Half-Life 2 crashes on Highway 17 mission.

[DarkUnderlord]

I'm on the Highway 17 mission, having just ridden the dune buggy to the base which is then attacked by a Helicopter Gunship. I get the Rocket Launcher from the commander (it's the first time in the game that you get the rocket launcher), run outside and always at the same time, the game crashes to the desktop.

I'm at this part of the game:
http://www.visualwalkthroughs.com/halfl ... hway17.htm

Point 18.

I have enough time to shoot the gunship once or twice but whether I sit around and do nothing or whether I try and take it down, the game just crashes. No error message, just a complete FTZZ, blank screen and the Microsoft "Would you like to report this error?" box. It's the only time Half-Life 2 has ever crashed on me too.

I ask because Google isn't helping.

Any pointers? Anyone get something like this?

 

[Section8]

I don't think I've ever even had Half-Life 2 crash on me, let alone repeatedly at a specific point. The best I can suggest is perhaps trying an older save game, even if it means doing the entire Highway 17 chapter again.

Otherwise, see what your options are as far as logging. I'm assuming there is a debug mode for modders and such, so you might be able to glean something from a logfile that you aren't getting from crash dialogs.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Yeah, I ended up reloadeding a previous auto-save which wasn't too far behind where I was (no really, it was like, 10 seconds before my last save) and did it again. No problem. No crash. So not sure what was going on, I guess one of the NPCs in the area or some scripted event just wasn't triggered properly.

I've just gotten past the bridge now. Woah. Now that was some scary stuff jumping around under there!

 

[Data4]

I've just gotten past the bridge now. Woah. Now that was some scary stuff jumping around under there!

Wasn't that great? That level was as close to simulating a fear of heights as anything I've ever experienced in a game.

-D4

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Yeah, that part was fun. Something's happened though. I've gotten to the prison now and suddenly, Half-Life 2 has gone from a fun action romp... into a boring sideshow. Looking back so far on what I've done, I realise everything's been a bit gimmicky. I mean, there was the prolonged opening sequence which is fine in and of itself. Then we had a smidge of action before hitting a super-long air-boat ride. Which was fun and ended right before it became too long. So far, so good.

After a bit of fun with the gravity gun, it was then back into gimmicky stuff as I run around in a combat zone but rather than being alone, there's some other guy there helping out. Well, thanks mate but fuck off. The hoardes are mine to vanquish. I don't need any help thank you very much. The downside of that is the realisation that you do need help because the monsters never stop spawning, which means more and more you start to rely on your companion becasue you know his pockets never run dry of shotgun shells.

After that we're back to another long trip in a vehicle, this time a dune buggy with the same periodic stops as with the water craft. After the fun at the bridge, we get to a decent bit of action and some pretty hard sand jumping puzzles as you use the gravity gun to move the metal plates around (which I wouldn've thought would trigger the Sand Bugs but doesn't :/).

After that, I'm now USING the sand bugs in the prison complex and I've realised that it's just going on too long. Outside for a bit was fun but now inside the prison, I'm not doing anything. I'm just chucking bug bombs and letting them do all the work. I have a limitless supply of bombs and bug critters that keep respawning to my aid, so it's not as if I have to think about it. I just chuck the bug bomb and wait long enough until their sheer numbers overwhelm everything else.

It's funny but after getting to the point where I was doing deliberate commando solo runs into areas (caring less and less about my health) just to get a chance to kill something, ANYTHING before the bugs got to them, I realise it's just not fun anymore. I realise that when you piece it all together and couple it with a story that you're still trying to understand (like why those purple zapper aliens are speaking English and are on my side now, which is yet to be explained), it kind of loses its impact.

I'm actually hoping it picks up soon.

 

[kingcomrade]

It doesn't, really, it just sorta ends after a prolonged battle sequence where you use nothing but a supercharged gravity gun. They don't explain a single thing. Ooh teh mystary. I had fun through the beginning of the game, but by the prison I too had gotten bored.

 

[Section8]

Well, I think Valve did an excellent job of varying the core gameplay from chapter to chapter, and I agree the bug army to command bit was one of the weaker chapters.

The next one is also a bit passive when it comes to killing stuff, but somewhat strategic. After that, you're back into the good stuff, if I remember rightly.

 

[Shagnak]

I ultimately found that any of the driving bits got a bit tedious. Perhaps 30 percent too long.
When they basically had to go back to their traditional HL roots, i.e. tight level design and scripting, then things really picked up for me.

The bridge for example. Holy fucking shit that thing freaked me out in parts. When it groaned from impact it almost made my pants fill with gravy

Also that "trap town" or (whatever the fuck it was called) with all the headcrab-zombies.
Some people I know think that sucked. But I thought the freaky intensity in that part was maintained superbly. Helps that I like "survival horror" I guess.

The bug bomb part? Yeah, I thought that was pretty damn cool in the beginning, but once again good level design (for want of a better word) went by the way in favour of a gimmick (as you call it).

Still, all-in-all I thought it was a good game.
Not as good as Far Cry, but infinitely better than that one-dimensional POS known as "Doom 3".

 

[RuySan]

The game used the crash on me when i had modden drivers (i have an ATI card). Since i've changed to official Catalyst drivers, it never happened again.

Btw, this game is probably the most overrated ever. I didn't finished because i was really bored. Just check this ratings at Gamerankings:

HL2 - 95,6%
F.E.A.R. - 89%
Farcry - 89,4%
Call of Duty - 92%
Painkiller - 81,9%
Doom 3 - 87,4%


I know painkiller and Doom are aquired taste here, but the rest are so much better and more fun that HL2.

 

[Spazmo]

I gave up on HL2 somewhere in that prison complex place (Nova Prospekt?). There's that long stretch where you have to set up those little turrets and defend rooms against attacking soldiers that's really a pain in the butt.

 

[Zomg]

I actually really enjoyed those defend-the-room set pieces, particularly the second one in the prison block. I really got that, "There is too much shit going on!" vibe that the old vertical/side-scrolling shooters can give you as I was running around putting turrets back up, taking potshots, grabbing live grenades and throwing them clear, and smashing manhacks with the gravity gun.

The first and third ones aren't too good, though, since the turrets do almost all the work. I felt like almost all of the gameplay setups (airboat, car, strider hunting, etc.) went on a scene or two too long.

 

[WouldBeCreator]

I thought the assault on Nova Prospekt using the bugs was a fairly incredible gaming moment. You're right, of course, that there wasn't much skill involved -- it as a bit like when you got invincibility in a Mario game -- but the sheer visual / emotive power of summoning up bugs to overrun the guards was impressive. Suddenly, numbers were on *my* side, suddenly *I* was the one with monsters, *they* were the ones scared shitless, etc.

The game did bog down a bit after that. I found the boat racing extraordinarily tedious. the dune buggy too. Both felt too light and out of control.

The strider fights lasted too long, but were initially kind of neat. The physics in Ravenholme were incredible.

 

[themadhatter114]

I thought having the bugs on my side was pretty cool. You still had to deal with the turrets on your own. The narrative really picks up beyond that, though. I think the last couple chapters are pretty damn cool and the strider battles are fun.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Well so fa it hasn't gotten any better. After having legions of minions do my work for me and then the turrets do my work for me, I now have SQUAD MEMBERS! Who do my work for me as well. What's annoying is that even when you deliberately set them up to take grenades in the face, there's more of them right around the fucking corner!

I've also found out that I'm not too far away from the end of the game, which means HL2, when compared to HL1, is rather disappointingly short. The overly-long sequences of not doing anything yourself (interative movie anyone?) wouldn't be too bad if there was actually more to do.

Like from Half-Life I can remember the great moments when you first encounter those giant monsters in the water and you're totally crapping your pants as they swim by. Then the train rides which were short enough to make you want to do it again. Those bits fighting the invisible assasins who'd only de-cloak to fire at you. The incredible battles as you ran around trying to outflank a series of enemies who were in the process of outflanking you.

Another thing that brings up is the lack of monster diversity in HL2 so far. It's just all over-watch guys and nothing else for most of the game. Anyway, I'm now in the process of saving Barney from snipers.

 

[kingcomrade]

The greatest moment of the game is when you first step out into the plaza and that odd music starts to play. The atmosphere is wonderful. Then, after not very long, the novelty of the beautiful engine and fun physics starts to wear off. Eventually you even get bored with the weapons. The revolver is cool, except it's as accurate as a sniper rifle and there's never any ammo, and the submachinegun is cool, except it's really the only worthwhile weapon in the game so you get bored with it after a while. The overwatch soldiers are cool, until you realize that it's them or headcrabs or *gasp* headcrabs on bodies.

My favorite enemy in the game was the helicopter. It was just so cool looking. Too bad it was kinda puny, but I really enjoyed the part where it drops mines in front of you, even though that doesn't make any sense. Why not just fly behind and shoot with the energy gun rather than try to hit someone with mines?

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I can unashamedly say that I have never been happier to uninstall a game then when I uninstalled Half-Life 2 (and it's partner in crime, Steam). After enduring yet more crashes in the same place during the mechanical pod ride, I upgraded my video drivers. It helped. By all of 3 seconds. Instead of crashing (freezing) before I went past the helicopter manufacturing bit, it crashed right afterwards as the train went by.

Thankfully a tweak in the video settings with everything changed from high to low got passed that problem. Only to encounter... The "I cannot jump" bug. This bug is unusual and lives up to its name in that you simply cannot jump. I had the gravity gun. I was wasting more soldiers and thinking about how gimmicky it was (lack of actually strategy, no choice in weapons, no reason to conserve ammo etc...) only to encounter a small barrier which I had to jump over. The lack of my ability to jump made this small barrier an impedible obstacle.

Re-loading any of my save games didn't fix it (my practie of relying on the auto-saves with one additional manual save had finally proved fruitless) so I had to start a new game at that chapter. Thankfully, HL2 has chapters you can start again. Thankfully, I was not far into that chapter. Thankfully, I wasn't too pissed at having to endure the pod ride again. After getting past said pod ride for what I hoped would be one final time, I got the gravity gun and... I could jump this time. Yay!

I progressed onwards. Only to encounter yet another pod ride later on which... caused another crash. Reloading got me past that one though. So far, in the past 3 hours of playing HL2, I had reset my computer some 6 times. Numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10 were not far off as HL2 then proceded to freeze:

• When loading a save game
• Upon entering a new area.
• For no apparent reason

I perserved however and managed to struggle on. Freeman endured all obstacles laid before him and finished the game.

I then decided it was time to check out that Lost Coast level. As I played it I thought "Now this is the kind of levels that HL2 should've been more full of, instead of that gimmicky crud" only to have it... freeze. That was enough Lost Coast and I found that I couldn't uninstall the sorry piece of shit fast enough.

Overall though, crashes aside (which I'll put down to my old graphics card, even though it seemed quite capable of running 99% of the game), I have to say Half-Life 2 was one of the more boring FPS I've played. Story? Sure, if you don't mind it not making any sense. Fun? Yeah, if you don't mind ignoring the fact that you should be playing a FPS and instead get caught up in the gimmicks used to:

• Take away any sense of strategy.
• Remove the need to conserve ammo as you encounter crates of unlimited ammo.
• Find out how useless rockets are as it takes about 10 of them to take down anything, yet you can only carry 3.
• Are thankful that whenever you actually need to use rockets, there is ALWAYS an unlimited supply of rockets nearby. In fact, whenever you needed to use any weapon, there just happened to be an unlimite crate full of ammo for them nearby.
• Don't mind using whatever weapon just happens to have a crate of ammo nearby. Forget about using that more powerful gun and just use the one you have ammo for. This means you can ignore the good ol' 6 shooter (which has no ammo for it anywhere in the game).
• Encounter vast legions of the same enemy again and again and again. In Half-Life 2 you go up against such a diverse range of opponents as headcrabs, headcrabs on bodies and overwatch soldiers. And no, tnat's it. That's all you ever encounter.
• Forget about engaging in combat yourself for vast periods of time as you enocunter unlimited supplies of bugs, soldiers or my personal favourite, invincible hero characters who all do the fighting for you.
• ... not to forget the long periods you spend in a buggy or hovercraft not shooting anything and just running and gunning it.
• Encounter reams of health all throughout every single level. Forget about ducking behind that wall to avoid enemy fire, then strategically running across the field as you lob grenades. Nope. Just run from health box to health box. Better yet, there's plenty of crates to smash open for goodies around every single fucking corner.
• Don't mind not having anything make any sense what-so-ever. Who are these aliens? Why am I fighting them? Why are the aliens I thought I saved the world from in HL1 now helping me in HL2? Enjoy as all these questions and many more go unanswered.
• Don't mind having this extra program thingy called "Steam" running in the background just so you can play a single-player game you paid for. Nor mind it automatically upgrading HL2 the minute it's installed making you wonder how long it's going to take to finish downloading so you can play the damn game.
• Create an incredibly short game that's not worthy of its predecessor.

Unless I hear HL3 finally has story that explains EVERYTHING that happened since HL1, I ain't gonna buy it. I know there's story out there on the web. That's nice. I want it in the game. You know, that thing I paid for.

 

[flip-the-coin]

Half-life 2 crashes in Area 17 for me too

Hi, half-life also crashes for me in highway 17, but a little further on. I've powered, down the shield over the large bridge, got back in the buggy and driven over, dodging the train. Then I go up the ramp and into the tunnel, turn the right-hand bend, then 'loading' kicks in. And never kicks out. Either the games freezes like this, or it crashes to the desktop. Every time. I've loaded save games as far back as I can in highway 17 (which was beginning the bridge section). I've got a save from Ravenholm, but I really don't fancy trying that unless absolutely necessary.

Any ideas- could I skip this portion, or jump straight to the bit that's being loaded perhaps?

Thanks