HL2: Episode 2: Stuck (spoilers)

[DavidKaye]

I'm stuck in the part of Episode 2 just after I've gotten away from the Guardian. I'm in the room at the bottom of the shaft that has three web caches in it and a lift. When you pull the lever on the lift, the mechanism moves and then immediately moves back again. The Vortigaunt at the top of the list is asking me to send it up, but I can't figure out how.

What am I doing wrong?

[Derek Meister]

There's a missing cog wheel on the lift engine. There's a damaged engine over by the other destroyed lift shaft in the same room with a cog that you can grab using the gravity gun.

[DavidKaye]

Thanks Derek. Much obliged!

[Derek Meister]

That one got me for about a while, because I never walked over to that side of the room for some reason. I kept trying to stick things in the machine to prevent it from sliding back, rather than fix it with what now seems obvious.

[DavidKaye]

Heh, I did the exact same thing.

[Aszurom]

I'm in the radioactive swamp, trying to car-hop across to islands. That's fine, but I've got like 20 health and they send 2 grenadier zombies after me. I'm on a tiny island and nowhere to run. Screwed?

[Igor Muravyev]

Don't car hop. There is going to be a wooden round thing floating in the swamp, you can use your gravity gun on it and drop it whereever you want, then step on it and it won't sink. If you have two of those things you can go across the entire swamp without any cars.

[chet]

Also, sometimes the best strategy is to just run like hell.

[pj-]

you can steal those grenades with your gravity gun

(and get an achievement for it)

[Chuck Jordan]

I'm stuck on the bridge, right after finding the car.


The storm came, messed up the bridge, and Alyx shouted something but I couldn't hear it. I've got access to the car, but no idea what to do from here. I tried using the truck as a ramp, failed. I tried driving on the underside of the bridge, failed (predictably). I tried jumping up to the other half of the bridge and gravity-gunning some cars down to make a ramp, and the bridge collapsed underneath me. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

[Alistair]

From memory, repositioning cars see-saws one section of the bridge so it's easier to jump to.

[RichardC]

Drive the car onto the bridge. Move most of the cars to the far side - one at a time - so that it turns into a ramp pointed at where you started. Drive the car really fast off the end, jumping the gap in style.

[Chuck Jordan]

Ah, thanks for the tips, guys.

In case anybody else needs more explicit instructions: I'd been trying to jump onto the bridge from the right side, where the truck is. If you climb up to the left, you can make it to the upper level.

[roguefrog]

I'm in this wrecked train. How do I escape?

[DavidKaye]

You don't. The whole episode takes place inside that train. It's pretty claustrophobic, but it must have saved Valve a ton of man hours.

[RichardC]

You need to repair the train with your Gravity Gun and the contents of the local fruit stall. Alyx will help, but only if you give her the magic pendant from the witch's cottage.

[Moggraider]

For the bridge part, I just knocked all the cars the fuck off and that worked equally well.

[Rock8man]

Ok, I'm completely stuck, so I hope someone here has had the same problem and knows what to do.

I went past the thumpers in the open area after coming out of the caves, and I fought the Guardian and the other giant insect. That was a tough fight by the way, and really fun. I was surprised at how challenging it was, I'm so used to this game being a cakewalk most of the time. Anyway, so I finally beat the two giant insects, and now what?

Alyx came over and praised me and so did the alien. And then the alien said the vehicle was in the settlement above us. And then nothing. I've tried walking up to both of them and pressing "E" but that doesn't seem to do anything. I've tried walking over to the generator that's next to an elevator that would lead up to the settlement, but neither of them follows me.

I've tried running circles around the two of them in the thumper area where they're hanging out, and sometimes the alien says "Lead the way Freeman". And at other times he says something only when I've walked far away and I can't make it out.

Did I forget to do something? I'm very confused. Why would he tell me we need to get to the settlement and then refuse to follow me to the generator? And also, why don't they try to at least make conversation if they're going to just stand there all day? They could mention, I don't know, maybe the reason they refuse to budge?

Gah, this is so frustrating. It's like playing Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, except in that one the answer to my getting unstuck was always to try a force jump somewhere. In Half Life so far, I've never encountered such an obtuse puzzle before.

[Guido Jones]

He should just walk over to the generator and electify it to open the garage door so you can get to the elevator. The elevator is jammed about halfway up and you have to climb the side of the cliff and jump in through the top of it.

If you can't get inside the fenced area where the elevator is, I'd say it's some broken scripting - reload and try again?

[Rock8man]

Yeah, that's what I figured. I did try the fight with the two Antlion Guardians a couple more times. Most of the time, I die because some random Acid Antlion gets to spray me or an ordinary antlion comes right in front of me just as I through an explosive barrel at the guardian. (And hence, I die). It's actually a pretty randomized battle in that lots of things can go wrong. A lot of times an antlion kills Alyx, who is supposed to be safe in the thumper area. And the game gives me a failure message.

But I did defeat the antlions two more times. The latest time I got really excited because I got the achievement for defeating two antlion guardians. "Twofer". (I didn't get that achievement the last two times I beat them). Unfortunately, nothing else changed. The alien still doesn't follow me to the generator.

I can physically push Alyx to the generator, but obviously she doesn't do anything, she just runs back to the thumper to be with her alien friend. Nuts. This blows. Obviously whatever script is broken is broken already by the time I get to my last few save games. I don't generally save in this game, I just go by the autosaves, but I did quicksave before and after the guardian fights, so I don't have any older saves.

I guess my only option is to start a new game at the start of this chapter. Oh well. I guess I won't be playing this game again for a while. Maybe after I finish Bioshock.

[Igor Muravyev]

You know if you go to the thumper area, the big two insects can't go in there with you? And also the vontigaunt will wipe out any little insects, while you can focus on using large physics objects to throw at the insects. A few good hits with the really heavy objects, and they're gone.

[Rock8man]

Yeah, the thumper area is safe from the guardians, so its a nice reprieve area once in a while. But its not safe from Antlions and Acid antlions.

The vontigaunt did a great job of wiping out the little insects on my first run, but every subsequent time I tried to do it, he lets quite a few antlions through for some reason. It could be part of the same broken script that later prevents him from helping me, I don't know. But it sure makes the Guardian battle more interesting, let me tell you that much.

As for heavy physics objects, those are tough to arrange. I usually just like to throw explosive barrels at them, but yeah, sometimes I can get them with other heavy stuff too. It's a great fight, considering its the end of the game for me. At least it ended on a good note.

[Kareem]

Yeah, the thumper area is safe from the guardians, so its a nice reprieve area once in a while. But its not safe from Antlions and Acid antlions.

I'm pretty sure it holds back the antlions too. The acid antlions hurl their poison from far off so it doesn't ultimately matter, but they can't engage you in melee if you're in the vicinity of the thumper. So you can just shoot them with impunity from there.

[Pentadact]

I'm pretty sure it holds back the antlions too. The acid antlions hurl their poison from far off so it doesn't ultimately matter, but they can't engage you in melee if you're in the vicinity of the thumper. So you can just shoot them with impunity from there.

Thumpers are hopelessly unreliable. If an antlion strays into its thumping range either through a loophole in the AI code or a physics shunt, it no longer seems to recognise the thing as a deterrent.

Anyway, Rock8man, can you not cheat your way past it? You're trying to get to the top of that cliff via the elevator, so you should be able to just noclip to the top. Friendly AI has regular points it'll teleport to if it's not already there when you are, in case of getting stuck behind crates, etc. Even if that fails, if you just turn right in the room with the Combine screen at the top, might have to noclip through a combine door or field, you'll be into the next level. When Alyx and Vort are next due to show up, I'm sure they will.

I actually agree that the double Guard fight is awesome - particularly the second and third time through, when I let them live long enough to see them whack cars at me. But Ep2's only just getting started around that point, and the best stuff is still to come.

All else fails, I could chuck you a save just after the Guards fight?

[Shiroko]

Try taking the difficulty down to easy, and bring it back up to whatever after the fight.

[Rock8man]

Anyway, Rock8man, can you not cheat your way past it? You're trying to get to the top of that cliff via the elevator, so you should be able to just noclip to the top. Friendly AI has regular points it'll teleport to if it's not already there when you are, in case of getting stuck behind crates, etc. Even if that fails, if you just turn right in the room with the Combine screen at the top, might have to noclip through a combine door or field, you'll be into the next level. When Alyx and Vort are next due to show up, I'm sure they will.

Hey good suggestion. I first tried noclip just to get past the little gate, and I turned it off and climbed the ladder, to activate the elevator, only to find out that there was nothing I could do with the elevator once it was at the bottom. So then I used noclip to get to the top onto the wooden platform and deactivated noclip.

.... and i promptly fell through the world. Heheh. Anyway, next time I went farther into the tunnel near some broken stairs and deactivated noclip there, and then jumped down the stairs, and hit a "loading" screen, and when I loaded the new level, Vort and Alyx were by my side. So then I continued playing from there, and I haven't had any issues yet! (Fingers crossed).


I actually agree that the double Guard fight is awesome - particularly the second and third time through, when I let them live long enough to see them whack cars at me. But Ep2's only just getting started around that point, and the best stuff is still to come.

Yeah, in some of the fights I had with those two, I actually went back to the previous area and got a kick out of them throwing cars and barrels at me. Definitely the best fight in the game so far. Episode 2 kind of started off as a pain, just like Episode 1 started off boring in the citadel, but its gotten a lot better now that I'm out of the grub tunnels.