Ever decide to replay an old video game and discover features or possible strategies that never occurred to you the first time around?
I recently reinstalled the original Half-Life and discovered something I hadn’t known before. Towards the end of the episode “We’ve Got Hostiles”, Freeman has gone back underground having discovered that escape is impossible. You have to go down a ventilation shaft while an Osprey hovers overhead and enemy soldiers rappel down from it. I discovered a ridiculously easy way to get rid of the Osprey and soldiers:
Immediately after going down the ladder from the surface, you’re in a short underground hallway with an access hatch leading to the main ventilation shaft. As you walk around inside the hallway you’ll occasionally trigger detonations on the surface above you (which you never see unless you cheat). I had thought these were merely sound effects, but they’re actual explosions like you faced in the courtyard of the previous map. Assuming that the access hatch door is “north”, then what you do is run along the east branch of the corridor hugging the north wall, then duck into the alcove with the access door and wait in the corner to the right of the door. If you do this right (and it might take a few tries) the detonations will come down directly onto the roof of the shaft. These detonations will kill soliders who were waiting up there and their deaths will summon the Osprey to lower replacements. If you can do it again while the Osprey is hovering there, it will be blown to bits before you ever even enter the shaft.
I actived camera mode to watch this and it’s enormously gratifying to see the Osprey destroyed by the very artillery strikes it presumably called in. It also means you can start the Blast Pit episode with greatly enhanced health, armor and ammo levels.