4. "We Don't Go To Ravenholm"
The first few chapters of this game are epic, you are introduced to the world, you begin a revolution and you navigate your way on a rickety old speedboat to Dr. Vance and friends. You are introduced to most of the games key players, have a bit of fun with a gravity gun and a giant robot called 'dog' and in the flick of a switch - or an attack of the combine - you are alone. The fun and frivolity that went before his tugged from beneath you, you are trapped, alone and with only one way out: "Ravenholm." As you walk past the boarded up exit to Ravenholm some 20 minutes before, Alyx tells you somberly that 'we don't go to Ravenholm', and after the bright sun kissed skies of the last few hours, you are nowhere near mentally prepared for the shift in tone that it provides. Its a dark place that is brimming with horror, the screams of lab coat zombies seem to resonate much deeper in Raveholm, the dark maze of abandoned houses, the unknown noises, the fast zombies who haunt you for days after playing - make no mistake, there was a reason they don't go here anymore. With the exception of the crazed Priest Grigori, a man who tends to his 'flock' by putting them out of their misery, Raveholm is a hideously lonely place full or pure horror and classic suspense, something that was so firmly implemented in the first Half Life. Cast your mind back to the first time you realized that those black headcrabs take your HP to 1 in a single hit, and how subsequently your body jerked each time you heard their shrill squeaking? Or the first time you heard the howl of the fast zombie and caught - if you were quick enough - a silhouetted glimpse of their hideously disfigured body in the moon light? This chapter and its beautifully crafted atmosphere was a real turning point in the games narrative. Spending the night there was, and still is, one of the most frightening/best experiences in gaming. How much relief did you feel as you saw the light at the end of
that mine shaft? I died countless times trying to get to the end quicker than the game wanted me to, through sheer adrenaline and fear. Greeted by the warm bathing glow of daylight and all the familiar perils I had known before Ravenholm, it was good to have gone through Hell and come out alive. Until you meet the snipers on the other side of course...