:;tjjfffffffffffffjjjjjjjjjjjjjt; .,ifLGLLfffffffffffffffjjjjjjjfffjfLGt: .;jGfjfffLGGDDDDDDGLLffffjjjjjji. .jjjLGi .fGLjjfGDDGLLjttttjfLGGLffjffjjjtii, tjjjGW ,fGjjfGDDt;:ttiiii: ;jLGffjjjjfi ttjjLG :GfjLGDj,. ;LjjfffDt ;fGjjji i;jjjLD# ,LfjfDEL. ,DGGfffGG; .iGfji jtjDfj ;GGffGL, :,,GLjfLG iGLjjjjjjtjLt. ,LGfLGE. ,LjtjfLt ,LjjjjjjjGD tDLfLDG ;LttjjjfGi jjjjjjjGDt fDffLEj fLjtjffjjLGt ;fttjjjG; fDffLEj :jjitfLDGfjjfGj ;fttjfD, jDfffDL :fLitjGDjfGjjjLG tjttjDG :LGffLD. .GjijfGf, tGjjjfLjff, ;LtttDL: tDLffLi :fjttfGD: :fjjjjjttGf.,ffttjG, ;GfffGL,iDDGGGDj: .GfjfLGGGfiLtitfD: :DLfjfLt,:,,:. ;jjt,:.ifLiitGGi iGGfjjLLj. ,tLtitjLL; ,GGfjjjLfjti,:....:;itjfjiitjDGj ,tGGLjjjjtjfffffjtttttjfGGL: ,tfGGLjjjjttttttjffGGGt,. .:jKWKDLLLGGEWWEt,. Half-Life 2 The Half-Life Lambda logo, Half-Life 2 Lambda logo and all other trademarks and/or copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective copyright and trademark holders. This document is copyrighted material of Greg Slomin and may not be used without expressed written consent of Greg Slomin. No part of this guide may be used without proper quoting and/or recognition. Any person(s) found violating this copyright are punishable by law and will be to the fullest extent. Please contact me if you wish to use this. I will be more than happy to say, "yes". Game: Half-Life 2 Platform: PC Author: Greg "Spanky" Slomin E-mail: 21cwSpanky@gmail.com & greg8997@optonline.net Faq Version: 0.1 Table Of Contents 1. Changelog 2. Controls 3. Allies 4. Enemies 5. Weapons 6. Walkthrough 7. Story Overview and Common Speculation 7a. Gman Theory's [Thanks to Soul Harvester] 8. Half-Life 1 Story Summary 9. Useful Console Commands 1. Changelog Version .01 - Started FAQ on 11/23/04 2. Controls This is an overview of the default controls for Half-Life 2. These settings can be changed from the options menu. -= HL2 =- 2) Allies Alyx Vance - The Young daughter of Eli Vance your Co-Worker in Black Mesa. She accompanies you shortly several times throughout the game sporting a modified Glock18 Pistol. Though most of the time when you see her it is only for a short moment and will only see her in combat once or twice throughout the entire game. Barney Calhoun - One of the smarter security guards that made it out of Black Mesa. He also starred in his own expansion pack Blue-Shift. Barney is the leader of the rebel movement in City17 and will play a major part in the story as well as in combat alongside of you. Same rules apply with Barney as Alyx unfortunately you will see him more in story related scenes than you ever will in combat. Eli Vance - One of your Scientist friends that didn't meet your crowbar in Black Mesa. Even though you did not kill him he lost his leg during the incident. Eli plays a major role in the Rebel movement in City-17 by supplying the technology that is needed to run it. Dr. Kleiner - Another survivor of the black Mesa incident. Like Eli he concentrates on the science part of the movement rather than the combat. He initially develops the unstable teleportation technology that allows movement in City17. He also has a pet headcrab Lamarr who also seems to stir up trouble when it is least needed. Judith Mossman - This scientist has "issues" ill just leave it at that. She's very jelious of Gordon and thinks that if it was up to her the Resonance Cascade would have never happened. Father Gregory - A new character in Half-Life 2. You meet Father Gregory in Ravenholm. Sporting a double barreled shotgun he will be essential to your survival. While quite insane he has set up various traps scattered around Ravenholm that will also help you safely navigate the city. Dog - Alyx's pet dog is a robotic "guardian" Eli built to protect Alyx as a kid. Alyx has been adding to him ever since and at this point in time is about 8 feet tall and can throw combine APC's like they are baseballs. Vortigaunts - Little is known about these allies in this game. In Half-Life they were your most common enemies throughout the game firing bolts of lightning at you. When you destroyed Nihilith at the end of Half-Life you apparently set them free from their slavery. Resistance Members - You will not see many of them until the end of the game but when you do they are incredibly strong allies. Medics will randomly pass out health kits and the others will pick up the strongest weapon on the ground. Keep them alive at all costs. G-Man - Very little is known about this mysterious person other than he always has a teleportation portal at his hands and he put you in some type of stasis at the end of Half-Life. Keep your eyes open you can see him 8 times in the game not including the opening and ending sequences. 4. Enemies Headcrab - Possibly the most annoying enemy in the game. The headcrab attaches to a host body and controls them turning them into a zombie. There are other headcrab varients such as the Poison Headcrab which turns its host into a Poison Zombie. Zombie - The result of a headcrab attaching to a host body. On harder difficulty's it will take quite a few pistol and MP-7 rounds to kill one. If you can find an object such as sawblades or explosives barrels use them instead of your weapons. They are always an instant kill. Poison Zombie - A zombie which has 4 poison headcrabs attached to it. This is the strongest zombie you will encounter it will take a minimum of 4 point blank shotgun hits to kill one on the harder difficulties. This zombie will actually throw poison headcrabs at you, if one bites it brings you down to 1 health which slowly goes back to full but if the poison zombie hits you with one health your dead.... Fast Zombie - These zombies are actually weaker than normal zombies but are extremely fast and can climb up walls and jump across buildings making them hard to hit. If climbing up a pipe whip out your .357 Magnum and pop one in their head for a quick kill. Otherwise use your Spas-12 and put 2 rounds in their head. Barnacle - These attach to ceilings and let their toung hang down. Kind of resembling a venus flytrap they suck in any prey that touch them. Best way to kill them is to find an explosive barrel and throw it into their tounge. They usually hang around in packs of 4-8 Antlion - These enemies are exactly what they sound like, vicious insects. Resembling the aliens from Starship Troopers these enemies will appear out of nowhere and swarm you in packs. Stay off the sand in order to avoid them. Later in the game you can use antlion pheromones to control these vicious beasts. Ant Lion Guard - Momma antlion hasn't liked you slaughtering her babies. Larger and Stronger than a normal antlion it will take at least 18 point blank shotgun hits to kill, your best bet is running and throwing large objects at her, such as exploding barrels, sinks, and radiators. Metro Police (Civil Protection) - The combine use these "police" to guard areas of city17 without using brute military force. Sporting pistols and stunsticks they wont hesitate to beat you to death if you look at them the wrong way. Combine Soldier - The grunt of the combine forces. Usually sporting Pulse rifles, MP7's and Shotguns, these grunts will usually attack in packs of 4-5. Not much is known about the combine but several rumors are floating around. More on that later. Combine Elite - The special forces of the combine. Take these guys out as soon as you see them, they have extreme accuracy and will not hesitate to bury you. Strider - A gigantic walking spider which has a large pulse cannon mounted underneath. The Strider also has a large powerful laser that will blow up parts of City17 in scripted events. Even if you do not get caught in the beam itself the splash will do considerable damage. Scanner - These fly around City 17 taking your picture and reporting back to the combine. These are more annoying than they are effective. Later in the game an upgraded version of the scanner will appear being slightly more armored. Rollermines - These will appear around Highway 17 attaching to your dung buggy causing it to go out of control. While not driving they will attempt to roll around and shock you. Only way to dispose of them is to grab them with your gravity gun and throw them elsewhere. ManHack - These are built on the same technology as the scanner. They will fly around and attempt to kill you with their spinning sawblade. Your crowbar or gravity gun is your best bet for taking them out. If you feel like having some fun grab a manhack and press it into an enemy for a slow painful death. Combine APC - These tanks will set themselves up on various areas of the game. They don't pose much of a threat but can take a beating when you need to kill them. They fire heat seeking rockets and a machine gun when you get too close to them. Hunter-Chopper Gunship - This gunship will follow you from the beginning of the game up until the end of the airboat chapters. They will attempt to sweep over you firing their machine gun at you. Towards the end of the fight they will start to drop mines in your path which can esally be destroyed with your mounted gun on your boat. Combine Gunship - These flying organic looking gunship only fires a machinegun at you. Though its armament is a bit low it is incredibly hard to get a shot off on them as they have incredible reflexes and shoot down your RPG's with ease. Attempt to steer the RPG's above the gunship and come in from behind 5. weapons Crowbar Ammo: N/A Range: Melee Your Crowbar returns in Half-Life 2 though its effectiveness is lowered quite a bit. I only used the crowbar maybe 4 times in the game, it is quickly replaced by the Gravity Gun early in the game. Gravity Gun Ammo: N/A Effective Range: Small Right click to activate the guns "tractor beam" which will pick up objects and make them hover in front of your gun. Leftclick to punt the object farther away. A tutorial section within the game will explain the Gravity Gun is slightly larger detail. USP Match Ammo: 9MM Capacity: 18 rounds; 8 Spare Magazines (150 rounds) Range: Long The pistol is rather weak normally. Though it does have the longest range its recoil will quickly throw you off target. The USP has a secret secondary fire mode though. If you hold your right mouse button and your left mouse button at the same time it charges bullets 1 at a time. If you wait 18 seconds and release your secondary fire (right mouse button). It will fire all 18 rounds at once without a recoil penalty. Magnum Revolver Ammo: .357 Magnum Range: Long Capacity: 6 rounds; 2 Spare Magazines (12 Rounds) The revolver makes its return giving you the maximum damage for any ballistics based weapon in the game. A headshot on most if not all enemies in the game will result in a kill even on the highest difficulty setting. It's deadly accuracy and high damage make this one of the best weapons in the game. HK MP7 Machine Pistol Ammo: 4.7mm Range: Small/Medium Capacity: 45 Rounds; 5 Spare Magazines (225 rounds) Secondary: Contact Grenade [3] This is perhaps the weakest gun in the game offset but its incredible rate of fire. The 4.7 round will leave you wondering why they even put this in the game but if you learn how to aim for the head correctly it is rather deadly on antlions and zombies. Combine soldiers are another story however, it takes almost an entire magazine to kill a combine soldier. Combine Pulse Rifle (IRIFLE) Ammo: Combine Energy Packs Range: Long(er) than most Capacity: 30 rounds; 2 Magazines (60 rounds) Secondary: Ricocheting Energy Ball that materializes anything it touches[3] This is one of the new weapons in Half-Life 2. Usually found with combine elites and some grunts the IRIFLE, as it's known by most of the community, packs quite a punch against any enemy. 5-8 direct hits will take down a zombie. But this guns true power lies in its Secondary Fire. If you see a room you cant clear bounce one of these balls off a wall and it will kill most enemies in that room if not all. Spas-12 Ammo: 12ga Buckshot Range: Close Capacity: 6 Rounds; 30 spare shells Secondary: Fire 2 rounds at once The shotgun is most likely going to be your most used weapon in the game next to the gravity gun. The shotgun borders on unbalanced compared to other weapons. 1 shot kill to the head and with its secondary fire it will kill anyone that is made of an organic composition. This IS the ultimate weapon in the game, don't waste it. Crossbow Ammo: Heated Rebar Range: Long Capacity: 1; 10 spare bars Secondary: Zoom The Crossbow is perhaps the most original in a game considering how it's used. The crossbow appears to have a heating mechanism on it which heats up rebar to fire essentially molten metal sticks at people. The physics on this gun is really what makes it stand out. The rebar does not instantly hit whatever you aim at it fires very slowly and has ballistics which means that it will drop with distance. If you manage to kill someone standing next to the wall it will pin them to the wall which makes for a rather comedic kill. HE Grenades Capacity: 5 Range: Small Secondary: Roll the grenade The grenades don't have much range but are still just as effective. The secondary fire rolls a grenade which can do one of two things. Drop it at your feet or make the grenade roll far away which is useful for taking out turrets. If you stand up while doing it you'll drop it, if you crouch before rolling the grenade will roll across the ground. The HE grenade, Contact Grenades, and RPG have the exact same damage and splash radius. RPG - Advanced Rocket Propelled Grenade Ammo: 3 rockets onboard Effective Range: Long Rockets have stayed almost the same from Half-Life. The RPG has a laser sighting mechanism on the bottom and the rocket is laser guided. Needless to say wherever you point the laser the rocket will go. The rocket doesn't appear to have a "life span" so if you keep it circling a target it wont die. Antlion pheromones ("Bug Bait") Ammo: N/A Effective Range: Medium The bugbait is perhaps the most amusing "weapon" in the game. If you throw this even in the vicinity of a target antlions will swarm from all directions flying over fences, brick walls, up towers, etc. A tutorial section will trigger in the game explaining how to use them a bit more. 6. Walkthrough 6a. Point Insertion This chapter starst with a nice meeting with Gman which leaves some speculation about what happened the past 10 or so years. But when that is over walk forward and talk to the people on the train if you wish. When the train stops walk off the train and make a left turn. If you want to catch the entire story talk to as many NPC's and listen to as many messages from Dr. Breen as you can. Take another left turn and walk through the bars. Walk through the cage and follow the combines instructions until you get to an interrogation room. After your meeting go into the next room and climb up the ladder. Press "E" to "use" the boxes and stack one under the window to climb out of it. Proceed through the door on the right and you will be greeted with one of many loading screens. Walk forward and make a left. Pick up the can and you can do one of two things, Throw it in the Metro Cop's face, or put it in the trash can. One of the outcomes is humorous but one is safe, you decide. Keep following the path until you get to the double doors. Welcome to the city 17 Plaza. When you get outside make a right and follow that path until you can make another right into an alley. Jump on top of the dumpster and climb up the ladder. Look to your right there is a hole in the walkway. Drop down onto the crate and keep going forward. To your left is a body with a few combine, you don't want to mess with them, make a right and follow that path until you come to a building with an unguarded door. Enter that door and you will be greeted with your 2nd wonderful load screen. Make your way up the stairs and down to the end of the hall. Now heres where the rest of the game starts, keep running the combine are after you. When you get to the top floor someone will motion for you to come into their room. All citizens will never mislead you, always listen to them. When you get in there they will tell you to run for the roof, keep going until you get to an attic. When you move towards the opening the door will bust open, from this point on you must keep running to avoid being killed. Go along the roof and make your way into an open window to your right. Make your way down the stairs and let the combine beat you with their sticks. Get used to this girl, she saves you more than once in the game. This is Alyx. Follow her until you get to Kliener's lab. 6b. "A Red Letter Day" Listen to all Kliener's moaning until you get your HEV suit. Then power up your suit next to the I-Beam. Enter the teleportation chamber. Wait for Alyx to be raised up and wait for the plug to fall out, look at it and press "E" (use) so that you pick it up and move it towards the outlet to put it back in. After another few seconds they will say "Gordon pull the switch". Look to your right there will be a box with a red lever in there, Press "E" again. After Alyx is teleported wait for it to come back down again for you, after a few "smart" comments by Barney you will be able to enter the chamber. Wait another few seconds and after a few "difficulties" you will be outside. /=============\ / Bug Report \ =========================================================== |More Than once I've had system crashes after the teleport| |Sequence, I belive it is something to do with Advanced | |shaders that are being used. If you experience any type | |of crashing or difficulty in this section turn down your | |Shaders. If this does not work skip to the next map which| |would be d1_trainstation_06.bsp. Type ..... | |"Map d1_trainstation_06.bsp" in your "developer" console | |which you can enable from options->keyboard->advanced | =========================================================== After you are outside look to your left, there should be a dead end in the walkway. Jump down through that hole and look to your right there should be a door that allows you to enter the transformer cage. Don't worry they wont fry you, look to your right again and you should see a cement wall. Wait for Barney to give you your crowbar and break the wood on the door. Drop down and enter the first train in front of you. Break the boxes and continue through the back of the train. Now look to your right and sprint (Shift) as fast as you can until you can get in front of the train on your left. Once you do keep going down that path until you can enter another train car. This time go up the ladder to the top of the train, and jump OVER the fence and continue through the path. Break the wood on the doorway and enter the building. Welcome to another load screen. 6c. Route Kanal Walk forward and recharge your health if needed at the station, if not don't forget about its location, you will be engaging in a little crowbar to head combat in a second. As I said you will be engaging in combat ahead. in front of you are two Metro Cop's, one will pull out a stunstick and one will pull out his handgun. He will not fire his handgun until you kill one of them. So don't worry about both just kill one at a time. Recharge your health when your done and be sure to pick up the handgun. Continue down the hall and up the stairs shooting any combine who get in your path. Always aim for the chest if shooting multiple times because the recoil will not allow you to keep a bead on their head. When you finally make it outside stand on the top of the rusted stairs and wait for the train. You must jump on top of the train car and onto the other platform across the tracks. Don't attempt to do this with the train in motion. Break the wood on the door and enter the building. Stand back a bit and fire two shots into the red barrel let it blow up and exit through the area you just blew open. While waiting for the barrel to explode there is a medkit and USP ammo to your left in between some floor boards. When you get outside of the house there will be two combine to your right, blow up the barrels with a few shots in them, I recommend the barrel on top of the dumpster. After they are disposed of "use" the metal door and continue down the path a few more combine will pop up ignore them and keep running if you attempt to kill them more will come. Jump over the bent fence make a right continue down the path make another right and duck under the shipping containers in a path that you cant miss. When you get through the path continue right to the end and jump down where the fence ends. Head right and near the stairs combine will appear....You can shoot the barrels but if your unlucky they will blow up next to you so do as you see fit. Continue through the path shooting whatever combine you see. You'll eventually get to a skybridge connecting the two sides of the train tracks. Kill the combine below and break the boxes blocking your path with your trusty crowbar. Continue through the path until you get to the train tracks again. Head left and dispose of the 3 combine you see. If you need to turn around and kill the other 3 combine. After your done with your combine slaughter there is an open section in the fence which allows you to jump onto a walkway. Even though the water is very dirty suck it up and jump down into the water and navigate between the bent sections of fence. On the left of the rusty train car is a ladder. Climb up it and drop down into the opening in the train car and speak with the vortigaunt and civilian. After a conversation they will open the car door for you. Exit the car and break the shipping crate blocking your path. You will be greeted with yet another loading screen at this point. in front of you are some wooden support beams. Break a few of them and the entire thing will collapse. Continue down the path, making note of the barnacle, until you meet some new combine troops. GO right and sprint into the open sewer. Turn on your flashlight you will encounter 1-2 combine in this sewer. Grab the health at the end of the path and climb up the ladder killing the combine at the top. Now the fun start, use the combine turret and blast the crap out of anything that comes towards you. When you see the missiles start coming towards you it's your sign to blow up the barrel on the shelf to your right and run across that path as fast as you can. Continue down this linear path avoiding the barnacles until you get out into the open. At this point a woman will scream "over here" you can listen to her but she doesn't say anything useful. Next to her though is another sewer you can enter, you've probably figured out by now that you need to get in there. When you reach the end of the sewer you will see two combine above you, ignore them. Get to the oposet side of the room and crouch-jump onto the ledge and continue into the next room. Now you must jump into the water and stay under it, combine will be throwing flaming barrels at you from above. Wait till they're done and shoot them while your underwater. When all the barrels are exploded jump up into the open sewer tunnel. When you reach the outside again 7 or 8 combine will be waiting for you. Kill them, blow them up, do whatever you need to do until you get to a wooden bridge. When you do blow up the barrels under it and proceed through. Look up to your right you will see a small area with barrels blocking it, duck under the cement ceiling and hit the middle barrel with your crowbar to move it out of the way and hopefully hit a barnacle. This part is a little tricky if your not innovative luckily your reading this FAQ because you got lost. Take the red barrel to your left "use" it, run forward and let go of it to let a barnacle pick it up. On its ascent shoot it twice, when it blows it will take out 9 barnacles with it. Go through the path until you get outside again. This parts also a tiny bit tricky, swim underwater until you reach the bridge, ignore the combine shooting at you. Climb up the ladder on the right connected to the bridge and swim underwater again till you get to the end of the canal. To your left should be a wooden "ramp" leading you out of the water. Now you can dispose of the combine, I recommend using the explosive barrels. Now jump across the peices of wood making a U turn into the sewer tunnel to your left. Here is the next section of the level. When you are finished loading pick up as many cinder blocks as you can and place them on the oposet end of the sea-saw type thing. Continue through the path but be wary a Hunter-Chopper is hovering overhead you can probably hear it by now. sprint through the next area heading left down the ramp and left again onto the walkway. If you sprinted the entire way this should be the second time the chopper is taking a shot at you, When you get to the door hide behind the barrels until the chopper is done shooting at you. When it is move the barrel out of the way of the blue door and head down the stairs into the sewer. Head left then make a quick right and yet another right. Use the same explosive barrel technique for the two sets of barnacles ahead. Continue down the linear path until you get to another door. Head left and follow the other linear path through the sewers. Welcome to the next loading screen. Break the boxes down the path and grab one of the explosive barrels and bring it with you. When you meet up with the next resistance member the explosion will definantly help. After a small conversation he will head to a door. Several manhacks will break through but luckily you have your conveniently placed barrel. When you see the first manhack or two blow up the barrel with a few well placed shots and that should destroy most, if not all of the manhacks. Don't worry about harming the civilian nothing in this game that you do can kill or hurt them at all. Continue through the door following the path until you meet some more manhacks, its crowbar time, get your timing down and wack them just as they charge you, if your good enough you wont get hurt at all. After they are killed continue through the path, more manhacks will appear. This time you have more conveniently placed barrels to blow up, shoot the one in the middle of the hallway 3 times to blow it up immedietly and run away because the barrel closest to you will blow up shortly. Head down the path and through the door to your left. Two combine will appear shoot them and head through the next door. More manhacks will appear (aren't these persistent little buggers) but you do not have to engage them. Just close the door behind you they can't get in. Move down the path and jump on top of the pipes near the red light. Bust open the vent and head through it, up ahead is another manhack but it's easy enough to dispose of them. Ahead of you are several supply crates, I haven't listed the locations of others because they don't really mean much but these help greatly. Backtrack through the vent and elminiate the combine at the end. Jump down into the sewer and head forward. Several combine will appear, dispose of them whichever way you'd like. After killing the first combine you will pick up your first automatic weapon, the Mp7 machine pistol. Don't worry about ammo for this little thing everyone has it from this point on. You will see a rotating "thing" in front of you. Jump into the water and down to your left will be an opening to swim through. Head left and walk up the stairs. Dispose of the two combine pick up their ammo and then jump on the large pipe, turn around and you should see some steam coming out of the pipe. DO NOT run into the steam it will hurt you greatly, walk up until you get to the first steam vent and shoot the barnacle up top, wait for the steam to go away and run across quickly. To your left is some ammo if you wish to grab it and do the same for the rest of the steam until you reach the end. At the end of the pipe will be a manhack dispose of it and look to your right. There is some wooden planks, as you can guess you must destroy them. After you drop down from the pipe proceed through the small opening to your right. When you get outside watch out for the barrels. I accidently blew one up next to me and I had a VERY hard time going through this area. If you happen to hurt yourself severely run through the next part going through the opening to your right, running past the manhacks and grabbing health from the supply crates at the end of the linear hall. To be Continued... 7. Story Overview/Theory's 7a. Gman Theory's I've read this on the steampowered forums. I have full permission from "Soul Harvester to include these writings in my FAQ and have enjoyed reading them. You should too. These are strictly copy and paste and have not been checked for grammar errors. G-Man Does NOT = Gordon Freeman Valve, as a collective, are not morons. They understand that a) due to the various and sundry theories of the manner of space and time, going back in time and interacting with yourself is impossible. b) they know that time travel has been done to death, and using such a method to explain the mystery of the G-Man would be the lamest thing mankind has ever seen. G-Man Does NOT = Old Man Freeman The G-Man is not Gordon's father, either. Why? Let me throw a line at ya. "I am your father." What does this conjure up? A fitting end to the greatest gaming experience ever? No! It conjures up Darth ****ing Vader, that's who! The Father Ending has been done already! There is no way Valve is going to cheapen us, the fans, and themselves as men of art by ripping the end from Star Wars. G-Man = God or Satan, and Gordon = Jesus, Messiah I sure as hell hope this isn't the case, or I'm going to take a crowbar to Gabe's sack. G-Man is David Bowie This is quite possible. Further research will be needed. Right, so now we know who the G-Man ISN'T, we can start thinking about who he is. There've been a few very interesting theories tossed about so far, and then there have been many more truly retarded ones, mostly from people with no concept of the difference between "u" and "you". I think I've read most of the useful ones...spread out, for some reason, across a number of threads. It might be worth the mods time to make a "Half-Life 2 Theories Thread" or something. Back on topic I go. Right, who is the G-Man? Let's think about it. First of all, the dude with the dark eyes in the picture in Kleiner's office is NOT the G-Man. Go and play HL1 again if you don't remember this guy. The scribbled out face is Breen, btw, Dr. Kleiner can't stand the bas...er, the jerk. So that rules out the possibility of being the guy behind the Black Mesa Anomalous Materials Research Team. The administrator, as we all know, was Dr. Breen, so G-Man couldn't have been that guy. So he would have to be even higher than that. So we have one possibility. Climb the ladder of the Black Mesa heirarchy, and at the top is the G-Man. It would explain his heavy use of teleporting, appearing and disappearing at random throughout both games. So that's one at least passable theory. On to the next, the "President of the Universe" theory. This one paints each universe, or dimension, as having a "overlord" of sorts...a guy who's in charge of everything, is omnipotent, and rules the roost. Like a God, yes, but not in the biblical fire and brimstone sense. Each Universe has one, and the theory goes that the G-Man is our one. He's currently at loggerheads with another one, the one Breen is allied with. So they fight through their pawns, like a game of chess. Freeman is the G-Man's most bada$$ pawn, but he has others...like Eli, Alyx, Barney and Dog. This would explain a quote by Dr. Breen in "Dark Energy". "Having {Gordon and Eli} in my keeping means I can dictate the terms of any bargain I care to make with the combine." Thinking again in terms of chess, Gordon is the Queen, trans-genderal issues aside. He does the most damage. Eli is the King...without him, the whole deal falls apart, and humanity gets pwned. This is a complicated theory...to say the least, and has more holes than Swiss cheese. Personally, I deem it extremely unlikely, even "looney". It IS workable, however, and therefore warrants a mention. The Eye Question. The similarities between Gordon and the G-Man are hard to miss. It's hard to tell due to various art and so on depicting the characters differently. What colour are the G-Man's eyes? I've seen them a deep black, deep blue, and a green colour very similar to Gordon's. Which one is correct? They looks blue at the start of Half-Life. Additionally, what's the story with Gordon's hair? In the photo in Dr. Kleiner's lab, his hair looks to be a lighter brown, almost ginger. The same colour it appears to be in Blue Shift when you catch glimpses of Freeman. Yet on the game box, sure enough, it's the dark brown we're all familiar with. So which is it? Freeman's eyes, at least, seem to retain their bright green hue more often than not. There are a few theories on that, too. What colour do things turn when exposed to radiation? Bright green. Well...they don't, really, but it's a popular fancy that they do. So one school of thought is that prolonged exposure to many different forms of harmful radiation, diluted by his HEV suit, has turned Gordon's eyes a bright green colour...AND granted him unusual strength, speed, and reflexes, which would explain why he can kill an alien army by himself, sew his leg back on, save the girl, kill another alien race, brush his teeth and still be home in time to help Ma with the washing up. ANOTHER theory is that he was modified at a genetic level by Da G-Man, and/or his associates, for an undisclosed purpose. It seems likely this purpose would have something to do with explosions, or crowbars. What reason or results this mutation may have had is pure speculation. However, it would explain the G-Man's interest in you...he's keeping an eye on his, or his boss', experiment. Could Alyx be another such experiment? She DOES kick more a$$ than your average bear, after all. There's a considerable age difference, it's true, but...as the G-Man seems to love showing off, when he's in the room, time can just take a damn number and wait in line like everyone else thankyouverymuch. This is all very interesting (maybe) but we're still no closer to figuring out who the G-Man is, or what his relationship to Gordon is. Let's recap quickly. - G-Man is not Gordon. - G-Man is not Gordon's father. - G-Man may be a higher power of some sort, but is not God in the biblical sense, nor is he Satan. - G-Man may be one of the high-ups in charge of the Black Mesa facility, and may have had a hand in orchestrating the cascade. - G-Man may be David Bowie. - G-Man may have "created" Gordon Freeman for his own sinister reasons. - It's spelt "you" not "u". What is the G-Man, really? It's been suggested, and possibly even confirmed, that he is not human...thus his odd manner of speech and obsessive compulsive tie-adjustment. Someone who's read the Prima Strategy Guide: Giving The Full Story To The Rich People, While The Poor Keep Guessing! may be able to confirm or refute that. This leads to an all new realm of pointless speculation. I can hardly wait! In Dark Energy, Breen has the following to say in order to try and save his own measly hide: "The portal destination is untenable...There's no way I can survive in that environment!" After a brief pause, he says this: "A host body? You must be joking!" Aha! So we know body-swapping is possible. Perhaps that's the G-Man's deal, as has been suggested. Perhaps he took over the body of David Bowie, which would incorporate TWO theories for the price of one! Mr. Laidlaw, you're a genius. The Vortigaunt Mystery One of the things that has plagued me most about Half-Life 2 is the "WTF is with these green guys?" question. Eventually I've managed to piece together the following info: - They are the "Alien Slaves" from the original Half-Life, the green lightning-hurling, one-eyed, three-armed beings from Xen. - They're sentient, which they showed little sign of in the original game. - They work with the humans. I'm ruling out, at this stage, the possibility that the human's have enslaved them. I just can't see Eli and Alyx doing that. That's pretty much all I can get for certain. However, they drop a million and one hints. One of them says this: "We remember the Free Man. We are coterminous." Coterminous? WTF? So I asked Dictionary.com, who were strangely unhelpful, giving me something vague about shared borders. "Having the same scope, range of meaning, or extent in time." Hmm...Gordon has something in common with Vortigaunts? It's certainly not skin tone. There are more hints in this general direction, though. "The Eli Vance almost perceives the All-In-One." possibly the most suspicious: "We serve the same mystery." The first I originally took to mean the Vortigaunts all share a common conciousness...what one sees, they all see, what one remembers, all remember and so on. It seems to fit with their attitude, and number of things the other characters say as well. "Every now and then a Vortigaunt gets captured and sends back information..." - Alyx Vance, Entanglement "According to the Vortigaunts, he's a prisoner in the Citadel." - Dr. Kleiner, Entanglement "The Vortigaunts traced the ship {to Nova Prospekt}..." - Alyx Vance, "We Don't Go To Ravenholm." It starts to sound more and more like the Vorts have SOME sort of psionic powers, or a collective conciousness. They certainly seem to know, or be able to find out, things that us measly humans can't. The former, however, is the most interesting. "We both serve the same mystery." It could just be a load of Zen garbage BUT, it could also be an allusion to the G-Man. Perhaps the Vortigaunts know about the G-man? He may not be a guy in a suit to them, sure, but it may well be the same entity.