Continuing towards the surface, Gordon encounters a terrifying new aquatic creature, the Ichthyosaur, and acquires a deadly new weapon to fight it. After an underwater battle with the creature, he manages to escape and get back on his way.
After battling with the Black Ops, another “rescue” crew trying to kill even the marines, Freeman is captured by the HECU. They remove all of his weapons, and leave him for dead in a trash compactor. Thankfully, Freeman escapes once again, making his way back into the battle.
- The old level name featured on Half-Life: Day One, given in the “titles.txt” file was: Abandoned silo.
The challenges below have been set by 2muchvideogames
- Use a barnacle to skip the first Ichthyosaur battle.
- Lure an Ichthyosaur into the Generator room.
MEDIUM: 100 Health 15 HEV [157KB]
HARD: I need a HARD save for this level. Do you have one? Please send it to me.
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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This post is part of the The Replay Experience Experiment 2012 event. This is a chance to replay all the Half-Life games and discuss them based on our experiences since we first played them.
All text taken from the CombineOverWiki, a fan-supported, editable wiki covering the Half-Life series of games.
On the left is a complete text walkthrough for Half-Life.
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)
You can purchase Half-Life directly through Steam and could be playing in within moments, depending on your internet connection.
I’m not sure if this felt like a “filler” or not. There certainly wasn’t any “WOW” moments, but you can’t have those every chapter. The last three chapters were very memorable: for the grandness and concept. Yes, a lot of people hate “On a Rail” but you have to marvel at the planning behind it.
Whereas this chapter was just ordinary. Of course, that’s relative. If a modder released this it would be hailed as a great piece of work.
Valve kinda shot themselves in the foot with such great earlier levels.
Personally, I would have made this in between Blast Pit and Power Up.
Plenty of variety in the chapter; new weapons: the crossbow, new environments: the freezer, New enemies: the black ops and a story element: the attempted murder.
I’m not really a big fan of swimming but this was limited and still offered a chance to explore and reap the benefits.
The pistons puzzle was pretty well done and I am curious to see a speed run through this part.
I found the section with the Black Ops, so much easier than the first time I played this chapter. Knowing what to expect is so important. I bet with a bit more planning you could really have some fun with them.
I feel a little cheated. I lost all my ammo and weapons. Sure, that’s part of the game, but I hardly used any of the bigger ones like the satchel charges and tripmines. I think I’ll make sure I never keep a stock from now on.
Any guesses as to what the security guard was going to say?
I saw him on the walkway in the room with the three huge pistons. See image 18.
I voted “yes”. I don’t like leaving enemies alive. I always think they will come back to get me. Obviously not in this case, but it allows me to explore in comfort.
– Use a barnacle to skip the first Ichthyosaur battle.
– Lure an Ichthyosaur into the Generator room.
Variety’s the spice of life
43 minutes
1
I had a good look at the bottom of the water and couldn’t get back up in time.
Sorry I’ve been away for a while, but it’s coming. I think you’ll be disapointed that I actually skip the piston part, but it’s easy to do and anyone can do it. wait for the vid real soon.
Actually, there are many theories about what he’s gonna say. here are some popular ones:
[…] Make sure you don’t attempt to reach the surface from here since it’s crowded with marines
[…] Make sure you don’t go topside for questioning, the military are using this as a cover to kill the survivors
[…] Make sure you don’t go into that small storage room with some health, the military is waiting for you
there are many other popular theories on this speech, and many other that mean the same thing as those but are written diferently. I prefer to say that VALVe is trolling us once again and that he really doesn’t have anything to say, they just thought it could be a good way to introduce us to the stealth assassins, and to see what people would imaging for the speech.
Here we experience another train crash, and find ourselves in some old, rusty, flooded areas. Some underwater swimming, as usual, exploration is rewarded with ammo.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/emoleveldesigner/screenshot/594722251529808619
Eventually we get to a room where ichtyosaur and crossbow are introduced to us.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/emoleveldesigner/screenshot/594722251529822612
In original Half-Life, G-Man won’t disappear if you hit him with the crossbow while he’s going away.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/emoleveldesigner/screenshot/594722251529985952
Some more rusty areas, and we got to scientist who warns us about the tracking devices in our suit and advices to go through old industrial areas, because there it’s possible to work around the security system.
We go through the freezer with slippery floor, in Half-Life Source the ragdolls actually slide, which is a nice touch. Then through some corridor and into the storage areas. Barney starts to tell something to us, but interrupted by another new enemy, ninja.
The “Surface Access” sign and medkit on the wall make us eager to go to the room, and that’s why soldiers decided to set a trap there. Thankfully, they decided to be creative with killing us and become excited too much with their idea of trash compactor, so we manage to get out of it, and then, through some rusty pipe, appear in the picturesque areas of Residue Processing.
The moment when the soldiers drag us is the only realtime cutscene in the game, which was made to look like first person moment.
I didn’t kick myself when I encountered the crowbar at the end of Apprehension, because I believe that it’s the same crowbar that we had before. The soldiers took all weapons but thrown the crowbar away since they don’t need one, they have knifes.
Playtime: 24 minutes
I meant kick yourself for forgetting the crowbar was in Apprehension, not for finding it, and whether or not it’s ‘supposed” to be the same one we had.
Actually, you can hit him with any weapon (including a crowbar if you’re quick enough, you’ll see how to be this quick in my vid) and he will stay. the bullsquid spit and the ichtyosaur can also damage him to prevent him from despawning.
Playtime: 14:36
1) Where’s part 2?
2) Why does your water look totally opaque? It looks like you’re using Source, but your models and animation quality looks alot like HL1 Original.
I have added it.
He’s using HL1 standard, not Source.
Okay so I died not 30 seconds into this chapter from fall damage from the plummeting tramβ¦
In this first area I spent a couple of minutes swimming around not remembering for the life of me where to go. Then cage housing floating barrels opened itself. Now I’m not sure if this can be broken yourself or what triggered this, perhaps it was the result of me wandering around aimlessly.
The simple fact that you cannot see into the water with the Ichthyosaur is damn frightening in its own right (Unless I think if you’re playing the Source version of Half Life). I didn’t even realise until after a passed through the second Ichthyosaur room that there was one in the water, it’s a good thing I guess that I didn’t fall in!
I had actually completely forgotten that the Assassins make their first appearance at the end of this chapter. I quickly dispatched them and as a result remembered that the trash compactor scene was coming up.
Playtime: 28 minutes
I just started replaying, will catch you soon (Blast Pit). I noticed that I now look more to the level detail and animations than I did before, mostly because of reading these articles beforehand.
The easiest way to change difficulty is with the console command “skill x”, where x = 1 easy, 2 normal, 3, hard. You need to change the map after that.
At this point I noticed that the Dreamcast port is darker than the PC version. I had to turn up the brightness settings on my TV. I have to agree that (besides the end and the first encounter with the Icky) this chapter seemed like filler. In the Dreamcast version, the Icky went down with 1 crossbow shot… no comment. The part where the Icky eats the scientist is one of the grandest parts of Half-Life. There’s a lot of texture misalignment in this chapter. In this chapter we get introduced to the Female Assassin whose… “posterior” is greatly exaggerated ;). When you get caught and dragged is the only time in Half-Life 1 where you don’t have control over your character. Overall this chapter had some great moments but felt a little lacking in other areas.
Playtime: 15 minutes
5 words or less:
Fear finds Gordon
“Haha. I see it” What did he see 0_o?
You know that last line of yours” been huntin me so today I tried to find the line with gcfscape but failed, I only found the wav. So I turned to google and found this:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/43362-half-life/faqs/29847
which says it’s “Nice hit”, not “I see it” π
I saw G-Man in this chapter too! and somehow managed to NOT get the xbow and kill the Ichties, so ima replay this asap. One bug, the sound made by the door opened by a rotating valve wouldn’t stop til next level change.. is there a snd_restart command for hl1 by any chance?
Playtime: 22 minutes
Oh right, I did both challenges, 2nd one is quite funny: “Bad bad Ichty, you know you’re not allowed inside!”
How’s this for a challenge: lure an icky into becoming a Land Shark! (Note: I’m not responsible for what happens to you when trying this).
http://imgur.com/NRu2t
LOL http://steamcommunity.com/id/2muchvideogames/screenshot/558692741793113755
Ack, didn’t even see that listed as a challenge!
OK how about this challenge:
– Don’t turn the generator on.
not turning the generator on is very easy, VALVe intended 2 ways to complete this room, and one of them doesn’t require to start the generator. it’s even easier than the route on the pistons
I know you can bug it and it will still do the swim animation in thin air π
Umm…the Black Ops troopers are not in Half-Life 1. They only appear in Opposing Force. There are however some assassins, but they work with the soldiers.
Another chapter I have mixed feelings about. I rather like the setting and areas we visit in Apprehension, but I feel that due to the overload of strong weaponry you get in this chapter that it becomes a total cakewalk, even on Difficult [with the noted exception of the ichthyosaurs if you choose to engage them]. In retrospect, it’s easy to see that you need to be taken down a few notches and forced to regroup, which of course you are when you’re ambushed. It really surprised me when I first played but I recall thinking things were moving a little too fast (actually it was something along the lines of “my god, I’m unstoppable with all these contact grenades!”).
So that is my main criticism here; way too many contact grenades are given out, and too much crossbow ammo! If you’re the exploring type you’ll find tons – when I came across the underwater ammo cache holding 8 contact grenades, I couldn’t take any since I was already full at 10. The crossbow ammo is well supplied too but it doesn’t imbalance the game as much as too many nades. I found even the assassins on difficult to be not much of a challenge.
I do really like this chapter in terms of the intrigue it builds. You get a hint from a scientist that there have been strange things afoot at the Circle Mesa even before the resonance cascade. And you come across assassins in all black and it’s not clear where their allegiance lies, except that they’re definitely not on Team Freeman.
Overall I certainly enjoy Apprehension and I think some of my mild distaste for it comes from the knowledge that it leads directly to my most hated chapter. π
Mapper’s Corner: We’ll take a look at the famous “Barney gets sniped” sequence right before you’re ambushed by the assassins.
http://imgur.com/evXgr
– First, when you ride up the elevator, you trigger (trigger_once) a few events timed so they happen in a quick sequence.
– Barney starts talking to you (“Freeman, right?…”) via a scripted_sentence, which is used to make characters talk. In this case, it calls sentence BA_ASSN, which in sentences.txt is linked to the wav file c2a3_ba_assn.wav. Note that the silenced shot you hear is part of this wav file, not a separate sound.
– Barney is then made to fall forward and die by using a scripted_sequence. In this case, the animation sequence is set to “assassination” – if you open the barney.mdl file you can examine each sequence in detail. This one of course has him falling forward on his face. He is then frozen in place on the ground by checking the ‘leave Corpse” flag on the sequence, and then using a trigger_relay to kill the sequence to make sure it never repeats (scripts can be pretty finicky to get right when mapping).
– The blood decals you see are two infodecals that are triggered during the sequence so it looks like the bullet went right through Barney. In this case, the decals are actually hard-wired into the model’s animation sequence as events. However, you can get the same effect by giving decals a name and targetting them, at which point they’ll become visible.
– To top it off, some ominous music is played via a target_cdaudio (hearkening back to when the Half-Life music was simply tracks on the game CD).
Playtime: 16 minutes
The trash compactor scene comes from Star Wars, he-he.
“..make sure you don’t…UAAARGGH!”
Pretty short chapter after the long “On A Rail”.
At the start our shiny red highspeed tram goes wild and off the rails, crashing through a door, not without waving some grunts goodbye before falling down in the water of some old, misty tower-like pool.
If you don’t move a bit you’ll die there, being squished at the wall as the train is very fast and concrete is usual… well, concrete π
So then it feels like a hazard course for swimming and diving.
Just take your time and don’t get confused not to drown here.
A bit later we find a new powerful monster – the Ichthyosaur, playing a little
throw-me-up-in-the-air-and-catch-me with a scientist.
This shows us it’s really strong and cannot be killed easily.
Most weapons won’t work underwater, but thanks god there’s also a new and powerful weapon – the crossbow! Coincidence?
It’s perfectly designed for killing the underwater threat…
I always was scared of the Ickies, because I dislike being underwater in any game and these monsters can be annoying and frustrating, thanks god there’s plenty of crossbow bolts when you explore carefully…
(It takes around 3-4 bolts to kill one Icky on medium difficulty)
After being familar with both of these new “items”, there’s a little jumping sequence before getting into the freezer.
At the first plays I was always worried about my health when going through there, so I did hurry just running past the alien slaves and headcrabs inside it.
Now, it’s way easier because we just lose a bit of HEV power (you sure have some, don’t you?) and shooting most of the aliens.
Eventually we’ll find one of the million Barneys in BM who’s trying to warn us, but gets assassinated by another new, precise menace – the female (!) assassins.
They are some tough !@$%?#, especially in a squad.
Fast, accurate and simply deadly. Human grunts are a joke compared to them.
And after cleaning the small warehouse section, we’re looking forward to hit the surface again, when reading the sign “surface access” above the lever for opening the surface doors… as another ambush takes place…
Game Over, Freeman?
Caputed by the army, thrown into a garbage compactor without any weapons and not much left before getting squished we search for yet another escape route…
At least I could leave this chapter with 100/100 π
Challenges:
-Use a barnacle to skip the first Ichthyosaur battle. – Nope
-Lure an Ichthyosaur into the Generator room. – Yes, first time
5 words or less review: Don’t forget your swimming cap!
Playtime: 12 minutes
Our high-speed freight tram comes to a premature end here, as a clever military ambush puts it right out of commission, sending it plumetting in the innards of a derelict missile silo. We’re still somewhere around Sector E, but these areas seem to be utterly uncharted by the Black Mesa science complex, and they seem to be more or less completely unused by now.
Now, while the old D-silos were still being used as rocket test labs, and the old transit system was still being used by the research staff – this place has hardly ever seen the light of day in at least several decades. Parts of the structure have given way, and might be nearing a complete collapse, and flooding has been totally extensive.
Still, there are a few areas here that are actively being used by the science team. The small reservoir housing the Ichthyosaur, for instance, certainly seems like an active research area. The super-freezer two-thirds through does have some fairly high-tech computer equipment. And the helipad right at the end, where we are ambushed by spec-ops assassins also seems like a fairly active area, with shipping crates all over the place.
I have no idea how all the necessary equipment was brought and installed; and, for that matter, I can’t imagine how scientists and security officers make their way through the dilapidated maintenance areas just to check out a helipad, a freezer and a holding tank.
But while there may be a few oddities in logic, the levels themselves are enjoyable, interesting, and fairly well done. I love when we have to navigate and explore these wrecked, abandoned areas, and the environments themselves offer a fair amount of variety. Overall, good work.
There’s a far bigger emphasis on swimming during the majority of Apprehension, but there’s long stretches of progression with no opportunity to get air. This is where oxygen tanks, which Valve planned on including in HL1, would have come in handy. I would have also liked to see some more intricate flooded environments, and that would have provided more opportunities to let the player catch his breath – both literally, and figuratively.
Overall, though, I really like underwater gameplay, but here, it just lacks substance – the leeches (or hagworms) don’t offer much of a challenge, and they are just mild irritants. Ichthyosaurs work more like mini-bosses, and so, there’s nothing that really makes underwater combat any more meaningful than whacking your crowbar around, or spamming the firing button on the crossbow.
Valve originally intended to include a different class, or race of aquatic Xenian creatures. The Archers (http://tinyurl.com/archeroverwiki) had a very unique design, and would have made underwater gameplay more enjoyable and interesting, I think.
I would have also liked to see military divers, or underwater stormtroopers. After all, surely the government knows how much of Black Mesa has suffered extensive flooding, and I can only assume they’d want to get a firm foothold in these areas as well.
The Black Ops are also introduced here (meanwhile, Opposing Force states that they were entered the facility an entire day later, creating a gigantic plothole). HL1 itself never indicates that the Black Ops are part of a separate government agency fighting against all sides involved (their entity code is simply “human_assassin”, and their AI coding allows them to work together with the military grunts), and in this very area, we see them working practically alongside the grunts, who have set up yet another ambush, which actually works this time.
The Black Ops themselves make their appearance as part of a very memorable sequence – a security guard approaches us with: “Freeman, right? I’ve got a message for you: make sure you don’t-” before he is shot down by the agile Black Ops troopers. What exactly he wanted to tell us – we still don’t know to this day. It could have been a warning concerning the upcoming ambush, or it could have been some more directions towards the Lambda Complex. In any case, I doubt we’ll ever know. Rest in peace, nondescript Barney #56.
After dispatching the assassins, we make our way to the Surface Access. It’s now dawn outside, so we’re fairly eager to get topside, and escape Black Mesa. But – what is this? The lights go out, and after a few loud smacks, we hear radio chatter:
This is another extremely memorable scene. Never again had a first-person shooter dared to actually defeat its own protagonist. But in this scene, Gordon is outsmarted by two infantry grunts, and stripped of all his weapons. It’s genius, really – and it’s been copied to no end by today’s games.
Next, we overhear the two soldiers wondering what to do with Gordon. While they are supposed to take us “topside for questioning“, i.e. brutal interrogation and torture, they instead decide to avenge their fallen comrades by killing Gordon in cold blood.
Next, we awaken in a large trash compactor, as part of a thinly-veiled Star Wars reference. For whatever reason, we can actually control the trash compactor as we would a rail vehicle… no idea what that was all about, considering there are no visible buttons, switches, and the fact that we don’t even need to control the trash compactor.
This is a scene that was to play a crucial role in Gearbox’s PS2-exclusive Half-Life expansion: Decay. Here, the two ladies were to follow Gordon (counter-tracing him, I suppose), and ultimately save him by killing the two soldiers that tossed him in, before they could presumably speed up the compacting process. The entire chapter was cut from Decay, because Gearbox didn’t like good ideas back then. Presumably.
Our good old trusty crowbar is on the other side, so once we make our way out of the pit and take it back, we can proceed through the drainage ditch. What lies next? Well, let me just say that Residue Processing is another one of those chapters, that will receive opinions just as mixed as On A Rail. Haven’t decided which one I hate more, but I guess I’m just about to!
Five Words Or Less: Good, but could be better.
Play time: 22 minutes
This one actually earns its name, at least in my opinion. This chapter had me pushing back in my seat–I woke my wife up once last night because I managed to shove the couch back against the wall hard enough to make a “thump”!! π and the first time was similar as well: taking on that ichthyosaur was a bitch, even with the crossbow bolts. I seem to remember, back in the day, killing one with the crowbar; but that might’ve been a mod.
Either way, this time around, the first time I ran thru it (right after finishing “On a Rail”), I jumped in the cage, grabbed the crossbow, fell in the water, tried to wait on the icthy to approach, found out I couldn’t do it thru the cage; so, I swam out, got hit once by the icthy, managed to back into the corner under the lower platform, where some pipe and a pump housing(?) form a tight spot under that door back in the nook (I’ll try to find my screenshot later), and just sniped the icthy to death, with just enough room under there to come up for air when needed. It went alot faster than the first time, when I had to run down the drowned hall and up the stairs to regroup.
The second icthy encounter, I got pulled down into the deep and died due to damage from them and drowning. I noticed as I was dying the escape ladder on the wall by the turn of the platform (before the breakaway); so I camped on the ladder, and tried sniping them from above the water–not a good choice, it seems the icthys” are made to move (or seem so) FASTER than they do when you’re IN the water; so I would just dip into the water for long enough to get a shot, then back up for air for reload.
Once past that, thru the hole in the grate and into the generator room (never killed the third icthy, no IDEA how to lure him into the generator room).
Gotta go work; more later.
And here’s the “more”…
So, after all that, I wasn’t sure how to get out; I tried to go back and get into the pool again, and out of the sequestered area–I guess I’m either no effing good at finding the switches, or just didn’t try right, but I never got back out, saw the icthy but couldn’t shoot him thru the grate; so back to the generator room, found the room off the platform where the scientist was, got the warning, FINALLY managed to get him to open the door to the fridge, basically ran like hell thru there and out the other side. At some point (after my first visit to the old guy), I went back, jumped up via the wacky pistons to the platform, and did not pick up the satchel charges because I was full–ran back to the pool to see if I could blow up the icthy thru the grate (no dice), then back to the old guy, who opened the fridge and so forth.
Watching Barney get plugged YET AGAIN was as frustrating this time thru as it was the last time–what the HELL was he gonna say?? Anyone have any idea? Then into the warehouse area to take on the ninjas–this time was way easier, mainly because I remember what a bitch they were to handle the last time; plus, when you have plenty of magnum ammo, it’s really rather easy to take them down with THAT monster!! Just sneak around the corners, and WAIT for them to come to you, chasing them down is impossible (they’re way faster than you), and they’ll just get you in a three-way crossfire and tear you apart.
Once they were clear, I got the level cleared out of crates and goodies… and befell, once again, my fate in that damn ambush. >_< I got out of the compactor pretty quickly the first time; this time I had a VERY hard time getting out, mostly because of how the junk happened to be laying. But, out I did get, and off into the next section, almost totally defenseless… except for the trusty crowbar.
Overall, this was an excellent level, imho. The icthy's made it difficult (especially the first time around); and the layout and set of traps were good. That ambush/stripdown/left for dead sequence was perfectly placed, and reintroduced alot of difficulty at a point where, had I gone on fully loaded, I think the run to the end would've been way too easy.
Five words or less: DAMN FISH!!!
I am back after a few days of absence, so don’t panic I didn’t give up on the project. Kaito Kid’s speedruns are back.
I’ll play catch up for the next few days
Apprehension, one of the most interesting levels of the game.
you start up on a dangerously fast tram, and some dumb marines blow up the track, which led you to crush one of them and dive in a soaked silo. there is usually a physicsa puzzle there, but I skipped it in my vid.
then we meet with the ichtyosaur, the Monster I hate most in the game because my usual weapons are uneffective against him, and I usually don’t bother getting a crossbow until a lot later. I’m pretty happy I didn’t fall in any of the pools with ichtyosaurs because that would have been time consuming.
I used the barnacle trick to get quickly over the first one (I got a challenge too, that’s nice)
I just jumped over the next one, and then I fell in the water, lost some time but at least there wasn’t any ichty to bother me. I used a trick to get on the sign to skip the underwater part and get right on the control room of the piston puzzle. Valve originaly intended 2 ways to complete that puzzle, the first one is to start the pistons and jump on them. the second one is to break the box that blocks the broken ladder, then bring the other metal box near it and use it to climb. the way I used there is simply boosting with the box. it’s faster and allows the player to attack gman with any weapon he wants, even a crowbar. I shot him once with the shotgun, because I knew I was gonna loose my weapons soon so I didn’t have to save ammo, and I wanted to show that I could blast off a shotgun a few inches away from gman’s face. it’s pretty awesome.
then the freezer, short part that eats up suit power, but not health so it’s doesn’t really matter. we get to fight the assassins/black ops/ninjas/whatever that are pretty annoying. I’m pretty proud I didn’t get shot during my vid, sincde the one on top will usually shoot me when I do the grenade jump. then I get knocked out and stuff. I didn’t count time during the speech since playtime is only the time you have control over the character.
Five Words Or Less Review:
Crossbow is for the weak
Deaths:
Deaths are also for the weak
Playtime: 2 minutes 22 seconds 708 milliseconds