Half-Life 2: Episode One: Urban Flight

11th July 2013

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In this lengthy chapter, Gordon and Alyx work their way through the city streets and a dangerous hospital before meeting up with Barney to make their way to another train station so they may finally escape.

Eventually, the duo manages to find the exit of an underground train station and Gordon and Alyx come up to the surface, observing the citadel from afar, and the destruction already visited on City 17.

Dr. Kleiner appears on the screens that Breen used to pass out propaganda, mentioning that the Suppression Field, which had previously prevented human reproduction, is down. As the duo moves on, they engage in several fights with Combine soldiers, Antlions, and zombies.

Alyx and Gordon finally meet up with Barney Calhoun and a group of other survivors who are preparing to move on a train station in order to escape City 17.

With the Combine still following, Gordon and Alyx split up from the group and move through a derelict hospital to draw the remaining Combine forces away from the refugees.

Inside the hospital, Combine forces and zombies of all kinds are fighting throughout the collapsing structure, and hastily constructed defences slow Alyx and Gordon down.

Trivia

No known trivia for this chapter.

Screenshots

Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

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Achievements

I won’t be covering the Episode One achievements in the same way as I did in the Half-Life 2 TREE event, because they are less chapter based. However, HLFallout.Net has an excellent guide that I can highly recommend.

The Replay Experience Experiment

This post is part of the The Replay Experience Experiment event. This is a chance to replay all the Half-Life games and discuss them based on our experiences since we first played them.

Hat Tip

The intro and trivia text are taken from the CombineOverWiki, a fan-supported, editable wiki covering the Half-Life series of games.

Walkthrough
A Complete Half-Life 2: Episode One Walkthrough

On the left is a complete text walkthrough for Half-Life 2: Episode One.

It has been written by Stanley E. Dunigan and updated with all the tricks and tips from PlanetPhillip.Com readers.

It is in PDF format, meaning you can open it directly in modern browsers or download it and print it.

(Left-click to open and right-click to save)

Do Not Own This Game?

You can purchase Half-Life 2: Episode One directly through Steam and could be playing in within moments, depending on your internet connection.

7 Comments

  1. Well, let’s say that I can’t believe I had forgotten how much fun this chapter was. I know what I like and I like what I know. and this is it. Complicated routes, going up and down, across and through buildings. Never staying in one place too long. All these things contribute to a detailed and engaging chapter.

    Gotta love the line “Leave the city immediately, if not sooner!”

    So, we get to run around, over, through parts of the city and what fun it was. I had a real blast with this level. Let’s not forget it contained two mini boss – the antilion guard and the combine gunship. Most of the action is face-to-face though and the hospital section provide the greatest challenge to me.

    Definitely the kind of level I would want to replay.

    Who can forget Dr. Izzy telling us to get busy and I even got a crowbar back!

    playtime: 1 Hour 46 minutes

  2. Urban Fight is the longest chapter and probably the better of the game. In many aspect, it remind me for Anti-Citizen One which I didn’t really enjoy. However, I didn’t realized how much time I spent on it until the train station. Near one hour of enjoyment, and I play a little fast.

    The view of City 17 at the exit of tunnels is memorable. A battle field filled with Striders and a rain of ashes falling from the Citadel and the whole City. A real apocalyptic vision, ” Do you smell the ashes ? ”

    Action in this chapter is very present with many soldiers. After the level up seen in previous chapter we now have a real battle with two, three, or even four sides struggling in the streets. And Alyx and Gordon must pass that mess.

    The Barney map before the hospital is a djà-vu. The one which really remind for HL2. In here we can rest a little, discussing with our best friend, provider of crowbar. A crowbar at last !
    We also can see that some Resistants are now tired of combat and don’t see their goal anymore. This is a scenario element that can be used in future game or in mods ; dissidences in Resistance.

    In the last part,Alyx and Gordon goes in a very nasty hospital, theater of combat between Combine Soldiers and Zombies. Well, maybe there is too much zombies in Episode 1.
    The fight with the Gunship is very enjoying, thanks to breakable decors. First it’s hard to aim the Gunship, but when the roof is enough opened, we can’t walk in the better place.

    Finally, we reach the station, ready for a new battle. But not so interesting than Urban Fight.

    CAUGHT MY EYES

    In the laser mine room does Gordon is lucky or definitly not?

    DEATHS

    One in the Medical Electrical Pool

    PLAYTIME

    52 minutes

    MY FRENCH LET’s PLAY

  3. Ade

    Nice use of the combine walls eating away at the city, was neat to pass under it.
    Interesting combination of normal building textures and combine textures in same room 🙂 few get that right.
    MAN that explosives room rly has this “I’m fkd” feeling. omg I can’t get into a vent because of this burned corpse!! took me a while to get that down.
    lol and the moment of gettin the crowbar is still emotional.
    This was a good chapter, very enjoyable, almost reaches the level of ep2. And after watching Jim P’s analysis, you can see how some stuff were recycled, like Alyx helping with the sniper rifle and the arena of zombies coming in on you several at a time, only in ep2 I think these span longer.

    I think I missed the chapter passing so I will approximate the playtime for each.
    Playtime: 49m

  4. Okay I’ll start off by saying I hate this chapter. It should have been split in two, so that the hospital isn’t mixed with the street fights.

    It’s pretty to see Alyx taking the control of a combine sniper rifle, but I guess most players complained about not being able to even see what the gun looks like since they gave us a close look at it in episode two. Since I skipped pretty big parts of the city in the beginning, I actually don’t remember what’s in them so I can’t give my review :/
    Well the explosive room(s?) is pretty stressful when you fall in it for the first time, it’s pretty dangerous to move around without knocking props over in source. The exploding doors are a pretty interesting concept, but it’s weird that we see them that often in this chapter and never in the rest of the games (correct me if I’m wrong). The last corridor with tons of zombies and two very dangerous turrets is actually pretty hard.

    Five words or less review:
    Damn that was long

    Deaths:
    one death, I’m ashamed :'(

    Playtime:
    17 minutes 33 seconds 750 milliseconds

    1. Stanley Dunigan

      Yeah, forget that old “live and learn” saying. In Half-Life, it’s “die and learn”!

  5. Unq

    The best chapter in the game. Urban Flight evokes memories of some of the best of Half-Life 2, from Anticitizen One and Follow Freeman. But the look of City 17 is quite a bit different this time around – it’s bleak and clearly falling apart. As with much of Episode 1, there isn’t that much groundbreaking here but all the elements are put together perfectly and it all adds up to a challenging and solid chapter.

    I really liked the nice balance between the often-hectic combat and the calmer puzzle sections. The explosives puzzle was a nice counter to situations like the frantic arena with the antlion guard and Combine troopers, for example. There are several other areas that nicely offset each other, so this lengthy chapter does not feel too combat-heavy nor too puzzle-heavy, even though it’s pretty packed with both.

    As I mentioned above, I think it’s really the combination of and slight twists on well-worn ideas that make for situations that stand out in this chapter. An example is the combination of the antlion guard with a number of Combine troops, plus a couple of burrows that keep spawning more antlions – it’s a nice twist on the classic guard-vs-Gordon situations in the original HL2. Another such section is the area where Alyx snipes to cover you. I thought this was a good idea and was sad it was so short (though I’m happy it returned in Episode 2).

    In all, a masterful and varied chapter.

    Playtime: 1 hour, 14 minutes

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