Half-Life 2, Part 3: NOT YOUR GODDAMN KWISATZ HADERACH

[camwyn]

When last we left our hero, Gordon had had a G-man sighting at an old barn. Just a little flicker of one. I'm not very good at spotting him in HL 2, possibly because it's such a graphically more complex game by comparison with the original, but he was fairly obvious in this one. The fact that he was walking out of a barn that was supposed to be a refugee escape waystation and is now full of headcrab zombies... I dunno, man, Gordon didn't like you before. He's gonna want to have words with you now. There was a radio on the premises with other rebels trying to get in contact with the recently deceased, but no microphone. Oh well.

Anyway. Backindeboat. (If you ever saw the Steve Martin-Lily Tomlin movie All of Me, I'm thinking of the accent of the guy who was in charge of moving Lily's spirit to wherever it was supposed to go. "Backindebowl!"... yeah, you don't care, sorry, digression over.) Off down the river again and TURBO BOOST TIME! Or something, anyway. If there was a turbo option on the boat, I missed it. The goal was to get over a wooden ramp and land on the other side safely, which is harder than it looks if you're me on the Xbox and not a problem if you're me on the PC. I, um, may have done a couple of inadvertent backflips. Whoever built that boat must've included one hell of a safety harness, because you can do ANYTHING with it and Gordon doesn't fall out. Possibly they use the same brand of duct tape that he uses to keep his eyeglasses on.

Even on the PC my steering is kind of iffy, but that's okay. It's an airboat. Horrible steering around turns is more than compensated for by the fact that most turns in these canals are banked. Gordon's airboat winds up grabbing some serious perpendicular air time more often than not when I'm playing him. It's not enough to get him past the big concrete doors that eventually slam shut in front of him, though. I got to those and tried looking for a lever or a crank or something, and didn't find anything. Thought for a bit I'd hit a dead end- until I got shot at. Where there's Combine there's usually something worth finding, so against all the laws of survival and reason Gordon went back in the direction of the guy who was trying to kill him. Turned out it was some kind of sluice control facility or something, with a ladder and a door and everything.

And a telescreen.

And this is where Gordon gets a brand new twitch under his eye that will never, ever go away.

Dr. Breen pops up on the telescreen, which made me jump at first, but he was just giving a broadcast, not attempting to communicate with the local soldiers. At this point I have to replicate part of his speech for you:

"We now have direct confirmation of a disruptor in our midst, one who has acquired an almost messianic reputation in the minds of certain citizens."

My Gordon starts to twitch a little bit at that.

"His figure is synonymous with the darkest urges of instinct, ignorance, and decay."

Okay, not so much on that one.

"Some of the worst excesses of the Black Mesa incident have been laid directly at his feet."

Some??? I-as-player worked damned hard on violent excesses in that game! ... well, maybe the Marines were responsible for stuff I didn't get to see...

"And yet unsophisticated minds continue to imbue him with romantic power. Giving him such labels as The One Free Man, or the Opener of the Way."

*twitch*
*twitch*
*SPAZ*

My Gordon started shouting at the screen here. Mostly to the effect of "I AM NOT THE KWISATZ HADERACH!", because that is so not the phrasing he wanted to hear! Technically 'kwisatz haderach' means shortening of the Way, not opening, but Gordon was a LITTLE STRESSED OUT RIGHT THEN THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I mean, wtf. Seriously. WTF. He's one guy with a crowbar and a couple of guns. He's a BIG ORANGE TARGET. No! Nono nonono! Not your messiah! And the fact that this is apparently widespread enough that the chief bad guy is denouncing the use of those titles? That's serious EEEH HHHH EEEEH HHHH territory right there. I think Gordon would've traded any two of his firearms for a paper bag to hyperventilate into for a little bit there.

Anyway. Turtleneck Boy keeps right on talking whether Gordon stares mutely, screams, or whaps the telescreen with his crowbar, and there are people waiting for Gordon, and there are Combine outside. And combat is a very good place to go to concentrate all of your attention on ANYTHING OTHER THAN YOU PEOPLE CALLING ME THE KWISATZ HADERACH, WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU, I JUST BLOW THINGS UP. So off we go. Yadda yadda parking garage, yadda yadda Combine, yadda yadda Tocklafane bursting through windows, oh God not another telescreen- well, okay, there's no speechy from this one. That's goooooh! Grenades! That's a new kind of supply crate right there. Is there a reason it's that color green? Do I have to hit it? ... guess not. Well, get the grenades and go through OH HELL machine gun emplacement.

Fortunately, Combine emplacements are kind of lame compared to the ones the Marines had. Force fieldy waist high barricades you can huck a grenade over aren't much by comparison with big concrete huts and a slit for the gun out front. Gordon hid behind a pushcart until he got close enough to rely on his pitching arm, and then slugged his way through the next room and got the doors open in there by making stuff blow up reel gud. (Hey, the controls were broken. blow stuff up reel gud was a second choice. honest. stop looking at me like that.) Then he had to fight his way back to the boat, which was something of a nightmare, because the Combine reinforcements had positions behind the APC in the garage and an emplacement he'd sort of ignored on the way in (nobody in it at the time). What I wouldn't have given for a few of Black Mesa's old satchel charges! Gordon was in a very bad mood by the time he got back to his boat, I can tell you that for sure.

Having to squish two Combine with the airboat and then whip around a corner and jump OFF A METAL RAMP in the airboat so as to LEAP OVER THE FIRE did not really help. Yes, the nerdiest nerdboy who ever nerded had to do a flying turbo airboat jump through FIRE and land unburnt on the other side. And then they started throwing cars at him. Because apparently God just doesn't like Gordon Freeman enough to give him five minutes of sanity in a row.

Eventually he gets to a point where he has to deal with yet another closed canal door. Which, fine, whatever, he can park the boat and shoot the lock open and go inside and oooh, Magnum! I can has manstopper nao? Yes! This is great! This is fantastic! This is NOT ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH THE FREAKING HELICOPTER AUGH AUGH OW RUN LIKE A BUNNY WHAT THE HELL oh it's the same chopper from before GREAT JUST GREAT. Gordon now gets to run like crazy through an area chock full of truck trailers (they're all printed in English, one more point in favor of this being Newark rather than Sofia, Bulgaria), shooting at Combine foot soldiers and Tocklafane, and trying not to get shot by the helicopter. Apparently he stood up Airwolf's sister craft on a date or something, I dunno. At one point he ducks into a warehousey sort of building, which has a few trailers and a bunch of Combine and manhacks in it, and eventually the following scene occurs:

GORDON: *runs up the stairs to the second floor platform that runs around the interior edges of the building*
COMBINE: *turn up on other side's equivalent platform*
GORDON: *ducks behind waist high wooden barrier*
COMBINE: *shoot in his direction*
GORDON: *tosses grenade across room, ducks again*
COMBINE: "Shit. GRENADE."

I'm pretty sure the Combine guys swear when they realize you've pitched a grenade at them. I can't be certain, but it sounds like that's what they're saying and I find the idea amusing, so I'm gonna go with it. They just barely had time to go "Get DOWN!" before it went off and I saw one of them fly up into the air. It was great...

... and then I realized I could see, very faint and indistinct but still there, the shadow of the helicopter as it prowled back and forth outside the window, looking for Gordon.

Gnnnnnn.

More maze-o-riffic running ensued from there. Gordon eventually found a room with two Combine in it at the top of a ladder. Combine are not very good at playing Whack-a-Mole. They looked at him, he looked at them, they grabbed their guns, he fired an SMG grenade and dropped to the bottom of the ladder. There were two turrets up there that he got to fire at the helicopter in a thoroughly satisfying experience, but they weren't enough to kill it. It fled, trailing smoke and swearing revenge, and if it wasn't swearing revenge I don't want to know about it. Gordon turned around to see the biggest fanciest mixing control console ever, but when it failed to produce entertaining musical effects he poked the big red button instead and watched the gates open. Whee. Back to the water, back to the boat, and-

AUUUGH HELICOPTER AGAIN. And it's dropping bombs this time! Round ticky red mines and they're ALL OVER THE PLACE and I HATE STEERING THIS STUPID BOAT and FWOOM through the tunnAIIIIIGH SMOKESTACK COLLAPSE, NOT COOL, NOT COOL, NOT COOL. Fortunately, even at top speed it's possible not to be squished to death by falling scenery, so Gordon got through there okay and then through a couple more tricky little physics puzzles. Eventually he got to go SPROING off a ramp again and head a little further along to-

"Well! I wouldn't believe it if I couldn't see it with my own eyes. Dr. Gordon Freeman himself!"

Yay, people! Two humans and a Vortigaunt. The humans're all wearing knit caps and some decent jackets and/or bulletproof vests over what looks like they might've been Jumpsuits of Oppression. I'm guessing they got the jackets off dead Combine. None of the civilians outside the Resistance wear hats, though, so I'm guessing they're some kind of anti-headcrab measure. Maybe they taste bad. Anyway,t he humans take you in and show you a map to Eli Vance's place (I ignore all the maps in this, since I can never tell which marking is supposed to be where and anyway the game will get me where I need to go eventually), and the Vortigaunt fits the boat out with a gun from a dead chopper, which is kind of vital because the major obstacle between you and Vance is another damn chopper. Yay. When you get done with the humans, the Vortigaunt tells you "The Freeman will accept this weapon, or suffer greatly on the road ahead," which is kind of silly. It's a weapon! Yay weapon! Gordon loves weapons by this point! Why wouldn't he accept it? Does it run on puppy corpses or something?... apparently not, so it's into the boat with you, and you leave to shouts of "Give 'em hell, Doc," from the humans, and "For freedom!" from the Vortigaunt.

(Side note: the Vortigaunts are voiced by Lou Gossett, Jr. in full back-of-the-throat voice acting mode.)

There's more shooting and some blowing up of APCs next, and eventually you get to a big open area with lots of scattered boxes, lots of scattered explosive barrels, and no exits. This is where you have to fight the helicopter or die an ignominious squishy death, but it's also a boss fight, and when I got to it at Danii's I wasn't up for a boss fight that late at night, so I saved the game and left. More in the next post, I promise.