You can sit back and watch your antlions charge into the Combine’s defensive line. With specific targets standing in relatively open spaces, and with a tendency to clump together, this beach assault makes a good playground for the experimenting with the use of your Bugbait. The foes on the beach are almost exclusively Combine soldiers only as you make your ascent up the cliff face do you encounter a scattered few zombies and headcrabs.

After the third and final bunker you have to push forward though the claustrophobic ruins of a half collapsed human structure before reaching the foot of the cliffs below Nova Prospekt. The size of the area watched over by each bunker, and the challenge presented by each encounter, escalates quickly. The beach is split into three sections divided by rock formations, each section protected by at least one Combine bunker. Confining all combat encounters to a narrow channel with clear boundaries, ensuring player movement is easier to manage than it would be if attacking from the water with an expanse of beach to either side. A change in the tactical arrangement of space, this shifting of the line of advance also serves to position the water to one side of the player, and the cliffs to the other. Both of these draw influences from pre-existing cultural representations of the D-Day landing, though tilted through ninety degrees to become an assault along the beach rather than up it.

The conclusion to the ‘Sandtraps’ chapter, the attack along the beach toward Nova Prospekt is reminiscent of the similar sequence from the opening of ‘The Silent Cartographer’ ( Halo: Combat Evolved). You need to progress along the beach until you reach the cliffs beneath the high prison walls, here a path up can be found. The beach leading to Nova Prospekt is abutted by cliff walls that are low enough for you to see the trees on the ground above, but still too high to scale. Having spent the day progressing along Highway 17, the sun has started to set by the time you leave the cave, the sky a darkening blue. Having obtained the antlion pheromone pod – know colloquially as Bugbait – you leave the resistance camp with an entourage composed of a pair of docile antlions an additional pair scurries down the cave to join you as you approach the beach.Īble to influence and direct the antlions, and with an endlessly replenishing supply, you can complete your assault across the beach below Nova Prospekt without ever firing a shot or you can use them in conjunction with your own weapons to distract and flank the Combine forces. This will still occur even if there are no antlions to attack, meaning once you have obtained the Bugbait you can use them as rudimentary stun grenades against Combine enemies – the hurled Bugbait has no effect on zombies and other creatures. Additionally, if you are able to hit one of the Combine soldiers with a hurled Bugbait pod the pheromones released will disorientate and incapacitate them for a brief period. As you cannot encounter friendly NPCs while able to control the antlions you will never have to worry about them attacking something non-hostile. Targeting a NPC will send the antlions swarming to the attack, while aiming at a part of the environment will send them to wait at that point. In order to use them more directly, you can throw the Bugbait in a similar fashion to a grenade you have an inexhaustible supply, much like the antlions themselves. Squeezing the pod with the secondary fire button will emit a burst of pheromones that attracts all antlions in the vicinity to your location. With the Bugbait equipped you can issue rudimentary commands to the antlions accompanying you.

Half life nova prospekt