Chapter 4: Urban Flight

Alyx and Gordon emerge from the subterranean hallways of the under city and are in a subterranean subway station. Look to the walls for some pretty neat fliers that looks like they gave someone in graphics carte blanche to draw some post-apocalyptic rave advertisements. There are also pay phones. I think that for level designers, payphones and toilets are easy props they use so a room doesn’t seem so empty. Whether they make sense or not is up for debate.

Our two travelers’ progress is hampered though by a gate. Everything in the world is destroyed or has a rock through it but this one gate managed to survive completely unscathed. Unscathed except for that crank to open it which is inexplicably gone. There isn’t even a broken off one, it’s just gone. Lucky for us the public works department hidden some spare cranks in the storage closet that is kitty-corner to the elevator. Search through the boxes and debris in there to find another orange handle that can open the gate.

When you get out, the scientist Kleiner has taken control of the video screen that was once dominated by the Wallace Breen show. I bet if you would just put this speech over a phat beat you could have a career making hit electronica records. It is pretty interesting and worth a watch. Here are the highlights.

•  Everyone should escape the city because the Citadel will explode.
• Everyone should have sex. The implication is that the Combine had emitted a shield over the city that prevented the production of semen and or embryonic development. Note to anyone trying to rule the Earth: sexual frustration is a force that will always lead to revolution.
• The communication network for all the Citadels on Earth has been shutdown. Therefore, the Columbine can no longer open portals.
• There are new human scientists in training and the Combine should fear us because we can think independently and are rad.
• Humans should prepare for retaliation from the Combine

When you have had enough, turn to the corner opposite the Kleiner broadcast and see a slapdash arrangement of corrugated steel panels. Pull them off with the Grav Gun and proceed through the level.

Eventually you will reach a long, quaint city street that is teaming with Antlions. Again, place the cars over the burrows but also take the opportunity to push the cars into the individual Antlions and work your way towards the CAR CRUSHER achievement. When you get to the end of the street, go through the blue door to continue on.

Behind the blue door is a bombed out bakery/cafe with a bunch of emptied out pastry display cabinets. The place looks like crap and despite the apparent uselessness of the building, two Combine troops see it worthy enough to install a complicated array of trip mines that promise to explode your delicatesticles @@ @@. It shows that even in the throws of defeat, those Combine bastards will do anything to keep the citizenry from enjoying their baklava, babka, and café au lait. Blow them up by triggering the lasers with some of the nearby wreckage.

The leaking gas keeps the place ablaze so you will have to knock out the fuel source before you can continue.

• Walk to the back of the former kitchen to a set of pipes that teeter when you walk on them.
• Place a bunch of junk on the near side of it to counterbalance your weight as you run to the other end.
• Jump to what is left of the floor and turn off the valve on the giant fuel tank.

The next area is protected by a keen Sniper. Head to the street outside and use the following steps to get through this part.

• Dodge to each of the car bodies that were strategically discarded in mid street.
• Sprint right for the sniper’s building and attack the machinegun emplacement at point blank range. The sniper won’t hit you if you are right under him.
• Grab the grenades in the fenced off area and throw them up and into the sniper’s window.

Alyx will take the sniper’s position and help you as you navigate the next series of areas.

Eventually you will get to an alley with an Antlion burrow and a single combine. Here is an easy way to get two achievements.

• Pull the metal sheeting out from behind the Combine Gunner so Alyx can take care of him.
• Get the LIVE BAIT achievement by hovering around the burrow while Alyx snipes them.
• Now is also a good time to get in kills for the CAR CRUSHER achievement by throwing those cars at the Antlions. There are more opportunities to crush Antlions in the remainder of this level so worry about getting it here if your health is low.

Continue through the next series of rooms as you battle through the combine. Eventually you will drop out into a city street with a huge Antlion Guard tearing up the neighborhood.

• The best way to preserve your bullets is to let the Combine soldiers take care of the Antlion.
• When they have been killed, hit the Antlion Guard with the half dozen explosive barrels scattered around the neighborhood.
• When it is down, work to plug the smaller Antlion burrows.
• Finally, attack the Combine barricade to reach the next part of the level.

There is another locked door and like all the rest, the power has gone out meaning you will have to go through AC vents to get to them. The grate is located behind the red barrels. Continue through the ductwork until you fall through to a new room surrounded by security trip mines.

• Go to the center of the duct and press the lift (not the shoot) button on the Grav Gun to remove the vent. Set it on top of the duct.
• Climb through the vent and walk across the first three exploding barrels.
• Jump over the remaining laser to the elevator.
• Get in the elevator and look up at the vent. Shoot it out of the way as it falls, look at the surface and hit the jump button to swim to the top.
• When you emerge, there will be another similarly protected room. Trip the laser then dive deep into the water to protect yourself from the blast.
• Get back into the now clear room and jump through the broken glass.
• Place the table that is in the room underneath the vent and climb through.

At the end of this second vent is another elevator shaft that requires you to carefully wind your way up it. Here is a step-by-step:

• From the vent jump diagonally across the shaft to the beam on the other side then jump diagonally again to the ladder.
• When you reach the top of the ladder, head for the vent is a quick jump down.
• At the end of the duct work is a vent to the power room. The room is full of explosives so toss a grenade or two in there before dropping in.
• The electrical box is in there so open it to power all the doors and proceed onward.

Fight through the next set of explosive rooms. Eventually you will have to head up a few stairs to a room with a green light in the corner. That light indicates that there is a giant electrical plug there. Use the Grav Gun to pull it and disable the force field that is at the bottom of the stairs.

Emerge onto the city streets again and clear it of Combine. When you do, a resistance fighter will be standing next to an open door allowing the two of you to enter. Alyx nags the guy for not leaving the city. His excuse is that they have been gathering all the freedom fighters together to leave the city.

Hour: - 2:00hrs ****
 In the Rebel Base

At the deepest part of the rebel base you find the fighters watching the  Kleiner Broadcast. His message is cued up to exactly the point where he is explaining the revived sexual ability of the citizen’s. Despite there being a perfect 1 to 1 male to female ratio, no one looks remotely interested.

Follow on through the rooms. You will fall through the floor of one of them and have to reconnect with Alyx later. If you proceed slowly through the next set of rooms you can hear a couple how everyone is a doctor except them, how there were Jugglers on the old Wallace Breen show, and that Headcrabs don’t taste like crab.

At the very top of the hallway is Barney Calhoun hiding out with the rest of the rebels. He reports that they are trying to get to the train station. Alyx figures that she and Gordon can create a diversion by luring the combine away so they can escape. Barney has no problem letting someone else act as bait and lowers the drawbridge to the rooftops. Get your old crowbar from Barney and continue onward.

 Hospital 
As you continue through the bombed out apartments a gunship thumps overhead. The various drawbridges eventually lead you to a hospital. Stay close to the windowed wall so that the preying gunship won’t hit you with it’s titular guns. Also, let the Combine and Zombies fight it out, no point wasting your ammo.

At the end of the hospital you end at the top floor and the gunship moves in for the attack. Here is how to deal with it

• On the lower level is a rocket launcher, grab it as it is the easiest way of taking out the ship.
• The upper floor of the roof has an unlimited supply of rockets if you need more.
• Hunker down on the lower floor and let the ship destroy the roof so you can have a clear shot. Or, you can shoot the roof with missiles to move the battle along faster.
• Fire your missile launcher at it and remember, the rockets go where the laser sight is pointing.
• The Gunship takes about 5 hits, depending on where you connect.

|| TIME: 2:39

After you take down the gunship, kill the covenant that blast through the door on the lower level and head through that newly opened door. Your back in the hospital. According to the commentary track it was based of photos of the Chernobyl medical facilities. As you fight down the hallway the music kicks in and I will now refer to it as butt-rock-techno. Custom made for the mulletted clubber set.

 Flooded Electrical Room 

When you finally fight your way to the surgery room with the institution-green lighting, drop down the hole in the back corner. You land in a flooded room full of fences and a pathway winding around the edge of it.
First, get out of the small fenced in cage by diving under and swimming to the staircase. The object here is to turn on the power to unlock the blue door. However, turning on the power will also electrify the water and frying you if you try to get too close. Prep the environment using the following steps:

• Find the blue barrel and fire it to the staircase with two barnacles hanging over it.
• Swim to that side of the room to retrieve your barrel.
• Clear out all the barnacles you meat along the way. Let them pick you up, equip the crowbar, and start swinging it at them before you get to their mouth.
• Park the blue barrel under the long end of the broken catwalk. Doing so will keep it from dipping into the water when you run across it.
• Before switching on the power, you should probably practice the run described below a few times to clear out all the hidden crabs and to make sure you have the jumping right.

When everything is ready, flip the switch. It is located on a pillar in the far corner of the room.

• While holding the sprint button, run to the edge of the first catwalk and jump to the single catwalk.
• The sparking electrical box should now be in front of you so turn right about 90 degrees and jump to the broken off pillar.
• Walk along the red pipe towards the bombed out room.
• From inside the room, climb out the window and continue counterclockwise along the walkway towards the (now open) blue door.

Side Note: I don’t know what happens in the Valve offices but it seems like anytime there is a large pool of water, a live wire is nearby to charge it. It is essentially a hot lava level.

When you head through the blue door you are reunited with Alyx. Continue on and drop down into another room which is surrounded on three walls by a hallway and has a shelf full of mines. If you want to get the DEADLY HARVEST achievement, drop a few at each of the doors. Soon, the zombies will be on their way through.

In the next room is some burned out corpse being zapped periodically by an electrical wire. Again with the live wire. Was Gabe Newell a former electrician?

Around the next corner is another hospital hallway flanked with patient rooms. This time though there two gun turrets at the end.

• Grav Gun all the hopper mines along the way. At the back of the hallway is a grey door leaning against the wall, pick it up and carry it in front to shield yourself from the bullets. The door won’t last long so you should replace it with a radiator that can be found in one of the patient rooms.
• With the radiator leading the way, walk all the way up to the blue force field.
• Fire the radiator at the green light in the upper left corner of the force field. This will knockout the plug that powers the gun turrets and the force field.

You finally battle your way to the train station but upon reaching the last room a camera spots the two of you and interrupts Kleiner’s message. As Alyx warns, now they know you are here. I have a feeling they already knew based on the fact that we have been chewing through soldiers, gun ships, and turrets like a tractor through corn and farmers’ arms.