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<rant>At the end of Episode 1, we faced one Strider. Has anyone counted the Striders in EP2's last battle? I gave up the fair fight after the dropships arrived and switched to god mode. After all the fun and rather well balanced previous fights, I was sorry to see the onslaught of Hunters and Striders spoil the last fight of the game.

My specific beefs about the fight after the dropships' arrival are:

- lack of infinite RPG rounds or crossbow bolts or grenades to take out the packs of three to four Hunters from a reasonable distance. I was out of these items by the time the dropships arrived.
The logs are fine and dandy for close combat against one or two Hunters. However, unless you are a master/mistress of long distance grav-gun fu, you need to wait to be well in range of the flechette attacks.

- insufficient amount of HEV batteries

- lack of adequate support from the NPCs. The biggest group was wiped out by the very first strider and the two Hunters. I'd like more support from the NPCs. They should be able to :
1. take out at least one Hunter in each group.
2. activate the Magnusson device planted on the Strider

There. Let me know if I should reload and try again or if you found the last section of the fight overwhelming.
</rant?

I think you'll find, Locworks, that you may have neglected your most powerful anti-Hunter weapon in that fight.

Hint

Yeah lol, think roadkill. (Although I would have much rather fought a few big waves of Combine foot soldiers first to spice it up.)

I pretty much turbo'd theough the two or threee hunters by a strider in one go, got out, strider busted and exploded a strider, drove off, rinsed and repeated at a fast pace.

I think my tactics were a bit too... pedestrian for that encounter. Thank you for the hints, fellow acolytes. Taking out the hunters quickly that way will leave the Striders vulnerable to the Magnusson's Mighty Weapon of Doom and Sarcasm.

BE warned though, its not going to make it easy, when I did it they still destroyed the silo a few times before I did it right

Who else here hates the get some grub achievement? I was TEN ******* GRUBS OFF! That is SOOOOO frustrating.

I learnt about that achievement way too late. It's on the to-do list when I run through the mines next time. For the moment, there are over a hundred glowing little buggers laughing their squishy abdomens off and I mildly disapprove..

Oh yeah, that's evil. Don't think I could do it.

However, I did successfully transport the gnome from the cabin at the beginning of the game (where Alyx first communicates with White Forest) all the way to White Forest itself and place it in the rocket.

So at least Lamar had some company before being launched into space.

Actually, I was disappointed by how easy the strider battle was, even the first time through on "hard"! :p The base was only blown up once, and even then that was more an experiment to see if the RPG-launching NPCs would be able to take down a single lone strider (I'd taken care of the hunters already). Sadly, I was off trying to get the next strider,looking away from the base, so I don't even know what the fireworks looked like! :x

I like the achievements and documentary - I doubt I'd have played it through twice more without them, and I'm waiting for Valve to update HL2 and EP1 with them before I play through those again as well. But I can completely relate to wanting the option of turning the achievements off, say via a checkbox in the options dialog. I also wish some of the achievements weren't so lame - kill an acid antlion? Like one has a choice! :x

The option should be to disable those "achievement gained" popups.

And, yes, game progress achievements do seem rather... daft. But then, Steam Stats says only 44% of people that have played Episode 2 have completed it, so I suppose those achievements do have a place in telling your friends how far you've got.

They actually indicate whether you cheated to go through certain encounters or not. I finished EP2, but cheated in the last battle, so no achievement there.

... *Creases face up in confusion* Why would anyone cheat their way through any part of the game on their first play through? Where's the fun in that?

I don't know about the others, but in HL2, I cheat when an encounter is simply too hard for my less-than-nimble fingers and my piss-poor reflexes or when I fail to figure out the only possible way to defeat the opponents (car vs. the Hunters in the final battle).

I suppose that I actually could practice enough to avoid cheating, but my playing time is severely limited by many Real Life factors and I'd rather get to the next area in the game than spend hours dying and dying again against the same enemies.

See you just need to hire someone to play through the things for you. I never play games myself, that's what I have a man for.