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Half-Life 2 Hints

General Antlion Notes

  • 1 of 8: Antlions will spawn in groups of five or six in sandy beach areas when they hear you running or driving along nearby.
  • 2 of 8: If you're in the jeep, you can shoot antlions with the tau cannon, run over them, or just drive by them and leave them behind.
  • 3 of 8: If you're on foot, you can shoot antlions with the SMG (or other guns) or hit them with Primary Fire bursts from the gravity gun to knock them on their backs temporarily.
  • 4 of 8: In any case, it's highly desirable to get to safe ground as quickly as you can.
  • 5 of 8: Safe ground usually means higher and/or rockier ground that antlions can't spawn on. They may chase you up there in some cases, but they can't keep appearing all around you.
  • 6 of 8: Any ground with a few feet of water over it would be even safer. Antlions die very quickly in any amount of water, though this isn't usually useful since you don't ever want to enter the ocean for any reason (but watch for large ponds you can use to your advantage).
  • 7 of 8: There are also large black devices called thumpers in a few areas that will constantly make huge, scary vibrations in the ground that the antlions don't dare to approach. You're safe if you're parked or standing anywhere near an active thumper.
  • 8 of 8: Whenever you come across a thumper that isn't on, you can turn it on by running up to it and using a little red-light-green-light control panel on one side. (After it's going, you'll still probably have to shoot the antlions that followed you to it.)