Half-Life Walkthru
LEVELS:   1  2  3  4   5  6  7  8 9  10  11   12  13  14   15  16  17


Anomalous Materials



Follow the green stripe to the locker room, then go left to the HEV room. Press the button on the computer console to open the storage door for the suit. Walk up to the suit in the chamber that just opened and you'll don the suit automatically.

Amusement: Press the button on the main lobby guard's desk to watch everyone freak out.

Follow the blue stripe to the security door, the guard will only open the door for you if you're wearing your HEV suit. Once inside, it's a straight walk down a few halls and up an elevator or two. Use the buttons on the elevators to make them work.

Once inside the test lab, you'll have to listen to the two scientists talk for a bit, then they will open the door for you.

Inside the test chamber, climb to the platform, wait for the switch on the console to open, and then press the switch.

Climb back down and walk over to the cage. When it opens, get behind the cart and push it into the particle beam. Then pay attention, this is a cool part.

Unforeseen Consequences


That test didn't go off too well. Get out of here by using the broken retinal scanner to open the door. Pick up the health kit, and watch the scientist administer CPR if you're so inclined. Start retracing your steps back the way you came.

Be sure and duck under the lasers when you come to them, and use the crowbar you find to smash through any glass barriers.

You'll come across a security guard putting holes in some strange mutants. You can walk up to him and press the use key if you want him to tag along, or you can put some holes in him yourself if you want the gun.

If you want to go back to the tram, whack or shoot the sparking button to open the big doors. Dunno if that's the best way out, though.

Instead, try smashing the vent panel on the ground behind the front desk. Duck to crawl inside. Avoid the headcrabs and exploding machinery, and jump up on a tipped-over mainframe in order to exit the room through another duct.

Traverse the hallways. After encountering some alien doggies, open a door to the right and climb the ladder. To the right you'll find a scientist who will be more than willing to open a retinal scanner you'll find up here. You can pick up some ammo as well as some hand grenades. (Conspiracy theory: did you see the G-Man?)

Keep walking. You'll come across a new alien who beats his way through a solid metal door but goes down pretty easily. Also, there's a med station behind the dumpster.

Jump down the hole into the sewer area. Wade to the right to find a wheel, which you'll need to turn in order to flood the pipe. Then swim over to the second hole, and climb out of it.

You'll come into a big room. Go up the ramp and push the lever, then run around and get on the descending lift. Enjoy the ride down, except for all those headcrabs which will come jumping down on top of you.

Wimps: if you stand in the right spot on the lift, the headcrabs won't come down after you.

When you come to an L-shaped grating bridge, watch out -- it collapses under the weight of a freshly teleported alien. Instead, hop up on the wall pipes and follow them around. Then whack open the grating and crawl through the air ducts (you'll be spending a lot of time in these).

You'll come out into a large area with a broken bridge and things hanging from the ceiling. You can try walking under one of these rope-like things, but you'll probably regret it. Instead, jump in the water and swim to the left, then around the bend to the right and up the ladder.

Go through a few doors and passages until you come to a big pit with boxes hanging above it. Make like Mario and jump from box to box, until you make it to the other side of the pit.

Keep walking until you come to an elevator. Press the button to open it, then press the button inside to use it.
Office Complex


After exiting the elevator, break the grating on the wall near the floor. Don't go too close to the big electric wire -- see what it does to those poor headcrabs?

Inside the vent, crawl to the right. Bust the grating and be careful for more tongue monsters in the ceiling. Turn off the power by going through a door in the room and pressing a switch.

Then exit the room through the same doors which locked you out before. Walk by the now-powerless electrical wires and bust through the window.

First, go to the left and bust through a bunch of boxes with your crowbar. You'll find a shotgun, as well as a guard who is being ambushed by a mutant. Help him out with your newfound firepower -- he'll open the gate for you, and you can pick up some goodies.

Continue back and jump through a window into a room flooded with water. Don't touch the water -- it's electrified. Hop from table to table over to the power switch to kill the juice.

Whack open the grille in this room and jump into another ventilation shaft. You'll face some headcrabs and then a head-lopping fan (remember to duck).

You'll crumble the floor and fall into another room. Push the big and small crates so they're undernath a ladder up in the ceiling, then jump up from one to the other to the ladder. Crawl through, breaking vents along the way, but pause a moment before jumping out the last one. That scientist wasn't as cautious.


Jump out and take care of the security gun. You can get physical and take it on mano a mano with your pistol and shotgun, or you can deftly crawl underneath it and flip the switch to deactivate it.

Go up the stairs a few times. You'll come across a room with a boarded-up doorway. Break the planks and keep going.

You'll come to a giant meat locker. Open the door using the handle to the left. Inside, walk left and press a switch which will start a trolley above you that moves back and forth. Go back, climb a ladder, crawl around a bit, and then hop on the trolley when it comes past you. Then, smash the crates on the trolley and jump off the other side into another shaft.

Crawl through the shaft, jump up into another shaft, and continue until you jump out in front of a set of stairs.

Go up the stairs, and find the elevator shaft. You'll have to make a big leap across and grab onto the ladder on the other wall.

Edge around the shaft and keep climbing ladder. Poor scientist man.

Weird sight: watch what happens when the scientist hits the ground.

Once you're on top of the elevator, smash another grille and drop down inside. Use the flashlight to help you find the button.
We've got Hostiles


Go down the corridor and around the bend to the right. From now on you'll have to watch out for little red laserbeams crisscrossing your path. Tripping them will activate painful sentry guns. Jump over them or duck under them whenever at all possible. Also, beware for whitish-blue laser beams, these indicate tripmines, which will explode when anything (you, a box, an enemy, anything) crosses their path.

You'll play a game of cat and mouse with the sentry guns and a bunch of teleporting monsters here. Eventually you'll come upon some boxes which you'll need to hop over.

On the other side of the boxes is a particularly clever trap: red tripwires, a slippery floor, and an open elevator shaft. You can try to hop the trip lasers, or you can bounce a few grenades around the corner to take out the sentry guns. Be careful, though: if you break the glass on the wall switches near the big thick doors, alarms will go off and the doors will slowly seal shut, which doesn't help you much if you're on the wrong side.

Be careful with the tripmines on the other side of the thick door. I recommend remote detonation via grenades.

Continue forward and up the ladders.

(Conspiracy theory: try shooting the G-Man you'll see up above. He must have some sort of personal force field.)

In the next room you'll see a scientist run up to a soldier, thinking he's being rescued. Naturally, he's mistaken. (And the plot thickens...) Don't bother saving the scientist (you won't exactly be a boy scout by the time all of this is over) and don't bother trying to reason with the soldier either.

(Sadists: if you do save the scientist down here, try positioning him in front of the explosive barrels and then blowing everything up. Watching scientists gib never ceases to amuse me.)

Go up the lift by pressing the button. Up here you'll see some another scientist getting his, and there will be three soldiers waiting for you, as well. Be careful! Soldiers will flank, retreat, and work together against you. The best way to survive an ambush, as veterans will tell you, is to run straight into it. The same logic applies here.

Go up the stairs and through the door. After passing under some tongue monsters, go to the left, but watch out for the red triplasers and a couple of sentry guns.

After getting through that area you'll watch a few more scientists getting cut down, and you'll have a few more soldiers to deal with.

(Lure one underneath a tongue monster, if you can. It saves ammo and it's fun to watch.)

Loop around up the stairs and go down another hallway. You'll have to deal with the tongue monster convention again.

You'll come to another big room with some soldiers waiting around. Do whatever you need to in order to take them out, and then loop around the catwalks to make your way down the floor level. Enter the freight elevator and press the button to go up.

The surface! Finally! You're free! Well, not quite... outside, you'll find quite a few soldiers to deal with, as well as frequent airstrikes and a chopper which circles around, dropping more troops. You can play a game to see how long it takes before you die or, if you'd rather keep going, find the bunker near the middle of the outdoor area and dive down.

Down here, open the door, watch the debris fall, and then jump down after it. Hanging around only brings more and more soldiers deciding to "drop in." Find another ventilation shaft and go down it.

Wander around the vent shafts all you want, but the way out is by dropping down below the spinning fan blades (squeeze up against the corner so you don't hit them). Then exit the fan chamber through the middle vent. Crawl along that, up a ladder, through another vent, and you'll come out in a room which you saw quite a while ago. A scientist will give a speech about what to do next. Do what he says by pressing the button to open the silo door, then exit.
Blast Pit


Whack through the barrier and continue on. Press the button in the control room to summon the elevator, then climb down and press the button to ride the elevator back down into the bowels of Black Mesa.

Fun with fire: the side room next to the controls have lots of high explosives. See what happens for yourself.

Hop on the little train that you find and press the use button to activate the controls. When you see big big yellow arrows, press forward to go forward and backward to go back. Not too complicated.

Zoom down the track but be careful when you reach the end.

Olympic hopefuls: practice your Greg Louganis impression by seeing how far you can launch into the slime pit.

Hop up on top of the now-stopped train to reach the ledge which circles around the slime pit. Climb up the ladder on the other side and drop down into the big open pipe up there.

Jump out of the pipe again, and go to the left to climb up a ladder. Run on top of the pipes around and to the right, then jump off, over the rail, back onto solid ground. Go down and to the left, then jump off into the slime. Run quickly over the the slanted pipe, run up it onto the big lift, then press the button to start the long journey upwards.

Travel around the outside edge of the big deep pit, killing monsters along the way. Those small canisters you see lying around can put some hurt into an alien if you shoot them, but they can put some hurt into a walkway too, so be careful.

Use the switch to open the airlock, then step inside. Use the switch inside to travel through to the other side.

What's all this banging you hear? Listen to what this poor dying scientist has to say, then keep going.

HOLY CRAP!

Trying test-firing the rocket. Damn.

These three tentacle things don't seem to have any eyes, but they have some very acute hearing, as the scientist up a ladder on the other side of the control room will tell you. They will hear your footsteps you if move too fast, they will hear your landings if you jump, they will hear you fire your gun or bang your crowbar. And then they will squish you.

I hope you have some grenades left... since the tentacles are attracted to sound, make some big booms to throw them off by tossing a grenade away from you. The tentacles will go after that noise, giving you some time to haul ass.

Make your way down to the second level of the test chamber and whack your way through the boarded door while the tentacles are distracted.

Go through the airlocks, and then across the catwalk. If it's been destroyed, you'll have to walk the balance beam on the pipes to the right.

Go down the hallways, then down the ladder you'll find. Smash the grating in the floor and crawl down the long ladder.

Thrill seekers: see how far down the shaft you can fall before grabbing the ladder. I've gotten to about three feet from the ground before.

Run along the pipe and go to the left. Climb up the ladder you'll find.

Smash the grating above you and go through the doorway to a room with a ginatic fan. Climb down the ladders to the switch below the fan blades.

More ladder fun: test your mettle and try leaping from the top walkway all the way down to the ladder underneath the fan. How Gordon Freeman manages from having his arms torn off escapes my understanding.

Here's a nice test of agility. You have to turn on the fan and then get above it before the blades start spinning too fast, otherwise you'll be knocked down into the chasm (one wonders who designed this.) Press the switch then run back to the ladder, and try to time it just right so you miss the fan blades as you climb up.

Now that the fan is on, take advantage of all the moving air and jump above the fan. You can fly! Smash the wood with the crowbar and maneuver your way down into another ventilation shaft. (One notices that the wood, which must be exceptionally heavy, falls straight down.)

Crawl through the shafts, whacking where necessary, until you fall out and make your way to the Oxygen/Fuel control room. Turn on the oxygen and the fuel by pressing the respective buttons. You'll notice that little air bubbles start moving through the pipes, indicating the flow has been restored.

Follow the bubbles back to where you came from.

Back at the tentacles, move down to ground level and smash your way out another doorway. I hope you have grenades to spare, since you still have the long trek back up.

You'll have to make a few big leaps here, so be careful. Go through the airlock and across the catwalk, then turn the corner to the right.

Walk out onto the catwalk and press the elevator button. Down comes the elevator. Hop in, and press the button to descend. On the way down the elevator will experience technical difficulties. You'll have to jump out and latch onto the ladder to the left, again showing off Freeman's arms of steel.

Climb down the ladder and go over to the scientist, who is too scared to go turn on the power himself. Luckily you're more courageous.

Go over to the big power room. Press the button to summon the spinning-platform thing, then ride it to the other side and climb the ladder. Be careful not to let the spinning-platform things knock you off and into the pit; that would be bad.

Once you make it up to the top, press the switch to start up the generator, then jump on top of it and down the other side to press the other switch. The generator will start sparking and shooting beams of electricity, which is a good thing. Make your way back down, and then go climb back up the long ladder.

That water puddle you crossed earlier is now electrified. You'll have to drag some boxes which are lying around over to the water, and shove them across. Make a bridge as far as you can, then jump up on then and leap across. Make your way back to the tentacles, hopping gaps in the floor where needed.

Use your grenades and your stealth to climb back up to the top of the test chamber, then go down to the control room. If everything is turned on like it should be, go ahead and press the "Test Fire" button. It's like burning up ants with a magnifying glass, only about a thousand times bigger.

Reenter the now-empty test chamber and climb down into the pit previously occupied by the tentacles. You'll continue down a bit and then end up in a big pool of water.

Take a deep breath and swim down, then over to the side of the pool. You'll see that you can swim up and out.

You could try hitching a ride on top of one of those floating barrels if you really wanted, or you could just hop on top of the pipes instead. Follow them along, jumping from pipe to pipe, until you come to a wheel that you have to turn to extend a section that's missing. Jump down inside one of the big pipes and run along it.

Watch out for the big fall here. You can go down the the breaking pipe and take damage, or try and set it off carefully without falling down, and then getting down along the side route. Either way, there are a lot of health packs at the bottom (along with some new toys).
Power Up


When you come to a large room where two soldiers are fighting a... big thing, dont bother helping them. Instead, run over to the tunnel on the left.

Conspiracy theory: that G-Man is everywhere.

Once inside, take the left hall up the stairs. Be careful around the broken pipe with the flame spewing out. It'll kill you instantly -- but it'll also kill any monsters that wander by it.

Crawl up the ladder and bust through the barricades to enter a control room. The dying guard will tell you what you'll need to do to continue.

Sadists: you can whack, shoot, or blow up the guard, and while he'll unleash a barrage of empty threats, he just refuses to die.

Exit the control room and jump down into the hole. Follow the passageway until you come to two red doors and a wheel. Spin the wheel to open the doors.

Climb your way up to the top, but be sure to stop and watch the bullsquid fold a marine in half.

Continue on, dodging soldiers all the way. After crossing an open area with sandbags in the middle, go up the ramp and to the left. You'll need to go down that lift -- but first you need to get rid of the tripmines in the way. You can try to lure the alien doggies into setting them off, or you can shoot them while the lift is descending, or just toss a detpack down and blow it all up.

Once down the lift, follow the path down the stairs twice to a flooded room. Watch out for tiny swimming worms which will impede your progress and are really hard to hit. Try using the crowbar on them.

Use the crowbar again to smash the boxes that are stopping the pistons from pumping. This will prime the power and drain the water.

Climb up one flight of stais and go press the button in the small control room. This will re-activate the power (as evidenced by the arcs of electricity which will start shooting about).

Head back up the lift and backtrack all the way back to where you first saw Big Blue.

When you see him he won't be very happy. You can try taking him on if you have ample grenades, or you can be clever and let him chase you down the big tunnel to the left. Run like hell between the two giant electro-thingies, and press the switch when the monster is between the two. Not quite as dramatic as the tentacle barbecue, but what the hell.

Go back to the idling train and drive it onto the rotating platform. Jump off and go back up to the control room and pull the switch to rotate the platform and position the train to continue. Cap the guard in the head one time for luck, then jump out the window and board the train to continue on, bashing through the barrier at full speed.
On A Rail


When the train stops, listen to the guard's story about where to go next, and then hop off the car and press the switch to raise the gate. Continue driving merrily along. (If you time it right, you can kill the guard when he just begins to speak and he'll continue his monologue despite the obvious problem of being dead.)

Keep driving until you see a little rail-switching sign with an arrow on it. Shoot it quick to switch the tracks so you'll continue straight instead of looping around to the right.

Stop when you come upon a platform with a bullsquid and a set of stairs. Mount the stairs but be careful of a sentry gun behind some crates. Toss a grenade to take it out. Once it's clear, throw the switch to move the big hanging hook that was impeding your progress.

Back on the train, shoot the next track-switcher to turn to the left and continue down the tunnel that was blocked before.

You'll take a trip up a spinning elevator with soldiers picking you off from all angles. Once you have this under control, continue down the railway, stopping to open a gate in you way. Eventually the tracks will end and you'll need to continue on foot.

Go down the left hallway but be careful for a big artillery gun around the next turn. Avoid it however you want, then turn right and go through the blast doors. Climb down the ladder and find another train car.

As you continue down the railway, watch out for red lasers in your path which will activate more sentry guns. Also, there are some soldier with mounted rocket launchers which can be foiled simply by ducking behind the controls of your train car.

When your train car stops again, hop off onto the platform, killing a few aliens along the way. Down a corridor you'll see a doorway to the left which is blocked by some boxes. Use your duck-jump to get over them (jump up, then hit crouch while you're in the air.) Use the switch you find to raise another gate, then get on the train car again and keep going.

As you cononue you'll come to another great firefight with some hiding soldiers and a big artillery gun. Liberal use of grenades is recommended, and the switch near the big gun will open the gate so you can continue.

Keep going, watching out for incoming rockets and big hanging boxes. Shoot the track-switcher to continue straight ahead. At the next gate, take the ladder down and keep going down the train tracks.

Keep going, killing mounted guns and soldiers all the way. You'll go through a set of doors with a nasty trap behind it (lots of things to deal with.) Enter the little complex to the right of that big slanty-floored hole in the ground.
Here's a nice puzzle. You could try to walk up the stairs, if you wanted to trip the red triplasers and blow everything to hell. Instead, push the two boxes around the side of the stairs and use them to bypass the triplasers entirely.
Go find the control room and launch that damn rocket already.
After the fireworks, go back down (be careful around the triplasers again) and through the blast doors. There will be a newly opened passageway to your left, where you'll find yet another train to ride.
Apprehension


There's no way to make the train stop. Either leap off before it jumps the track, or ride it into the water pit. Once in the water, you'll see three barrels which are tied down. Swim down and open the lock to release the barrels, which will float up to the surface, forming a makeshift bridge.

Cross the bridge and jump down into the water on the other side. Down near the floor under the water you'll find an exit which you'll need to follow. Look for air pockets along the way so you won't drown.

After emerging from the water you'll see another scientist dying in a creative way. Unfortunately you're going to need to go into that water too. Climb up to the top floor and talk to the scientist about what swimming around down there, then go jump into the shark cage and grab the crossbow. The cage will fall into the water and you'll need to kill the big monster using either the crossbow or your 9mm pistol, both of which fire underwater.

Underwater, find the red wheel and spin it to open up a nearby door. You'll have to open it enough to give you some leeway since the door closes once you let go of the wheel.

Go down the hallways and along the slippery catwalks. Be careful for crumbling floors; those fishies in the water look hungry. You can leap across the gaps in the floor, but just barely.

When you get to the electrified steel-mesh wall, either jump through the hole, or jump down into the water and swim like hell through the opening down there.
Climb up the stairs and then get to the opposite side of the engine room by either pushing the crates over to the broken ladder, or turning on the pistons and jumping, Mario-like, from piston to piston, being careful not to get squished.

Find your way into a closet where a scientist open a door for you into a giant freezer area. Don't bother dawdling -- run as fast as you can, through the ice and snow, since you'll be taking cold damage all the way. Take the ladder down and out of the frigid area.

Keep on going up the elevator and listen to the guard's abbreviated speech. You'll get your first taste of the trained assassins now. They're small and quick, so be careful. An easy way to deal with them is to set a tripmine around the corner from where you're hiding, and wait for them to blow themselves up. Otherwise, burst in there with guns blazing and make sure all three are dead.
Go up the ramp and spin the wheel to open up the door on the other side of the warehouse. Go through the door, but don't bother trying to defend yourself from the pummeling you're about to get.

After the short cutscene, you'll be stuck in a Star Wars-ish trash compactor which is slowly compacting. Hop up from box to box to make your way out of the compactor, then go behind the walls of the compactor to procure a crowbar and then drop down a smashed grate.
Residue Processing


Headcrabs seem a little tougher now that you don't have any big guns! Make your way to the big tower and spin the flow control wheel, which will raise or lower the platform inside. You'll want to get on it while it's going down. Go through the ventilation shaft you'll see.

Inside will be a guard taking care of some headcrabs for you. Wait for him to run away and then follow him. You'll find his corpse (or what's left of it). Take the pistol.

Return to the room you jumped down into, and climb up the side of the big nukage vat. Jump from debris piece to debris piece, and go down the pipe.

Next you'll come to a vat with two big stirring devices. Wait until they point to each other to move from one to the other, and keep moving along the pipe.
The next room has a whole set of vats with big plungers going up and down. Hop on the tops of the plungers as they're going down or up and make your way across to the next pipe.

Your path will be pretty straightforward. Duck under all the big grinding machines and you'll eventually come to a room with three conveyor belts emerging from a pool of slime. Press the three switches so all three conveyors are moving forward, and then go to the control room and press the button to stop the crushers from operating. You'll have to move quickly since they'll turn back on after only a short time.

Keep riding the conveyor, being careful not to get squished.

Hop down the conveyor belts until you get to two right next to each other. Take the left one, but watch out for two tripmines blocking your path.



Questionable Ethics


After taking care of the doggies, you can either jump over the fence and lose some health in the process, or shoot the big electrode to open the door.

In the next room will be a new type of alien behind some thin glass. If you get too close, or press the big button, he'll get out. You can stick around to take care of him but there aren't any rewards for doing so.

You'll come into some sort of laboratory with two cells, which hold some goodies. Try going into the control booth and pressing the button -- it's a great way to get rid of the headcrabs, and also works on soldiers if you can lure them in.

Wander through the complex, watching soldier vs. alien fights and taking out the winner, until you get to a series of hallways with false ceilings. There are four laser beams that you have to turn on in this area (as well as a wonderfully macabre sequence before getting the gauss gun).

Once you've turned on all four laser, try test-firing the super-laser. Then try pushing a box so it obstructs the blast shield and fire again. Don't you just love science?

Jump down the newly created hole, but try going down via pipes and boxes so you don't lose too much health.

You probably should stop the weird operating machine before leading out the scientists, but you'll need one to activate the retinal scanner in order to go out the front door. There are some sentry guns hanging around outside so be careful. (Reward the scientists by giving them an up close and personal look at the electro-machine in the room near the beginning of the section. Whee!)
Surface Tension


After some soldier firefights you'll come to a nice big dam area. You can bypass all of this and just jump into the water if you want, but it's more fun to blow up the artillery gun and the helicopter and see some nice explosions.

In the water you'll have to watch out for another of those big fishes. Make your way to the tower in the middle of the lake and press the switch inside it to open up the passageway through the dam.

Swim down near the bottom of the dam and spin the red wheel to open up the gates so you can pass through. (I still don't understand how Gordon slides through the dam, but otherwise it doesn't spill a drop.)

Run along the canyon and climb up the ladder and through the pipes. Then climb up the ladder to the top of the building. Be careful, though, since there's another Apache circling around waiting for you.

There's another tentacle monster in the next area but you can ignore it if you stay out of range. In fact, you don't even need to go there -- find the other passageway between the rocks. Watch out for sand-burrowing headcrabs and, more importantly, buried landmines, which will end your adventure very quickly.

Creep around the perimeter of the minefield and find the red wheel. Spin it and then drop down the newly opened storm drain.

At the end of the pipe you'll notice that there isn't much ground to work with. Be careful where you step, and watch out for soldiers and sentry guns that can pick you off quite efficiently. Long-range crossbow sniping does wonders here.
Slide down the big pipes to get down part of the cliff, and work your way right until you come to a cave. Inside you'll find a new rocket launcher, which you can test out on another Apache helicopter which is hovering outside.

After climbing up all the ladders and navigating the pipes you'll come out in another great soldier firefight. Use whatever tactics work for you.

Around the corner is a stationary tank which doesn't provide much of a threat unless you stand still for too long in its line of fire.

After opening the gate, you'll encounter another tank-type thing which you'll have to dodge using the boxes and ledges.

Through the next gate is a large building which you'll have to circle around to the right. Watch out for snipers hiding above. When you get to a minefield, throw grenades or shoot your MP5 to clear your path.
Blow up the barrels to turn off the power, then climb up the tipped tower onto the roof. Turn left and find the big gaping hole in the roof, and jump down.
Follow the scientist's advice: be very careful! You can't touch any of the tripmines in this area or you'll nuke the whole place. You'll have to jump and duck under a bunch, then in the large room, find the elevator platform against the far wall and break the box on it so it won't trip a laser when the elevator is raised.

Make your way into the control room and use the switch to raise the elevator, then get on the elevator and jump onto the center platform. Press the button to go down.

This next section will be familiar to anyone who has played the Team Fortress Classic map "Hunted," but the way through it is a bit different. Make your way past the tank and turn right around the bend. Enter the building to the right and go up the stairs, where a helpful security guard will show you into a veritable armory.

Next, go out the window and tiptoe along the ledge until you can jump across the alley onto a big box. Climb up the ladder and traverse your way through the bombed-out building into the open courtyard. There's a big helicopter above that has a great death scene, if you can spare the ammo to blow it up. Find the big gun to the right and aim it at the double doors to blow them up.

After going through the big doors, watch out for loads of baddies. Around another corner you'll find a mounted machine gun which is useful for dispatching the many aliens which will come after you down the slanted hallway. When they're all gone, continue up and walk onto that weird-looking crater (these will be all throughout the rest of the game).

On the roof, wait for the fighting down below to stop and then drop down and kill the survivors. On the right will be another grating for you to smash, and then you'll encounter some snarks. The best strategy is to run away until they explode (one wonders how they managed to survive all these years).

Keep going along the tunnel until the soldiers get trigger-happy and blow open the shaft you're in.

After killing all the soldiers below you, use the switch hanging from the ceiling to lower one of the car platforms, then ride it up and jump out the hole in the wall.

Once outside, use the mounted gun to blow open the sealed door, and then blow apart all the monsters that come out.

Go down the hallways and witness another big soldier/alien fight. However, you'll need to jump across the hole in the catwalk to continue on.

Outside, launch via the crater thing onto the roof of the building and go down the pipe. Be careful crawling through, however, as a soldier has the right idea and tosses in a detpack. Quickly crawl back and hide underwater to survive.
Once out of the pipe, find the guard at the top of the stairs, who you'll need to bring down in order to have him open the door for you, i.e. don't kill him.
Once outside again, go over and have the guard open the other closed door inside the little booth. After passing through a hallway you'll come upon an irritated Big Blue.

Don't bother fighting him! Run away as fast as you can, and launch over the wall using the bouncy thing into the pool of water. Climb up the pipe and look at the controls on top of the tower. It's a miniature map of the large open area you're in now. One button moves the vertical line and the another moves the horizontal line, while the middle button calls in an airstrike. Position the intersection of the two lines to approximately where Big Blue will now be trying to beat down the gate, and then call in an airstrike to eradicate him.

After he's gone, take your time in repositioning the airstrike to blow up the three other things you'll need to move on: the big slanted wall on the opposite corner of the open area, the walls around that slanty wall, and the big electrical tower in front of you.

After these three have been demolished, walk across the fallen tower, over the crumbled wall, and through the blasted doors.
Forget About Freeman


As soon as this level starts you'll be confronted with a quickly crumbling ceiling. Don't try to find a nook or cranny to hide in; there aren't any. Instead, wait for the third chunk of ceiling that falls in front of the railing. Hop on it and jump over the railing into the next room.

You'll hear an interesting message on the radio in the next room, and you'll find a switch which activates a ceiling sentry gun. Use it to take out the monsters which will jump out at you in the next room.

If you've played the deathmatch level of the same design this level should seem pretty familiar. Go down the ramp and take a turn to the right (to the area where the RPG is in deathmatch. There'll be a covered hatch that you'll need to open; be careful of the snarks inside those weird egg pod things.

Go down the hatch and take one of the "west" tunnels by jumping over the grating. Continue on down the passageways' you'll need to jump into some water and go under-over-around some crushers. Watch out for the alien fish in the big water hole; you can ignore him as there's nothing in there that's worth it.

After going through the water, destroy the turrets and kill the soldier waiting for you, then go up the ladder back outside. There's another stationary tank that you can either dodge or blow up; once past it, take the elevator down.
When you come to another big stationary tank, you can jump up on it and fire it at the door to blow it up. Lots of monsters come pouring in, though, so be ready.

Be careful going through the door you just destroyed, as there's a big gun waiting to blow you apart. Turn left and go through the doors.
Lambda Core


Take the big freight elevator down into the Lambda Complex. After a few rooms you'll come into a big warehouse area where a few more female assassins are just waiting for you. Once you take care of all of them, go up to the top level and work around the side walls and go down the elevator.

You'll come into a big room with a couple of alien hornet-shooters to dispatch. Once you destroy them all, a scientist will open a door on the right-hand side of the far wall and let you through.

Don't kill the scientist (yet)... he needs to open a security door for you. Once he does, though... happy hunting.

Once you go up the little lift you can go to the right where a holier-than-thou scientist introduces you to the egon. Show him just how easily you ca bring yourself to use it on living creatures... if you know what I mean.

Go up the elevator and find a large area with a big water pool underneath. Here you need to find two pump rooms and turn on the pumps. There's a path to the left and a path to the right -- you'll have to work your way through a bunch of linear rooms brimming with monsters but it's nothing you can't handle by now.
Once both pumps are activated, find the auxilary reactor and dive down into the water. There's an underwater maintenance shaft that will lead into the main core.

In the main core you'll have to climb up ladders and time your movements so you don't get sliced in half by revolving electric beams. Be careful!

When you come to an elevator shaft with a broken elevator, climb up the ladder and jump off into the upper level. Watch out for steam valves which can hurt you (or, conversely, can hurt the monsters). Around here you'll also be introduced to the mysteries of the floating blobs of energy which can teleport you all over the place. (You can also discover how the G-Man seems to appear and disappear so suddenly. That sneaky bastard!)

Around here comes the part of Half-Life lovingly referred to as the "really lame jumping section." Through the door into "Core Level B" you'll find a series of teleporters leading you higher and higher up a shaft. You'll have to discover which teleporters lead you where -- and you'll also have to watch out that if you teleport to a higher level, the rotating platform will be beneath you at the appropriate time.

You'll reach another room which consists of platforms which not only revolve, but move up and down as well. You'll need to ride around the outside to activate the switches, then jump into the newly-opened teleport chamber in the middle.
After climbing up a ladder and running down some corridors you'll reach a stronghold where you'll be informed about the next stage of your journey. Stock up on health and ammo -- you'll need it. Be sure and take the long jump module too.

When you reach the giant room with the big teleporting machinery in the middle, get ready for a fight. Once the scientist starts to power up the teleporter, wonderful new flying Alien Controllers will start popping out of nowhere and flinging fireballs everywhere. The scientist has a pretty crappy glass enclosure he's working inside (what happened to the bulletproof glass that's everywhere else around this place?) and the flying aliens will be trying to take his ass out just as much as yours. Liberally use the egon and MP5 to keep the scientist happy until he instructs you to jump into the portal that's appeared. Do as he says.
Xen


The oh so wonderful jumping puzzles continue. Here on this alien world, you'll need to make liberal use of that long jump module. Use it to leap from platform to platform, and then jump onto one of the moving platforms when it comes close.

Make your way down onto the bottom bun of the big alien hamburger and find a little crack in a wall that you'll find. Outside it you'll see a little pool of water which emits a strange noise and has little snowflakes that appear and disappear around it. If you stand in it, you'll slowly regain health; a very good thing when you see what's coming up soon.

Inside the crack is a big room with three strange mushroom-type things. "Use" all three to open up little receptacles on top of them, then crack open the viney cage holding three little floating butterflies. Through some sort of alien magic a new portal will open for you to enter.
Gonarch's Lair


Gonarch must be the name of the gigantic mommy headrab which you will quickly confront on this level. Its weak spot is that big hanging sac hanging underneath it. While firing away, be sure to keep your distance as its claws can eviscerate you instantly; other threats include big poisonous globs that it can shoot at you, and little baby headrabs which do 1 point of damage (but they add up if you let them continue).

After you shoot it enough Gonarch will run away down a cavern. Follow it onto the second battleground. You can drop down a hole in the corner which will lead you to a healing pool which can come in handy. Use the bouncy crater to propel yourself back up into the action. The hornet gun is a good albeit slow way to hurt Gonarch; the hornets go straight for the fleshy underbelly, although it takes quite a while to put a dent in the thing.

After Gonarch flees for a second time, watch out for a big drop. Once underneath Gonarch, keep firing at the sac until it drops down through the web into the little cavern with you. If you're smart you'll have placed a couple detpacks right where Gonarch drops down onto, and you'll be able to blow it apart quickly enough.

Hop down into the pit created when Gonarch died. Be sure and use the healing pool before going through the teleport.
Interloper


This next area can really suck if you're low on health or ammo. Rather than wasting your time trying to kill every single alien hanging around, loop around to tbe backside of the big floating island and find a cavern that takes you down inside.

Once inside, you'll need to make your way through a series of rooms, bashing your way through webbing every once in a while, until you come to the side of a large column which lowers and raises.

Hop on the column and ride it all the way to the top. You'll have to rely on your jumping skills again; jump from platform to platform, until you come close enough to a flying-manta-ray creature to jump on its back. It'll shuttle you over to a another little floating platform with a teleport on it. (If you have some juice left in your gauss gun and you don't feel like dealing with all the aliens roaming around this level, you can charge up your gun while riding up the initial column and gauss-jump to the teleport. It's a tricky process -- you have to aim in the exact opposite direction as the little island, and fire the gun at the right time so you're launched far enough to hit the platform but not too far as to fly right over it.)

In this next area, make your way into the cave where you'll find a Big Blue lurking around. When he starts to chase you, jump up into a little side passageway of the cave and let him pass by, then jump down behind him and keep going.

Make your way past the three tentacle creatures (you should know how to do this by now) and around a few bends will be another teleporter.

You'll arrive inside some sort of alien factory. At this point the aliens will mostly ignore you, so wait until you're sure you've been noticed before killing everything that moves. Take the cog-elevators up the the conveyor belts. Take the conveyor that isn't blocked by a force field and keep going.

You'll see lots of strange keg-like things sitting around. Try not to shoot any as alien grunts will pop out, and you don't have enough ammo to take care of them all. There will be one keg that blocks your path, however, so you'll have to deal with at least one.

Find a sort of vent shaft in the corner of one room with little glowing lights inside. Jump in and drop down until you come out into another room.

There will be lots of alien controllers and slaves to deal with, but you'l have to make your way up to the very top of the room, where there's a spinning teleport thing. Go up ramps and spinning cog platforms to make your way to the teleporter. Before you go through, make sure that you have ample health, as the final boss awaits.
Nihilanth


The entity behind all of this chaos and strife turns out to be a really big alien baby. You'll be dropped into a big cylindrical room with Nihilanth floating in the middle.

Use the spikes sticking out of the floor to your advantage! You do not want to be hit by the blue balls that Nihilanth throws, but the green balls are worse -- they home in on you, making them impossible to dodge, and they teleport you to secondary rooms where you have to hop up platfoms or bouncy craters to make your way through another teleport back to the action. Whenever you think the big baby is about to toss a green ball, block its path by hiding behind the spikes until the danger is gone.

To weaken Nihilanth, you need to destroy the 3 green-crystal triangles which are high up on the walls of the room. The easiest way (at least for me) was to turn off the red dot on the RPG, aim carefully, and quickly take all three out.

Little-known fact: the material that makes up the three green triangles protecting Nihilanth is the same as the crystal sample which you pushed into the beams to start this whole mess in the first place. Valve Software originally intended to make this connection more obvious but never did.

Once all three green triangles are destroyed, Nihilanth is ready to have his ass kicked. Take the bouncy craters to vault yourself up above his now-opened skull, and unload the strongest weapons you have into his exposed brain. MP5, egon, shotgun, whatever you have will work; you can even toss in snarks or detpacks, and the true warriors will pith Nihilanth's brain using the crowbar.

Once Nihilanth bites the dust, watch the fireworks and then prepare yourself for the final confrontation. Choose whatever path you decide suits you best.




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