Game: Half-Life System: Sony Playstation 2 Walkthrough type: Decay (co-op) missions. Decay Walkthrough by John and Josh Cable (a.k.a. The Evil Nep Brothers) Version 1.1 -- Written on Tuesday, February 12, 2002. Copyright Josh and John Cable, 2001. Do not copy or reproduce without permission. E-mail address: creexul@yahoo.com Version 1.1: Added info about the bonus mission, plus the alien slave weapon in the weapons section. ======== Table of Contents 1. Decay Info a. Overview b. Characters c. Weapons d. Enemies 2. Missions --One: Dual Access --Two: Hazardous Course --Three: Surface Call --Four: Resonance --Five: Domestic Violence --Six: Code Green --Seven: Crossfire --Eight: Intensity --Nine: Rift --Ten (Bonus): alien slave mission 3. Credits ======== 1. Decay Info a. Overview A shorter, two player version of Half-Life, where you play as two female scientists (both equipped with the hazardous environment suits). The Decay mission pack is split up into seperate missions. You can't save during any of the missions, so you have to complete each mission completly before you can save. If one of the pair dies, the mission ends in failure and you must start the mission from the very beginning. They're not really long, but you may need a few tries before being able to get through a mission. Also, don't worry about carrying low health into the next mission. You automatically get a health and armor (and ammo) recharge after each mission is completed and the next one starts. The two-player ability is optional, and in order to switch between the two characters in one-player mode, you push select. The rest of the controls should be the usual stuff you've already set up. If you move one of the characters in front of an enemy, in one-player mode, and switch to the second character, the first character, controlled by the computer, will start attacking. They won't move or dodge, but they turn completely around to fight enemies right behind them (sometimes Josh, SOMETIMES). Two player mode is much better. First, it's more fun to team up and blast baddies left and right in a frenzy. Second, it's easier to just tell your pal what you think you should do. Even if you've finished Half-Life, on either the PC or the PS2, these missions will be quite challanging. As my brother and I played through this, we figured that a walkthrough for the Decay missions would indeed be extremely helpful. We're Half-Life masters, and even we got stuck for a little while on parts, or got thrashed by monsters. After you get used to the controls and puzzles, you shouldn't have too much trouble getting through these levels, with a little help from us. One important thing to note, the creators of this walkthrough preferred playing in 2 player co-op mode, and it is absolutely recommended. b. Characters There's you two, of course, Dr. Gina Cross or Dr. Colette Green, who, under your control, must weave through monsters, traps, and other assorted dangers in the ever-crumbling disaster-stricken Black Mesa Research Facility. Along the way, you find the usual outfit of security guards and scientists (although much less in this than in the actual Half-Life levels). There are security guards here and there, but you won't be able to interact with many of them except one or two. They'll add firepower, and they have unlimited ammo so don't worry about them running out. They're officially called "Barney" so that's what the security guards will be known as from here on. You'll also meet two main scientists. Dr. Rosenberg (PC veterans might remember him from the Blue Shift expansion pack), who will be around to help you in the first couple missions, and Dr. Keller, the cripple--UH UH handicapped? Dr. Keller is DISABLED, yes, that's right. There is no "friendly fire," so you can't harm your friend, no matter how many times you shoot them. You can still kill yourself with grenades, and OTHER scientists will die if you hit them. If you shoot Rosenberg or Keller even once, the mission will fail. It's pretty easy not to shoot them. If the temptation to kill a scientist is too great, play the normal Half-Life missions, where there are plenty of "extra" scientists who AREN'T needed to unlock doors, which you can kill in many wonderful ways. Another thing, try not to get in the way of the AI friendlies in this game. If you block Rosenberg or Keller, or anyone, they'll stop. They should continue moving, but I heard that there's an occasional moment where they get stuck, or you'll get stuck. Just try not to be a klutz. c. Weapons You won't get all the weapons from Half-Life, just the basics. There's always one of each weapon for each player, so make sure you get one, and your partner gets the other. If you see two shotguns on a wall, you don't have to creep up to them to keep from getting both at once, I'm pretty sure it only lets you get one shotgun at a time per player. Crowbar -- First weapon you get, good for bashing/breaking stuff or beating headcrabs. No secondary fire. While it is strong and has a very fast attack speed, try not to run out of ammo. Beretta -- 9mm handgun. Not very powerful, but good at long range attacking. If you see an alien slave all the way at the other end of a long hallway or room, lock on, make sure the crosshair is on them, and pop a few shots (remember that they can shoot back at equal range, so you aren't much safer). It can also fire underwater, but you shouldn't need that for the Decay missions. Secondary fire fires faster, but with much less accuracy, which is good for close range if you emtpy all your other weapons and need to keep firing. SPAS 12 Shotgun -- Single-barrel and double-barrel blasts (secondary fire is double-barrel). Best close range weapon in the game. But (of COURSE!!) terrible long range. If it's the only weapon you have with any ammo, you can kill enemies at medium ranges, but it will take far more ammo, depending on size and distance of your target. Also, remember that when you start reloading the shotgun, it still goes through the normal reloading animations--just that you can't see it. So there will be a short delay before you really start reloading shells with this weapon. Just keep that in mind when it comes to the heat of combat. M4 assault rifle (w/grenade launcher) -- It looks more powerful than it is (since it shares the 9mm ammo with the Beretta). The fully automatic fire makes it good for taking down anything, though. It's also equipped with a grenade launcher (secondary fire). The grenades travel in an arc, so it helps if you know how far the grenades go, so you know how much higher to put your crosshair. They're contact grenades, so they explode once they hit a wall, the ground, or an enemy. Massive damage with those things. Save them for alien grunts or human grunts. .357 Magnum -- High powered pistol. It's about as strong as the shotgun, but also only fires as fast as the shotgun. Extremely accurate, though. You'll want to save this for slaves or grunts. My brother and I don't recommend shooting headcrabs with this. They're too small, and you'll most likely miss. It's a very strong bullet to waste on just a lowly headcrab. No secondary fire, except in multiplayer where it zooms in a little bit. Hand grenades (fragmentation) -- Throw it, it blows up after a couple seconds. Great for taking out the tripod machine gun turrets, or tripmines. Throw them from around a corner. You can throw these at grunts, but if they have plenty of space and warning, they'll sometimes run away. However, if there's a lot of grunts bunched up, one well-thrown frag grenade will blast them into big chunks. A contact grenade is better for this, though. No secondary fire. If you hold down the grenade button, it'll stay in your hand, but the fuse keeps running. So don't hold it in your hand for more than four seconds, or else you'll only be able to throw it so far before it blows up in your face. Rocket Propelled Grenade launcher -- You get this in the last mission, and you should only use it on one enemy: the big flying alien "jet." Secondary fire turns the aiming laser off, and in the Decay missions I strongly recommend AGAINST this. Leave the laser on, so if you lock on to a monster, your target laser will keep tracking them and hit them for sure. Otherwise, it'll just fly straight with the laser off. The only time you should have to turn the laser off is in normal Half-Life, when you want to fire a rocket at a stationary target, and immediately take cover. Snarks -- Only in the Domestic Violence level, in the grates. Sort of hard to get. These are little alien critters that you can throw and they'll run around scratching things spastically until they get so overcharged that they explode with a big pop. They'll attack YOU if they can't find any other targets, so be careful. Alien Slave Shot -- Available in the bonus mission where you play as an alien (or in the normal game in alien mode which is activated via a code). This weapon works a little like the gauss gun in normal Half- Life where you have to charge your shot to do more damage. The crosshair is your weapon power, and you can see the crosshair changes (borders are added to the crosshair) as you keep charging. You'll only need to charge for a second to do full damage and fire a giant green electric beam. When the crosshair is red, it's at full power and you should fire immediately, or else the power will backfire and the beam will uncharge. The alternative fire is the slave's claws, which are like the crowbar (but cooler of course). d. Enemies Headcrab -- Small guys that leap and scratch at you. You only need a couple 9mm bullets to put these guys out, but they can be pretty hard to hit. Still, they don't pose much of a threat unless you can't kill them quickly. You don't want these guys jumping around tearing you up, or worse distracting you from bigger monsters. A crowbar or single-barrel shotgun blast can take care of these guys quick. Headcrabs CAN'T turn you into zombies. Zombies -- Scientists who get "headcrabbed" turn into zombies. They move slow, but when they get close, they swing wide with their big claw arms, and can do some mean damage. You can blast these guys with anything, preferably the shotgun. If you want to save ammo (especially early on, which is the most you'll see these guys), you can hit and run with the crowbar. Just don't backpedal into the slimy claws of ANOTHER zombie. Houndeyes -- You'll only see these dog-like creatures in about one level. They charge up a sonic attack, but they're extremely weak. In fact, they seem pretty cute and harmless. Just blast them as soon as possible. The shotgun or M4 is best for these. The only thing to worry about the houndeyes is the fact that they're in packs, so you have to kill one and turn quick to blast the other two flanking you. Alien Slave -- Weak and cowardly, these guys will die quick, and (occasionally) backtrack for some cover. The main threat these guys pose is their big green electric shot, which can fry you badly if hit. You can take cover from this attack pretty well, just make sure there's no others that have warped in behind you. If close enough, they'll start clawing you, which also does some bad damage. You shouldn't try to get close enough to crowbar these guys. Just shotgun, Magnum, or M4. Alien Grunt -- These guys are so much more powerful than the Alien Slaves that they shouldn't even be in the same class/race. These grunts have a bullet proof armor over parts of their body (back, feet, head, the "down there" area) which deflects all bullets. Hit them in their soft parts. They'll still take a couple double-barrel blasts from the shotgun, so make sure to keep wailing away on these guys until they fall down. And try not to hit them from the back, where their armor covers more of their body. The M4 also works well on these guys. There's a very small part of their face that's unarmored, and a Magnum bullet will fit in there well, if you can get a good shot in it. It'll do a lot more damage if you shoot them in the head. The main threat from them is their "hive hand" which fires seeking bee type shots. These shots are weak, but several of them at once while you are weak (especially without armor) is a major hazard. Human Grunts -- The artificial intelligence jewel of Half-Life when it was released. These guys do a lot. They come equipped with a shotgun or an M4, and rarely you'll find one with contact grenades equipped. Some also have kevlar helmets which will stop any buckshot or 9mm bullets. Just blaze away at their bodies and they should go down in a double-barrel blast or a hailstorm of M4 bullets. The Magnum also works very well, cutting through a kevlar helmet for an instant kill or downing a grunt in 2 body shots. These guys are very likely to backtrack for cover and run from grenades, and you almost never fight them or see them when they are alone. Osprey -- Giant, yellow-camo colored helicopter that drops human grunts. You only see this once in Decay. It's up to you if you want to fight it or not. Usually the best tactic is to run. For the hardcore, if you want to take it down with M4 fire, aim at the rotors on both sides (not the wings, JUST the engines attached to the rotors at the end of the wings). You have to shoot one until it's constantly pouring black smoke, then start blasting the other one. You have to be able to keep a good bead on this, and that means not using the lock-on feature and just tracking it with the stick. It's very possible, but it still takes a lot of hits, and you should break off an attack once it drops the grunts (you'll need to kill them to get more M4 ammo anyway). This is easier in Decay than in Half-Life, since you can have your friend help blast the Osprey. Oh yeah, and when it does go down, make sure not to be under it, you'll die instantly in the crash. Alien Controller -- Hovering creatures related to the slave and grunt that fire orange-yellowish energy balls at you that do some nasty damage. It fires fast too, so it can tear through your armor and melt away your health. These appear in only one mission, but there's plenty of them. The M4 or Magnum should make short work of these guys. If you run out of M4 ammo, you should still have at least one full clip in the Beretta to empty into these guys. If all else fails, try the shotgun. You won't do much damage with each shot but eventually they'll die--stay with single-barrel for this. Just make sure to keep opening fire on them. Alien "Hovership" -- That's what other people call it, but it's more of a large flying creature, a sort of purple manta ray. It's in the Rift mission, and it will try to destroy the displacement beacon. Use the rocket launcher until you're out of ammo, then just keep firing with the M4, Magnum, or anything (the shotgun should still be able to hit it, just not with every bit of the buckshot spray). This hovership is a destroyable version of the ones in the Xen missions of Half-Life. You can't kill those ones (you're supposed to ride them to certain parts, in case you didn't know). You can kill this one though. ==== 2. Missions +++ --One: Dual Access Briefing: "The experiment must be successful. Monitor the anti-mass spectrometer and deliver anomalous materials to Dr. Freeman." The introductory mission. It sounds so easy, but it's a little more complicated than this, since it's not JUST running an experiment. You don't have to really monitor anything though. Just hit a button here and there, and push a cart, at first. Of course, if you've played the Half-Life levels, you know what's coming up here. If you can't get past this mission without someone leading you by the hand, give up on video games forever. I THOUGHT YOU WERE MADE OF STERNER STUFF, SON. Okay, there's a couple things AFTER you have to split up your characters which I'll go over. Once you get to the room with Keller, Rosenberg will walk in and they'll have an exchange. Afterwards, you take one player into the green-scan room, where they'll go on to the anomalous material cart. Just move down to the end of the hall and push a button, and the cart will come up out of the floor. You can push against the handholds to edge it forward, or push the use key while running into the end of the cart to shove it really far. Don't worry about slamming the cart into walls. As far as I know, it won't explode. Push the cart into the small space. Don't sweat when the cart elevator gets stuck. It's supposed to be. Listen to what the scientist says. Move down the hall with the giant red strips into the "test lab" where the two doors will open. Move around and search for something malfunctioning. Very easy to find. It's just a crowbar in some gears. Go up to the crowbar and you'll pick it up. Your first weapon! Now switch to the other player. Move to the OTHER green-scan room (not the one the first player goes into). There's a crowbar on the ground in your path. Keep going, and you'll be in a large machine area, with a giant pillar thing in the center. Hit the power switch (use key of course) and then then you can use the dial. After that it's just a matter of the scene playing out. You can't avert the disaster, so don't bother. We recommend that you've at least played a bunch of the actual Half-Life levels before this. You need some of the experience when it comes to puzzles and monster battles. And so this doesn't spoil the whole part of the story where "the facility is struck with a major disaster." When you wake up, you'll have a player on an upper and lower level. You could have the upper level player just jump over the railing, but it's less risky to have them go up the top of the collapsed tube, to a small ledge at the end of the broken tube, where they can safely jump to the lower level. There's a half open verticle double door that you have to duck under to get through. This is where the headcrabs show up. Use the crowbar. If you take any damage, there's a health charger nearby. There's a small room at the end of the first hall with a dead security guard, and a headcrab that breaks the window. Kill the headcrab, jump through the window, and get the guns and armor (one gun for each player, a nice Beretta 9mm). Next start moving down the hallways and blast zombies and headcrabs you run across. Keep in mind that there's no "tactical reload" so if you empty a gun and change weapons, that gun will remain empty until you reload it. Next you'll see an area where a Barney is fighting houndeyes. You can't save him, just keep moving unless you want to watch what happens if you get caught in too many houndeye sonic blasts. Move on and after a few more rooms you should find yourself back to the original room with Keller and Rosenberg. After another exchange, an elevator opens, Rosenberg walks into it, and the mission is finished. Oh yeah, and don't worry about what the briefing says about the experiment being successful. According to you, Valve software, and any player of Half-Life and Decay, it should be a total failure. But maybe it would be something else to other more mysterious characters... (!) +++ --Two: Hazardous Course Briefing: "Survivors must call for help. Escort Dr. Rosenberg through the training area to the surface." Ever since Opposing Force, Gearbox has loved doing maps where you revisit a ruined Hazard Course. It's the best training level in any game, ever, naturally. You start with Dr. Rosenberg in an elevator, where he tells you that your main priority should be helping others escape. Well sorry Rosenberg, but you don't do that in Decay, you do it in Blue Shift (the former Dreamcast Half Life add-on, eventually ported to the PC). For now, you'll just try to get some of this equipment working. Rosenberg goes up some stairs into another room with an elevator--make sure to completely stay out of his way while he's running around. Just stay behind him if you want. Step into the second elevator with him. The elevator doesn't work, so he'll tell you that you have to go through the old hazard course to get to an objective. He opens a couple shutters down to the "jump test" area. Jump-duck through these small windows, and complete the three jumps in the test to open the next door. On the other side of the door is a couple headcrabs (9mm will take care of them) and the next course room--which is flooded with radioactive gunk that will kill you almost immediately if you fall into it (you still have a chance to escape as long as you get back out in a second, but you'll take massive damage). Try pushing the hazard course information button at the front of the room there and it'll blow up and collapse (it's a no-damage explosion though). Go up the sides of the room into the small windows. A couple zombies wait for you there, blast them (you're close enough to blaze away with the secondary fire on the Beretta, on this occasion). There's 9mm ammo in this room. Stay away with the door that's blocked by fire, you'll take (small amounts) of fire damage. Move back across the large pipes to the other side of the room, and then move along the side (the side that ISN'T blocked by dangerous steam) and go to the door at the end. The next room is the jump-duck-jump test room--and there's a wily little headcrab hiding under the second pipe (on the right side). Kill it, go up the sides of the room to the windows, blast the zombie, and go into the security door. Oh yeah, and don't bother with the broken vent you can crawl into in that last room. It leads nowhere, and if you use a friend to stack (i.e. they duck, you jump on their head and reach a higher position) to the top of the long vent, there's nothing up there AND you'll get stuck, and it's EXTREMELY hard to get unstuck--it's just not worth it at all so don't even remotely try it. Oh yeah, and there's an electrical wire hanging down by the broken vent that will also damage you. In the security door is a zombie, and in the next room is another zombie, it goes without saying that you should be blowing away all of these monsters (use the crowbar on the zombies if you want, but just make sure not to get clawed by them). Keep moving. You're in the "duck-jump through pipes" test room. You can't complete the test in the actual test area anymore, and there's nothing in there, so you don't even have to bother moving out of the observation room area (i.e. don't jump through the little windows). Just keep moving to the next door, and head down the ladder (keep looking down to keep moving down, and make sure to stay latched onto the ladder so you don't fall and take damage). In this room is a bunch more ammo, a health charger, an armor battery, and a smaller room with a security override button. Don't push this button until you know what it does: it closes the small room's door, locked in with the security override button. So leave ONE person in this area (preferably the person with the least amount of ammo, since there's a pistol and a clip right outside the security door inside the hallway--under the autogun turrets), have them hit the button, and when the Vox announcer says "security override activated," have your runner dash out the security door, down the right through the hall, keep moving through the left-turn, and then at the end of the hall there's a door--don't go in that, right in front of that there's a door on the right, THAT'S where you go in. If you don't do this fast enough, the security override deactivates and about four autosentry turrets come down from the ceiling. Now you CAN kill these, in fact you don't even need to avoid them, but if you take the careful way and avoid them, you can save yourself a lot of ammo, health, and armor. Now, your runner should be in a small room with armor and ammo (and another health charger). There's also a funny little yellow sign by the door leading back to the security hallway, with a little "caution man" being blasted by autoturrets. ANYWAY. What you want to do is move down the stairs in this room, but be prepared to backpedal furiously, because about three alien slaves beam in. Carefully pick them off by taking cover and firing at them with the Beretta, and when they're all dead, go back down and move to the little generator room to the right, with a generator lever-switch on the wall. Hit this lever, and the security turrets will turn off, and STAY OFF. Have your "stay behind" player run through at this point. On the other side is the door to the firing range. To open this door, there's a small panel on the right. Use it, the door opens, both players run through, and the Hazard Course announcer will go through its usual thing. When the course starts up, the targets start moving around. You have to hit these to move through this room, and there's a headcrab hiding in the pipe in the center. After you start hitting the targets, MORE enemies beam in, and a floor will break off where you're supposed to enter the next area--and right by the base of this ramp, an alien slave will zap in, so blast that and the headcrabs. Oh yeah, you can hit the targets with the crowbar if you want, it doesn't matter. Once all the targets are hit, you can move up the ramp made by the broken-off floor, and through the gate doors. In the next room, duck through the broken fence floor, and move through a small access down there. There's a headcrab, but by the time you get here, it'll be leaping and screaming at you, so hurry up and kill it. Anyway, keep moving, and move ONE BY ONE down the large drop down into the water. If your friend jumps down and lands on you, they'll end up doing a LOT of damage to themselves, so make sure to clear out of their way. In this room there's short ladders leading up to small side accesses. There's only one you can reach now, so one player has to go up there, hit the spinning wheel marked "valve" while the other player runs up the other way while the fans are stopped. The other player should immediately move into the door, while the first player should try to run up and follow them, but the fans will kick back in and they'll only be able to run up so far while being pushed back. Just keep having that person running forward, if they can (if they're another REAL person playing, that is). The player already in the next room should take care of the headcrabs and such in there first, and grab a shotgun off the wall, and then finally hit the lever-switch that will let the other player through the air blasting fans and up into their room, where they can also grab a shotgun. You don't have much ammo right now so be careful how you use what you have. The next room is a hallway where alien slaves beam in all over. Keep one player back a little bit from the other "pointman" player, because the slaves beam in in front AND behind whoever's ahead. Have your second player blast aliens in their area, and your other player blast everything else. If you're close enough, a nice SINGLE barrel shotgun blast will kill these guys. Otherwise, go ahead and use the double barrel. You should still have a few shells afterwards, and the mission is almost over anyway. The next room is a teamwork puzzle. This is the room with the elevator that Rosenberg is waiting for you in. The first thing you should be doing is using the box with the two levers on each side. One player hits one lever, and when the other side's lever comes up, the other players hit it. Then they just take turns. After a few pushes, aliens start to beam in. Go ahead and take care of them, then go back to the levers. You have to keep doing this until the elevator is all the way at the top, which will be signalled by some distant clanking and the levers will stop moving. If you don't do this fast enough, alien slaves start to beam in, so try to take care of the headcrabs as soon as possible and get back to wailing the "use" key on those levers. When they won't move anymore, climb the ladder right next to the lever box. At the top of the ladder, walk on top of the elevator, and a small panel in the elevator's roof will open. Drop down, there's Rosenberg, and he gives you a warning about the next room's security turrets. This is the "use a Barney" test room from the training course. There are two turrets, one right by the elevator doors, and one right by the security panel doors. Just lock onto them and start blazing away with the pistol or shotgun when they come down. You shouldn't take too much damage from these. Don't worry about emptying the shotgun either. There's a health charger when you're done with the turrets. Afterwards, Rosenberg will run out to the retinal scanner, and you'll all go through the last double security doors--after blasting the zombie on the other side (as soon as the zombie's dead, Rosenberg will leap into your line of fire, BE CAREFUL NOT TO HIT HIM, this is the very end of the mission, stand in front of him if you have to). After this, clear a path for him, and he'll run down to the train. You don't have to activate the train or anything. Mission complete. +++ --Three: Surface Call Briefing: "To call for help, survivors need active communications. Help Dr. Rosenberg establish an uplink with the outside world." You start outside in the desert, where Dr. Rosenberg will slide open the gate for you to fit through one at a time. He'll run across the sandy field to the Data Control door, but it's locked. You'll have to go in the Satellite Operations door in order to get around to let Rosenberg through. You can't just shoot the lock? No. Anyway, go in this door, and then through the small empty room to the next door. In there is a large machine with a wheel on it, but you can't activate this yet. You have to turn on the uplink computers first. There's two ways you can go from here. A long hallway, and a small storage room with some ammo clips (shotgun shells, 9mm, an armor battery). Go in there, bust open the little boxes and get whatever you need (remember to share!), and move on to the hallway leading to the giant room with the big crates all over. As usual, enemies beam in--alien slaves. Take them out, move down the ramp to the next area. First thing you'll see, other than two more alien slaves, are a few bright blue barrels. You can blow these up, but stand far away, because they'll kill you instantly if you're too close, and even if you're standing nearby, they'll probably do massive damage (I recommend the handgun). Beyond the barrels are a bunch of headcrabs (about four) and a cart with some coal or dirt in it, and right behind that is a button. If you try the button, you notice it doesn't work. That's because the front wheels of the cart are blocked by a few planks of wood. Smash these with the crowbar, and then hit the button. The cart will move, smashing through some bright orange barrels (which explode, so stay away from them until they're clear--the other orange barrel still around can't be broken, and don't bother trying). Keep moving and you get to a room with a conveyer belt, and more alien slaves. There's also a couple wooden crates in here, which you can bust open with the crowbar. One has shotgun shells, and the other crates have shotgun shells and a 9mm clip. Work your way through a short winding hallway to get to a room flooded with radioactive liquid. Stepping into this stuff is instant death, so be careful here. Here's another teamwork puzzle. Have one player get onto the cart (full of coal/dirt), and have the other player hit the button. It'll go to the right, which means it'll go under the dripping green radioactive stuff. If you want, stay to the side of the cart and it shouldn't hit you. Then jump off. Next, have the player who stayed back hit the switch again so the cart comes back (yes, the same cart you just sent over, and MAKE SURE THE OTHER PLAYER IS OFF OF IT already). There's a button on the far side where the cart-riding player is now, that controls a different cart. Make sure the stay-behind player is ON TOP of the first cart (which again, should be right where it started off--in the middle of the room). Have the first cart-rider hit the switch, sending the third cart forward, so when it reaches the stay-behind player, they leap from the first cart to the next. Be careful, because the cart doesn't stop where you are, it keeps going. And it goes under another leaking pipe. Again, stay to the right of the cart and you won't get hit. Now the last piece of the puzzle. Once the second cart reaches the other side, there's a shallow cart with a little coal/dirt/stuff in it. Hit the switch there, and the third cart will be sent all the way to the other side of the room. The player jumps in the shallow cart, and the other player hits the switch, and they're both safely on the other side. Keep in mind this note about the third cart: the fact that it's short and shallow means that if you get in the cart and then move around in it while it's moving, you can potentially accidentally run right out, off the side of the cart and into the radioactive stuff. Make sure you're FIRMLY in the cart, right in the middle, then stay still until the cart has come to a full and complete (as opposed to a full but partial) stop. Move in the hallway, where there's another room with a handful of headcrabs along the ground. There's also a crate in the corner here that you can bust open, and has a medkit. Move to the next area, which is a long hallway, with alien slaves at the end. Let them spot you, so they'll charge a shot and miss. Then go ahead and come out at them, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid style, guns blazing. The pistol is the best here since it's good at long range. The next room has giant crates with a fork in the path, but there are alien slaves in both paths. Take them out, and then you can split up if you want, since both paths lead around again to the center, where alien slaves beam in--right next to some bright blue barrels. You can take out the aliens, or just aim at the barrels if you want, because the explosion will be big enough to blast all of them into chunks (just as long as, of course, you aren't in that area with them). The safe distance is the room just outside of where the two paths meet. From there, it's surface access. Watch out when you try to go up the steps, because there will be about three more alien slaves out there. The third one will be pretty far away, but you should be able to take him out pretty easy with a locked-on Beretta volley of bullets. From there, keep moving, into the swampy water path, and eventually you'll come to the rear dooway of the Data Control Operations building. Find a door with an EXIT sign above it, and open it, you'll find Rosenberg waiting patiently on the other side. He'll come in, run up the stairs into a small control room, and tell you that someone has to go back down and align the dish. Whoever has the most health should go, and the other player could stay behind. They can go too, but once the dish is aligned, the other player could hit the button immediately. Head out the EXIT sign door--not the one YOU came in, but the one Rosenberg came in. You should recognize the area, because once you get out there, it's a short walk to the little room with the wheel that you couldn't spin before. However, getting there isn't going to exactly be a short walk. Outside, a few alien slaves beam in, so make sure to get some good locks on them and blaze away. If you're really low on ammo with that player, go ahead and fish the other player out of the control room to help. Kill the slaves, go into the Satellite Operations door (it's a blue sign). More slaves beam in! Keep fighting to get to the control wheel, but another slave or two will beam in. Make sure to take these guys out at all costs. Once you do, go to the wheel, and HOLD DOWN the use key at it. It'll keep spinning. Another important note: KEEP AN EYE ON THE "UPLINK" LIGHT. Once the wheel is in place, it'll turn green. LET GO OF THE USE KEY. Sorry, I don't mean to be pushy. :(! Anyway, once that's set, back in the control room with Rosenberg, hit the button. Rosenberg will run out to the radio room, test the uplink, and get a message. He'll tell you a few things about your next mission and what you'll have to do. Mission complete. Phew. +++ --Four: Resonance Briefing: "The rift between Earth and the alien world is widening. Reset the dampening fields to prevent another cascade." As you start, Dr. Keller tells you that you need to set some dampening locks and stuff. He'll test a communications panel letting you know that he can radio you information right to your suits. Then a door behind him opens, and it's time to get moving. Notice in your weapons inventory, you'll now automatically have hand grenades. They'll come in handy. Through the door, there's a busted up glass door. Use the crowbar to smash the glass, then take out the zombies nearby. To the side of this hall, there's some red doors that lead to a room with a bunch of busted computer junk, and an armor charger. But be careful here! Once you use the armor charger even a little, two alien slaves beam right into the room, and there's a third slave that beams in right behind the closed red door in this room. Blast them all, and move on. Keep moving and you'll end up in a large, two-story plaza room, with a roof at the skylight. Enemies start beaming in, slaves on the first and second stories. You'll see helicopters far overhead, but don't worry about them. It's the military moving in. Which means you'll have to worry about it SOON, but later. Keep moving, duck under the half-raised door, and into a glass window corridor, where there are alien slaves waiting for you, and others who will beam in. Clear the place, move on. The next room is a tricky little teamwork puzzle, that requires you to be split up again. There's a small, half-broken vent behind a desk, with a lot of electrical current running through some liquid on the ground in front of it. You can't just run through the electricity, because it will kill you. But notice that when you hit the nearby button, a nearby door opens, the electricity is jammed by the door and stops. Then the door closes soon, and the electricity starts up again. What you have to do is have one player hit the switch then go stand in between the broken half of the door and the operational door. The door will shut on the player partially, then reopen. This way, the electricity stays as long as the player stays in the door's path. Let the other player crawl through the vent (preferably the one with the most health, since they gotta fight a few monsters here and there), and then have them keep moving. Jump up some rocks and then you'll be in another office type room. You'll be on a higher ledge, where the door next to you is locked. Once you fall down to the lower levels (it's not far enough to take damage, but you can land on a table if you want to), an alien grunt will beam in on the upper level. For a little handy damage, leave a grenade on the floor on the upper level before jumping off. Otherwise you can just chuck a few grenades up there when he beams in. Either way, use a couple grenades. Try to only use a couple, you still want to have a few left, and you only get five to start with. Make sure you don't bounce the grenades off the wall or the railing. Just stand right against the upper-ledge's wall, point straight up, and then angle down a little bit and toss a grenade, it should land very nicely, and blow away the grunt. But the VERY SECOND this grunt is beaming in, another alien grunt beams in where your other player is left behind. Make sure they're ready, and paying attention (the grunt beams in by the intact but locked double glass doors). Have your scout player take a little armor from the charger on the wall in that room (save some for the other player if necessary), then move out, and blast the alien slaves around the area. There's a security room in the middle of the circular corridor that you'll be in. You get in there, there's more shotguns, the Magnum(!) and a security override switch that will open the glass double doors for your other player to finally join you again. Stock up, share health and armor and ammo, then move on to section with the flight of stairs and a health charger. Go up the stairs, kill the grunt, (==bonus note: at the top of these stairs, directly through the doorway, turn left and you'll see a vent, break this open, and use stacking to get into it--which means one player ducks and the other player jumps on their heads and duck-jumps into the vent--for some free goodies==) and move on to the lab room with the overturned tables and stuff. There's an alien grunt to the right, and an alien slave to the left. Clear them out, use the health charger if necessary. There's a double glass door that opens with a button press, but this is the area that your scout earlier came out of. It's that upper ledge room. Never mind this place. Keep moving, past that room, past the door with the EMERGENCY AUTO LOCK sign in big red text next to it (if you move into this door, Keller will tell you that he needs the dampening locks thing done first). At the end of that hall is some short stairs, with headcrabs at the top (blast them). Up a few more stairs, another alien grunt, and then from there is a giant room with giant rusty pipes in them (more like tunnels than pipes, but you can't go in these, so). There's a small staircase/catwalk that goes over one pipe, and on that other side is another alien grunt. Once you're on this side, you'll notice there's a ladder on either side. You have to go up this second ladder here, not the one on the side with the door you came in. Have both players go up the ladder, and there's a circle wheel. Here's a challange. One player has to HOLD DOWN THE USE KEY to keep turning this wheel, for quite a while, as aliens beam in behind the player. Make sure the other player has either more ammo or is a better aim. The player turning the wheel should have more health though, since they might take damage. You can break off your wheel turning to help attack, but the longer you hold off turning the wheel ALL THE WAY, the more enemies beam in. Eventually, tougher enemies come in, first headcrabs, then slaves, then an alien grunt! You want to be done before the grunt shows up. When the wheel is done, it'll stop moving, and the little beacon thing above the pipes (which is above the wheel) will start blinking and sucking in energy or something. And the enemies won't beam in anymore, so do this quick. (Mini-note: if you complete turning the wheel without stopping, the beacon thing will close when it's done. Otherwise, it'll stay open. It doesn't matter, because when it's done, it's done, and it's time to move on.) Now go back down the ladder. Go across the catwalk to the other ladder. Notice that this area is larger, so there's more space for enemies to beam in. Again, same tactic. Have one player turn the wheel until it stops, and then the other player should cover the wheel-turning player. If you're playing in one-player mode, you can turn the wheel while the conputer controlled player can cover you. Just make sure they aren't too far in harm's way, or they'll die while you're standing there like a dork with a wheel in your hand and 5 aliens behind your back. Now, leave the room, go back down the small stairs (it's the first stairs you'll come to anyway) and go back to the previously locked EMERGENCY AUTO LOCK door. It'll be open already, with an alien slave waiting for you. Blast it, move through, you'll see to your left a couple little windows down to the area where you started in, where Keller is. DON'T jump through these windows, just keep going down the hall. Your first right will be an alien grunt waiting in a dark corner. Blast him, and then keep moving, ducking under a half-lowered door, and you'll find a familiar spot. It's the SECOND story area of the plaza room. Alien slaves beam in, and an alien grunt will beam in on the roof. If you want you can take out the grunt, or just wait since you're going to the roof next anyway. But when you get there, two more grunts will beam in. Probably best to try to take out the grunt now--go with the Magnum. Here's a tough part. When you get up to the roof, there will be two grunts waiting for you. One on the roof level, and one on an upper ledge. Make sure to LOOK UP here so you can spot this other grunt, because you may run around getting hit without knowing where he is. There's a vent lit by a red light here. Blast it open, then the place will shake as MORE alien grunts beam in. This is the part where my brother and I were in a frenzy. Make sure you have Beretta or Magnum ammo for the alien grunts on the ledge, and then take a close range shotgun blast or three to the alien grunts in front of you. Don't get too close, or they'll start beating you with their giant arms, which can actually throw you way off balance. A few well thrown grenades help. When the place is clear, go into the vent (duck-jump) and make your way to the end of the vent, which is a bottom opening that you have to bash through. You'll be in a control room with a button, a health charger, and a door (oh yeah, and a headcrab). Also, a nice view of the outside area. Dr. Keller will send you a message telling you that there's a weak spot in the conduit out there, so you should keep an eye out when you're turning another dampener lock wheel. This is similar to the previous wheel turning, but only in the fact that you have to protect someone from turning the wheel. There are a few things you should do before slamming on buttons and going through doors. There's a small panel on a wall by the health charger, that acts as a button. It's not on the computer control panels in the middle of the room, it's ON the wall. Hit it, and a little wall panel will slide open, with item packs. They're close together, but they're set up so only one character can get one pack. Make sure both characters get a pack before you set out. They'll fill you up with a bunch of ammo, armor, goodies. Very necessary. Now, after you charge up on health (with the health charger--if necessary at all), one player has to go out to the "DISP. FIELD DAMPENING LOCKS" door. The other player hits the main button in the room, which closes the internal door and opens the external door which leads to a catwalk, which is where your wheel is. Before you start jamming on the wheel, though, you might want to pause and take a break. For like a minute, maybe two. Ever play Goldeneye for the N64? Remember when you had to protect Natasha at the keyboard while enemies busted windows all around you, blazing gunfire all around, possibly hitting her or you or the computers? This is worse. Imagine that the enemies beam in out of thin air, and are constantly flying. Okay, I'm ratcheting up the tension here, but as long as you keep a cool head, and a solid trigger finger, you should make it through this pretty easily. Once the task-player starts turning the wheel, there's a large green crack in one of the giant pipes, overhead. Sparks shooting out and stuff. Then the dreaded Alien Controllers beam in. These are flying guys that rapid fire energy balls. Now you don't have to worry a whole lot about some of these things hitting you, since they'll mostly take away armor at first. But once you're out of armor, you better be done or taking cover. Your pal in the control room better be doing their best to blast these things out of the sky, with either the Magnum or Beretta (START with the Magnum, since it's high powered). Once the wheel stops turning, have the task-player, out on the catwalk with almost NO cover, run back to the door. It won't open, so if the stay-behind player in the control room hits the button, nothing will happen. Now the objective is JUST SURVIVAL. Keep shooting the controllers out of the sky. The best place for cover, for your wheel-turner, is in that small hallway with the door. You have less room to dodge, but the controllers will have a small window they'll have to be in to shoot at you, and from that view you should be able to hit them first. Keep trying to move around, but the key really is to SHOOT THEM FIRST. If they get in too many shots (or the "big ball" energy shot), you're toast crumbs. Non-stop fire is the key. Usually, a single Magnum bullet will take down a controller. Once you're out, if you're daring, dash back out to the catwalk, lock onto a controller, and try blasting them with shotgun shells. If they're nearby the catwalk's turn, you can do some nice damage to them, but make sure to backpedal back to cover. Eventually, after a few panicked radio transmissions from Keller, and a LOT of dead controllers smack to the ground, the damaged pipe outside will glow bright green, spraying white energy fragments all over (this really ISN'T as phallic as it might sound). Then everything will stop, and Keller will send you a message. You may not be able to hear it over your sigh, or your panic attack. Okay, I admit it, this was actually easy the second time around now that I knew what to do. Especially since I went into the battle FULLY stocked up (as opposed to when Josh and I played together, we were running around screaming in fear as our health dropped dangerously low). But still, keep on your toes, people. You WILL run out of Magnum bullets before the controllers stop zapping in. Anyway, Keller mentions sending a tram to you on the nearby rail. Screen fades as usual. Mission complete. Now is a good time to towel yourself off. +++ --Five: Domestic Violence Briefing: "A satellite controls major recovery systems. Locate a security guard who knows the satellite signal codes." You start with Keller in a tram, and he tells you that you need to find a guard with some access code. Wait for the tram door to open, both players move out, Keller tells you he'll see you in some other location, so forget about him for now, the tram will depart. There's a window in front of you with two smash marks on it. Break the window, go in, hit the control panel. Go BACK out the window and the verticle double doors will be open. Put both players in the room so they'll both be scanned by the security "thingy." Move on to the lobby. There's a small room with a window that you can bash through and stock up on ammo. Go ahead and follow the red-striped "elevator" path because it's just a dead end with a non-functional elevator, and a dead Barney and sci. There's a pistol there for a nice clip of 9mm. Now finally you can go down the "dormatories" and "aquatic center" path. And don't worry about the VOX computer announcment system, it just gives general announcements, and you don't have to pay attention to it. Even when it says there's an intruder detected on level 3, which is where you are(!!!!!!!). Anyway, the end of your next hallway is a busted up window with another security guard and a button. Hit the button, go through the glass doors (they close fast, so you may have to hit the button quick), and you'll be in the dormatories hallways. This path forks, and both paths are short, with aliens down both halls. Note the nice carpeting on the floors. Very tasteful! Oh yeah, and none of the doors work for now. You can try them yourself if you want, after you kill the aliens. Once you start moving down these halls, MORE aliens beam in all over, and it becomes a total mosh pit of alien slaves. These guys are weak so just keep blasting away. In the center of where these paths meet is a small lounge with two soda/pop machines (push a button and when the can comes down, you automatically pick it up for 1 health point). There's also a health charger, for the impatient. Keep moving and at the END where the halls meet is a small staircase up, and a right turn. Be careful here. There's a sentry gun AND a tripmine. Just chuck a grenade or two around this corner to clear them and they should be no problem. Keep moving up a stairwell, and into the pool room. Read the pool rules--NO NUDITY, PEOPLE. You need your HEV for protection purposes, after all. Anyway, check the stairs and you'll find a health kit and armor battery. And then notice a vent lit by red light in the far corner. This is where you have to go. Break the vent, and stack to get up there. Again, this means one person has to duck, the other person jumps on their head and then duck-jumps through the vent. So one person, again, has to stay behind. For your go-ahead scout/pointman person: once you kill a headcrab in the vent, aliens will beam in, in the pool room. If you want, you can just go back out the vent and blast the alien slaves. Then stack back into the vent. From here, keep moving and you'll end up falling down into the locker room. There's a big gate sort of door that leads back out to the pool room, which is how you join up again. That wasn't so long. Anyway, go back into the locker room and you'll find some stuff lying around. There's ONE locker in here that opens, with grenades and shotgun shells inside (this locker is near a ladder leading up). Apparently someone felt they needed protection while swimming. Anyway, go up the ladder in this locker room (you COULD throw a grenade up here first if you want, just to be safe). Keep moving through the vents, and you'll find an area where you can overhear a human grunt talking about not being able to find targets or something. QUICKLY jump past these vents (don't worry about going down the vents, just jump back out and keep moving forward) and then blast through the cracked, reddish vent wall AHEAD of you. Inside are snarks. Blasting the broken wall open will cause the grunts to discover you, but if you bust one of the below vents, you can drop the snarks down there and they'll completely go crazy on the grunts. Stay up there until the grunts or snarks are dead, then go down and mop up. WARNING: if you go down while snarks are still alive, they'll attack you. One grenade should clear the area pretty well, if you feel like using a grenade. Keep moving and you'll end up in another forking (as in a pathway that forks, people) dormatory hallway with a lounge in the middle. Human grunts are here, blast them. You'll be able to pick up an M4 here or there from the dead grunts. In the lounge, there's a Magnum with bullets. After you clear them, notice that ONE dorm room is open, with some ammo and armor in there. It's Gordon Freeman's room. Neat. Anyway, keep moving and you'll find yet another tripmine and sentry gun. Grenade them. These WON'T be around a turn, they'll be right in the path, so make sure to be careful walking up here. If you don't see anything, you're probably going backwards. Keep moving and you'll end up in what looks like the place you STARTED, but it's not, it's just the north wing, where Keller has been waiting for you. To get to him first, you have to crawl through a couple windows, going through a security room (there's a computer panel with a keyboard here, push the keyboard and the screen will turn blue, opening the doors). You'll move to the end of the tram where Keller is, and he'll tell you that he's glad to see you, BUT you need a security guard with the access codes. Oh yeah, DON'T run too rampant here, because you can run right up the sides of the benches here, and if you jump over the sides, you'll probably fall off to your death. Just go back, and you'll see a green stripe with "LIBRARY" on the wall. Follow this--you could also go to the red stripe ELEVATOR area, but it's just two grunts waiting for you inside (watch for them throwing grenades at you) and you can't use the elevator. Move to the library, which is up a flight of stairs, and at the top is two more sentry guns. Keep going and you'll end up in a big room with a lot of books. THIS MUST BE THE LIBRARY, I THINK. The library is first on the right, but at the end of this hall, on the left, is a small room with a PERFECTLY LIVING security guard. He won't move until the grunts are cleared out of the library. Make sure the grunts don't come and kill this guy or throw grenades at him, because then you're really screwed. Just plow into the library and start slicing up the grunts with grenades, shotgun blasts, or assault rifle fire. There are doors on the upper level of the library that open with MORE grunts, so SCOUR THE ENTIRE AREA for grunts, until you're really sure that no little corner has one last grunt hiding. Then it's time to go to the security guard. He'll know when the grunts are gone. You don't even need to "use" him to get him to follow you, he'll just start running down the path to the tram. At this point, STAY BEHIND THE GUARD. You don't want to block him, and you don't want to accidentally leap off the edge of the tram catwalks to a black death. Once the guard gets there, that's it. Mission complete. +++ --Six: Code Green Briefing: "A satellite must be in orbit for recovery systems to operate. Upload the satellite signal codes before the delivery rocket launches." You start in a room where you have to listen to Keller telling you what it's time to do in this mission. A power-lock door (there's a red light next to it connected to the door itself) will open when he's finished, and you move ahead to some room with crates. There's batteries and ammo in here, and then from here is a flight of stairs. You'll hear gunshots. There's a Barney around a corner fighting human grunts, but your path is blocked by a cracked desk. Go ahead and blast through the desk if you want (this is what I did) and then move in and open fire on the grunts. Don't worry if the Barney dies--it won't fail the mission if he does. In this room, after the grunts are dead, there's only one door that will open, but it only opens a tiny bit, letting you know it's blocked from the other side. From here, you have to go BACK to the vent next to the locked power-lock door (noted by the red light of course). You don't have to stack to get into this vent, actually, you just break the vent cover and then DUCK-JUMP into it (either hold down the jump button, where you'll automatically duck at the top of your jump, or jump, and at the top of your jump hit the duck button). This leads to the roof of an elevator, which is stuck. From here, you go UP a pretty obvious ladder, through a long vent, and then there's a couple spots where you can look down. The second spot is a poor Barney pleading for his life--and he gets shotgun blasted (out of view, though). The other paths are a dead end, but what you're supposed to do is NOTICE that there's a door blocked Blast the crates below, and then go BACK to the elevator roof, where you'll have to stack to let ONLY ONE player up into the vent where they can go all the way back to the Barney-vs.-grunts rooms, where the previously blocked door will open. Remember: you don't have to go down ANY stairwell to get back to this room, it should be on the second story where you'll come out of the vent (next to the still locked power-lock door). In the previously-blocked door is a grunt you have to take out, and a lever under a security override sign. Hit it, and the power-lock double doors outside this area will be unlocked (note the green light). Open these doors and you'll see an elevator in front of you. Feeling suspicious? You should be. Directly to your left is a grunt WHO WILL LAUNCH A CONTACT GRENADE AT YOU ON SIGHT. Throw a grenade in there and he'll panic. He may not die, but it's the distraction you need. After your grenade goes off, run in there and start blasting. Remember, it's only you by yourself--your stay-behind guy will still be in the elevator (unless they could get out some way that I haven't figured out, but I doubt this because we really tried). Anyway, FINALLY, in here, hit the button next to the elevator door. It opens, and you'll finally be reunited. On one end of this room is a couple ammo boxes (one for each of you) that will totally fill your 9mm ammo. On the other end of this room is a soda/pop machine. Facing the machine is a doorway leading right outside. If you even peak out this door, THREE human grunts will start coming in after you. Be ready for them, and go ahead and saw into all of them with your M4. To the left from this door is a small broken ledge, where you can fall safely down to some crates. The crate on the very top will break with Magnum bullets in here. You'll definitely need bullets, because you'll be in a huge, outdoors, closed off area with four grunts already there, and more who constantly chopper in. If you can do this quick: FROM WHERE YOU FALL down to the crates, you head to your RIGHT, there's two grunts, use contact grenades if you have them (make sure not to be aiming down at all, but dead ahead when you fire these things). Then all the way at the end, to the left, is a little dead end with two more grunts, and some health, armor, and ammo. Another contact grenade should blast these guys into chunks while you and your friend can snatch up all the health and ammo. From here, you have two options. Directly on the opposite side of the dead-end (i.e. to the right of the main road you came to this dead-end on) is a small pathway that you can go in and take cover. The giant OSPREY HELICOPTER will be out there, constantly dropping in more troops. So you can either keep moving and spare yourself from these guys, or, if you are one hardcore gamer (like my brother and I), you can take down the giant Osprey. Here's how we destroyed the Osprey. First, there's two rotors, one on THE END of each wing. Use your M4 or Magnum to hit these. YOU CAN'T lock on to the Osprey because it'll only let you shoot the center. You have to do this with free aim. Keep pouring fire onto one rotor at a time. When the Osprey stops in the middle of the road there, two grunts will rappel to the ground. Go ahead and move your fire to these grunts, so you can take them down (switch to the shotgun real fast for this, if you can), so you can pick up more M4 ammo from them. The mission is almost over, so don't worry about running out of M4 ammo as long as you don't take too much damage and still have Magnum or shotgun ammo left (otherwise--just run). Anyway, when a rotor takes damage, black smoke comes out, and then stops when it doesn't take fire. Eventually, the rotor takes ENOUGH damage and it will CONSTANTLY pour black smoke. This means: aim at the SECOND rotor, and keep hitting it. When it's taken enough damage, the entire Osprey will come down. There's just one last thing to note here: when it comes down, it'll keep flying in whatever direction it was heading. And when it hits the ground, it'll blow BIG. If you're under this, you'll die. You can use the crates, dead-ends, or the doorway to take cover once the Osprey is done. If you survive this, pat yourself on the back. And possibly take a little pause break. Wash your sweaty hands or something. Get a nice drink of water. The mission is almost finished. From here, the room has a few crates but only with a couple healthkits. Up the stairwell here is more rooms with SEVERAL grunts. Toss some grenades in doorways, or just come in blasting with Magnum, M4, and shotgun fire. After they're cleared, there's a security room with a window that you can't break. Don't worry, there's a door nearby with at "SECURITY" sign on it which is how you get in this room. In here is a button that will open another power-lock door, that's right outside of the security room. In here is a computer room with a few readouts, and in a corner is a panel with a button. When you hit it, it doesn't work and Keller tells you that the traffic control has to be online (or... something, you know). All this really means is that one player has to go back to the security room and hit the button again, while the other player stays by the non-functional button. Security-room-player hits button, and the other player hits the other button. Keller will tell you that it works: mission complete. Give your M4 a rest. +++ --Seven: Crossfire Briefing: "Prototype equipment must be used to seal the dimensional rift. Manually raise the displacement beacon into place." You start in the backbone of most FPS games: a sewer level. There's a couple release valves here that open doors. You don't have to hold these down, just hit them once. After a couple, there's a giant maze like room with grunts EVERYWHERE. Be careful here, there's even a couple grunts in a little green-lit tunnel. And there's a lot on the upper catwalks, and they run around a lot. It's up to you how well you'll do this scene. From here, another hallway with a grunt--AND THEN ALIENS! Aliens start beaming in. Yes, the human grunts should still be attacking the alien slaves when they show up, so you might be able to let them fight it out. But the human grunts will probably win easy, and then come after you. There's a few ahead in an area with two stories. You're on the lower story, on a cement floor, with a view of the above catwalks. Keep moving and clearing, and you'll come through a doorway into a hallway, where to your right, up a ramp, is a grunt behind some sandbags, and then in front of you will be a doorway, with a detatched door next to it. Take out the grunt, and move in here, where there's an alien slave you have to blast. After the threats are gone, you'll notice in this generator room is a cracked wall, and an explosive barrel. DO NOT!!! shoot the barrel immediately. Destroy the wooden crate NEXT TO the barrel, then get behind the barrel and push it AGAINST the cracked wall. Then move out of the room, throw a grenade through the doorway at the barrel. It'll explode, and a nice hidden room with a TON of ammo and a health charger will be open to you. There's another little section like this, so the next time you see an explosive barrel, DON'T shoot it just yet. Anyway, up the ramp you'll be on the second level of catwalks. Alien slaves beam in, one on the level you're on, and one on the ground BELOW you. Blast them, and move on through a small hallway to MORE catwalks, where there's lots of grunts waiting for you. Move in and open massive amounts of fire onto their soft faces and skulls. By the way, I think this is the first Playstation 2 game where someone says "SHIT." The grunts, that is. Getting back to the walkthrough: after this area, you keep moving to ANOTHER room with catwalks where there's a grunt on an upper catwalk and the lower catwalk in front of you (taking cover behind a military crate). When they do this, TWO alien slaves will also beam in, on the catwalks behind you. You can take cover from one at a time, and since the grunts are pretty far and don't have the best opportunity to hit you, try to take out the slaves first (duck behind crates or run back behind walls whenever necessary, the shotgun is a good choice here), then focus some Magnum blasts on the grunts. There's an explosive barrel on the upper catwalk here, DON'T destroy it (if you can at least, if it's destroyed then never mind it anyway). When you clear the place, go up another ramp ahead, and on the upper level will be the explosive barrel. You aren't safe yet, though. Alien slaves beam in, one next to the barrel. Take him out with the Magnum. Get the other one, and then you're safe to move the barrel. Notice there's a generator behind a fence, and the fence has a crack in it. Behind the cracked fence is three armor batteries. Pretty obvious what to do here, move the barrel up to the fence and then get back and shoot it. Nice big armor bonus. Moving on. From here there's a room where there's a couple grunts across a large catwalk floor covering giant pipes below. There are suspicious looking things on the catwalk floor--DETPACKS. Stay back from these, they immediately explode and take out the floor. They also crack a couple of the pipes. STAY AWAY FROM THE STEAM, it will kill you instantly. Move down these pipes carefully and there will be a wheel. You have to HOLD DOWN the use button on this wheel, and once the steam stops, keep holding it down, because if you let go, the steam comes back on (remember, instant kill steam). Have the other player run up there, where there's ANOTHER wheel. You don't have to hold down use on this, but it doesn't really matter. It'll turn, and after a couple seconds, the pressure generator there will shut down, and both cracked steam vents will shut off. Now you can go through the door down there that was blocked by steam--the only thing in this are some health kits, 9mm, and contact grenades. Don't worry about the steam turning back on at this point, either. Anyway, both of you can head up the ladder to the door. There's three grunts in this room, and a radio you can destroy. There's another catwalk room in here with alien slaves. From here is another room with some more grunts, another explosive barrel (I don't think this one does anything, I tried using it to blow up the SURFACE ACCESS door and it doesn't work), and more items. There's a door with a "SURFACE ACCESS" sign, and some blue barrels behind the door. The door doesn't open, and you can't blow up the barrels from here. Keep moving through the other door. You'll find the giant displacement beacon, which is on a platform. Have one player stay on the platform with the beacon, and the other player hit the controls (a little "up arrow" button) to raise the beacon. When one player raises the beacon, alien slaves beam in. When you clear them, the beacon stops because the doors are jammed and won't open to let the beacon through to the surface. Keller tells you to find the obstruction and get it cleared. Look around to one of the double doors, one doesn't open all the way. Notice there's some broken pipes and stuff hanging down. One player should still be up on the platform with the beacon. Have that player jump onto the catwalk with railing, and then at the end of that catwalk (the end with the door that doesn't open) there's a large pipe that you can jump to. At the end of that pipe is another pipe and so on until you're across the room, to the broken giant surface hatch door (thing). Crawl up here, through some hanging wire thing (it won't do any damage so don't worry) and you'll find a wheel to turn. Just hit the wheel, it turns, and MAKE SURE to have your player on the lower level STAND CLEAR of the controls. In fact, just get away from them. Now go down through the broken hole in the floor where the controls WERE (I'll let you see for yourself what happens of course), and you'll find another area with the manual controls. That means a box thing with a lever on each side. Have one player hit one lever, and when that goes down, the other goes up, and the other player hits that. This is just like the earlier level where you had to manually raise the elevator. After enough times, the beacon is fully raised to surface level. Mission complete. +++ --Eight: Intensity Briefing: "The prototype equipment requires huge amounts of energy. Activate the beam matrix to power the displacement beacon." This mission is a cakewalk except for one giant puzzle at the end, where you have to go through a lot of crazy stuff to activate the beam matrix. You start with Keller giving you another briefing, and a nearby scientist working away at a keyboard. From here it's just a bunch of winding rooms through some weird experiment labs where alien slaves, grunts, and houndeyes beaming in, with the usual frantic sweet Half-Lifeian action. Go ahead and take your time, you'll eventually come to the beam matrix controls. The rest of this level, other than the beam matrix areas, are no problem at all to figure out except for one small area where there are slave-like green electric beams shooting out of a room. All you have to do is smash the window, and push aside the dead scientist, and hit the button. This should turn off the slave collars. Weird place here. There's a room with a big "SECURITY OVERRIDE" button on a control panel, and across from that is a small room with glass windows. In this room are three colored beams, blue, red, and yellow. The primary colors. You can see through a bulletproof window in this room an area where the beams combine and travel through. There are several tricky parts about this area. You CAN'T hit the SECURITY OVERRIDE button until ALL of the three beams are turned off, and you can't turn the beams on without the security override being turned off. Outside the door that the security override opens is an elevator, but Dr. Keller will tell you that he can't activate the elevator until the beam matrix is activated. To activate the beam matrix, ONE player has to go through the security override door, and the other player has to stay back with the beam controls. The player who went through the security door will be referred to as "the scout" and the stay-behind will be the "beam controller." Now, have your scout run down through the door to the left, and they'll be in a room with some fences that provide a view below, where there are THREE large crystals, and some winding little maze area. There's a ladder that leads down here, and this is where the scout has to go. Make sure your beam controller isn't doing anything yet (except deactivating the security override). What you have to do is match up each large crystal with a combination of beam colors to activate them. To do this, you have to combine two colors of beams while guiding them beam by using the buttons on the lower levels (where the large crystals are) by lowering and raising reflective plates. Keep in mind that when you're turning on the beams, you DON'T want your other player down there where the beams are shooting through. This is all you have to do for this puzzle, just make sure the three crystals get hit with their right colors. Some quick trial and error. This puzzle is EXTREMELY easy once you know what you're supposed to do to solve it. After all the crystals are on (they'll be glowing and charged with power), you raise ALL of the mirrors, and then activate ALL THREE beams, and the beam matrix will be activated. Things start exploding and alarms go off, Keller tells you that the beam matrix is on, and then aliens start beaming in ALL OVER. Now you can't turn off the beams, so your beam controller has to go BACKWARDS through the whole level (it's the only way you can go that isn't locked, from the beam control room), while your scout has to go forwards to meet them. Your beam controller can't go ALL the way back because there's a retinal scanner that only works on one side, and your scout has to activate that to let your beam controller all the way back to the elevator. This entire time, aliens are still beaming in, including slaves and alien grunts. Blaze through these the best you can without losing much health, and make it back to the elevator. It goes up, keep moving ahead and you'll end up back in the room with Dr. Keller. Mission complete. +++ --Nine: Rift Briefing: "A resonance reversal may seal the dimensional rift and save the planet. Use the displacement beacon to initiate a reversal." Last mission. As per the natural balance of good games, this level is pretty straightforward, as opposed to the previous mission. Your job here is to protect the displacement beacon as Keller activates it, while also activating the crystals. When you start, Keller's talking to you about blah blah blah and all that. There will be two doors open, one for each player, with a giant stock of ammo, AND the Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher. You want to save all the rockets for the boss in this one. Anyway, you'll keep moving, but there's no fighting yet. You'll get outside to where all the chaos will be. Just a giant rock-wall-surrounded arena. Keller tells you that he'll need you to activate a few crystals, and you'll have to defend the beacon. It starts easy, so don't sweat. You can sweat when you're fighting off endless hoards of invincible enemies that kill you in one hit! Or actually not. Alien slaves and alien grunts zap in occasionally, as Keller charges up the displacement beacon. There are three switches around the beacon, they activate the crystals. You can activate the first one soon, and you won't have to fight any monsters yet. Then Keller will start charging again. Listen for his cue, when he gets to 100%, he'll tell you to activate the next crystal NOW, and then find a switch you haven't hit (one WITHOUT a big glowing crystal above the switch), and activate it. I think you have to hit them in a certain order. Counter-clockwise I believe (the area you start in being the bottom of the clock). This really isn't the hard part. The hard part is a big swarm of enemies. If you're only playing on one-player mode, you should probably leave the other player up on the ledge where they can get a good shot. You just stay down there and hit the switches when it's time. There's also a small double-door armory down there, but it doesn't open until the third switch is hit. This should be AFTER the alien boss/bird thing flies in. It stays in the air and it will fly behind the walls now and again. You want to keep it from destroying the beacon, so this is where you use the rocket launcher. Get a good lock on, fire a rocket (or two), and then lock off because there will still be grunts beaming in. And you can't shoot the grunts in their reflective armor areas, only in the "dark meat" areas. It's easy to just blast away the front of their torso, but try to get them quick, since their attack hornets will zoom around rocks, or other cover, to hit you. The alien slaves can be shot anywhere on their bodies, but if you can't take them out immediately, make sure you take cover behind something. Keep shooting the alien "hovership" with rockets, and if/when you run out, go ahead and open fire with the Magnum, or the M4 (remember that the armory should be opened nearby at this time, so grab all the rockets you can). Anything, as long as you keep shooting it. It'll crash soon, and make sure to stay out of its way. This thing takes a lot of hits, but there's no trick to beating it, other than sustained fire. After this, clear the rest of the enemies from the area. Then the ending just plays out. I notice there's space for another mission after this, but I haven't gotten it yet. If anyone can e-mail me about it that would be great (I suspect I have to get at least a B or an A rating on each mission for both players before I can open the next one). After this mission, though, a credit sequence should play. Go ahead and celebrate. Get a pizza, rent a movie. Or just have a cigarette. It's a good feeling. +++ --Ten: Bonus alien slave mission It's been verified by about 20 people that to get this mission, you have to get an A rating on each Decay level, with BOTH characters. There's a lot of enemies to kill and stuff to do but it's still a short level (about as short as the others I guess). The most detail came from "Christopher Beer." He tells of grunts and explosive traps, and some button pressing. Shouldn't be too hard if you've worked through Decay already and gotten the A ratings. He also mentions that if you push select in Decay, you can see your current stats (kills, accuracy, damage). Oh yeah, and the alien slave's health meters are the green strip along the bottom. ==== 3. Credits Half-Life copyright Valve LLC. 1998/2001 Walkthrough written by: Josh and John Cable Walkthrough copyright 2001, Josh and John Cable Contact us: creexul@yahoo.com AIM: Jhoh Cable PS: CAPS = EMPHASIS, NOT SCREAMING IN YOUR FACE. "First grunts beam in--AND THEN ALIENS!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA OH MY GOD MY ENTIRE HEAD IS ON FIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"