Chapter 1: Undue Alarm Episode 1 starts with a bit of a cop-out.
The citadel has just exploded, Gordon’s been put into cold-storage… only for a bunch
of vortigaunts to magic into Gman’s world and to hold him in place while they rescue
Gordon and Alyx from almost-certain peril. ‘(G-man) We’ll see, about that!’
You start under some rubble until Dog finds you.
‘(Alyx) I think I found something, drop what you’re doing and help me over here-
OH MY GOD, GORDON!!!’ ‘Little to the right, here we go, hold it
there! We got it.’ You and Alyx get told the citadel’s about
to blow and that you need to get as far away from it as possible.
‘(Eli) Tell me you’re out of the city!’ ‘(Alyx) Well, not quite yet…’
‘(Eli) WHAT?!?!’
But then the plan changes to you two heading back INTO the citadel to slow the reaction
to give everybody enough time to escape. Dog decides to chuck you across the gap.
‘(Alyx) Okay, Dog! Let’s do it! Before I change my… Okay! Woah…’
‘Phew! Okay, what now… AHRHAGHH HOOO OOHH OOHHOHOOH HOLY CRAP’
You and Alyx then head through the citadel until you reach a door that’s being blocked
by Stalkers. Alyx spots a load of roller-mines and tells
you get to them, so you go off on a bit of a mini-mission to get one.
You bring it back to her, and she hacks it with her magical multitool then you set it
loose on the Stalkers, allowing you to advance through the room.
Weird stuff begins to happen as the Citadel’s reactor goes critical. Like this room, where
everything starts floating. And this bridge where you have to time your
crossing to avoid strong and lethal winds. You and Alyx see an Advisor in the next room
that does some weird mind stuff to mess your vision up.
‘Oof! Let’s get out of here.’ The weapon stripper tries AGAIN to take the
Gravity Gun, and yet again fails and instead transforms it into a super-weapon.
Armed with this you then go on a massacre, destroying waves of combine forces as you
progress towards the Citadel’s core. You must complete several light bridges by
getting energy cores and by shooting them at large… energy core holders. This happens
a few times, each with extra complications and barriers to make it more difficult.
You then head down a long lift and must catch falling debris before it can hit the platform
you’re on.
Chapter 2: Direct Intervention You reach a control panel overlooking the
core. Since the whole thing’s flooded with radiation, Alyx stays there and you head inside
to activate 3 stabilisation laser things. A bit like with the light bridges, each of
these requires extra steps to complete. The first is practically handed to you on
a platter. You then head into a dangerous corridor with
energy cores shooting along it. You fight a bunch of combine and can activate the second
device. For the third one you must hop on a lift,
jump over the top of the core, fight waves of manhacks and combine, avoid power cores,
clear the room of combine and then go down below it to power it up with energy core things.
This stabilises the Citadel’s core, buying you and many others time to escape the city.
Alyx steals a load of information- this proves to be very useful in later episodes. And then
you both escape this place. Which again, is quite useful.
You use more hacked balls to beat the combine. Then you hop on a train to get out of here.
But it’s a Stalker carriage! Alyx makes out she pities them, but is clearly repulsed
by them and wants to give them a wide berth. ‘God I hope you don’t remember who you
were…’ Unfortunately for her…
…the train crashes and one lands right on top of her. And Gordon QUICKLY RUSHES OVER
TO SAVE HER FROM IT! ‘(Stalker) Gordon, help me! Please! Help!
Get her off me, get her off!!!’
Chapter 3: Lowlife In this chapter, you and Alyx head through
underground tunnels, must shine lights to see through the dark, and rely heavily on
her to shoot the zombies. Time has passed since Half-Life 2, and the
gun turrets have all run out of ammunition. What could have been a dull moment is made
more exciting when I got blown up by a tripmine, down to extremely low health.
You reach a dead end and must travel through the ducts to find a way through. All of this
is in the dark, with only your flashlight and the odd flare to light the way. You pick
up a few weapons here, but ammo is still scarce. You and Alyx eventually stumble upon a new
kind of zombie. ‘A combine zombie… heh, zombine, get it?!?!
HEHEHEHEH?!?!?!? Ehh, kay…’ ‘Look out! It’s got a grenade!’
The two of you fight through some more dark environments. But it’s all quite easy and
it isn’t long before I’m on full health again, so Alyx did her bit by blocking me
so I got blown up, down to extremely low health again.
You make it to a parking lot, and a new gameplay mechanic is revealed- infinite antlions will
spawn until you can block their tunnels with vehicles.
You need to do this because the cranks to open doors take so, SO long to turn.
Once past here you drop down to a flooded basement and Alyx gets about as close to flirting
with you as you could ever hope for. ‘You’re luck you’ve got that Hazard
Suit. This water’s NASTY. Got room in there for 2 in there?!?! :D:D:D’
The lift is out of service so you must follow the cable back to the control panel, which
kicks it into action, but also means you get attacked by dozens of zombies as you wait
for it to descend. All in pitch-blackness. ‘That, was close!’
Chapter 4: Urban Flight ‘Let’s get to the train yard before the
Citadel blows.’ You reach the surface and must find a crank,
which can be found at the back of this room here.
You reach the surface to find City 17 in bloody tatters, and the Citadel ominously glowing
in the background. Dr Breen’s broadcasts have been replaced with a much friendlier
sounding Dr Kleiner doing his best to inform people of the situation.
‘(Dr Kleiner) …a series of useful bulletins in the days ahead.’
You fight against combine and antlions in the streets, covering up the tunnels as you
go. Alyx leaves you to explore a building filled
with tripmines. You must complete a physics puzzle to be able
to turn off the gas to allow you to head upstairs. The next street is occupied by a sniper.
At the foot of the building he was in, I found some grenades and was able to clear the room
out. Then I blinded Alyx until she climbed the
building and took control of the sniper for herself. Transforming yet another enemy weapon
into an advantage I could exploit. ‘(Alyx) Ha, nope! Guess I’m not!!!’
I headed off down the street while she provided cover, but only if I could lure the enemies
out into the open. Inside this house, I shot the planks off the
side to give Alyx a clear shot into the corridor to help me.
And then back down on the street again we worked together to take down a combine outpost.
At this point, the Citadel’s reactor approaches meltdown again, adding a pretty green storm
to an already pretty view. ‘Looks like the reactor’s back on track
for a meltdown!!!’ We fought our way through a combine-infested
building, then faced a boss battle in the streets against an Antlion Guardian.
Alyx took control of a gun turret as I pushed on to clear a basement up ahead, managing
to blow myself up yet again. Bit like earlier, Alyx expects me to head
through a vent system to find a way through. And then she has the nerve to tease me when
I drop back down into the room she’s in! ‘BaCk sO SoOn???! :D’
Having gone the right way, I find myself in a room filled with explosives, so I get through
that and trigger a large chain reaction before hiding in the water as it all goes off.
I climb up the lift shaft, then Alyx and I head up to the surface again, fighting our
way through the streets until we’re taken into a rebel base.
‘What’s the password?’ ‘I’m not even going to tell you to shut
up.’ ‘COME ON IN!!!’
Dr Kleiner’s speeches get increasingly awkward. ‘(Dr. Kleiner) For those so inclined, now
would be an EXCELLENT time for procreation. You should give serious consideration to DOING
your part for the revival of the species!’ ‘(Rebel) Is Dr. Kleiner really telling everyone
to get busy?!’ ‘(Dr Kleiner) …We must make the most of
the time we have-‘ ‘(Alyx)You’re right. We don’t have time
to watch TV.’ Then finally we bump into Barney again, who
shares with us the plan to evacuate everybody via the train station, then lowers a bridge
for us to cross- but not before he gives me a little present.
‘Hey, GORDON! Before you go, I was getting tired of carrying this around. Listen, I don’t
have many more of these so, try not to lose this one, okay?’
We make it to the hospital, which is overrun with zombies, combine and zombine. And a gunship,
circling overhead. We head up to the loft, which is fully destructible
and it’s here that you must take down the gunship.
Alyx again confesses her love for you. ‘JESUS GORDON YoU’rE sO gReAt WoW oMg!!!
And you’re such a great listener!!!!!’ ‘Maybe you should hit it with a crowbar,
just in case!’ And being the desperate romantic I am, I do
as I’m told. And then it’s back down into the hospital
again to clear out corridor upon corridor of enemies.
Things get serious as Alyx puts her pistol away and picks up a SHOTGUN!
It’s a little too late for these patients. Finally you escape from these seemingly endless
corridors as you drop down into a flooded basement.
It’s easy to get to the other end of the room, but quite a bit harder to return again
once the power’s been restored and the water, electrified.
Get out of here and you regroup with Alyx again.
There’s a hairy moment in this room as zombies begin crowding the surrounding corridors,
then start breaking in and attacking your position.
Get out of there and you must head down this heavily-guarded corridor, dodging the gun
turrets at the end. Chapter 5: Exit 17
Eventually you’re out of the hospital and at the train station. This is the final bit
of the game, and there’s quite a bit of repetition. The goal is to escort groups of
rebels from where Barney is, all the way to the train station. With each batch, the enemies
get harder and the route gets longer as things end up blowing up, or collapsing and obstructing
your path. Do this several times and eventually Barney
goes with you, signalling that this is the last group to escape from the city.
You and Alyx wave goodbye to Barney and the last of the citizens, then you help Alyx to
get through a gate. But before you can make it through, you’re attacked by a strider
and must run to safety. As it’s shooting at you and blowing your
surroundings up, you must make it up and through a maze of storage containers, hopping from
cover to cover to dodge the worst of the attacks. There are regular health stations and supply
crates to keep your health topped up. On the last platform you reach is a rocket
launcher and you can finally dispatch of this damn strider.
You meet back up with Alyx. ‘Haha, you’re my new hero!!! 😊😊😊’
…then hop on a train and make it out of the city, just as the Citadel goes critical.
‘Oh my God, the transmission’s going out!’
‘Oh my God, GORDON!!!’