Chapter 3: Lowlife
Crawl under the little hole in the debris to get to the next hallway. Alyx stops and takes a moment to recompose herself after the harrowing train crash. She looks truly scared. It’s not because of anything the developers did though. It’s just that the blank eyes, slacked mouth, and flushed skin tones of videogame characters make them always look like they are suffering from some sort of post traumatic stress. It works here because now there really is a reason why a game character should look that way. I’m not totally heartless though, I wish there were a hug button.
|| Time: 1 Hr ********
We find ourselves in a post-apocalyptic war-torn underground fighting to get to the surface and, eventually, to the evacuees train station.
Use the Grav Gun quite extensively here and you should be able to pickup the BONE BREAKER (killing 30 enemies with thrown objects) achievement quite easily. Pushing the car around with the gun also is an effective weapon. There are also lots of flares and if you rub it up against an enemy will set it ablaze and step you closer to the Zombie-que achievement.
This is level is really where Alyx has some good one liners. If you keep having flashlight problems she will mention that she is going to talk to Kleiner about how useless it is. Basically, we have a game developer writing a joke about a game-play mechanism that was created by a developer.
When you get to the darkened hallway with the un-powered door you will need to climb through your first air duct. The grate is located along the ground and behind the grey barrel. Before shimmying through the vent though, hang around Alyx and she will mention Gordon’s proclivity for duct running.
When you reach the darkened room you will need to shoot through the locked gate. No bullets or guns to do it? There is a shotgun and pistol locked in the caged-off corner of the room. Use the Grav Gun to lift each item up and out of the bent fence at the top. If you are going for the ONE FREE BULLET ACHIEVEMENT, here is the one time you get to fire a gun. When you get through the gate, head over to the electrical box to power everything up again.
The deep tunnels don’t seem like they are heavily populated by people. I wonder if zombies get excited when they see someone like Gordon and Alyx run through. Here the zombies are wandering around, never expected to see live brains in a place as remote as under a city and then all of a sudden here comes to fresh, big, scientist brains right up to them.
I am going to coast through the step-by-step here because most of this area is just bashing through endless scrums of zombies and combines and zombie combines (or zombines which Alyx will humorously mention soon.) I think this area was compromise between the “sewer” camp and “underground freeway” camp of designers. They want it to be a sewer so bad that a few floors are flooded with water. I realize they wanted to create a darkened area for us to get scared in and I am not sure what other environment could do it. I think this is where Beast lived in the Beauty and the Beast TV show.
When you finally get out of the darkened tunnels and to the well lit garage, you find an Antlion burrow. They will continuously pour out and the only way to stop them is to push the nearby car on top of it. You can tell that the burrow has been successfully blocked if there are no longer yellow-green flurries hovering over the hole. When done, turn the crank to get out.
Eventually you find yourself in the fifth floor of a garage (labeled on the wall as P5). The place is swarming with Antlions and you will have use cars to plug their burrows. While fighting the lions, hit them with your Grav Gun to flip them over and let Alyx shoot them.
- The first car is the red wagon on the ground floor. Push it into the one of your choosing.
- The second car is on the next floor up. Run up the thin concrete beam to access it. The green car is crashed halfway into an elevator room. Push it down to the first floor and into another burrow.
- The third car is on the second floor as well but you will need to climb up to the third floor to get over the gate it is locked behind. Crank the wheel on the wall to pull back the fence.
When all the cars are in place, you can now open the third floor gate unmolested. If you are having trouble finding the gate, look for Alyx. She stands by it waiting for you.
The next significant room is a flooded basement that gives Alyx the chance to do some lonely nerd service by offering to climb into your Hazmat Suit. Use the barrels to your advantage, careful though, it is a powder keg in here.
Once out of there, you arrive to a quite large dark area. The elevator in the back breaks down and needs to be reset. Here is how to do it.
- Follow the power line from the front of the elevator to places around the room. It will disappear into the roof but there are holes in the ceiling (complete with bodies hanging out) that hint at its location.
- Preserve as many of those explosive canisters as you can, they will come in handy later when you have to battle a rush of zombies.
- The door to the electrical room is a grey one with a wooden beam across it. It is in a rather large fenced off area on the wall opposite to the elevator.
- Once inside and after you hit the power, the elevator will start. However, it takes a long time for it to get to your level so you will have to fight of the several waves of zombies.
- Get out of that little power room, a single zombine grenade will blow all of you up easily while you are in there.
- The best place to fight is right in front of the elevator so you are there when it does arrive.
- Don’t worry about killing all the zombies, just get into the elevator to escape.
- I love the casual way that Alyx acts as each floor you pass by shows another level of zombie torment.
UNLOCK: ELEVATOR ACTION ACHIEVEMENT
|| Hr 1hr 39min ********
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6 |
