All right, I FINALLY finished the Ravenholm level in Half Life 2.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

Someone give me a freakin' medal or something.

I've been playing the game at a geological pace because I got bogged down in Ravenholm and found the many poison spider throwing zombies to be tedious.

Now I'm finally back in the daylight, riding around with a buggy with a laser. Maybe I'll finish this game this year, sheesh!

[NewHampshireDem]

1. Here ya go ...

Not quite sure you'll want it, though. :evilgrin:

[Steven_S]

2. I would still be there...

from about a month ago. I used up all my ammo on the zombies and headcrabs and it was just by dumb luck that I was running with the crowbar and decided to jump the boxes, and then on to the ledge (I think you might know what I mean) in order to find some health, ammo and move the hell on.

That buggy is fun when you get the hang of controlling it.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. I wish I coulda spent some more time with Father Grigory.. that guy rocks!

It would be kinda fun to sit down by the fire with a hip flask of Jack Daniels and hear some stories from that dude, LOL.

[bvar22]

16. He was the coolest character of any game ever!

Ravenholm is spectacular.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

18. I actually hated it, too dark etc. But I liked the good Father, and

especially the shotgun he gave me!

I'm on the second to last level of the game now, where your gravity gun gets "modified".

[bvar22]

20. Its MUCH more fun the 2nd time,

though not near as scary :scared:

CAUTION...SPOILER!!!!!
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Use the Gravity Gun to pick up those buzz saw blades that are lying all around, then frisbee them through whole rows of zombies.
Go head high to take out the crabs too.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

21. Oh I realize that the level is designed to make you use the GG as much

as possible, due to the relative lack of ammo and lack of Combine soldiers to drop ammo. I did do a lot of saw blading, but sometimes you just can't pick up saw blades fast enough for the number of zombies.

Am I to understand now that the game only holds onto a certain number of savegames, and I lost all my old early level ones? (I just finished.) Sigh...

[bvar22]

22. I had the same problem with the "Saved" games.

I was kinda pissed that I couldn't just jump back in to some favorite places.
I'm sure someone has a fix for that somewhere.

I didn't figure out the G-Gun and sawblade (or anything else) thing until the 2nd time through.:+

[TheMightyFavog]

4. Oh wait till you get to the damn sentry gun bit...

Guaranteed to make you lose your sanity... I never got past it

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

5. Oh I wish you hadn't said that... Sentry guns are my most hated of guns!

Seriously, I HATE fighting sentry guns and flying drones. In FEAR those were the most annoying things in the game by far.

Fighting "inanimate" things in general, unless it's a really cool robot boss, is something I detest in FPS games.

It's amazing, after bogging down in Ravenholm, how I'm moving along again. I'm cruising through the "Sand Traps" level walking on boxes and wooden crates and such like so as not to stir up the nasty bug things.

[jayfish]

6. Are You Talking About The Nova Prospekt...

sentry gun bit? I loved that part. The second time I played that level I used a sentry gun as my main weapon as soon as one was available. When things got to hectic for the SG to handle on its own, I set it next to me and drew my own weapon. That extra bit of fire the sentry gun provided made a big difference. Same thing with man-hacks, The first time through I HATED those damn things. The second time through I grabbed them with the gravity gun and turned'em into one of the best melee weapons ever.

Jay

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

7. I just hid inside one of the lockers with the sentry gun

I held onto the sentry gun normally, put the other sentry guns in the adjacent lockers (facing out, of course)
and just waited for the shooting to be over.
When I came out, the hallways were covered in Combine blood, and sparking fragments of man-hacks scattered the floor.
But that was it. All I could hear was the happy whirring of the content sentry gun clutched in my hands.

I'm assuming this is the second "sentry-gun" assault stage you're referring to. I must admit I never though of using the sentry
gun with the gravity gun.

[jayfish]

9. Hid In A Locker?!

For some reason I had to be much more involved in the fight than that. The damn Combine soldiers were always knocking the sentry guns down with a shotgun blast or good kick. I felt bad for the little fellers. I think the OP is referring to the 2nd assault. I grabbed one of the SG's from the first assault and carried it as far as I could in the level.

Jay

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

11. Yeah, well I kept losing at that fight (the second one)

so I thought about letting the sentry guns to all the work. If you put the sentry guns inside the lockers, the Combine can't
get close enough to knock them down.

:shrug: It worked, so I'm not complaining.

[jayfish]

12. Damn, I Wish I Knew About That.

That's, easily, one of the most challenging parts of the game. .,..even the 2nd time through.

Jay

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

14. I solved it first time through mainly by just picking up the sentry guns &

setting them upright again whenever they got knocked down, giving myself little hits of health from the health machine now and then, and saving games like a madman.

The sentry guns have enough firepower that it's more worthwhile to spend a second or two taking fire while setting them up again rather than shooting at the Combine soldiers with your own weapons.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

8. I'm not reading the other posts until I'm done with Nova Prospekt... I'm

in the middle of it now.

So far I'm doing OK with the sentry guns. If I can get near them I can grab them or knock them over with the gravity gun, or throw stuff at them to knock them over.

I must say, as much as I was kind of down on this game while I was playing Ravenholm, controlling my insect army has just about made up for everything else, LOL. I'm gonna miss those guys when I don't have them anymore, or whenever they decide to turn against me.

[Steven_S]

10. I enjoyed the ant-lions....

I used them a lot. And you can throw that phermone ball thing a mile.

That's it - I don't want to be a spoiler.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. Another Half Life 2 question: Do your squadmates consume ammo &

health/armor powerups at the same rate YOU do? I'm, hopefully, about at the end of "Anticitizen One" where you get a squad for the first time.

I spent most of the level letting them do most of the heavy lifting, assuming this would conserve ammo and health, but now I'm not so sure.

I always assumed that they had inifite health and ammo so long as you kept them alive... until I noticed them picking up medkits lying around. I also noticed them "upgrading" their weapons to the alien blaster thing, when they found those lying around. I can't say that I noticed them picking up ammo, but I may have missed it if they did.

When your squadmates are medics, are they medics just by virtue of the fact that they are carrying spare medkits, and any squadmate can become one? I noticed that I went from one to three medic squadmates. Are they no longer a medic when they've used up any extra medkits? What are the rules governing when they patch YOU up, do they wait for you to be able to get full benefit from a medkit?

Do you ever get ammo from them?

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

15. This is what I know from my observations...

Medics will patch you up whenever you get below a certain amount of health. I think it's 60 health or lower, but I'm not completely sure.
They will also heal other members of your squad (but can't heal themselves).
When a squad member picks up a medkit, they're usually using it on themselves. I've never noticed squadmates becoming medics, so that might be new
(or I was too busy dodging Combine fire to notice.) Sometimes, a squadmember will die, and there will be "extras" around, also fighting. If
a slot opens up on your squad, and there's a non-bound citizen resistance near you, they'll immediately hook up with your squad.

I've not had anyone run out of ammo, but resistance members will upgrade their weaponry any chance they get. The Combine Pulse Rifle is
obviously an upgrade from the machine gun, so if you leave a pulse rifle lying about, someone's bound to grab it. They will also give you
ammo if your ammor runs below a certain point, just like medics. But I've never seen them pick up ammo.

The only way I can tell if a squadmate is injured is the amount of blood stains on their body. When they're healed, some of those
stains go away.

That's all I know.

[bvar22]

17. Half Life 2 ADD ON

scheduled to be released through Steam in April!!!
:woohoo:

To be available via Steam
Eurogamers is reporting that Half-Life 2: Episode 1 won't require Half-Life 2 to play and will offer four to six hours of gameplay. Thanks: Blues. In Episode 1, player reprises his role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, who must immediately face the repercussions of his actions in City 17 and the Citadel. Freeman reconnects with Alyx Vance and her robot, Dog, as they continue their support of the resistance's battle against the Combine forces. Half-Life 2: Episode 1 is scheduled for April 24th, priced $19.99.

[Steven_S]

19. Looking forward to that....

There just wasn't enough "dog" in HL2. Hell, he knocked me up the block in one of those encounters.

And what can I say - Alex is HAWWWWWWWT!!!!111

[NewHampshireDem]

23. she r0x0rz teh b0x0rz!!!1

:evilgrin:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

24. Normally I frown in disapproval at "leetspeak". But I'll have to give that

one a thumbs up! :thumbsup:

[Occulus]

25. Dog was the best

Not nearly enough Dog. I want a map where Dog gets AI and you fight alongside him, maybe using his ball to tell him where to go and throw crap around.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

26. Yes, more Dog needed. For me, the coolest things in the game were

having my insect commando squad, and having a resistance squad. I thought the gravity gun, both regular, and "extra special", was a tad overrated although original.

It would've been nice to have half a level or a level with Dog kicking ass with you.

Is the Lost Coast an extra level, expansion, Mod, or what? I guess I've paid for it and have it on my machine already, so I might as well play it...

[Steven_S]

27. It's hard to tell what it is MM....

Besides new hi-def tech stuff. I suppose with Steam they could sell it as a download or a stand-alone. You would still need a steam account, right? Hope it's a whole new game - for all of the work going into it I would think it's a new game.



http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/09/14/lost_coast_screens/1.html