier than jumping off of the ladder to the pipe, in my opinion. Jump from the pipe to the opposite walkway. There is a vent up here with an item in it. From contributor Shorty: #I managed to get in after some messing around. It's a +15 powercell.# Thanks Shorty! From contributor Frimp13: #he way to get to that vent is to pick up a barrel, stand it up straight (by leaning it against another barrel, etc.) and place it on top of the pipe while standing on the ledge. It works best if you sort of lean it up against the stone pillar. Then go up onto the pipe via the ladder. Carry the barrel over to where the pipe bends and stand it up against the ceiling beam. Jump up onto the barrel and then from the barrel onto the ceiling beam. From there, leap across to the vent - pressing crouch AFTER you jump. There's a small power-up for your suit in the back of the vent (kind of disappointing after all that work.) -Frimp13# Thanks Frimp! Go through the door and jump down the opposite side of the central pipe, so that you land on the ledge next to the valve. Turn the valve, or jump down one more pipe and turn it if you can't reach. Swim up and back into the manhack room, and then down into the area the manhacks came from. Swim into and through the pipe. Break all the boards at the bottom so the cable spools can float to the top, and hop across them (using turbo if necessary) to the opposite side then up the stairs. Climb the ladder and run across the boards to the ledge, then drop down into the water on the other side of the fence. The right is a dead end with no redeeming qualities but some manhack baseball. The left will find two soldiers rappelling down and a manhack to back them up. Head left fast, if you reach the soldiers before they hit the ground you won't take too much damage then you can focus on the manhacks. Jump up onto the ledge to the left, be prepared to kill a manhack and a scanner. Grab the supply crate, too. Head dead straight down the hall skipping the doorway on the right for now, grab all the supplies at the very end but watch out for the barnacle! Then go back to the door we skipped and head inside. Climb the ladder, grab the health, follow the half-assed walkway, grab more supplies, then drop down. You will exit into a pit of slime. Stay on the ledge, and head left. Climb onto the pipe, cross, and grab the stuff from the corpse- he won't need it anymore. And even if he did, we'd need it more than him and have the guns to back it up. Drop down off the pipe, and head to the door, staying carefully away from the deadly slime. Continue on until the resistance people run screaming about the enemy shelling them. Watch the shells that drop for headcrabs, and remember to shoot for zombies' heads so the crabs don't come loose after you kill the body. Also, look out for environmental traps like electricity and slime. Continue until you come to a large metal cargo container crackling with electricity. Remember not to touch live wires or the walls of the container! And don't forget the supply crates inside. Run past the next couple of headcrabs and zombies, then round the bend on the plank docking to reach the mudskipper :) Chapter 4 Water Hazard Goof around for a while in the practice area and get good before you open the gate and leave. It's a dangerous world out there. Note that to pick up a supply crate on the mudskipper, you just have to run it over. You will soon come to a small barn with a dock. You may notice the G- Man up there. Land and investigate. You will find two zombies and a headcrab, along with a few assorted supplies. Make sure to check the attic. Further down, you come to another of HL2's physics puzzles. This one is simple. Just pick up the blue air barrels and drag them down under the basket end of the ramp to lift it so that your mudskipper can leap the gap. Check the tunnel to the left for more barrels. The next area is not hard, just keep your mudskipper at full speed and aim for the ramps. Dont worry about killing troops or collecting supply boxes, just get through the area at the greatest speed possible unless you enjoy killing everyone or collecting everything. Soon you will come to broken overpass. Ignore the soldier atop it and continue on until you reach a ladder. Moor there and climb the ladder. Kill the soldier and enter the building. Watch another Breen movie, if you like those, then move on to a garage containing two soldiers and a few small siderooms containing a good amount of loot. Watch out for manhacks as you approach the next room, they will swarm you if you're not careful. They will be backed up by two more soldiers as well. Stock up on grenades here, you'll need them as you move into this killzone littered with sparse cover. Duck behind the Truck on right and use your turbo, cause that turret can shred you fast. Get a grenade off on the troop behind his cover and move through the door behind him. You'll encounter 2-3 troops in here shouldn't be a problem to dispatch even if you're out of grenades. Grab the ammo and move through the door to the left, to a balcony. Shoot the exploding barrels to the right and then duck back through the door and then out to the gun turret. Enemies will be pouring out. Decimate them with the turret and then move through the door behind them, back to the garage. There will be 4-6 troops waiting for you behind soft cover with a turret. Take out the cover and turret with grenades and then mop up with SMG and pistol. Use the hanging shelves as traps by using explosives near them and shooting them. Exit via the way you came in, grab your mudskipper, and head out through the now-destroyed water gate. Things get more difficult now, with APC's firing rockets at you and soldiers firing small arms. All you can really do is run away and occasionally run someone over. Take turns sharp, juke missiles, and look for hidden and natural ramps as well as the obvious ones. Soon you will come up on an area with a lot of obstacles like fences and hurled and wrecked vehicles. This took me a few tries on Difficult, it is not easy. Once you get through, you end up at a little island in the muck with a simple puzzle involving removing weights to obtain life, armor, and ammo. Continue onward to what appears to be a medium-sized Combine base. Take a right and dock near the stairs at the door to the building. Head inside to pick up a magnum and assorted ammo and health. Soon after picking up the magnum the door in front of you will open, with troops lined up like child molesters at a britney spears concert. Put those fools out of their misery! Move onward and then up a ladder. Watch out, there's an enemy at the top of the stairs and a helicopter flying around up there waiting to fill you with holes. Run between the boxes and kill an enemy, hopefully before he releases the manhack, otherwise, deal with that before moving onward. Manhacks are annoying. Kill another guy as you pass under a woodern structure and head between the broken sections of chainlink fence. Look in the boxcar for supply crates and in a stock of normal crates for a further third supply crate. Then enter the warehouse building. This building contains 4-5 manhacks and 4-6 combine troops. As soon as you go upstairs, 5-6 more will begin to enter, so be ready. Head down the hallway then down the stairs, fighting 3-4 more troops as you go, then look around the bottom of the stairs for supply crates, health, and armor refills. Get ready to head outside! Run ahead-right through the now-opened gate. Remember to get the supply crate back around to the right as well if you missed it earlier. Avoid the chopper and shoot the guard at the gate, then kill the guard at the next gate as well. Head up the ladder into the guard post and grab one of the guard post guns. Show the chopper the wrath of Gordon. Then open the gate with the panel. Run/swim back to your mudskipper and head around to the right, toward the gate you just opened. Avoid the bombs the chopper drops, but remember they are time based, not proximity, although running into one will still set it off. Eventually you will come to an area ramped-off to the right. Follow it and take the big jump at the top, and you should land next to a large warehouse. Head inside, park your mudskipper on the lift, and collect stuff. Use the lift to drop you and your skipper into the goop heading opposite the way you arrived, and then continue with your merry voyage. Watch out for the falling tower! Exit the area via the tunnel. You come out near a building with a machine and scaffolding on the side. Another physics puzzle. Climb the ladder back in the tunnel then drop down to get to the scaffolding. Pull the lever then weigh the elevator down with the washer on the scaffolding above to lift the ramp. Then leap! Follow the waterways until you reach a gate manned by resistance people. Enter the gate and dock. Go inside, check out the map, and listen to the plan. Go back out and take a gander at your skipper's new upgrade. Blow up the boxes blocking the gate, while you're at it. You'll come out of the tunnel to a chopper's waiting rotors. It should prove easy prety for your newly-acquired badass gun. Keep going till you reach a gated compound. An enemy chuckle will sound and then groups of 5 enemies will rush out on either side. Take them out with the skipper gun then disembark to the right and head inside to restock. Go back out, reboard your skipper, and drive up the ramps and past the closed gate. Follow the waterways further, past a few guys on rickety platforms, and you will get to a water tunnel with walkways on either sides. Enemy troops will be tossing explosive barrels off of the entrance into your path. Take them all out and move into the tunnel, then over the drop-off. Soon you will come to a fork. The path to the right has a troop, a zombie, and several headcrabs, as well as some health. The path to the left has a U-shaped area with troops rolling explosive barrels down a ramp at you. Dodge right onto the shoulder to avoid the flame wall and shoot the barrels as they appear. Shouldn't be too hard. you'll empty out into the ooze again. Enter the tunnel. As you come out, one of the two cargo crates has supply crates inside. Go left around the beached ship and you'll come to a small dock in front of a Combine building. Use your mudskipper cannon on the two vehicles. There are supply crates on the beach nearby, and two more inside a wrecked orange cargo container. Check the cherry-red cargo contained for two explosive barrels. Detonate them to open a path for your mudskipper under the dock. Use the ramp to jump the gap and head into the tunnel. You will end up in a rocky mudflats with an enemy base on one side. Check near the beached ship and on top of a pipe as well as a few other places for supply crates. You will be assaulted by a chopper here, be ready to take it out with your cannon. Go to the smaller gate and find the little guard booth next to it with a ladder leading up to it from the beach. Climb up and turn the wheel until the gate is open. Go through the gate and climb the ladder next to the dock. Shoot the two guys that come running out of the door of the compound, then open the door and kill the two inside. Make sure to raid the shelves and use the refilling machines here. Cross the compound to the stone gate, and climb the ladder down onto it. Pull the Gate Override switch. Hop back into your skipper and head back down to the stone gate. Get some running distance, and take that log ramp through the gap in the gate, over the edge, into the pool below. Chapter 5 Black Mesa East Enjoy the fall? Drive your skipper to the dock nearby and climb the ladder on the dock marked with the HalfLife logo. Enter the doors behind the building and listen to Dr. Mossman explain a few things. Follow her to the elevator and then down to Dr. Eli Vance. Meet Dr Eli and then Alyx will arive. After some bickering, she will take you to your new toy, the gravity gun. After some practice picking and throwing, she'll take you to meet Dog, her loyal pet. But partway through the demonstration, something goes wrong. Follow Alyx back through the elevator. The ceiling will crash in. Alyx will instruct you to follow Dog. Do so, and then go through the door he lifts for you. Follow the passage until you reach a broken elevator. Destroy the lock with any weapon to open the cage over the ladder, then climb it. At the top, follow the passage to Ravenholm. Chapter 6 "We don't go to Ravenholm..." Head straight toward the water tower and enter the lit building to the left. Note the proliferation of great missile weapons here, and the crowd of zombies to use them on. Enjoy. Follow the passage through to the outdoor area, where a holy man may be heard preaching. Watch out for the whirling blade machine. As long as you crouch you're fine. Zombies don't know how to crouch. Enter the door to your left, kill the headcrab inside. Grab the health if you need it, and grab a buzzsaw blade too for some slicin and dicin. Check the dark nook in the corner for two more zombies and another headcrab, then head out the door. Kill the zombie at the end of the hall, then run down there and face a room full of slowly-rising zombies and a whirly-blade machine. Destroy them as you will, then exit and to a grotesque scene of charring impaled corpses. The Father will appear at a window in the building upstairs and speak to you a bit. Grab the health pack behind the pillar and then the other in front of the boarded door. Zombies will come through the door at you. Kill them. Inside you'll find more health, some hurling weapons, and a caged zombie to roast at your leisure. Turn off the gas at the top of the hill with the valve in order to pass. Alert the zombies to your presence, then run back and turn the gas on. At the proper moment, hit the spark button and send them up in flames. MWAHAHAHAHA! Back at the funeral pyre, douse the flames using the gas valve so you can enter the front door of the house the Father was speaking from. Inside the house, first toss an exploding barrel up the stairs to take out the three zombies. Then clear the blocked staircase of furniture using the gravity gun and take out the three zombies and three headcrabs you will encounter, including two of the new type. Head back to the two green machines and climb the one with the vent at the top. Enter the vent. When you leave the vent, make sure to get all the supplies laying around, then head back to the first zombie flambe, where we left the electrified corpse. Climb the ladder, then the next few ladders, then jump across to the ledge on the next building. Chat with Father Gregorian for a bit, then drop down to the catwalk running back over the gas trap. Jump in the window, then use the canisters as rockets with the grav gun to take out the zombie and headcrabs below. Then drop through the floor and walk out to the alley next door, where a car-dropping trap has been rigged up. Use the trap a few times on the roaming zombies to get an idea of how it works. When the undead have been disposed of, walk out to the second car trap. This one will also function as a lift to get you to the catwalks above. Also, if you are comfortable making the jump, you can use the second car lift to get high enough to jump over the fence marked with the half-life symbol. Behind this fence is a room with health and ammo in it. Walk across the catwalks to the nearby window and enter. Gregorian will comment again on your progress. Open the door and proceed down the hall through a loading zone. Watch out for the headcrab through the next door, then take a right and open the door to see Gregorian bustin caps in a zombie. Kill the zombie on the floor in the room with you, then exit through the window and help Gregorian kill several more zombies and headcrabs on the ledges outside. Use the exploding barrels below to clear the area, then jump down and collect goodies while picking off stray zombie. Proceed to the ladder at the end of the area and climb up. Go all the way down the planks and enter the roof to the left. Grab the loot, watch out for the headcrab. Then double back and head into the roof on the right. Kill the zombie on the floor and move into the next room. Grab health if you need it, then get ready to fight a horde of zombies downstairs. Objects around the room make good projectiles. Exit the building via the downstairs. Outside, quick zombies can be seen bounding from roof to roof. One of them charges you immediately, so be ready. Search the surrounding area for several zombies, some healthpacks, and ammo, then head into the building full of washing machines. Kill a zombie in the hallway, then another at the top of the stairs, then a third who, along with two headcrabs, busts through some boards at the top of the stairs. Pick up health and ammo in the room to the right, then up the next flight of stairs we go. Two headcrabs wait at the very top, along with a door leading outside. Circle around the left of the roof, and Gregorian will talk to you a while before giving you a shotgun. Brace yourself, because 3-4 quick zombies will now charge you from the surrounding roofs. You can fight it out, or leap immediately into the water vat across the way, then climb the ladder out. More quick zombies will attack now, climbing rain spouts and leaping across large gaps. Enter the room, gather the goodies, and two more quick zombies charge when you hit the elevator button. At the bottom of the elevator, you will meet the headcrab momma zombie. Kill him and the quick zombie as well as a few headcrabs, and then climb the board on top of the car over the fence. Go right to a room with health, ammo, and a headcrab in it. Keep following the alleyways until you enter a new, larger area with some quick zombies leaping across the roofs. Take a left and watch out for several zombies, headcrabs, and another headcrab zombie momma. Enter the contruction area to the right, with the visible balcony outside. Climb the stairs, pick up the health, and flip the lever on the balcony outside. Jump down, run to the big building with all the pipes on the top, and climb the stack of boxes on the right side. Jump across to a ledge on the wall, climb the ladder, then follow the board walkway from roof to roof until you reach the top of the big building. Restock on health and supplies here then double back to the walkway, where the platform should be in the middle, allowing you to cross. Jump across, and prepare to be beset by lots of quick zombies and hurled headcrabs. You can take this time to drop down behind the locked door and unlock it from the other side, but that means climbing back up. Doesn't seem worth it to me. Jump to the fire escape on the opposite side, listen to Gregorian, and get the health from the room inside the window. Pick up a buzzsaw and head into the hall, slice zombies. Repeat as necessary. Make your war forward as you do this and eventually you will get to the end of the horde. Go down the stairs to a loading zone. Going down the next set of stairs here takes you back toward the alleyway where you first encounter momma headcrab zombie. Lets go up the ladder, being wary of the three headcrabs upstairs- one of them usually hides in the boxes. Now open the door, and step out onto the ledge, where you will be warmly greeted by a quick zombie. Run across the roofs to the next roof and jump down. Then run up the stairs and along the walkway, fighting headcrabs and zombies along the way, until you reach a door. Open the door and head upward, collecting goodies along the way. Climb the ladder to the hatch on the roof, grab the health and shells, and prepare to be inundated with quick zombies. It's easiest to shoot them before they reach the top of the waterspouts they climb. Two shotgun blasts to the head will take one down on difficult. I managed to get through without a single on reaching the top my second time through, so it's not an especially difficult area, just disorienting at first. Eventually Gregorian will get the cart up to you, and you can hop on and pull the lever to being your (agonizingly slow) descent. Grab the loot at the bottom of the lift, and follow Gregorian to the graveyard and mines. Upon entering remember to use your grav gun and the buzz blades/cinder blocks/barrels as much as possible, as there are a LOT of zombies and not a lot of ammo here (at least on difficult). I was able to kill them a lot faster with just grav gun and projectiles than Gregorian could. After killing enough of them, he will lead you further into the graveyard, until you reach a crypt where he will let you past the door into the mine before lighting himself and the graveyard on fire. Approach the mineshaft with caution. You will need to drop down from beam to beam. Drop from the last beam into the bit of walkway still standing, and begin killing headcrabs to thin the herd a little. Make your way over to the tunnel rafters. You will need to crouch-walk into the tunnel on them. a couple of grenades on the explosive barrel will clear the area and you are free to collect the health and drop down into the next area. Swim along through the tunnel, avoiding the barnacles, until you reach a crosshatched fence. Jump out of the water over this and then continue swimming until you reach a tunnel with a coal fire or something burning. Trigger the whirly blade cart carefully, and follow it up the shaft. Let the zombies walk into it. Exit at the top of the tunnel to a loading screen. Climb the stack of boxes to the halflife logo, where some grenades and a magnum await you. Break open the semi-hidden supply crates too. Walk out onto the train tracks, where a quick zombie will attack. Dispose of him, then continue on to an overpass where a sniper is taking potshots at some zombies (notice his blue laser sight). Collect all the supplies below, and let him do the dirty work, then toss a grenade into his little loft. Approach the next sniper slowly, and stay out of sight. Make sure to go under the left side of the lumber truck, and then to the left of the next red box car after that, which contains several grenades and has a hole in the ceiling conveniently pointing directly at the sniper position. Nade the poor bastard and move on. Past a few more wrecked train cars, right after the health and ammo cache, you will find a group of Combine troops fighting a zombie. Take out the whole lot of them. The tracks empty out into a station, where three enemy troops await. Two more spill out when you pick up the health and ammo laying in a wrecked white van in the lot. Inside, surprise the three combine troops from their flank to turn the tide for the resistance fighters. Follow Leon inside to a console where Alyx asks you to go Nova Prospekt to save her father. Chapter 7 Highway 17 This chapter is mostly about driving the dune buggy, which is great, cause the dune buggy rocks. To start, grab health if you need it, then climb into the buggy. You will be lifted off the platform, down to ground level, by a crane with a magnet. Once it drops you, jump out and blast it with your grav gun to right it, then hop back in and take off for the little road up the hill. Follow that road to a ramp. Turbo across the ramp and make a quick pit stop at the house to gather supplies before heading through the tunnel to a loading screen. Upon exiting the tunnel, take the embankment down and to the right, then floor it across the plains, cause the antlions are gonna be on you like flies on doody. Soon you will come to a house, with a thumper outside. Thumpers keep antlions away, for the most part. Note that an antlion will still sometimes jump inside the perimeter of a thumper to attack, if you provoke it enough. Park your buggy near the thumper and head to the basement doors of the house. Inside, kill a couple of headcrabs, fill up on grenades from the crate, and climb upstairs into the house. A headcrab zombie momma is here. Kill it and collect goodies. Hop back into your trusty buggy and party on down to the next house. Park near the thumper and head into the barn. Pick up any goodies, and come out to face the two troopers that should be spilling out of the house right about now. Climb the ramp into the house, and check out the viewmaster in the window. Back to the buggy, and another roaming trip across the plains. When you see the next building, pull up next to the trooper truck, which is already nice and close to the thumper. Take out the three solders with your car's nice unlimited gun. In the barn, use the gravity gun to pull up the supply crates. To the Freemobile again, and then up and past a beachhead base of some kind. Travel a ways further, then pull into the resistance camp and follow the man in the cream shirt into the house. Listen to Odessa drone about the use of the launcher until he hands it to you. Then go out and help them kick some dropship ass. Just remember to stay behind cover unless you're firing or moving for more ammo, and don't be shy about hitting up the medics for health. Dropships take about 8-10 rocket shots in difficult. After beating it, search around for more ammo and health if necessary and then drive out through the previously-closed gate onto the winding highway. Take the right onto the grass embankment when the road ends. Follow the grass to the NLO base, which is currently inhabited by enemy troops and under siege by antlions, since the thumper is off. You can either wait for the antlions to kill the troops, or try to bust in and turn the thumper back on then take on the troops, or try to bust in and kill them all. My choice is usually the second. In the chaos of the battle, drive up to the thumper, leap out of the buggy, and turn it on. Then run up the wood ramps killing everything in sight. Grab the supply crates, then climb the ladder, killing three more enemy troops on the way. Get over to the crane, but first check in the red cargo container for another supply crate. Also, keep an eye out for ammo on the way up the ladders to the crane. Once in the crane, use it to lift your buggy up onto the platform. You can also use it like a wrecking ball, and pick up objects like cargo containers to use as even bigger wrecking balls. SO much fun! Once everything is dead, knock the bridge back down in order to cross, then assault the big garage, which contains perhaps three troops, depending on how many you killed with the crane. Drive around behind the building and kill two more troops. Accelerate up the ramp and through the glass window. Haul ass up the hill to the river. Cross the bridge ignore the gunship for now. Once you reach the traffic jam, jump out and grab the rocket launcher on the ground. Use the rockets to destroy the gunship. If you run out, there is a rocket box in the van farther into the jam. Once it is cleared, use your grav gun to blast the cars off the cliff and out of the way. There is a van halfway up the hill with supply crates if you need more health or armor. Head to the tunnel at the top of the hill to a loading screen. Careening down this mountain is a blast, but be careful. The little ball you used to play with Dog earlier is now deadly to your fast- moving vehicle. If any Rollermines attach, jump out and pull them off with the grav gun, then blast them into the ocean. When you get to the bottom, stop near the house or you'll be caught in a landslide. Fight the four enemies that come, search the garage for supply crates, and then head into the house. Kill a few guys downstairs, then head upstairs and collect ammo and supply crates. Once inside, shooting will begin in through the windows. Run outside to engage the enemy and find four troops. Kill them and continue. You'll need to move a couple of cars out of the way, then kill a few soldiers with a truck blocking the way. When you reach a wreck of cars and a semitruck right before a bridge, hop out and climb to the knoll and pick up the crossbow. Take out a few guys, make sure to get the one on the billboard and the one on the bridge. Drive down to the energy gate and hop out of the buggy. You'll have to walk around it for now and leave your buggy. Grab one of the exploding barrels and come around the left side of the buildings. Wait for enemies to appear, then toss it near the other exploding barrels and the gas pumps to create a big explosion. Mop up the garage and house for ammo and health. Continue down the freeway until you get to a little cluster of buildings arranged in a cul de sac. Stay in your car and watch the door to the house on the right. Shoot any soldiers that come out, then jump outa the buggy and bust in with a grenade or two and take them out. In the next building, kill the headcrab momma zombie and then collect all the goodies. Exit and enter the abandoned house on the cliff. Drop down on to the path below. By dropping at the right place you can land practically in front of the door to the bridge innards and avoid the path altogether. Fill up on rockets at some point here, you'll need them eventually. Be careful climbing on the bridge underworks, I prefer to stick to the X crossbars rather than the edges, if I can't be up on the catwalk. Anyway, cross past all the little stations, grab health if you need it, kill the three enemies at the third station before moving across to it. Watch out for the headcrab at station 1, the two headcrabs at station four, and the supply crate to the left of station four. At the back of station four, go down the stairs and then continue back to engage two troops. Four more wait inside the building, along with some supply crates. Exit via the side exit, and go around and up the ladder. Kill the sniper high above, then go around to the windows and kill the three troops inside. Go down the back stairs and clean up. Make sure to get the two supply crates. Then go all the way up both staircases and take on the two guys inside the energy field. You can try to kill the field before killing the troops, but its often easier to wait for them to come to you and then take the shield down separately. Head downstairs and then out to the underworks of the bridge again. A gunship has taken notice of you and will fire on you until you destroy it, so it's best to engage it early. Work your way back to a chest of rockets and use a simple cover/fire strategy to take it out, then cross back to the first station at your leisure. When you emerge, there will a mob of zombies and antlions fighting on the path. Fight your way up to the little group of buildings and you will encounter four troops. Kill them, and drive up to the bridge. Play chicken with the train, but remember to turbo or you probably won't make it ;) Veer left at the end and drive up the broken overpass into the tunnel. Killing zombies is fun, killing zombies with your car in the dark is even more fun! After a bit, you'll come to a pileup. The whole thing is laced with zombies, but is also full of good grav gun ammo. There are a few quick zombies in the mix, too. Watch for the small hole leading from one side room to the sealed side room. There's good supplies inside. Continue down the road until you see a house just off the side of the freeway. Get off the road and kill the three soldiers guarding the house. Head to the top floor for the health and ammo, but also watch out for the Rollermines. Head out and back onto the road, and continue to a roadblock. Kill the soldiers with your Tau Cannon, but watch out for the ambush on the other side. Stop before the pop out and be ready with your Tau Cannon. Take them out, then head into the house for health and ammo. Blast through the barricades and you're back on the road. You'll soon reach yet another barricade. Hit the natural ramp at the right edge to cruise over it, but you're boxed in by the other gate. Prepare for dropships of troops to attack, along with some Rollermines. Kill them all, then head into the house. Check out the battery situation: not good. You need to find more. One is nearby on the bed, the other is out in the junkyard in a wrecked car hood. Plug all three in to open the gate. Continue through the gate, to a tunnel and a loading screen. Upon exiting the tunnel, you will arrive at a resistance camp which is about to come under siege. Park your car in the open garage as requested, and prepare for battle. The squads are easy enough if you remember to use grenades and gas tanks. On the last squad, run into the lighthouse as soon as you see the gunship. There is a stash of rockets you can use to fight the gunship there. Once it is destroyed, head downstairs and then out through the secret door opened by the resistance guy. Move as fast as you can along the cliff edge and into the cave, to a loading screen. Chapter 8 Sandtraps When you come out, you'll come upon an unfortunate pair. A man and his friend, Lazlo, who is about to be eaten by antlions. If you didn't catch the warning, don't step on the sand. Every time you do, it will spawn one to three antlions. Continue through the sand. There are supple crates all over the place, but make sure to carry large flat pieces of metal or wood with you to walk on, or stick only areas with rock floors. Make sure to take the first left over the smooth rock ramp, down a junk path into a little sand cave where a antlion has killed a few resistance and combine soldiers and hoarded their gear and supply crates. Also, look for the tipped over windmill that is working as a shallow lever. Move a box to the near end and climb up to get to a network of buildings. Lay a board across a gap to get to the red wood building with white doors. Move a piece of metal sheeting found near the board up against the red wood building to use it as a ramp and get on top. Then climb up to the building above it for a supply crate. Head up a nearby wooden ramp to another red wood building, but with no doors. A supply crate inside with lots of armor. Leap across the ramp to a white building and turn on the generator behind it to get a thumper running. Enjoy the crates nearby. Follow the trail of rocks down from the white building to a beached ship and a cliff, each with supply crates. Then head for the ledge with the rock path leading up, check for a few more supply crates, and then leap off into the next area. Here, you will battle your first mega-antlion. Just lead it around like a bull, letting the door gunner do the shooting for you. Occasionally use the shotgun if it gets distracted. Afterward, gain the pheropod, and pass through the door. Search the camp for several supply crates and loose powerups, then follow the vorgon into the antlion pen to learn to use the pheropod. The pheropod is very simple, having only two functions- call antlions to you, or throw to direct the antlions to a location. After completing the simple exercises, leave through the far exit. Travel through the caves until you reach an industrial-sized thumper. You'll have to shut it off in order for your antlion buddies to pass. Climb the ladder and hit the switch. Continue to the next thumper, and shut if off as well. Keep an eye out for the soldiers that will come pouring out of the small bunker around the hill. Your antlions should be able to make short work of them. Collect the two supply crates and move on down the beach to the next thumper. The mounted gun in the bunker up in the rocks is manned, so watch out! Remember that the thumper itself is wide enough to provide cover from the gun. Send your antlions up behind the bunker to take out the soldiers hiding among the ruins. Shut off the alarm inside the bunker, and make sure to grab the 4 supply crates scatter inside and behind the bunker. The next area is a little rougher. Come around the bend carefully, because the mounted gun in the bunker in the hills is manned once again. Use the rocks on the beach for cover as you move down the beach, then up and around the bunker to reach it's flank. Eight to ten troops will engage you along the way, but as long as you continually direct your antlions toward them they should pose little threat. Pay more attention to keeping yourself behind cover and healthy, as the bunker gun will be firing on you the whole time. I found it easiest to toss a grenade into the bunker once behind it. There are only three or four troops inside so perhaps it's a waste, but it's so very satisfying. Collect all the supplies inside, then head into the tunnel near the circular stone pit. Two manhacks will attack once you reach the bend. Gravity gun makes killing them easy. Once the red flares light, prepare for a lot of enemy troops. There should be about ten of them. Remember to use your pheropod to send your antlions in, then help out with a shotgun or well-placed grenade. Keep an eye out for the low square hole with a barrel blocking it, it leads to a room with two supply crates, in addition to the two out in the hallway near one of the flares. You will exit the tunnels just behind a small hill with several more bunkers on top of it. Kill the two troops there, and watch out for two or three more coming from the bunkers further up the hill. Watch out, some of the bunker guns can hit you while you come up the hill, and those things hurt. The bunker at the top of the hill should have a rear exit which puts you out near yet another bunker. Upon approaching the bunker, enemies will start spilling out of the dropship near the base of the cliffs. Since somewhere in the range of ten-fourteen troops come rushing out, I found it easiest to fall back to the bunker you came from and use the bunker gun on them. They will not hesitate to charge you. Continue on the path around the cliffs, following the guard rail. Leap off the log to clear the gap and let your remaining antlions (if you have any, they seem to stop replenishing briefly while in the cave) take care of the zombies. Knock out the support beams to drop the ramp and climb up to the next section of path. Toss your bugbait up to the metal scaffolding above to clear out the two or three enemies and then climb the ladder. Grab the two supply crates and continue up the path. You will have to do a little jumping up small cliff sections to reach the large pipe. Enter the pipe and go through a loading zone. Follow the pipe to a sewer area, which should terminate near a ladder. Toss your bugbait at the guard tower to the right, then move out to some cover and do the same to the towers to the left. You should be able to take all the towers like this with little or no damage. Climb the concrete stairs and toss your bugbait at the solders on the metal walkway. At this point a gunship should appear. Stay behind cover and use your turbo when you need to move to another piece of cover. Watch out for the four troops inside the building below the walkway you lobbed your bugbait at earlier. I found a single grenade perfect for taking out the small room of enemies. Make sure to grab the three supply crates along the wall to your left, and use both health and suit rechargers inside the little guard post. There will be another little guard room up on a balcony ahead. Toss your bugbait up and behind it, and your antlions should take out the three guards inside. Take a left and head for the hollow crate nearby, which should have health inside. Go up the stairs, kill the troops up on the metal balcony, and grab some rockets. Time to shoot down some gunships! The key here is to keep your bugs AWAY from you. They will normally all hover around you like retarded kittens. Keep tossing bugbait to keep them away, otherwise they will draw the gunship'ss fire toward you and get in your way, and you should be using them as distractions for the gunships, not obstacles to your movement. Other than that, killing two gunships is just like killing one. Refill your rocket supply at the crate near the wall, and use the health scattered about whenever you need to. When you finish or get bored, head inside the building through the hole in the wall. Shut off the gas via the red valves to pass the two flaming areas. Continue until you reach a chainlink fence, where the hallway will cave in behind you, and you will move to the next chapter. Chapter 9 Nova Prospekt Grab the two supply crates, pass through the door, and head down the stairs. Go through the tunnel in the back of the cell. Take out the sentry gun from behind if you like, and then exit the room and head up the stairs. Jump through the gap in the fence. More sentry guns here, with antlions gaining the upper hand on them. Continue onward. Enter the security office, use the health and suit rechargers, and be sure to check out all the neato camera views. Head down the hall and up more stairs. Be sure to grab the supply crate inside the room with the door off its hinges, then take out the sentry guns in the next room. Head down the stairs into the watery area. Avoid the barnacles and then head up the stairs and across the walkway. Climb the pile of rocks through the broken ceiling into the next floor. Watch out for the four headcrabs that fall through the ceiling here, and continue through the double doors. Drop down to the next floor and head into another room with several radiators (my second favorite gravity gun ammunition). Climb the stairs and use the radiators (or whatever you like) to take out the two sentry guns on the floor above, if you haven't already. Make sure to break the boards on the window next to the unopenable doors and grab all the stuff inside, then continue upstairs. Take the right down the hall and wait through another loading screen. Grab the supply crate in the next room but watch out for the headcrab behind it. Break or move the boxes blocking the doorway and pass through. Jump over the rail and down into the shower room, and start running like hell from another antlion guard! You don't have to fight it, though. Run through into the next shower room and find the double doors blocked by a bunch of debris. Move it all, and then open and run through the doors. Your antlion posse will return at this point, and the antlion guard won't come through the doors, so you can kill it at your leisure or just continue on. Take out the soldiers and sentry gun in the next room with the help of your posse, then take a left. Send your bugs up to take care of the soldiers on the level above, watch out for the three manhacks, then destroy the shield generator at the end of the hall to move on. Pull the switch inside, and make sure to grab the magnum clip off the desk. Head outside and through the open door and up the stairs to another security office with four troops in it, but make sure not to trip the laser tripmine! Check out the cameras again and make sure to hit the red switch here, then exit to the upper level of the hall you were just in. Before jumping down, grab all the supply crates and check the cell across the way for more ammo and goodies. Head down and then back through the now-open gate. Send your antlions to kill the three troops here and then use projectiles or gravity gun to take out the two sentry guns. Get the Overwatch secondary fire ammo here, then head through the vent on the right wall. Jam the fan with junk (the board works well) to burn out the motor and then pass through. Pull the plug on the shield, grab the two supply crates, and let your little bug buddies through. Then head through the open gates to another load. Go up the stairs and watch out for more tripmines! Antlions are excellent mine fodder. Breen will give another speech while you fight here. Move down the hall, being careful of the mounted gun and more tripmines, and take the right at the end of the hall. In the next room, two sentry gun await tipping. Go up the stairs and kill the manhacks that arrive. When you get to the next floor, more troops arrive and attack. One of them usually mans the mounted gun again so be ready. Climb the stairs at the end and face more troops. Take the right first and grab the supply crate, then head back and take the left, being sure to remove the tripmine. There will be several enemies down a long hallway littered with cover here. Send your antlions in and return after the battle to collect ammo and such. Turn the corner and you'll be out on the top floor of this room. Send your antlions down the hallway to kill the enemies visible through the bulletproof glass, then follow them in. Take out the turret if necessary and grab the supply crate, and be sure to recharge at the two stations here. Check out the monitors and among the nastiness you will see more enemies attacking from the direction you just came. Kill them, then pull the switch here and go through the now-open gate to another loading screen. Enter the security office and grab the crate, refill at the charger if you need to, then check out the camera. Lots of enemies coming! Go outside and head down the hall. Troops have set up some cover here. Send your antlions in to wipe them out. Around the corner at the end are two sentry guns. Knock them over and send your bugs into the room to the left of the guns' positions to take out the troops there. When you enter the room, take the right into the little passage. This will end you up behind several enemies and the sentry gun, with a three supply crates gained along the way, but watch out for the headcrab momma zombie! Also, remember to use the health charger back here if you need it. Go up the stairs and through the chainlink doorway. Around the corner is quite a battle. Scattered around the area are two sentry guns and about eight troopers. Grenades and antlions work well here. There are two supply crates here as well, one in the room with the sentry guns. In the kitchen, the gas is on, so watch out. Take the two sentry guns out and then head into the next room to fight three troops and more sentry guns. Head up the stairs, then take a right and go up more stairs to fight two more troops. Get the supply crates and refill health and suit at charger if necessary, then jump through the broken window to fight an antlion guard. You can avoid the fight and head through the break in the corner after clearing it of debris if you like. Continue through more open gates till you get to the broken one, and you get your first close-up glance at the giant blue Combine buildings. Kill the zombie at the bottom, then hurry through into the flaming break in the wall or you'll be crushed! Kill the headcrab, then drop through the hole, into a loading screen. At the bottom of the hole, break the supply crate for a grenade, then exit through the doorway. Drop down another hole and continue down the tunnel and you will see Alyx, and hear a train approaching, and cheapter 10 will begin. Chapter 10 Entanglement Drop off the ledge and run down the tunnel under the tracks until you exit to a dead end. Wait for Alyx to drop off the tracks and talk a bit, then she will jimmy the lock on the wall/door. Follow her through to the elevator and help her kill a few troops after exiting at the top. She will activate the security console and locate her father, along with other more disturbing secrets. After she summons he father's storage container, she will take down a security field and you will face another three troopers. Kill them and go up the stairs. Here, a total of four troopers will attack you both from behind the security field and down the open hallway. Kill them and head down the hallway, taking care to break the supply crate in the dark sideroom along the way. Wait for alyx's conversation with her father to end, then pass through the door she unlocks. On the other side, the room to the right contains two headcrabs and two supply crates. Grab each and then break through all the debris blocking the stairs. Head down the hall and around the corner, until you get to a dead end. Alyx will direct you back to a an office just a little ways back, where an airvent is hidden behind some two shelves against a wall.. Move the stuff out of the way and enter the vent. Watch out for the heacrab around the first bend and the second one at the downward drop. Three headcrabs await outside the vent. Kill them and grab the supply crate behind the bent chainlink while alyx opens the locked door for you. Pass through the door and enter the office across the way for another supply crate. Check out the monitor inside and observe the troops rushing to kill you. Kill the five troops that attack, then destroy the two sentry guns just a little ways down the hall through the gate the troops came from. Enter the doorway to the left and kill the trooper behind the table. Three more troops spill in through the door to your right, kill them and continue through to another energy shield. Another trooper is usually waiting here to rush out from behind the field and die. Kill him, and then use a barrel (or a grenade, if it proves too tricky) to destroy the field's plug inside the small office on the other side of the field. Head through that office, nabbing the two supply crates along the way, until you reach a corner where another sentry gun awaits. Take it out, but beware of two more sentry guns just a little further down the passage. Finish them off, grab the supply crate at the end of the hall, and head back through the open doorway to another loading zone. You will come upon yet another control room. Alyx warns you that this one ic occupied: kill the two enemies within, grab the supply crate, and heal up via the dispenser if necessary. Here you will get to play with friendly sentry guns. Don't touch the sentries until you are ready, because enemies will attack soon after you've touched the second sentry. The best defense I've found for this room involves setting a sentry on each upstairs landing facing out toward the enemy, then staying inside the control room and firing out through the broken windows. Only leave the control room if a manhack/troop gets by one of your sentries or if a sentry gets knocked down. There are three waves of 1-2 troops on each side entrance for a total of 2-4 per wave, followed by a wave of troop 2 troops on side, a manhack, and a single enemy on the balcony upstairs and across from your battle position. The next wave will include more enemies from both sides, more enemies across the way, and two more manhacks. After the second wave of troops/manhacks alyx will arrive via a grate in the ceiling and use the local console to spy on Dr. Mossman conspiring with Dr. Breen. After Alyx downs the energy shield, head downstairs and take the left. Break the crate blocking the door and the various junk blocking the stairs. Watch out for the two headcrabs outside the office at the bottom, then head out the door, making sure to grab the supply crate tucked under some pipes around the corner first. As you go through the door, and note the electrified water below. As you might guess, going down the ladder into that is bad news. Instead, jump over the railing to the pipes, but watch out for the two lurking headcrabs! Kill the barnacle above, then jump to the platform across the way. Go down the ladder at the end of the platform. There is a half-box of magnum shells under the blue pipes across the way. Now use your grav gun to pick up a various junk like the wooden palette and blue barrels and use them to make a bridge to the stairs, then jump across and head up to the door. Kill the four zombies on the other side and grab the two supply crates (one is on top of a cabinet) in the small room to the side. Use the health dispenser if necessary too, but be sure not to touch the electrified chainlink! Head up the stairs until you reach a door that can be opened. Before going through, jump over the gaps up the rest of the stairs to get the supply crate at the top landing. Go back down and through the door. Break all of the wood blocking the door, making sure to grab the supply crate of suit regen as well. Head up the stairs to the next floor, but watch out for the three troops scattered around. Inside a small room you will find three turrets in a little security office, and Alyx will warn you that more troops are advancing. I found the best strategy to be to set up the turrets in the halls outside, facing three of the four directions that enemies will approach from. Use your grav gun to pick up one or more barrels and set them upright to block the fourth attack vector- usually enemies will just pass by that entrance if they can't get through. You can do this with the other exits too, actually. There should be three barrels scattered around to be used in this way. Note that they will eventually shoot the barrels out of the way if you block too many entrances. Also, set your turrets with their back against a corner, that way they are much harder to tip over and their flank is protected. You will have to make sure the turrets get re-setup after use, as well as covering the fourth approach vector. Make good use of the healing and armor inside the small office and ammo in the storeroom down the hall from the office whenever you can, because you will see five or so waves of troops, perhaps ten per wave, along with five or 6 manhacks. And don't feel bad if it takes you a few tries. It took me countless attempts to do this my first time through on Difficult. On the final wave, Alyx will say We must have hit a motherlode of soldiers! They're pouring in from all directions! Or something similar. After that wave, Alyx will come down and open a gate for you. Note, at this point, that via some careful planning you can take these three sentry guns with you. In fact, you can take them all the way with you to the Combine teleporter... more on that later. Just use your use key or gravity gun to toss each sentry gun as you move along behind Alyx if you want to try this strategy. Use the health and suit rechargers if you need to (I sure did) and follow Alyx down the stairs and through the hallway to a set of double doors, where a new zone will load. As you proceed down the hall, the lights wil begin to turn out, then red flares will be thrown. This signals an attack by six to eight troops, Help Alyx slaughter them and continue around the corner and up the stairs. Use the recharger at the top if necessary and then head through the door. Alyx will locate Mossman on the display, as well as some approaching troops. Follow her through and wait for her to seal the door behind you. Wait through the drama between Alyx and Mossman and enter the door when Alyx opens it. On the other side will be the Combine teleporter. Use the suit and health rechargers and note the sentrty guns- whee! They come in handy after Mossman pulls her stunt. Enemies will spill in from the small energy field to the right of the teleporter and the two larger doors to the left of the teleporter as well. Place a sentry gun covering each one, or two guns at each door, if you carried the three guns from the earlier battle all the way here. This battle is much easier than the previous one, since you have less entrances to defend, no manhacks, and less enemies. Just back up your sentry guns until the teleporter reaches the bottom. Jump in and wait for it to rise. When you arrive to Dr. Kleiner's office, wait through Alyx's discussion with Kleiner. During this period you can use the suit charger and grab the supply crate up the ladder on the loft above it. Kleiner and Alyx will be staying behind to look for Hedy Lamar, so follow Dog out the door to the elevator shaft. Make sure to grab the two supply crates and any ammo you need from the ammo resupply crate, then drop down the shaft. Exit, and Dog will drop down behind you. Chapter Eleven Anticitizen One It's really best to let Dog take the lead here, since he has some badass moves to make here and can take out most if not all of the six troopers, plus the Combine rocket truck. Dog will then bend back a portion of the Combine barricade, allowing you access, before battling and being carried off (again) by a Combine gunship. Enter the door, take a left, and climb over the debris to a loading zone. Exiting the building, you will find yourself in a small courtyard with some playground equipment scattered about. A resistance member will be fighting some scanners here. Assist if you wish, she will decide to follow you either way. Head through the alleys to a collapsed skybridge. Out in the plaza, citizens with ropes are pulling down a vid screen of Breen droning incessantly. Two of them will join your squad. Make sure to grab the supply crate below the captured Combine aerial guardpost, then head through the opened Combine door. Two CP guards will be inside, they should be easy kills at this point. Head up the stairs behind them to a loading zone. Upon exiting, you will be on a ledge fenced by chainlink with the only exit to the small yard being a drop covered by a metal sheet. A resistance member across the fence will warn you about the hopper mines. Use a sustained pull from your gravity gun to pick them up and then drop them whereever you like- they will no longer be hostile to your squad. You can also use the gun to hurl them like grenades at enemies. After taking care of all the mines and the three scattered headcrabs. go up the stairs. to the little shed. Watch out for the headcrabs inside, and pick up the supplies inside before heading out the opposite exit. Take the right and go through the low tunnel. A medic should join you here, but watch out for the striders! Run up the street, using the doorways for cover. A combine troop will be up in an aerial guardpost here. Also, watch out for gunships dropping hopper mines and headcrabs scattered about. At the deadend take a right, clearing debris from the tunnel as you go. Grab the cleverly-hidden hopper mine with your grav gun and toss it at the CP soldier in the window above the end of the tunnel. Several more hopper mines are hidden in this small enclosement, along with a couple more CP on the ground and in windows. Look to your left for a lambda sign next to a red building. Pull away the piece of sheet metal to reveal a tunnel into the building. Inside are suit batteries, grenades, and ammo. The small red building to the right contains a medkit and some hopper mines. Exit through the alley to a long courtyard with more CP's and hopper mines to fight. Enter the red room at the end for health and ammo, grab the supply crate outside, then head into the open doorway into a building, and a loading screen. Inside the building, head up the stairs to a room with bloody smears leading inside. A zombie will come crashing out of the kitchen, waste it. Then head back to the hallway and open the white door. Kill the zombie inside, and take the magnum bullets here. Go back downstairs and outside, where two hopper mines await. Dispose of them and head right, to the broken overpass. Approach the huddled fighters and if you are below four recruits you will gain up to two more. Go right into the alleyway, and into the open doorway there. Go downstairs to the laundry room first and grab the two supply crates there, but beware of the headcrab. Upstairs, several unopenable doors. Continue upstairs to a small complex of rooms with six CP's inside. Use the health recharger if you need to, grab the supply crate in one of the rooms with the giant monitor, and the two out in the hallway, then jump down the hole in the floor in the final room. Several CP will engage you out on the street, with more coming out of the building behind the Combine barrier. Run around the fissure in the road past the combine barrier to the open doorway and head inside. Kill the CP on the ground and the one on the balcony above, and watch out for the hopper mines scattered around. Head to the stairs and kill the CP at the top of the stairs, then go up. Move through the open doorway and grab the three supply crates, then drop two floors to exit the building behind the combine barricade. Climb up the stairs to the barricade, recharge your health, and head up the stairs into the building the CP's were pouring out of. Kill the two CP's hiding inside, grab the supply crate, and use the suit recharger if you need to. Up the stairs is a sentry gun guarding nothing, so let's go downstairs. Grab the two supply crates and then lead your squad down the hall, killing the CP's that pop out of the rooms as you go. Go down the stairs and repeat the process, except with some manhacks thrown into the mix. Go down the stairs and use the health charger if you need to, then enter a room with three sentry guns- watch out for the one cleverly placed behind the door. Grab the supply crate and jump through the hole in the floor. Kill the zombie that emerges and then go up the stairs. Destroy the three boxes through the iron grating then use the gravity gun to pull the powerups to you. Head back down the stairs and down the hall to a loading zone. Go down some more stairs to exit into a collapsed tunnel where more squaddies will join up. Almost immediately six manhacks will fly in from above. Slam them into the wall with your grav gun then continue past the gap in the roof, and another ten or so manhacks will attack. Move onward to a large pileup of wreckage. Go around the edges of the wrecked vehicles and collapsed concrete until you reach a chainlink gate. Shoot the lock off and prepare for another, smaller manhack assault as you do so. Go through the gate into a hallway where another six manhacks will fly through the windows at you. After destroying them, grab the three supply crates but beware of the underpass outside, which is guarded by several CP including two stationary machine guns. After destroying them look behind the tipped troop transport for a gap barred by debris. Hold off another five manhacks and four combine troopers while the resistance member on the other side plants charges to open the way for you. Go through the now-cleared tunnel to a larger chamber. Pass through another low tunnel to a radioactive-waste-filled tunnel. Jump across on the cable spools and use your grav gun to pick them up behind you and create a mobile path. Then climb the double pipe against the wall until you reach a series vents. Enter any of them and break the floor vent out to drop into a new hallway. Run to the open end and grab the three supply crates, then pass through the the doorway and open the locked door for your squadmates to come through. Continue up the stairs through a loading zone. Exit the building and watch out for shells, which will be dropping around you and are quite deadly. Head into the doorway across the courtyward and go up the stairs to the left. Go through the apartment and up a small flight of stairs. Grab the health and shells from the dead body and move into another apartment. Drop down through the hole in the floor and grab the four supply crates. Go down the stairs and wait outside briefly for a door to open, head inside to gain some more squaddies, then watch a resistance member die screaming and kill his murderer. Take a quick right into the small room and break the two supply crates before heading up some stairs, where more resistance are being slaughtered. Kill more troops and then exit at the top of the stairs to yet another hole you must drop through. Kill the combine trooper below then move kill the trooper in the next room, at which point a bridge should be lowered for you to cross. Before crossing, go back out of the room and down the hall to a small room where a box of magnum shells waits between two shelves. Now cross the bridge and pick up the ammo in the corner. Shoot the trooper who tries to follow you across the bridge and head deeper into the building. Go down some stairs and then through a door to another staircase. Head up that stair and exit the doorway. Be alert for the 5 headcrabs and the quick zombie who attack here! If you need it, grab the health in the little bathroom around the corner that the zombie came from. Now drop down and fight a flaming quick zombie. Drop down again and then once more to fight a zombie and a headcrab. Go into the next room and grab the health in the elevator shaft if you need to. Take the right and watch out for two headcrabs. Break the five supply crates here but be ready because many enemy troops will be attacking you from the windows and open door, along with three headcrabs. Outside the door, a few hopper mines are littered about. Use them to mop up the combine troops. Duck inside the apartment, being sure to fill up on grenades under the caved-in floor, and climb up to the next level, where a combine troop may await, along with several potential recruits for you and some supplies. Head outside and toss a grenade at the rooftop kittycorner the one you're on. Once it's clear, pull the switch to drop the bridge and head across, watching for assorted enemies on other nearby rooftops. Head inside the building and kill any enemy troops that survived your grenade barrage earlier. Grab the health and ammo and drop down through a hole in the floor to the lower level. Kill another four troops and grab the two supply crates. Weave through the broken walls and fight two more troops that rappel down. Kill the troops in the next (unreachable, for now) room through the slits in the wall if you choose, then climb the stairs. Be wary of the two craftily-placed barnacles and kill another combine or two. Drop through the hole to the previously unreachable room., kill any troops present. As you round the corridor, you will see a combine troop attacked by a flaming quick zombie. Shortly after, one will come bounding round the corner to attack you as well. Kill them all and continue down the hall, where you should find another combine troop on the level with you, and some zombies, quick zombies, and several combine troops, duking it out on the lower level. Kill the survivors and jump down the hole. Before going up the stairs, check the room with the lambda tag for some supply crates behind a grating. The grav gun works well for reaching them. No go up the stairs to a loading zone. At the top of the stairs, take two successive rights to reach two supply crates. Be careful about dropping down the hole into the lower level, since several zombies and two sentry guns are battling it out below. Use the recently-found grenades to clear the room and then drop down. Alyx will blow the door open. Be sure to use the health and suit rechargers before following her out. Kill two guys barricaded in a room, and assorted others. Some should come spilling out of the hallway behind the set of rechargers visible down the hall. Fill up at the rechargers and continue down the hall behind them. Head down the stairs and fight toss a grenade to kill the trooper past the door at the bottom. Continue to a control room where three or so more combine troops are waiting. After killing them, Alyx will use the console to locate a generator nearby. More recruite should come down the stairs to join your squad at this point. Go out the door at the back of the control room. Alyx will have unlocked it for you. Take a left and then another left into a room with a stove and a long table. There is an exit leading to the courtyard outside. Alyx will volunteer to take hack open the gate, but needs you to cover her from the dropships full of enemies landing regularly. There are several hopper mines laying around here, as well as half a dozen supply crates. Use them all to full effect because combine troops will be coming in waves here from two directions as well as firing from the opposite balcony. After four or five waves from each direction she will announce the shield is down. Two or three more waves will arrive, and just as she breaches the core and asks you to use your grav gun, a squad of elite white troops will attack. I had to kill them before shooting the core with the grav gun, due to the timing. After using your grav gun run through the open doors. A swarm of enemies will be pouring in behind you. Once you get through, Alyx will close the doors. Realizing that the bridge over the canal is out, she scales a nearby building and scouts a new route. Unfortunately, she is then attacked, leaving poor Gordon alone again. Drop down into the canal and pick up the two supply crates. Go into the open stone doorway, round the corner, and open the steel grate door to load a new zone. Drop down onto the boxes, then move up to the barred door and use your Use key or the grav gun to lift the bar off the door. Once through, break some boards to get into a sewer duct. Three manhacks will come swarming through the gap over the fence here. After killing them, pull a barrel out of the precariously-balanced platform stacked with boxes. Climb the resulting incline to get on top of some pipes running along the ceiling. Two more manhacks will attack through an adjacent window. Kill them, remove/break the vent grating, and enter shaft. Drop down the other side of the shaft, and four more manhacks will attack. After destroying them, pull the boxes off the opposite ledge to reveal a supply crate behind them. Down the hall the manhacks came from is some health and suit charge. There is another room to the right of the shaft you dropped from, with a broken stairway leading downward. There are three troops and a supply crate on the level above, and a couple of zombies on the levels below. Kill them in whatever order you like, then drop down to the lowest level where two more combine troops will greet you. Look down into the area below for a Lambda character and a supply crate. Open the door to the right but watch out for the poisonous headcrab inside! Grab the health and use your grav gun to lift the bar off the door from behind it. Down the hall and through a door, you will find a combine trooper shooting several zombies from the safety of a ledge. Let him do the dirty work of taking out the zombies, or take him out from behind rapidly and do it yourself. Watch the hallway to the right, which has four headcrabs milling about and a barnacle hanging in the middle. At the end of the hallway is a corpse with some suit charge nearby, with a barnacle hanging on each side. A combine troop will be sucked up the barnacle immediately upon rounding the corner. Up the stairs, a poisonous headcrab is waiting. Kill it and use your grav gun to get the health and suit charge on the body stuffed in the alcove. Head back down the stairs and get ready to drop down into the canal with the zombies. Get the health at the far end if you need it, then duck into the stone doorway and down the passage. There will be two headcrabs along the way. Go straight first, and use your grav gun in the hole next to the lambda character to get the goodies inside. Watch out for the momma headcrab zombie, grab the health laying around if necessary, then jump across the giant studs down the hallway to the four supply crates. Watch out for the headcrab lurking here! Climb the ladder, round the corner, then fight the two poisonous headcrabs along the ledge. Grab the two supply crates here And then climb over mass of bloody wreckage (picking up the health if you need it) to get to a large concrete and steel pipe complex. Climb the incline and jump onto the pipes to get up onto the catwalk. Careful crossing over the catwalk to the other side, as a combine troop will ambush you with a grenade and drop the whoel catwalk. Just turboing across worked best for me. It helps to take out the barnacle at the far end first, so you dont have to deal with it when you're running from the explosion. In the red shack on the other side, pull the lever to summon the cargo transport. A total of four or so enemies will be attacking from the rafters above now, if you haven't killed any yet. Use the health and suit rechargers and make sure to remove the flammable barrel before pulling the switch to take the transport up to the next level. Three more enemies will attack while the transport moves up. When you reach the top, climb the ladder. At the top of the ladder, two white elite troops will attack from a warehouse across the catwalk. Watch for the lamdba character in the upper corner of the warehouse, with a supply crate below, and another two on the opposite side of the cargo container nearby. Cross the rafters to the cargo transport lift's rail, and walk across that (you have to duck-walk part way) before jumping up to the next section of catwalk. An elite white troop will attack from above, and normal combine troop will attack from below after initiating the cargo transport's return. Climb the ladder at the end of the catwalk and two more elite white troops will crash through the ceiling to attack from the catwalk above. Two normal combine troops will also attack from the catwalk below. At the top of the ladder is some health, ammo, and explosive barrels. You actually want jump off halfway up the ladder after using the stuff above, and pick up all the supply crates you could see from below, there should be a total of four. Now drop down onto the ledge the last two regular combine troops attacked from (make sure to take care of the hopper mine first!) and then go down the hallway. Head down the stairs and down a hallway, avoding the hopper mine along the way, until you reach a loading zone. Chapter Twelve Follow Freeman MORE CHAPTERS TO COME!!!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Legal Notice This may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders. Thanks to GameFAQs for the legal notice. Sites where this guide may be hosted: GameFAQs - http://www.gamefaqs.com Cheatcc  http://www.cheatcc.com Cheat Happens  http://www.cheathappens.com IGN FAQs- http://www.ign.com Gamesover- http://www.gamesover.com neoseeker- http://www.neoseeker.com DLH- http://www.dlh.net PCGamer.co.uk is authorized to distribute this FAQ via CD.