I just completed a Crowbar only run in Half-Life.

[Gdj 24]

Title. I was in the Half-Life mood, so decided to take a swing at a crowbar only run. I hadn't seen very many on the internet, and the few that I did see were by speedrunners, so i figured that i could try it in a normal run. It could be fun, right?

Oh God was I wrong.

First off, let me tell you the rules I set for my self:

1. NO weapons that Gordon can pick up are able to be used EXCEPT for the crowbar, unless weapon usage is required to complete a certain area.
2. In game objects such as turrets, or tanks. Barney could also be used for backup as well.
3. Any glitches or A.I bugs were allowed to be exploited to their full potential.

The game was relaitvely easy for the first few chapters, as most of the Xen creatures couold only attack via melee, and the Vortigaunts would freeze when attacked. The Bullsquids were annoying though, as all of their attacks did around 30 damage per hit. Other than that, it was a relative breeze.

Then "We've got hostiles" happened.

The Marines Kicked. My. Ass. Their guns drained my health so quickly, and they turn around to face you much quicker than any of the Xen enemies were able too. Most fire fights would leave me with single digit health, and I ended up running away from certain fights entirely.
I don't know why I didn't use the scientist exploit to skip the chapter, but I guess a part of me thought it was cheating.

Blast Pit was easy, and Power Up went by without much incident. On a Rail gave me some ♥♥♥♥ though, and it was the first part of the run where I had to use a weapon. Technically. I took an alternate route up one of the train car segments, and I came to a wall of explosive crates. What you're supposed to dso there is blow them up with a satchel charge, but I noclipped past it instead. I counted it as a satchel charge use though.

Apprehension was a breeze. The Marines dissapear for a bit during during Residue Processing, but they were back in full force in Questionable Ethics. They gave me notably more ♥♥♥♥ here, as they were in signifigantly larger numbers here. With only about 5 health left, I made it to Surface Tension.

It took me a solid week to get past this chapter, specifically the mountain section. There are very few aliens in this chapter, and the few that roam around are mainly the alien grunts. Not fun, and it was clear to me that the game was not built with the crowbar in mind past chapter 6. I even had to use 2 rockets in order to destroy two grunts on top of a building, as Barney would not move until they were defeated.

Near the end of the chapter, there's a door that's mis-programmed to give you health when you're stcuk in it. I used this glitch to give myself 40,000+ health. Wheter this is cheating or not, I don't know. I don't think it is, but If you guys believe that it is, I hard saved right before I performed it, so I can easily go back to it.

With my infinite health, the rest of the game went by without much issue, besides the two Xen bossfights: The Gonarch, and The Nihilinth. It took forever, but I did manage to defeat the Gonarch by just Kamikazee attacking into him. The infinite health really helped here, and I predict that I took at least 10,000 damage during this section. I also ended up having to use approximately 39 tau cannon shots, because the Gonarch temporarily sits on a platform above you, and you're supposed to shoot him down from there.

Interloper wasn't difficult, but I can see why they toned down the spawn triggers in Source. I kept waiting for my health to drift below the 255 mark, but i never did.

Then, I got to Nihilinth... It took me nearly two hours to beat him. It wasn't because of the inherrent difficulty or anything, it was just because of how poorly designed it was. He spams those annoying teleport balls, (Which always teleport you to the exact same room after the fifth teleport. I'm 99% sure I teleported to the Gargantua room at least 100 times.) Amazingly, after taking out the chrystals with the crowbar (Harder than it sounds, due to the fact that you constantly have a teleport ball after you.) I eventually was able to lodge myself into his head, and I then proceded to hold my mouse button down, and after about 10 minutes, he finally fell.

I met the G-Man, and I accepted his offer.

Let's, check the stats:

1. Satchel charge, no kills
2. 2 Rockets, 2 kills on alien grunts
3. 39 Tau Cannon shots, Damage done to Gonarch, but did not deliver the final blow.

That's all I have to say. I didn't record the gameplay, but I probably will do another run eventually, and I'll record it then. I'm also planning to record a crowbar run for Half-Life 2 and it's episodes as well. If you have any questions or comments, please ask me!

Thanks guys!

[[415]BlazeMcNight]

I'd like to see it. Def record it and post it.

[Lead]

Your gonna have hell in half life 2. And hl2 ep2 is almost impossible

[OVERWATCH]

But that door glitch is like a god mode

[Gdj 24]

Originally posted by Vlad:

But that door glitch is like a god mode

Yeah I know, that's why I saved beforehand in case people wanted my to go through the rest of the game without it.

[Black97]

ah, so you two have heard that quote from Russell

Alyx: Russ, what's the deal with the crowbar?
Russell: "Oh, you mean Gordon Freeman's crowbar? "
Alyx: Yeah.
Russell: "Oh Alyx, he fought his way out of Black Mesa with nothing BUT that crowbar."
Alyx: No way.
Russell: "It's true! Well, it's true that that's what they say. You know, nobody knows for sure"
Alyx: Well, when I get him out, let's give him a gun.

[Gdj 24]

Christ, this was 4 years ago now. I'm so glad that we actually got another Half-Life game after all. 14 year old me at the time I wrote this was pretty much convinced that it would never happen.

[Trygger]

Now we need a Pipe Wrench/Knife only run for Opposing Force and a crowbar only run for Blue Shift.

[Gdj 24]

Blue Shift would probably be super easy with how short it is. I can imagine the final HECU encounter being a bit of a pain but it's totally doable. Opposing Force though, I'm not really sure on that one. I haven't played through it in a few years, but I can think of a couple places that would be damn near impossible without weapons. I'll try it out sometime though.

[フタナリ]

Really? Complete Half-Life without taking damage. If you lose 1HP, you lose

[UmbralPenumbra]

Do a grenades only run. Good luck with everyone running away from them

[Ikagura]

I'd like to do a "one bullet" run of the game (yes, like that achievement in HL 2 Episode 1)

[Gdj 24]

If a (mostly) crowbar only run is possible, then that absolutely is doable.

[CrypticAlloy]

Although this is an old post, I myself actually decided to start a Half-Life crowbar run recently, although I'm doing it as truly FULLY only crowbar, so I'll have to find workarounds to certain sections.

I'm currently on the mountain area myself, and I have enough niche source engine knowledge to hopefully get past areas such as the high up grunts you mentioned, which I intend to do a very cautiously placed rocket jump to get up towards (and yes rocket jumping is very much possible, but you have to be incredibly precise as to not instantly remove all your health), or use goldsource's busted movement system to bhop and essentially trimp up there.

Also regarding the marines filled areas, they're not too bad if you know how their grenade throws and attack patterns work. By bhopping to get insane amounts of speed, you're able to get in very close very quick. And spamming crouch will stagger their aim, since they always try and aim for center mass, which moves erratically when spamming crouch. And then for the most part you just want to cycle between getting close and backing up, since they will go for a very choreographed melee kick or shove, which prevents them from firing for a few seconds. And then once you know how to abuse that it's a matter of getting crowbar headshots (Yes, I do mean crowbar headshots) and trying to get them to lob grenades at themselves.

I'm currently encroaching on the helicopter section, which I don't quite remember whether you actually have to defeat it or can just go past it, and I found this post while trying to see if there was a solution already found. If you need to take it down, I'll likely need to rocket jump up to it's hitbox and swing away for a WHILE.

I also don't intend on using the health exploit you mentioned, it feels like a cheap move and I'd rather rely on already given tools to beat the game with only the crowbar, including when fighting bosses like Gonarch.

And of course Nihilinth won't be hard 'cause you can just use the tau to jump up onto it's head really easy.

But anyways great job on the run! Actually kinda nice to see that a true crowbar only run has rarely been done if at all, I expected it to have happened plenty of times considering how old half-life is.

[Usual]

Originally posted by Lead:

Your gonna have hell in half life 2. And hl2 ep2 is almost impossible

I'm pretty sure it actually is, the game gives you the gravity gun before the crowbar, and the game acknowledge that you have to use 1 bullets to break a lock