Breakdown

• Play on Easy. Normal mode is roughly comparable with Halo on Legendary. Hard mode is for masochists. Easy is roughly comparable to what Normal should be.

• Never fight more than one shielded guy at a time in melee. You will die over and over again. If need be, keep running past them til you manage to do so and survive.

• Regular guns are only useful on regular enemies, but health is always scarce. Don't conserve ammo or grenades, as you will usually take a hit or two while punching guys with guns to death. Well, at least til you get some real powers late in the game.

• Do not quit at the bad starting bit because of the terrible shooting and hard enemies before you get upgraded. The soldiers are boring, you get to beat up those aliens later on.

• Do not quit at the long jumping section, the best bits of the game come after it and the genius devs let you replay it with super jump which makes it take about a minute.

• You have to run at the first Solus encounter, he's invincible. Dodge the mines.

• When you see the torn up, covered in blood Alex (Alyx lol) during one of the hallucinations, kill her. She's actually a T'lan.

• You're supposed to lose in the first Solus boss fight. You haven't done anything wrong.

• When you get to the bit of the game where you lose your HUD, you can still see your health and T'langen by pausing.

• The HADOOOKEN attack, while cool, is fairly bad.

• Spam shockwave like a motherfucker when you get surrounded and in any bit which you find difficult. Like the very last fight - the infamous nightmare room.

• A fully charged jump kick is excellent for taking down Heavies. Retreat and continue to use it. Do not engage more than one Heavy or they will use you as a toaster.

• Every time you upgrade, your initially bad Jan Lee forearm smash move gets better and better. By the time you get The Ultra Accelerator it hits about six times.