Posts filed under 'Games'
I didn’t much time to play last night, but it was better than nothing, I guess. I started where I left off at the end of my last post, which was in a room with boxes blocking a doorway. I blew them away with my grav gun and proceeded to a balcony of prison cells overlooking what looked like a very large shower room or bath room of sorts with no soldiers or creatures to attack me. And that should be your first clue in HL2 that you are about to face either a bunch of enemies at once, or one large miniboss-type enemy. Well, the latter was the case in this situation. I jumped off the balcony with no way to get back up, and as soon as my feet hit the ground, one of those large mother antlions charged through a double door. I didn’t know how to kill it since my last meeting with one of these resulted in the resistance forces taking it down with a mounted gun. So, my gut reaction was to just start shooting at it with my pulse rifle. That didn’t do much, so I switched over to my laser-guided rocket launcher and fired away, which immediately caused the creature to pause for a second and groan in pain. I unloaded my other 2 rockets and it paused for a longer period and I thought it was dead, so I stopped running away from it. It charged at me and cornered me and I didn’t know what else to do since I was out of rockets. So, I unloaded on it with my gun and right before I ran out of health, it died. Then, it slumped over with a long groan. But I had only 3 health left! DO OVER!!! I loaded up my saved game again and tried again, but this time ended it’s life quickly.
After that was over, I found another pair of double doors that had a LOT of junk blocking it. They sure want me to get use out of this grav gun, I guess. Through the doors, I met up again with a couple friendly antlions and sent them forward with the pheropod. They found some Combine soldiers to take care of, but kept getting killed by the automatic turrets. I took care of the turrets and proceeded through the prison, picking up more friendly antlions along the way and sending them to do my dirty work. I eventually came to a point where there was a soldier with a mounted gun behind an energy field, so I just ran underneath the balcony he was standing on and just peeked out enough to lob a grenade up to him. Once that was done, I sent my antlions buzzing over the balcony to inspect the situation. And that’s where I took the screenshot and stopped playing.
Stay tuned!
January 6th, 2005
Now that I had the antlions under my control, I trudged forward through more sand and rock towards Nova Prospekt. Having the antlions is REALLY nice in open area combat, which I started encountering. The only real trick was turning off these devices along the way that the Combine set up that stomp the ground to repel the antlions. Once I cleaned out several bunkers, I made my way up some cliffs and through a sewer up into Nova Prospekt, which is an old prison.
Once inside the perimeter, I faced more towers with mounted guns, but just had my antlions take care of them. Then, an airship came at me and obliterated my antlions. 3 rockets to the airship and I was done, right? No, they needed to send one more airship my way with me having no rockets to shoot. This part was really tricky because I encountered a LOT of towers and soldiers while trying to find rockets to shoot at the 2nd airship, but after loosing much health and countless antlions I finally brought it down. I made my way inside the prision through a hole in the wall, but the antlions didn’t follow. At first I thought it was a bug (get it?), but it wasn’t.
Inside the prison, I expected to find a lot of hidden enemies, but there really weren’t that many. I would find myself trapped behind locked doors seeing antlions being slaughtered by motion sensor gun turrets. All I had to do was knock them over by any means possible (usually my grav gun) to disable them. I made my way through the maze of the prison to a room where I ended my play. A friendly headcrab greeted me there and I swiftly brought him to his demise. Looks like all I need to do is knock over some crates to get out.
This probably ends my barrage of posts about HL2 because my vacation ends tomorrow and I have to go back to work. I have been playing during the day while my daughter is taking a nap, or by staying up late to play after watching a movie or tv with my wife. Since I’ve had the rest of the day to spend with them, it’s been easy to set aside an hour or two without them. But now it will be harder during the week. I don’t know how far I am, but I bet I’m about half way done, so this shouldn’t take much longer.
January 2nd, 2005
After defeating the airship, I made my way back across the bridge and back to the rundown buildings where I was ambushed by more Combine soldiers. I drove my car up a ramp to the bridge, which I found out was for trains. One train was blocking one side so I went ahead on the other. Halfway down I heard a train coming so I had to put it in reverse and haul butt. I made it back just in time to move over before the train could hit me. I went back and made it across, but there was another energy field blocking my way. I went down another ramp and up another makeshift ramp to a tunnel. I went through this dark tunnel and was stopped by a bunch of old cars blocking my way and was immediately attacked by numerous headcrab dudes. I took them all out and used my grav gun to move the cars out of my way to get through the rest of the tunnel. I got back on the open highway and made it to a Combine checkpoint where I took out a bunch of soldiers and a couple magnetic balls. Past that checkpoint, I made it to another checkpoint where I was stopped by a makeshift gate that had to be opened. I couple of dropships dropped off a bunch of soldiers, whom I took care of quickly, and I had to figure out how to open the gate. In one of the buildings there was a table with three electrical circuits with a place for a battery in each. One already had a battery, and I found one in the room to put in and, after much grav gun manipulation, I found the third under an overturned bathtub outside. With that one in place, the gate was lifted and I went through yet another tunnel.
I came to the next checkpoint with caution, but it turned out it was a resistance force checkpoint. They told me to hide my car in their garage (bye, bye, car!) and to get ready for more dropships. The soldiers came in large numbers and after they were taken out, I went into an old lighthouse to take care of an airship. Once that was done, a guy showed me how to leave on foot through a path on the cliffs.
Shortly after making my way along the cliffs, I came to a bunch of rocks and sand. There was a guy there with a hurt friend that told me not to get on the sand or the antlions would come out. His friend moved on the sand and they were quickly eaten, which left me for dessert. I took out the antlions and stayed on the rocks. There was a lot of jumping around at this point and a LOT of grav gun manipulation to move pallets and other things on the sand so I could jump on them.
I eventually came to a part in this maze where I HAD to jump into a canyon of nothing but sand and a large hole in the middle. Once on the sand, and as expected, several antlions came out and one large mother antlion pursued me. Luckily, there were resistance forces behind the canyon that gunned down the mother, but slowly. That mother knocked me around quite a bit, but I survived. One of the alien resistance force came out and worked a little magic on the mother and told me to take something off her. I then followed him into the caves where he showed me how to use this thing, called a pheripod. Apparently, I had an endless supply of them and I could throw them to summon antlions at whatever point they landed on. He demonstrated it on a dead Combine soldier’s body. Finally, he rasied a gate and told me that would be the way to Nova Prospect (where Eli was).
January 2nd, 2005
I played for about an hour and a half and didn’t seem to get too far. I think I play really slow and cautious anyway for a couple reasons: 1) I don’t want to just rush into areas and start getting blown away, so if I can pick off enemies from a distance or one at a time, I won’t loose much health and 2) I really like the environment HL2 gives you and I like to explore all of my surroundings. After I got through that tunnel, I happened upon that glowing magnetic ball and tossed it in the ocean. As I drove up the highway, I found several areas where I could expect to find one or more of those balls and structures with Combine soldiers ready to ambush me. When I got closer to the final area, I picked up a new weapon that is basically a crossbow with a scope on it. There’s only one level of zoom, but it’s pretty decent and it shoots some sort of energy arrow that kills the soldiers with one shot.
I finally got to an area with a couple larger, rundown buildings with more soldiers and even a few headcrab dudes. I also figured out that those poisonous spiders work kinda like the headcrabe dudes. It’s a person with several spiders on his head being controlled by one and he throws all the spiders on this head at you. And he takes quite a few shots to take down as do the spiders. This area also had a box full of rockets to load up on, and that can only mean one thing - I’ll be battling an airship soon. Once I got past the buildings there was an incline in the ground that my car could go up onto a bridge, but the bridge was blocked off by a couple energy fields. I went back down and found a door that took me under the bridge.
I had to make my way across the scaffolding of the bridge to the other side. I found more soldiers, arrows, and rockets along the way and finally made it to the other side to disable the energy fields. Once I did that, a bunch of soldiers came after me and the airship came to find me. I took care of the soldiers and unloaded my rockets at the airship, but only got 2 hits. What sucks about the rocket launcher is that it only holds 3 rockets and it takes 3 to bring down an airship. So, if you don’t make all 3 hits, you have to go find more rockets to reload. I’m making my way back across the scaffolding (which is a little tricky cause you can’t just run straight across) to get the rockets I saw earlier.
January 1st, 2005
Well, I got to play quite a bit and a lot has happened since my last post. I got out of the mines, and back into a sparsely populated city and had to walk down some train tracks. I started walking down the tracks and saw about 5 headcrab dudes walking at me. I aimed and then saw a blue laser point at them from an overpass and shoot them all down. Then, I heard the all-too-familiar radio noise that always gives the Combine guards away. I waited until I got just shy of his view and tossed a grenade up to kill him. He fell out of the overpass in the old western movie style - pretty sweet. Anyway, I made my way out of the tracks by getting past one more guard - though he was harder - and ended up at a storage facility.
Once inside the facility, I heard lots of gunfire. I peeked in and saw the resistance forces shooting back at the guards! I helped them out and they took me to a video conference with Alex. Apparently her father, Eli, was kiddnapped in the raid that we were separated in and I had to go find him. Oh boy. I loaded up with ammo and health and was shown to my newest vehicle. Basically, it was a dune buggy with a lightning-like gun attached to it with plenty of ammo in the back for me to reload my submachine gun with. All I had to do was drive my new ride along Highway 17 to go get Eli. The only problem is that Highway 17 is almost completely demolished and I was introduced to my newest enemy - the Antlion. The basically are like huge beetle-type things that can burrow and surface anywhere on soil and then fly around a little bit (kinda like a cockroach).
I had to kill lots of those and Combine soldiers along my way. I was also given a laser guided rocket launcher to help bring down another new enemy - the airship. They are very lethal, can shoot down your rockets, and it takes 3 hits to bring them down. I ended up at a shipyard and got to kill lots more Combine soldiers, operate a magnetic crane, then drive away and shoot down yet another airship.
Now, I just went through a tunnel and stopped playing. I didn’t know what the little glowing ball was until after I took that picture and saved my game. All I know is that it can fly and it trys to stick to you or your vehicle. You can shoot it all you want, but it won’t explode. So, I just picked it up with my grav gun and tossed it in the ocean. Easy!
December 31st, 2004
Well, I got through the end of Ravenholm with the help of Father Grigory. I love it when games have someone help you cooperatively like that. I let him do most of the work and if he got too much to handle, I helped him out with the shotgun he gave me. He opened a gate for me and told me to go through the mines. The mines were short, and since I started out elevated, I took my time shooting countless headcrabs and those poisonous spider things. I had to swim through a few flooded shafts and finally got to an inclining shaft. It had a makeshift vehicle with a heliopter blade on top. I pulled the lever to it and it buzzed up the shaft then back down. I figured out shortly that it could help me kill all the headcrab dudes as they came stumbling toward me. There was a neat effect at the end that was a “light at the end of the tunnel”. It was very realistic because if you looked at the light, you couldn’t see the front of anything in front of you.
So far, I am very pleased with the game. Ravenholm was really scary and I’m glad I’m out. I got to a point in Ravenholm where I was completely out of ammo and I had to use my crowbar or find things to throw with my grav gun. I think they did that on purpose and I think that’s pretty cool cause it made me really think of how to survive. I think now that I’m out of the mines, I’m back in a city and there’ll probably be more story to hear. Can’t wait!
December 30th, 2004
Alex showed me how to use the gravity gun (way cool) and took me to her “dog” (huge, agile, robot) to play fetch with it by using the grav gun. We ended up in this big open area and he threw big crates and a “ball” at me and I had to catch it with the grav gun and thow it back. That was all fun and games until the “scanners” came by and spotted us. A “scanner” is the very first thing you run into in this game. It basically scans around and takes pictures of any person it finds. Once it finds you, get ready cause reinforcements will arrive. So, the best thing for you to do is shoot it down before it catches you. Anyway, we all freak out and get stuck in this air lock thing while trying to get back to the lab. I chase after Alex, but once again, we are seperated. This time, it’s a hall that gets caved in between us. So, the dog opens up this sealed off hallway that leads to a city called Ravenholm.
This is where the game starts to get scary. Earlier, on the way to get the grav gun, we walked by that hallway and she said something about Ravenholm and that they don’t go there anymore and that it’s sealed off for a reason. Well, lucky me, now I get to go there! It’s basically filled with headcrabs and people controlled by headcrabs and also a few of these spider-type poisonous things. One got on me and my health went almost to nothing, but my HEV suit shot me up with antidote and morphine and brought me back to 100. I also met a man with a Russian accent named Father Grigory. You hear him spouting off some biblical-type prose and then you meet him by teaming up with him to kill off some of the headcrab dudes. He checked up on me at several checkpoints so far and helped me out. I really need to start watching my ammo now cause I’m quickly dishing it out and not getting any back like I was by killing those guards. So, the point of Ravenholm, I guess, is just to get through it and back to the lab to Alex and Eli.
December 29th, 2004
Ok, so the rest of the air bike maps didn’t take much longer. The climax of the air bike maps pits you against one of those super helicopters. I forgot to mention in my last post that when the resistance forces put that gun on my air bike, they got it from one of the super helicopters. So, essentially, you give this helicopter a taste of its own medicine! You end up in this very large, open area (you find out later it’s a dam basin) with a few hills, lots of water, and a bunch of crates with power for your HEV suit. This helicopter starts dropping a TON of mines on you and shoots at you a lot. Once I shot down the helicopter, I had to do some more problem-solving (of which there has been a lot of so far) to find out how to get out of the large area. I opened up a few gates, killed some guards, loaded up on some ammo, then drove my plane off the dam. I found a large utilities building with a dock, so I jumped off the air bike to investigate, and find out that I’ve ended up where Alex and her father, Eli, are! I’m greeted by a woman (can’t remember her name) that says how honored she is to meet me. I meet Eli and Alex again and I get the feeling from Alex that this other woman is going to be bad news. Supposedly she keeps talking about how she should have had my job in the first game and that she wouldn’t have screwed it up like I did. Whatever. Anyway, I’m at the point now where Alex is going to show me how to use the gravity gun (yipee!).
December 29th, 2004
Played a good bit of HL2 last night. Since my last post, I traversed further through the canals and met one of the resistance force members that gave me an “air bike” (sorta like a hovercraft) to get through the canals quicker. This also helps with getting through the nuclear waste patches too. Getting the air bike puts you into the BEST video game chase sequences of all time. You have to go full throttle through these canals, which are bascially like huge trashed out storm drains, while being chased by this super helicopter that is shooting at you. Along the way you get ambushed by many repelling gaurds, armored vehicles that shoot rockets at you, and countless obstacles. Sometimes you think you are trapped, but you spot a makeshift ramp that you can shoot across on the bike. I’m playing the game on normal so I got banged up a LOT by enemies but didn’t get close to dying. I got to a point where I met up with more resistance forces that put a gun on my air bike so I can shoot back while driving.
What I really like about the game is that it is sooo immersive. You can interact with just about anything and the flow of the maps are not as linear as most FPSes usually are. There are lots of “secret” areas to explore that don’t affect your progress of the game. So, if you want to take your time and explore and play, you can. I will say that the chase sequences are starting to take it’s toll on my patience and I hope they are almost done. Sure they are fun, but I want to get more into the story. So far, all I know is that I need to meet up with Alex and her father somewhere. I want to know what the heck is going on! What is up with City 17 and all the police forces? Why am I here?!?
I also think I’m going to start posting these with screenshots of where I left off, so this post will get edited with one soon.
December 29th, 2004
In case you’ve been living under a rock, or don’t care about computer games (very proabable), then you know about Half Life 2. It’s rated by many as the “best game ever” or at least “best game of 2004″. I asked for Half Life 2 for Christmas and my wife got it for me. - and BOY AM I GLAD!!! I’ve only played it for about 2 hours and I am completely hooked.
As far as where I’m at in the game (sort of a synopsis): I had some strange dream about the mysterious man from the first game, I got out of a train in City 17, I met up with Alex and someo of the rest of the scientists from game one, received the HEV suit, and have failed my attempt at teleporting. I got my trusty crowbar and proceeded to traverse through the city canals to get to where I was trying to teleport to in the first place. So far I have escaped countless “guards”, some of those pesky vine monsters, and one angry helicopter-type vehicle. Specifically, I’m at a point where I’ve shot up a bunch of these saw-buzzing flying machines and am trying to get to this room by flooding my current room with water.
My first impressions are obviously great. But what specifically impresses me is the story and environment you are sucked into. The game plays out like a REALLY GOOD action/sci-fi movie. Also, the physics of everything in the game are incredibly life-like. I don’t know how to describe that other than “things do what you expect them to do in real life”. Things that float, float. Things that should repel or relfect, do so. Lighting, textures, shadows, sound, AI - all superb. This game was definitely worth the wait. Something to mention: I have a mediocre system (AMD Athlon XP 1900+, 512MB DDR 2100, and a GeForce FX 5200) and at first I thought I was being jipped in terms of visual effects, but after playing for 5 minutes, I was very please with the performance I was getting for the visuals I was experiencing.
I’ll keep posting after each gaming session to chart my progress and share my experiences. I gotta find a way to get back on and play soon!
December 27th, 2004
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