Ravenholm
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Ravenholm is a fictional town in the 2004 computer game Half-Life 2.
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[edit] Description
Ravenholm is a former mining community inhabited by people that escaped from the Combine-controlled City 17. Due to recent bombardment with Combine artillery containing headcrabs, however, Ravenholm is now swarming with several varieties of headcrabs and the zombies the headcrabs create with the use of a human host. Gordon Freeman, the game's main character, must travel through Ravenholm when the Combine attack nearby Resistance base Black Mesa East, during the chapter called "'We don't go to Ravenholm ...'". The level has also been given the nickname "Resident Half-Life" by fans,[who?] a reference to the Resident Evil series, due to the massive number of zombie-like Headcrabs in the town. Indeed, Ravenholm shares the anguished atmosphere of games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, as its desolate suburbs are only illuminated by seemingly random small fires and a full moon shrouded in dark clouds.
While fighting off hordes of Headcrabs, Gordon meets the lone (human) occupant of Ravenholm, the old pastor, Father Grigori. The zombie-hunter priest provides assistance and advice to Gordon, such as arming him with a semi-automatic shotgun (resembling a SPAS-12), and eventually leading Gordon to an abandoned mine, which becomes his route out of the town. Many areas of Ravenholm are littered with large sawblades, propane cylinders, barrels of flammable material, and booby traps which have been contrived by Father Grigori. Due to the severe scarcity of ammunition in the area, Gordon must rely on the traps and Gravity Gun (with which he can fling blades and other projectiles) to destroy the zombies. The entire town is also littered with people and headcrab zombies that have been hanged, burned, sliced and suffered other horrific fates by Grigori's traps, though arguably less horrible than that of being a headcrab zombie.
Just before escaping from the aerial bombardment of Black Mesa East where Alyx, Judith and Eli reside, there is a large door which is the entrance to a tunnel completely closed off from the main base. The door simply looks sealed, but a quick glance through the glass indicates that the tunnel may also have been blocked off artificially with junk. This is further confirmed when Alyx mentions that 'that's the old passage to Ravenholm'. Alyx also mentions how everyone used to be able to travel to and from Ravenholm at will until the bombardment from the Combine.
Ravenholm was most likely obliterated by the citadel explosion in Half-life 2: Episode One, which reached well past the city limits.
[edit] Grigori's work in Ravenholm
As the only current known survivor in Ravenholm, Grigori had set up many traps and structures, in order to fight the zombies more efficiently. Ravenholm was also separated with wooden barricades, in order to separate the town into districts (for zombies to be found in a more organized manner). Traps are highly effective due to the lack of intelligence in headcrab zombies.
[edit] Traps
- Propellers can be found all over the town. These utilize razor-sharp pieces of scrap metal mounted on a rotary shaft attached to a gasoline engine. The engine rotates the scrap, and uses it as a horizontal rotor. The 'blade' spins at waist height and any target passing by is dismembered at the hip. Humans can easily avoid this trap by crawling or ducking; however, headcrab zombies are unaware of the dangers and proceed (resulting in the aforementioned dismemberment).
- Car Traps are created from cable, a pulley, a car, and a winch engine. The car is suspended in mid-air by the engine, and a lever on the engine disengages the cable to drop the car (crushing anything beneath it). Then, with the cable under pressure again, the engine immediately pulls the car back up, allowing the trap to be used again.
- Electric Fences are fences or other metal surfaces that have been wired to a generator. They deliver lethal shocks and must be disabled by a nearby switch to allow passage. Gordon encounters only one of these fences in Ravenholm.
- Propane Tanks are large compressed fuel tanks attached to irrigation sprinklers; when activated, they will fill a small area with flammable gas that one can light (using a conveniently placed set of spark plugs, a firearm, or by hitting something metal within the area of the gas with the players crowbar, thereby also igniting a spark) to create a blaze that will quickly incinerate any enemies in that area. (These same traps are later seen in Half Life 2: Episode 2, and used for the same purpose: Zombie extermination)
[edit] Other information
Ravenholm was initially named Quarrytown, and featured both Combine soldiers and zombies, as seen in the E³ 2003 demo, "Traptown". The way the player was introduced into Ravenholm was also different, as seen in the "Docks" demo, where the player is walking on some docks, which lead to Ravenholm.
The town of Ravenholm has small to medium sized houses which are mostly made up of concrete and wood. The streets and houses vaguely look eastern European or possibly Russian. Several high-rise apartment buildings that bear resemblance to Soviet-era apartment buildings can also been seen in some sections of the town, implying it housed more people than initially believed.
At the very end of Chapter 4, Water Hazard, a brown silhouette of Ravenholm can be seen in the background against the sunset situated on a cliff just past a hydroelectric dam before Black Mesa East.
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