[Necromancer]

The Antlion Academy

The next large room you come to is infested with antlions, as there are three pits in the floor here. Uncoincidentally, there are three cars just waiting to be tossed into the pits; your goal is to find them and bat them around with your gravgun until they all get into the holes in which they belong, preferably before Alyx dies.

First off, hit the car on the lowest level into any of the three antlion pits there, then crawl up the fallen rafter beam to reach the second level. The second car is right in front of you, so crawl behind it over the crate to your left and punch it down to the bottom level to plug another pit. With that done, make your way back up to the second level and find the ramp leading up to the third. You’ll notice a large open area after passing over a pair of rafters, so head through there, drop down to the car below you, pump the zombine in the head with some shotgun rounds before it has a chance to get up, then flip the switch nearby to open the gate here. When it’s opened all the way, push the car down to the lowest level to plug the final pit and get a moment’s peace.

With all that done, return to the highest level here and flip the lever until the gate here is as high as it gets, then move underneath. After descending the stairs, fight your way through the enclosed passages beyond to reach the dreaded Elevator.

The Elevator

When you reach the elevator room, feel free to poke around a bit, but when you hit the elevator itself, Alyx will automatically attempt to start it up, which of course causes it to shut down. Some kind of electricity short. As she so helpfully notes, though, the sparking wire attached to the elevator likely leads to some kind of power supply. Maybe examining it will enable you to get the elevator started again. Yeah...maybe.

Anyway, you can probably tell what’s going to happen here: you’ll activate the elevator electricity, then have to wait for it to arrive amidst hordes of festering zombies and zombines. Happens all the time. Hell, happened to us when we got to work this morning. Anyway, as you might expect, it’s going to be a rough fight, especially on the harder difficulties. It’ll take a couple of minutes for the elevator to arrive, so you’ll have to survive until it doesn.

One of the keys to this fight is waiting a while before flipping the elevator switch. Poke around the area with your flashlight for a while, finding any health, ammo, or propane tanks that happen to be lying around. The propane should be picked up and brought back near the elevator, along with any extra supplies that you can’t use at the moment, such as surplus health. Scatter the propane and explosive barrels around; try not to bunch them up too much. As you roam around, some of the zombies will likely poke their heads out, so take them down as you see them. There should be some cinderblocks around, which make for excellent zombie-smashing devices in a pinch. Even the zombines will go down after a couple of blocks to the face, making it a cheap way to survive here.

Tip: Before flipping the switch to restore electricity to the elevator, turn off your flashlight and let it recharge all the way before turning it back on and hitting the panel.

When you’re ready to get your fight on, flip the switch at the end of the sparking cable to start bringing down the elevator. This is obviously when things start to get tricky. You should be at full health if you looked around enough and obtained all the health boxes in the area, so start whacking your enemies in the face! Most of the lower-health enemies will keel over dead when you smack them with a cinderblock, but be ready for the zombines, who’ll often pop out a grenade or two while you fight them. An alternate-fire blast from both of your shotgun barrels will often persuade them to drop the grenade, allowing you to run away from them before they blow. Just be ready for any secondary explosions from the propane tanks or explosive barrels in the area; they can often cause a cascade of explosions in the area.

Whenever you have a quiet moment, turn off your flashlight for a second or two to let it recharge, then flip it on when you start hearing sounds. After a couple of minutes of fighting, the elevator will finally arrive, so try to be near it when it starts entering the shaft and immediately climb on board. If you do so, you’ll have a safe trip up to the surface.