ABSTRUCE ALIGHTMENT
===================

Part 1 - Snow Tunnels
---------------------

You come to as you float down on parachute, smack your lower body on a dark A-frame structure, and land in the snow.  As soon as you land you start to register cold damage but it won't actually hurt you.  Run back around to the other side of the structure and crouch-walk through the open doors.

Obviously, you'll need your flashlight a lot in this next area...  The little lantern marks where the stairs down to the lower level are.  The lower level doors are open too and you can go out them, but as you do a window breaks and a headcrab could possibly come through!  Since you have no weapons yet you'd best just run...  But chances are he won't follow you far.

Look to the right when you leave the lower level doors to see a tunnel through the snow.  Go into it.  You'll now be in the snow tunnel section.  It will probably seem much more extensive than it really is.

Follow the tunnel along until you get to a four-way junction.  Go straight.  At the next junction go straight again.  As you leave the second junction a headcrab falls from the snow ceiling, but if you're quick you'll be out of there before he sees you.

The tunnel passes over a glass skylight but you've no way to break the glass yet, so just continue past, farther down the tunnel.

You'll come up to a metal surface which breaks as you walk upon it.  You'll fall into a large, dark barn area.  There's plywood nailed to the wall underneath where you fell in and, hopefully, you'll land on it...  Jump down to the floor.

There are no enemies in this area yet, so carefully use your flashlight and make your way to the other end of the barn and notice the door marked 'Power Generator' with a lamp beside it.  Go through that door and press the flashing red button.  Once the turbines start pull the lever to power on.

As you walk back through the barn, approaching the red tool chests, one of the chests busts open and a headcrab crawls out.  You still have no weapons, but unless you're blind as a piece of lint you'll see the crowbar in the chest behind him...  Lure him away from the chest then run up and grab the crowbar.

Back in the tall room with the cart, a headcrab has appeared on the cart.  Take care of him then jump on the cart.  Don't worry if it starts to roll, it won't hurt you.  Use the boxes on it to jump back up to the plywood and out the hole you fell through originally.

Go back to the skylights...  There's lights on underneath!  Break the glass with the crowbar and drop down into the weird blue chamber.  Watch out for the headcrab at the far end of the chamber you're in, and there's one more in the ajoining chamber.

In the adjoining chamber, press the buttons by the two doors.  One of the doors will let you out of the weird blue chamber back outside...  Once again, you'll register cold on your suit, but it won't actually hurt you.  Run up the hill toward the house, break the window, and climb in.

Part 2 - The House
------------------

In most parts of the house where it's dark there are usually light switches on the walls to turn on the lights.  Be sure to look for them - they can be very helpful.

You can't go down the stairs to the left when you leave the first room.  (Obviously.)  Go across through the door.

You'll now be in the master bedroom.  The only danger in this room is a headcrab around in that little cubby to the right of the door.  Leave out into the upstairs hall.

Through the first door on your right is a small room with a headcrab in it.  The second door on your right is a bathroom, but there's nothing in it except some shower fixtures to bash.

The door at the end of the hall also has nothing important in it except 1 unit of health (from a soda can).  However, the room at the end of the hall to the left has a battery in the closet, and also some neat computer equipment to play Half-Life on.

Go back out to the hall and downstairs.  There's a headcrab to the left of the foot of the stairs. If you don't want to kill him yourself, try turning on the chandelier (the switch is beside the master bedroom door).  You should also see the headcrab on the dining room table.  If you kill it, more headcrabs start coming in through the smashed window.

Around the corner from the dining room is the kitchen with some life-giving soda pop in it.  There's also a gunrack with a very useful firearm in it.  <reality check>  Note that, until the doors were ripped off the gunrack, the guns were all locked up safe.  You never leave your firearms just lying around in the house in real life.  </reality check>

Go back past the stairs into the living room.  If you go near the piano the window busts and a headcrab comes in.  Go then into the office with the hole in the wall.  Through this hole you can access a small room with a TV closet thrown in front of the door.  It left another hole in the wall that you can use to get into the pantry.  There's a headcrab on the shelf to the left and health to the right.

Out the door is the garage.  It's imperative to turn on the lights here (the switch is to the right of the door) to see the three headcrabs.  The stairs in the garage will get you down to the basement.

There are two headcrabs in the basement and a recharger.  Listen in rapture to the cool radio message  then go down the open manhole to the sewer.

MELLIFLUOUS REFUSE
==================

Part 1 - Sewer Maze
-------------------

This sewers section is a massive maze of pipes and corridors.  You probably only have to actually visit 20% of the rooms to escape, but you'll miss a lot of valuable items.  This area contains two 'secret' shotguns, and you can't find the shotgun again until much later if you miss them.  HINT:  Both are fairly close to the donut-shaped sewer section.

But for reasons of laziness on the part of the writer, this walk-thru will just get you through as fast as it can.

P.S.  If you like headcrabs you're in luck, because that's pretty much all there are in this area.

You emerge from the pipe into a room with a rat.  If you need 357 ammo (you do need it - go get it!) bust through the ice and break the grating in the floor.  Follow the tunnel along to another room that connects to a long room with a bullchicken at the end.  One well-placed 357 shot always takes care of bullchickens.

Go to the end of this room and get the 357 ammo.  Note that the blue door is locked, and can never be opened.  All blue doors like that that you find in this area can never be opened.  I made a point of being consistent about that.

Once you have the ammo return to the first room with the rat.  Go through the icy pipe into an icy room all red.  There are barnacles hanging down from holes in the ceiling.  Careful, 'cause at two places the ceiling breaks and new barnacles appear.

Go in the left pipe at the end of the next corridor.  There's a headcrab around the first bend.  You'll now be in a thin shaft with a ladder leading down and another pipe and a door.

Go through the door to emerge into a tall room with a waterfall.  Go in the door at the other end of the balcony.  A twisty passage takes you out to a donut-shaped sewer area.  There's a bullchicken across from where you came out.

There are a whole lot of ways to leave this area, many of which lead you to fascinating chambers with lots of cool crap to get.  But you want to get out quickly, so follow the passage left, around the corner, to the first doorway.

Pass through this doorway into an area lightly infested with headcrabs.  Go through the doorway on the right and go along until you get to that split pipe that goes left and/or right.  Choose left.  (If you're interested in one of those shotguns go right, it's real close by.  But don't whine if you get lost.  Besides, getting lost is all the fun.)

Out the other end of the pipe it's pretty much a one-way series of rooms.  There's 1 headcrab to deal with along the way.  You emerge into a big, cool room with houndeyes everywhere, and lots of cool pillars which are useless, really, since you can't use them to 'hide' from the houndeyes' sonic attacks.  Crush them all, then spin the wheel to open the grating and go through into the next area.

Part 2 - The Two Tanks Puzzle
-----------------------------

Climb up the ladder.  In the room with all the pipes, an alien slave teleports in as you approach the center, so WATCH OUT!  Turn the lever to open the door then go in and turn the lever inside.

You'll notice the chamber fills with water!  But then the door at the other end opens and you're free to swim out into tank 1.

For reference I'll call the tank you start in 'tank 1' and the other tank 'tank 2'.  Initially tank 2 is filled with water and tank 1 isn't.  Initially the huge fan in tank 2 is on and the one in tank 1 isn't.  The way out is on the topmost level of tank 2.  On the second-to-top level of both tanks is the corridor which connects the tanks.  On the bottom level of tank 2 is a lever which controls the water, and on the top level of tank 1 is a switch which controls the fans.  Note that to reach the top level of either tank the tank must be filled with water and the fan must be off.

(Throughout this entire area more alien slaves teleport in all over the various levels, so watch out.  You don't have any cover from them, so blow them away as they appear.)

First climb up tank 1 to the connecting corridor and go through it into tank 2.  Swim all the way down to the bottom and pull the lever, which drains tank 2 and fills tank 1 with water.  Go back to tank 1 and swim up past the deactivated fan to the top level.

Be careful because as you approach the switch a slave appears right behind you.

When you hit the switch here it turns off the fan in tank 2 and turns on the fan in tank 1, seeming to trap you on the top level of tank 1.  But notice the fan in tank 1 doesn't turn on right away - you have time after pushing the switch to run and jump down past the fan before it turns on.

Swim back to the connecting corridor and go back into tank 2.  Go back to the bottom level and hit the lever again, filling tank 2 with water.  You can now swim up to the top level of tank 2 and escape through the airlock.  Careful - in the airlock there's a headcrab immediately to your left.

Part 3 - Sewage Treatment Plant
-------------------------------

Emerge through the shower into a concrete chamber not unlike many you've all ready visited.  If you think you're still underground go look through the red door...  whoa.  You can see the two tank puzzle to your right.

Press the elevator button to open the doors.  Step inside...  AUGH!  Don't worry, it won't fall, but you'll notice the button inside isn't working.

You have two ways down now.  One way is to leap off the balcony, but that hurts a lot.  It you're not interested in doing that, try shoving that crate into the elevator and standing back...  yikes!

Climb down the shaft and go through the lower doors.  Through the red door to your right is a tiny storage room with some ammo and health in it.  It also has an alien slave in it who tries to tip a shelf onto you when he sees you.

Go out the other red door to get outside.  Needless to say, it's pretty chilly, so run as fast as you can to one of the other blue-lit doorways.  I'd suggest the one on the left first.

It takes you into a chamber with water running through it.  On the other side of the water is a slave, and another slave teleports in when you approach the switch.

The fancy machine at the end is called a 'bar screen', something I remember from my grade 9 trip to the Fergus sewage treatment plant.  When you push the button it drags all the junk from the water up and throws it in the furnace.

The first time you push the button there's a shotgun on the rack!  If you missed getting it in the sewers, this is your chance.  But you have to hurry to grab it, because once it's thrown into the furnace, man, it's gone.

The second time you push the button it drags up a health kit.  That's all.

Don't worry about the area beyond the partially-open door beside the bar screen, there's nothing through there but headcrabs and hard times.

Go back out and run through the snow to the next doorway.  It takes you into a tall room with a slave on the balcony in front of you when you go in.

The next area I call the 'gray offices' since that's the colour everything looks.  It's not that big but it's positively crawling with slaves.  The best strategy for sissies is probably to inch out of that chamber with the flashing light until one of them sees you, then run back to the flashing chamber until they come around the corner.

There are two spots where slaves teleport in, both times behind your back.

The way out is just straight through, right past the lobby and the rooms to the right.  If you want health go up the stairs, but that's the only reason you'd need to go up the stairs.  Go through the red door and you'll be back outside.

Run to the left and up the snow-covered stairs to the next entrance.  Beyond the red door here is a room full of boxes.  There's a slave on the far side of this room.

Part 4 - Treatment Plant Effluent
---------------------------------

There's headcrab at the top of the stairs, and two houndeyes at the bottom.

Next you'll be in a largish, water-filled room with a bullchicken camoflauged under the water.  The way out is the door off of the platform to the left of the one you come in on.  To get there you have to move that bridge over.  The controls for it are on the platform diagonal to the one you come in on.

Plunge into the water and find the bars that are broken.  Go through them.  Don't try to surface for air in the next room, it would be horrible and painful.  Go beyond it and climb up the ladder.  There's a recharger here!!!  Go out and across the bridge.  Just on the isolated chance that the bridge should break, go around again and jump the gap.

There's a headcrab just to the left of the next doorway. The ajar door here can never be opened.  Press the button to move the bridge then get back to the first platform.  (There's a ladder.)  Cross the bridge.  The ajar door can never be opened, but you're not missing anything.  The closed door can be opened, but there's nothing in there except a room with crates stacked in front of "no storage" signs.  Fortunately, you can drop down through the busted grating.  (This place is just falling apart!)  Go down underwater and swim through the tunnel to the steel pipe, and out into the river.

The ice prevents you from surfacing and you can't make it very far up or downstream.  Your goal is the pipe just across the river and a little downstream.  It shouldn't be hard to find.

Once in the pipe, surface for air at the first air pocket then swim on to the next area.

Part 5 - Blue Offices and Ice Wall
----------------------------------

Climb up the ladder to a room with a red light and a door with bars in it.  Out that door is a spacious channel area with two headcrabs to your right when you go through the door.  But they're pretty far off so you can pick them off as they approach.

The channel bends to the left and then forks.  Careful, there's a headcrab on the opposite side of the fork.  To the right is a dead end so go left, around the bend, and watch for the bullchicken concealed under the water.  There are two doors (one is right next to you, the other is farther on) that both lead into a cramped concrete area with pipes and headcrabs.

A green floor-mounted light shines on a small green door in the middle of this area.  That door is the way out.  There are two sets of red-lit shelves with supplies on them in this area, find both before going on.

Up the dark stairs beyond the green door is another green door, and that door opens into a small hallway partially blocked by snow cave-ins.  I call this area the 'blue offices'.  I don't know why.

There are two other doors to the right of the one you came in from.  You can go either way, and in fact you should go both ways to see all the cool decor.  This is another tight area packed with slaves.  Carefully weave your way to the other end and go through the other green door.

Pass down another dark stairwell to get to another concrete chamber.  There's a bullchicken on the other side of the pillar.  Go out the door to be back in the channel area, but on the other side of the cement gratings that blocked you earlier.

There's a bullchicken underwater to the right when you emerge.  Go right, around the corner, then straight down to where the ice surface starts.  The two doors you'll pass can't be opened from the outside.

Around the next turn there's a four-way junction with two of the ways blocked, one by a cement grating, the other by a sheer wall of ice.  Careful - there's a bullchicken on the other side of the grating.  You can also see a wheel on the other side of the grating.  That's what you have to get to.

For some health you can swim under the ice sheet into the junction.

Go through the junction to the right and drop under the ice through the hole and go down through the pipe.  Follow it to the end to come up in a deep tank with a ladder.  At the very top of the ladder there's a headcrab looking you in the face so watch out.

Go down the stairs into a yellow corridor.  This corridor looks way too plain...  Something must be up.  Something is up, as the wall at the first turn busts when you approach it, immediately flooding the tunnel, and it becomes choked with leeches.  Get past them and go up the stairs at the other end.

The next chamber has two doors.  Choose the one that takes you to the area behind the cement grating.  Watch for the headcrabs at the far end of the tunnel.  For shotgun shells go down to the hole in the ice at the far end and scour the floor under the ice sheet.

Turn the wheel.  Steam will spill from a pipe beside the ice wall, making part of it shatter.  Go back in the door and out the other one and back around to the ice wall and skip past it, quickly so the steam doesn't hurt you too much.  Go in the door.

Part 6 - Rock Tunnel
--------------------

Get the health (you'll need it) and turn the wheel on the pipe to open it.  Get into the pipe and follow it either way.  Both ways lead to the same place, but left is faster.

Drop down into the huge pipe and approach where it inclines.  Hey...  The sky!  This might be the last you see of this blasted sewer motif!

Unfortunately, it's not the last you see of the sewer motif, since the pipe suddenly blows its foundations when you're halfway up.  You're likely to take damage from the fall, but if you try to land in the water without slamming against anything else first you won't.

Take care of the headcrab coming down the tunnel at you.  If you need supplies swim underwater down the flooded tunnel.  Go up the un-flooded tunnel.

At the first turn there's a headcrab sitting on the rock to the left.  At the second turn the vent in the ceiling breaks and a headcrab plummets out.

A little ways ahead you'll see a ladder, but you can't climb it.  Ever.  Well, way farther down the tunnel, past the dark stretch, there's another ladder.  (Whew.)  Watch for the headcrabs at the far end and there's one hidden on the left side of the dark stretch.

There's a headcrab right at the top of the ladder.  Out the door there's another door that opens into a supply area.

Now observe the big tanks with the explosive symbols on them.  Try shooting them.  Well, that was dumb.  Quickload.

Carefully squeeze between them and carefully pick off the headcrabs, without hitting the tanks (including the small pipes that run between them).  I'd suggest the 357 for this part since it doesn't have spread.

Around the second bend is the end of the tanks, but there's a bullsquid there too.  Try to pick her off before she spits at you, but if she does manage to spit, DON'T dodge it, or else it will hit the tanks and then --=*@*=--

There aren't any more enemies in this level so prance along to the ladder and climb up to the next area.  Unfortunately, you'll never get there since this is where the map pack ends and you're all pissed off since it's over.