Half Life 2 Episode 2 Achievements
Apr 06, 2017 Getting the whole achievement, ONE video - Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/techatticup.
A trip down memory lane raises one important question: Why hasn't Valve finished off these episodes yet?
Half Life 2: Episode 2 was, as the name implies, is the second foray for Valve into episodic content for their widely acclaimed Half Life series. Episodic content was seen as the new way to produce games but clearly something that did not gel well with the way Valve developed games. The first episode was released in the middle of 2006 and it then took the developer a year and half to complete the second. Perhaps to quell any displeasure at this long wait, Valve bundled Episode 2 with the innovative Portal and long awaited Team Fortress 2. The original Half Life 2 and Episode 1 was also included in this 'Orange Box', which means I now have two copies of these older games. If a year and half was a long time to wait for the second episode, consider that it is now going on two and a half years since the release of Episode 2 and there is still no sign of the final chapter. This is despite Valve releasing Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 in the intervening time (not that I'm complaining about those games!). Having just replayed Episode 2, it is especially troubling to consider the possibility that Episode 3 may never see the light of day.
Complaints about Valves failed Episodic release schedule aside, this game oozes the style and attention to detail that the developer is famed for. Perhaps the reason they could not finish these games in an episodic time frame is the sheer amount of game they insist on shoving in. During Episode 2 I fought off antlions, crawled through zombie infested buildings, smooshed combine soldiers in my sweet ride and defended a missile silo against rampaging robot/monsters (robonsters?). That amounts to a plethora of action packed into roughly 4 to 5 hours. There is enough new ideas peppered through the classic Half Life experience to keep things fresh and the constant scenery changes makes the whole experience feel vaster.
Graphically, Episode 2 is an nice improvement on the Half Life 2 games that precede it, which demonstrates the effort Valve put in to making the Source Engine so extensible. The game is not shy about showing off the advances they had made to the venerable engine, with gratuitous particle effects and high dynamic range shots. Still, with a modern eye you can see how long in the tooth Source is getting compared to more modern engines. It will be interesting to see if Valve continues to use and improve on Source in its future games or if they move on to a new codebase that would not be held back by legacy content. That is not to say that the newer Source games look bad, just that these games are often more defined by their artistic styles rather then their ability to pump out the shiniest of new graphical techniques.
But gameplay and graphics is not why I picked up Episode 2 for another spin. Finishing off achievements and getting another S-Rank is the name of the game!
Episode 2 was the first in the series to be integrated with Steam achievements. That doesn't mean that they are of the groan inducing kind that was often seen in other early achievement sporting games. Do I have to mention the tediousness that is Assassins Creed 1 and its mind numbing flag hunt? The 22 achievements include a healthy mix of story, skill and just-plain-amusing achievements. Stand outs include 'Little Rocket Man' which involves carrying a gnome (of the garden variety) through almost the entire game only to then launch him into space. There is also 'Payback', awarded for killing a Hunter with its own weaponry and 'Hit and Run' which requires you to road kill 20 enemies in your car. One of the nice things about the achievements is that they all seem quite gettable. This is more than I can say for the achievements in the other Orange Box games. Gold medalling the challenges in Portal seems to require such technical skill and timing and the sheer amount of Team Fortress achievements means that I cannot see myself even attempting to S-Rank either.
I had actually already performed an achievement run for Episode 2 some time ago to complete some of the more difficult challenges. I can still remember replaying the Antlion section many many many times trying to find every one of those grubs. Here's a tip if you ever try it: Make sure to remember there is a least one grub hidden after you take the elevator out of that level. Another achievement which took several tries was the 'Neighborhood Watch' achievement. This is located at the very end of the game and tasks you to save every building during a 'protect the base' style mission. I must have got pretty adept at that section at the time because when I replayed it this time I barely managed to complete the mission let alone save all the buildings.
Before replaying Episode 2 this time, I only had one achievement to nab to S-Rank it. 'Hot Potat0wned' rewards you for killing a Combine soldier with their own grenade. Not a particularly difficult task when you find yourself in the right situation, but throwing grenades is not how I usually deal with Combine so it had sat on the figurative shelf for quite some time. It must be noted that it takes about half the game for Combine soldiers show up. This was not bad in my case because I was planning on replaying through the entire game anyways.
Unfortunately this meant that I had to endure that dang ending that promises so much for the final chapter. So I'll just say it again. Why hasn't Valve finished off these episodes yet?!
Console Commands
| Effect | Code |
|---|---|
| Impulse 101 | All guns, extra ammo. |
| showtriggers_toggle | Draw game triggers. |
| mat_normalmaps 1 | Draw normal maps. |
| mat_normals 1 | Draw surface materials. |
| notarget | Enemies can't see you. |
| npc_kill | Kills all npc’s in the area. |
| vcollide_wireframe 1 | Only objects effected by physics are wireframe. |
| cl_ragdoll_collide 1 | Ragdolls don't clip through other ragdolls, note that doesn't mean they can land on physics. |
| impulse 200 | Removes the weapon model from the screen. |
| ch_createjeep | Spawn a scout car. |
| ch_createairboat | Spawn an airboat. |
| impulse 83 | Spawn an airboat. |
| god | Toggle god mode on/off |
| noclip | Toggle moving through walls and flying on/off |
| mat_fastnobump 0 | Turn off bump mapping |
| mat_fastnobump 1 | Turn on bump mapping |
| physcannon_mega_enable 1 | Turns Gravity Gun into Super Gravity Gun. Weapons dropped by enemies vaporize regardless of how they are killed. |
| mat_wireframe1 | Wire frame models. |
Contributed By: Shadow., COMPASSION34, and jbfatman.
Spawning NPCs
Access the console, type in 'npc_create npc_<name>' and replace the name with one of these:
| Effect | Code |
|---|---|
| barnacle | Spawns a barnacle. |
| turret_ceiling | Spawns a Ceiling Turret. |
| citizen | Spawns a City 17 Citizen. |
| combinedropship | Spawns a Combine Dropship |
| helicopter | Spawns a Combine Helicopter |
| metropolice | Spawns a Combine Metrocop |
| cscanner | Spawns a Combine Scanner. |
| combine_s | Spawns a Combine Soldier. |
| crabsynth | Spawns a Crab Synth |
| crow | Spawns a Crow |
| headcrab_fast | Spawns a Fast Headcrab |
| fastzombie | Spawns a Fast Zombie. |
| turret_floor | Spawns a Floor Turret. |
| launcher | Spawns a Headcrab Launcher |
| headcrab | Spawns a Headcrab. |
| hunter | Spawns a Hunter. |
| ichthyosaur | Spawns a Ichthyosaur. |
| manhack | Spawns a Manhack |
| mortarsynth | Spawns a Mortar Synth |
| pigeon | Spawns a Pigeon. |
| headcrab_black | Spawns a Poison Headcrab |
| headcrab_poison | Spawns a Poison Headcrab |
| poisonzombie | Spawns a Poison Zombie. |
| rollermine | Spawns a Rollermine. |
| seagull | Spawns a Seagull |
| stalker | Spawns a Stalker. |
| strider | Spawns a Strider. |
| vortigaunt | Spawns a Vortigaunt. |
| zombie_torso | Spawns a Zombie without legs. |
| zombie | Spawns a Zombie. |
| zombine | Spawns a Zombine (Combine Zombie) |
| alyx | Spawns Alyx. |
| antlionguard | Spawns an Antlion Guard. |
| antlion | Spawns an Antlion. |
| barney | Spawns Barney. |
| breen | Spawns Breen. |
| combinegunship | Spawns Combine Gunship |
| dog | Spawns Dog. |
| eli | Spawns Eli |
| monk | Spawns Father Gregori |
| gman | Spawns Gman |
| kleiner | Spawns Kleiner |
| mossman | Spawns Mossman |
Contributed By: Shadow. and TimmehBoy.
Half Life 2 Episode 2 Gnome Achievement
Achievements
Complete each condition to get the allotted Achievements.
Half-life 2 Episode 2 Gnome Achievement Guide
| Unlockable | How to Unlock |
|---|---|
| Kill an acid antlion worker. | Acid Reflex |
| Kill 30 enemies with thrown physics objects. | Bone Breaker |
| Find every radar cache in chapter Under the Radar. | Cache Checker |
| Kill an enemy by planting a hopper mine. | Deadly Harvest |
| Save the missile silo from the Combine offensive. | Defense of the Armament |
| Squish every antlion grub in Episode Two. | Get Some Grub |
| Unlock the rocket launcher lambda cache in chapter Under the Radar. | Gordon Propelled Rocket |
| Steal a Zombine's grenade. | Grave Robber |
| Destroy the Combine cannon in the junkyard. | Gunishment! |
| Run over 20 enemies with the car in Episode Two. | Hit and Run |
| Kill a Combine soldier with his own grenade. | Hot Potat0wned |
| Help Griggs and Sheckley hold off the antlion invasion inside the mine shaft. | Into the Breach |
| Send the garden gnome into space. | Little Rocket Man |
| Survive the Hunter ambush with Alyx. | Meet the Hunters |
| Save all buildings outside the missile silo from destruction. | Neighborhood Watch |
| Kill a Hunter with its own flechettes. | Payback |
| Beat DOG in a race to the White Forest base. | Pedal to the Metal |
| Find and break every web cache in Episode Two. | Piñata Party |
| Defeat the chopper in Episode Two without any misses. | Puttin' on a Clinic |
| Survive the ambush at White Forest Inn. | Quiet Mountain Getaway |
| Secure the launch doors on missile silo 2. | Secondary Silo Secured |
| Defeat both antlion guards outside the White Forest. | Twofer |
Contributed By: Daz_man123.
Steam Achievements
This title has a total of 22 Steam Achievements.
| Achievement | Description |
|---|---|
| Kill an acid antlion worker. | Acid Reflex |
| Kill 30 enemies with thrown physics objects. | Bone Breaker |
| Find every radar cache in chapter Under The Radar. | Cache Checker |
| Kill an enemy by planting a hopper mine. | Deadly Harvest |
| Save the missile silo from the Combine offensive. | Defense of the Armament |
| Squish every antlion grub in Episode Two. | Get Some Grub |
| Unlock the rocket launcher lambda cache in chapter Under The Radar. | Gordon Propelled Rocket |
| Steal a Zombine's grenade. | Grave Robber |
| Destroy the Combine Autogun in the junkyard. | Gunishment! |
| Run over 20 enemies with the car in Episode Two. | Hit and Run |
| Kill a Combine soldier with his own grenade. | Hot Potat0wned |
| Help Griggs and Sheckley hold off the antlion invasion inside the mine shaft. | Into the Breach |
| Send the garden gnome into space. | Little Rocket Man |
| Survive the Hunter ambush with Alyx. | Meet the Hunters |
| Save all buildings outside the missile silo from destruction. | Neighborhood Watch |
| Kill a Hunter with its own flechettes. | Payback |
| Beat DOG in a race to the White Forest base. | Pedal to the Metal |
| Find and break every web cache in Episode Two. | Pi単ata Party |
| Defeat the chopper in Episode Two without any misses. | Puttin' On a Clinic |
| Survive the ambush at White Forest Inn. | Quiet Mountain Getaway |
| Secure the launch doors on missile silo 2. | Secondary Silo Secured |
| Defeat both antlion guards outside the White Forest. | Twofer |
Contributed By: Eevee-Trainer.