So, been playing through Half Life 2 lately, and I FINALLY freaking got through Ravensholm. No spoilers in this first post (though spoilers for the game up through Ravensholm are more than welcome after this), but the part in the graveyard was freaking awesome.
As were any of the parts involving gas lines. 
I actually started playing that game on Xbox a couple years ago and stopped on Ravenhold and never went back. However, I picked up HL2 on Xbox 360 a couple weeks ago and finally beat the entire game.
I must say, not a huge fan of Ravenholm. I hated those stupid fast moving enemies who climb walls and scare the crap out of me, and I also just didn’t care much for the environment.
Yeah, much of Ravenholm isn’t held in a terribly warm place in my heart, but parts of it were great. Really, it just needed to be shorter. That was way to long for what is basically a diversion from the actual plot.
And yeah, I freaking hate the Fast Zombies, as well as the Poison Headcrabs. But I <3 the saw blades.
I just bought the Orange Box last month, and have so far finished HL2, Portal, Lost Coast, and perhaps 1/2 of Episode One. I’d call it the best 60 gaming dollars I’ve spent in a while (since buying WarCraft III or Battlefield 1942 I’d say)
Ravenholm was freaky watching my brother play it 3 years ago, and it was freaky playing it myself. Fast zombies, poison headcrabs, and zombies covered in poison headcrabs can just stay the hell away from me. That level made me wish for a flamethrower.
You know the things you find laying around that look like fire extinguishers throughout the level? Those aren’t fire extinguishers. They have entertaining effects when you hit Zombies with them using the gravity gun.
Double-edged sword; if you turn a corner and meet a zombie head on, or are surprised by a head-crab and freak out, then lugging a tank around with the gravity gun goes from an interesting weapon to a liability PDQ. 
Indeed. And despite their awesomeness as missiles, the exploding barrels are just too damn big to be able to see what you’re doing. I’m always afraid I’m gonna accidentally fire the thing point-blank into a nearby rock or an upward slope in the ground. RH did have some nice “Hoshit! The plaza is SWARMING with headcrabs!” “puzzles” where the solution was “Shoot one of the barrels” which turned the entire plaza into a delightful Rube Goldberg machine of zombie slaughter.
That’s why we don’t go to Ravenholm any more.
The fast zombies crack me up–they pop with a single shotty blast. Poison zombies/headcrabs? Not so much.
Ravenholm got a lot easier for me when I realized I didn’t HAVE to use the gravity gun all the time–it’s a neat situational toy, and glorious sawblades, but really sometimes you just gotta give 'em double-barreled love.
Anyone here who plays TF2: My steam id is “zeriel”. =p
Ravenholm bugged me both times I played through HL2. It is creepy as hell, for starters, and it’s frigging dark. And it seemed like I was always low on ammunition.
The best thing about getting past Ravenholm is that the next two bits are absolutely incredible.
The Coast Road buggy and crane battle and the sweet, sweet vengeance that is bug bait. (Not only do you get to sic an unlimited number of antlions on those combine douchebags, you also get to send antlions into certain death, which might even be better. I hate those little bastards.)
Ravenholm speed run. Three minutes, five seconds.
For anyone who hasn’t experienced the delight that is Concerned (The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman), the Ravensholm bit is one of the best. Then go back and read it all, because all of the other bits are the best bits too.
IIRC, they released the Ravenholm episode as the demo for HL2, and I guess I didn’t read instructions or something, I had no idea what the gravity gun was or how to use it. I went through the episode using “classic” weapons, not knowing the joy of flinging sawblades.
I loved using that rotating sawblade thingy in the plaza – zapping it with the gravity gun so it started rotating, then watching as it sliced zombies in half! Whoo doggies, that’s some good fun. Of course, the blade eventually falls off the rotating thingy, but then I’d just pick it up and shove it into the zombies manually. Awesome.
Plus, Father Grigori is such a jolly psycho.
Gotta agree about the poison headcrabs. HATE.
How the heck is he climbing up the walls and over the roofs like that? At least that’s what it looks like he is doing.
Of course it’s fast if you bypass most of the friggin’ level!
I’m not sure precisely, but it looks like he’s exploiting a bug in the engine where he grabs a piece of debris and proceeds to release and grab it so quickly that he’s able to stand on top of it and go up before gravity manages to assert itself. I don’t know how that works, but that’s what looks to be happening.
It’s common for speedruns to use weaknesses within the game (hacking the game from outside is generally discouraged, though) to bypass large sections of a level – speed wins, period.
So freaking cheap. 
This is just amusing, from the wiki page on Half-Life 2: The development team noticed that upon hearing the poison headcrab’s cries, playtesters would frantically start looking around for the poison headcrab so they could destroy it, regardless of any other present dangers.
At least we don’t have to lug a damn gnome through the whole place. I’ve played the game through at least twice and Ravenholm still freaks me out.
My favourite part of that level was when the speedzombies were chasing you over the rooftops: you’d hear this ominous groaning rhythmic clank, spin round frantically to see where they were coming from next, and see the broken off drainpipe swaying in time to the creaking: the fuckers were climbing the fucking drainpipes after you!
Yeah, but if you ran up to the drainpipe, you could get a cheap headshot in as he climbed towards you.
What was really satisfying was popping one off in mid-air with the shotgun, the zombie corpse landing at your feet with a satisfying thud.
That, and the last helicoptor blade trap in the mineshaft. That thing was just fun to watch work.