Vroom Vroom (it’s a car this time)
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| The main menu continues to keep you drawn in. |
Ah,
Highway 17, my (personal) favourite chapter of the game because of its
atmosphere and general ‘feel’, and that’s not taking into account the more
enjoyable, open gameplay and numerous moments. In a sense it’s the game’s first
chapter in which you are truly isolated, save for brief interactions with other
Resistance members at the start and a little way in, otherwise it’s just you,
your (well, Alyx’s) scout car, the antlions and a whole lot of combine. The
coastline is long, barren and littered with antlion-repelling devices, which
are essentially tall devices that constantly strike the earth, releasing
tremors that repel the antlions. The coastline is also littered with Resistance
bases be they abandoned or taken over, abandoned (or now infested) houses of
citizens who lived along the coast and various temporary Combine bases
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| THUMP THUMP |
The
chapter is, obviously, akin to Water Hazard in the fact that it is a
vehicle-centric chapter albeit with a whole lot less emphasis on the vehicle
itself. The Scout Car is fast, armed from the get-go and capable of executing a
brief turbo mode which lets you cross large gaps but will more often cause you
to drive off a cliff. Another difference is that the Scout Car is not immortal,
it can take a whole lot of punishment, but it can be destroyed and, as
mentioned above, driven off cliffs – which results in a non-standard Game Over
of the ‘G-Man is disappoint’ variety, which essentially calls you a dunce for
failing to keep shit together, a style of Game Over used whenever something
essential to the plot is destroyed or killed, and it’s a smart, lore-relevant
way of forcing you to restart instead of having text shout at you over the
fourth-wall saying ‘FRIENDLY FIRE IS NOT TOLERATED’ or ‘YOU DIDN’T DO x’.  |
| Detours often contain optional encounters with zombies. |
Another
difference from Water Hazard is that this chapter involves a lot more start and
stop and generally ‘not using the vehicle’. The Car is only ‘truly’ used to zip
across the antlion-infested sands and you generally have to disembark to clear
the way or to inspect the various attractions along the coast. Interestingly, a
lot of these attractions are optional, present only for those hungry for
resources or those wishing to take their time and explore everything, if you so
desire you can speed through much of the chapter by just driving through
anything before you.
Combat-wise
the main attraction of this chapter… are not the antlions, but the Combine, who
now oppose you with their real soldiers. Gone are the days of facing off
against the terminally self-oblivious Civil Protection, as you now face the
Combine Overwatch, who are far better equipped, more durable, smarter and
capable of using tactics against you. Combat-wise it’s important to not forget
about your toy from Eli, the Gravity Gun, which adds its own dynamic to the fights
even though it is not compulsory to overcoming your foes… but why would you not
use it? It’s too much fun. Nonetheless, the Gravity Gun gives you a method to
still fight when low on ammo (since the Pistol doesn’t really cut it against
the Overwatch), since cinderblocks and radiators are very injurious to health. You
can also throw back grenades using it and use it to manipulate the now
less-conveniently-present explosive barrels.
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| Keep the Shotgun Combine far, far away. |
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| Lest you want this to happen. |
The
chapter also has some great set-pieces of the kind that you control, instead of
watching as things get flashy, with minor ones being confrontations with
Combine Gunships, a less minor one being the crane segment and the major one
being the bridge segment.
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| Crane goes SMAAASH! |
The
crane segment is a brief one, which is comedic more-so than anything else
because you pilot a gigantic magnetic crane to open a path for yourself, and
combine forces challenge you on foot… while you’re in a crane capable of
tossing about GIGANTIC METAL shipping container, resulting in combine ragdolls
flying all over the place. The bridge segment has you going underneath a
bridge, carefully walking across the ‘walkways’ below it as you make your way
to the machine to turn off the barrier that blockades your way on the bridge
above, and it is absolutely dripping with atmosphere, from the eerie music that
plays as you begin to make your way along the walkway as a train thunders
across the bridge above, causing the entire foundation to shudder. And the tone
and pace of the segment changes when, on your way back, you are challenged by a
Gunship.
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| Welcome to the bridge. |
This
chapter also provides some fine examples of Half-Life 2’s principle of ‘variety
in all things’, since you can see this in play in some of the smallest things.
Normally, you have to press a switch or disconnect a cable to disable a Combine
field, but in one case you find no switch, but find that a Combine
jeep-cum-tank is powering the field, which yields to you the pleasure of using
your Gravity Gun to ‘find’ a way to send the vehicle on a one-way trip down the
cliff-side. It’s, as I said, a fine example of the little ‘moments’ that give
the game so much character, atmosphere and unwritten lore – things that give
the game a surprising amount of replayability owing to their charm, and how you
might come to see something differently, such as how the
initially-seemingly-comedic ‘Sometimes, I dream about cheese’ becomes somewhat
saddening when you give it more thought.
It
also continues the pattern of teaching-without-telling, from the initial moment
wherein your car is overturned, causing you to use the Gravity Gun to set it
straight (and teaching you that the Scout Car isn’t as catty as the Airboat).
Or the moment that teaches you of the antlion-repelling devices’ function,
where you come upon a fence seemingly blocking your way with a house on your
right, forcing new players to disembark, following which they learn that that
giant pounding device repels antlions. The player then inspects the house and
learns of the device’s range when he is joined by several antlions in the
house.
Arsenal
Pulse Rifle
Essentially a much stronger, far more
accurate version of the SMG, albeit with a smaller clip size and minimal
reserve ammo. It does the job of the SMG better and is far more effective at
greater ranges, making it your true ‘main’ firearm in many cases. Of course,
ammo for it is scarce, forcing you to use it at the start of firefights to thin
the number of enemies down to a more manageable size, often used to eliminate
high-priority targets. You’ll typically end up using it to kill Shotgun Combine
before they reach you, or to ‘fight fire with fire’ by using it to deal with
Pulse Rifle-wielding Combine. It’s secondary fire, which is unused in this
chapter, fires a ball of energy that bounces off surfaces and disintegrates
anything it touches, making it rather lethal to (almost all) enemies since
getting spontaneously disintegrated is bad for health.
Crossbow
Essentially the ‘sniper rifle’ of the game,
it fires rather hot looking bolts capable of impaling enemies onto surfaces.
Did I mention that it is a one-hit kill against all Combine? It is essentially
an upgrade to the Magnum’s fatalistic side (while the Shotgun is the upgrade to
its burst-damage side), and quickly becomes an essential part of your arsenal
since the ability to instantly kill a target is rather helpful, to say the
least. Though the AI is a bit dumb when it comes to dealing with the crossbow,
often charging at you in a straight line or leaving themselves in plain sight,
I did speak of the aged AI before but it’s really pronounced when, right after
you bolt his adjacent buddy, the other enemy doesn’t think it’s time to be a
bit more mobile. Though its strengths are off-set by ridiculously scarce ammo,
making it highly situational.
Rocket Launcher
Your main weapon for dealing with the
larger, armoured enemies you face off against – such as Gunships and Striders.
Its unique attribute is that the rocket follows your aiming laser, letting you
guide the rocket around, using it to avoid intercepting fire or using it to
shoot around corners. Ammo for it is scarce (except for instances where you
face enemies that have to defeated (primarily) using it), and it is a major ‘oh
shit’ weapon, great at clearing out multiple enemies with a well-aimed shot. An
interesting take on the basic rocket launcher that you won’t end up using that
much.
Enemies
Antlions
“It’s Antlion spawning season!” thus with a
single line uttered by a NPC you meet briefly, the omnipresence and respawning
nature of the antlions is justified – a cute little touch. Antlions don’t do
much damage but they are fast, capable of flying at you (less like flying and
more like a guided jump) and their main goal is to swarm you and kill you with
a hundred paper-cuts, making them rather similar to headcrabs in a way. Their
numbers are their only source of threat, since an individual antlion is
incredibly weak, capable of being killed quickly by any weapon (sans the
Pistol) and can even be flipped over by the Gravity Gun, exposing their weaker
underbelly (you can flip an antlion over and kill it with a single crowbar
swing – no ammo needed).
Appearance-wise ‘Starship Troopers’ is
probably the first thing that comes to many people’s minds, which gives them an
odd ‘homely’ feel which goes well with the fact they have seemingly adapted
ridiculously well to life on Earth – which raises several story-related
questions of their origins and life on Earth. They bleed yellow and explode
deliciously, but their unending numbers makes traditional fights with them far
less satisfying since you have to do less fighting and more ‘get the hell
away’.
Combine Overwatch
Now you know they’re really serious –
they’re sending their main force after you. Facing off against them is where
the previously mentioned ‘weapon dancing’ truly comes into its own, as the
various weapons they wield, how deadly they are and their ability to use
tactics (however rudimentary by some standards) force you to adapt on your feet
and keep switching weapons to quickly deal with each threat. You’ll quickly
form a hierarchy of ‘what to kill first’ and will typically go Shotgun
Combine>Pulse Rifle Combine>SMG Combine.
They
differentiate themselves from the lesser Civil Protection by donning a
uniformly coloured uniform alongside heavier armour and brighter visor-eyes. There’s
a bit of variety to be found on their uniforms as well, with soldiers from
different areas having different markings, such as the Nova Prospekt soldiers
having their own insignia.
Shotgun Combine
In the vanilla game, they blended in with
their comrades, but Episode One and Two decided they were dangerous enough to
give them their own colour scheme, and thus they get their own entry here. The
colour scheme? Brown and red. Why? Because they’re probably the most dangerous
enemies in the game. A single Shotgun Combine can take you from 200% to dead in
a matter of seconds if allowed to get close to you, evoking the zombie
mentality of space control in their own way. They become an odd source of
jump-scares (of sorts), as turning the corner to find yourself face-to-face
with one or being snuck upon by one, can be startling as the sudden burst of
gunfire is generally accompanied by your health falling as fast as Icarus.
Gunship
A gimmick enemy, but a fairly fun enemy
nonetheless. Your rocket launcher is your main means of making it not kill you
though it is capable of shooting down rockets fired at its face, which means
that you have to use the launcher’s ability to guide missiles to bypass its
guns and hit it. The gunship often turns towards your
rockets, leading to moments where it’s your guiding abilities versus the
gunship’s turning abilities, which makes for some fun little moments that
aren’t very challenging. Though things change a bit when you simultaneously
face off against two in a later chapter, with them backing each other up, which
generally forces you to use yourself as bait, wherein you bait out their
gunfire and try to quickly get in a rocket hit while they’re busy with you.
Aside
from the Dropships you glimpse, these are the first Combine synths that you
face –biological life perverted by Combine technology to the extent that they
look neither like life nor machine, but a bizarre and unsettling amalgam of
both. The Gunships look like a hybrid between a chopper and an aquatic life
form (it has fins!).
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| Next Up: The Antlions finally get their time in the spotlight. |
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