Half-Life 2: Sandtraps

3rd April 2013

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This is the eighth chapter of Half-Life 2. It details the second half of Gordon Freeman’s journey to Nova Prospekt.

After crossing through the last part of the coast without the Scout Car, he encounters the first Antlion Guard of the game.

After defeating the Antlion Guard, a Vortigaunt extracts a pheropod from the body, which allows Gordon to control antlions, and trains Gordon in its usage. Gordon then continues along the coast, leading groups of antlions and battling Nova Prospekt guards on his way into the prison.

Trivia
  • The Spanish name for this level is Bunkers.
  • The name of the chapter is a reference to the golf term Sand Trap, also known as bunkers.
  • After passing the bunkers, the two large pipes coming down along the mountain is very similar to the pipes in the canyon in Surface Tension.
    • Achievements

    Keep Off the Sand! (20G): Cross the Antlion beach in the chapter Sandtraps without touching the sand.  Bug Hunt (10G): Use the Antlions to kill 50 enemies.

    Screenshots

    Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
    WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

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    The Replay Experience Experiment

    This post is part of the The Replay Experience Experiment event. This is a chance to replay all the Half-Life games and discuss them based on our experiences since we first played them.

    Hat Tip

    The intro and trivia text are taken from the CombineOverWiki, a fan-supported, editable wiki covering the Half-Life series of games.

    Walkthrough
    A Complete Half-Life 2 Walkthrough

    On the left is a complete text walkthrough for Half-Life 2.

    It has been written by Stanley E. Dunigan and updated with all the tricks and tips from PlanetPhillip.Com readers.

    It is in PDF format, meaning you can open it directly in modern browsers or download it and print it.

    (Left-click to open and right-click to save)

    Do Not Own This Game?

    You can purchase Half-Life 2 directly through Steam and could be playing in within moments, depending on your internet connection.

    Categories (?)
    Games Half-Life 2

    13 Comments

    1. PlanetPhillip

      In many ways, this is a continuation of Highway 17, at least at the beginning. There’s plenty of variety in this chapter and it leads so well into the next chapter.

      What I have noticed is that you tend to be in a new area before Valve actually change the chapter title. I mean, although we don’t get inside Nova Prospekt until the end of this chapter, the whole design has already changed and I’ve been fighting outside it for a while.

      Another smooth transition is from day to night. You are lead from the bright day area into a darkened cave area and when you emerge it’s twilight. Very nicely done.

      I tried to complete crossing the area without touching the sand but I don’t have the patience for it. Maybe one day, I’ll go back and try, but not this playthrough.

      I never noticed that those rollermines lay flat until you get close to them. I’m surprised modders haven’t used them more – anyway.

      It’s hard to play this level without flashbacks to Surface Tension and those huge double pipes – clearly not an accident.

      The idea of using the antlions as allies is timed perfectly as you probably just spent the last 15 minutes killing them, so the juxaposition of enemy to ally is an interesting one.

      All in all a fun chapter, but like many it will fade from my mind pretty quickly. That’s not a criticism of Valve or this chapter, more a recognition that there is nothing outstanding in it for me.

      playtime: 1 hour 10 minutes

      Reply
    2. Ade

      wow ur really rushing through this 1 😀 I remember it took me forever to go through the highway chapter

      Reply
    3. Kaito Kid

      I think sandtraps could have started a little later, maybe after the lighthouse battle. Before that, it’s pretty much the same as highway 17. Lot of useless battle for supplies in abandoned refugiee houses. Then we reach the lighthouse, the rebels take away our car, and we fight. good thing there’s that infinit ammo crate of rockets, that must have been really heavy to bring up there :0

      Then we take the secret path and really start sandtraps. We encounter laszlo and his friend, but most of the time they die right after telling us to not touch the sand. then it’s pretty much a jumping puzzle with the gravity gun. A boss battle, extremely easy when playing on easy :0
      We get the pheropods, and some training on how to use them. Wait it’s night time again? it’s been less than an hour! The combine surely messed with nature ._.

      Then we fight tons of combine soldiers along the coast, with the help of antlions. I love to have an ally that I can kill when I’m angry, that’s very cool 😀

      Then another “boss battle” right before entering nova prospekt, the main reason I had to redo highway 17 a few days ago.

      Challenges:

      – Keep off the sand!
      nope, but I was too fast for the antlions to touch me anyway 😀
      – Bug Hunt
      I don’t think so. maybe 10?

      my challenges:
      – Enter the rebel hideout without killing the guard
      Requires luck.
      – Skip the lighthouse battle
      😀
      – Kill a gunship without using the rocket launcher
      This was originally my plan to complete this when I realized I didn’t have an RPG, but I wouldn’t have enough smg grenades to kill both so I had to redo highway 17.

      Five words or less review:
      Weird chapter transitions :0

      Deaths:
      2 :0
      Died from ABH when leaving the rebel hide-out, losing about 5 minutes ._.
      Also got killed at the entrance of nova prospekt, by not killing the soldiers in the towers.

      Playtime:

      18 minutes 30 seconds 42 milliseconds
      New Record? damn I have to accelerate. If anyone wants to beat one of my times, now would be perfect .-.

      Reply
    4. Olrick
      General

      Sandtraps is the right sequel of Highway 17. We get trough a scary tunnel and back to the coast. Despite the title, Antlions disappear and remains only combines on the beach.

      Again we can visit houses, some which have been used by resistants, other serving the Combine. The combine roadblock is interesting because it’s hard to force, but I’m surprised to don’t encounter it earlier. In addition it is positioned right before a resistance barricade.

      At this last checkpoint another battle and a simple puzzle. On my first play, when I leave it, I was hoping for Lighthouse Point to not be too far away. I was a little tired of road and driving.

      The arrival at the Lighthouse is gratifying due the long distance but congratulation is short. The battle announced is very intensive with many soldiers and a gunship.

      On the next map Antlions came back and you are playing a child game summarized by “Don’t walk on sand”. This map is very huge and justify chapter title. It offers an amazing gameplay, requiring high skill in moving and jumping. For this exercise, Gravity Gun is your best friend.

      Camp Vortigaunt is another part of tutorial for pheropod usage. Antlions are now allies and will be very useful for the prison attack.

      At last we arrive to Nova Prospekt entrance, defended by numerous posts, many recent and some older. It’s more a fortress than a prison but we finally came in by sewers. Classical HL gameplay is back!

      Caught my eyes

      Hey Vort, my HEV was enough dirty.

      G-Man sighting

      Again he seems to be nowhere, or running beside the buggy.

      Death

      None

      Playtime

      37 minutes, I didn’t explore sand area because it can last hours.

      My French Let’s Play

      Reply
      1. Stanley Dunigan

        Thanks for the videos! I always watch them, and this time you showed me a cool secret item stash (inside the building near the end of the first map region) that I’d never seen or heard about before. Keep ’em coming!

        Reply
    5. Gypsy_Jim

      After playing the whole thing through many times before, this was the first time that I discovered that if you kill the antlion guard as soon as you get the chance, you can pile as many crates & stuff up to get back into the main area to explore properly….no antlions. Wow, after struggling with this in the past I can’t believe I only just found this out…..

      I still haven’t got the patience to do the full “don’t walk on the sand” thing though….Maybe one day.

      Reply
      1. Stanley Dunigan

        I haven’t had a chance to replay this chapter yet (I’m always one behind), but when I played years ago, it was possible to “shut off” the antlions before dropping down into the antlion guard’s area by carefully crouch-walking along the very edge of the first drop-off. I hope they haven’t “fixed” that!

        Reply
    6. 2muchvideogames

      anyone tried finding 5 car batteries in that first battery-gate base? Theres alot more than just 3 car batteries there for some reason, and some are really hard to find

      Reply
      1. Stanley Dunigan

        Yes, there is a total of five batteries in that area, counting the one that starts out in a battery slot. After getting the one that’s on the nearby bedframe, there are three outside the building that you can choose from (if you know where they all are). I always go for the one that’s under the overturned bathtub when I play, since it seems to be the easiest of the three to get. I suppose finding the other two could be considered a challenge for this chapter.

        Reply
    7. Unq

      In general, perhaps there’s not really an outstanding part of this chapter (though I do like the ascent, see below). But I do really like how you’re not constrained in your approach throughout the areas here. On the don’t-touch-the-sand part, you can just go ahead and run all over the sand to explore if you like, and if you’re ready to deal with the consequences. And in the assault on Nova Prospekt, you can use the antlions if you like, or you can just go in guns blazing. You’re not forced into a style of play which is really nice.

      I think the ascent to Nova Prospekt is one of my favorite parts of the game. Yes, a bit of it is reminiscent of Surface Tension, but in general I really just like the vertical gameplay which we really haven’t had that much of so far in the game.

      So as a chapter, this one is just chock full of mini-boss fights. First, the lighthouse standoff. Then, the antlion guard – and finally, double gunships to top things off. To me this seems kind of bunched, but at least they’re spread out within the chapter decently. By now you certainly have to be good with your rockets. A pretty combat-heavy chapter, depending on how many times you step on the sand and how much you use the antlions in the beach assault.

      I also got the feeling that Valve was being a bit playful in parts here. There’s a couple of jump scares (the fast zombie in the pipe at the top of the cliff, and that damned rollermine that comes down the chimney in one of the otherwise quiet houses always makes me jump out of my skin). And of course, there’s the clever bit where you see your dependable dune buggy being hauled away by the Combine. As if you didn’t have enough reason to hate those bastards, then they steal your wheels!

      Playtime: 1 hour, 22 minutes due to getting my ass handed to me repeatedly

      Reply
    8. Blue Lightning

      Poor Laslo 🙁

      Reply
    9. rikersbeard

      After a nice long drive, minus those antilions, phew, we arrive at our rebel base destination just in time for a firefight. No surprise there! Lots of ammo cashes and little distractions along the way provide varied interest fro m the monotonous road and the buggies cannon is just great for combine culling!
      After a well-paced fight it was time to concentrate on not falling off the cliff path, so I missed seeing the combine stealing my buggy!
      The beach “don’t step on the sand” puzzle was time consuming and a nice change of pace and I managed to reach nearly all the ammo cashes. A careless foot near the last cabin had me fighting for survival under a walkway, but I survived almost intact. I pegged it to the final thumper, collected some supplies and fell into the antlion guard arena. I hate arena fights, but this one was ok and I got some help after I had done all the work!
      The evening stroll up the beach with my new allies was very entertaining and as difficult as I remembered, but not the nightmare as when I first played it. the red flare-lit maze is a highlight and welcome break from the constant hammering from the coastal batteries. Nice touch with all the graffiti!
      As Phillip has said, the towering pipelines take me back to Half Life and give a nice nostalgic touch before all hell breaks loose.
      The entrance to Nova Prospekt is gentle and serine, through pipes and water to a dark courtyard. But that situation rapidly deteriorates as the sentries open up, after a little sniping. I send in my assasines and get rewarded with a pair of gunships! Under the assault of those two gunships and a few irate guards, I stumble blindly in the dark waiting for my torch to charge as my health fades. Luckily a guardhouse has the two things for my survival and brief shelter from the plasma rain! But, it was at least five minutes before I finally found the rocket ammo box and downed those gun birds. At that point an angry moth could have killed me!
      Oh the sigh of relief when I saw that sign on the way by a door and hopefully some health packs.
      “Sandtraps” seems an odd title; I spent most of my time on the road and the rest trying, unsuccessfully to stay off the sand! This felt a long and arduous journey starting all the way back in Black Mesa East. I’m sure “Dog” could have moved a few boulders for Gordo to have squeezed through to follow Alyx!

      Caught my Eye:
      Some really nice beaches!
      The Combine tunnel maze. Great for Halloween!
      Scenic cliff walks!

      Fun Stuff:
      Having an army of antlion minions!
      Shooting Combine as they step from their transports!

      Low point:
      Beach! 🙂

      Five Words or Less Review:
      Drive, shoot, find, now run!

      Playtime:
      1 hour and fifty minutes.

      Deaths:
      Once, under a hail of Combine bullets!

      Reply
    10. Ade

      I remember how I spent a lot of time on the battery puzzle because I didn’t realize the gate would be operable; I didn’t know of the cable mechanics. And now the battery puzzle is one of the easiest in this game hehe
      Despite all the mods ive played, guidin the rocket so that the gunship doesn’t shoot it down still isn’t easy
      Any1 else have issues with the first thumper? I still got attacked while standin right next to it..
      Interesting how the combine mounted ar2s also have light, haven’t seen that in a mod.
      I like how this feels like the 2nd night yet, is the sky changing gradually or only when we’re in tunnels?

      Playtime: 50 minutes

      Reply

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