The HL2: Episode 1 black hole grenade

by Joystiq Staff on Aug 6th 2006 5:40PM

An ingenious poster, RomeoJGuy, over at Halflife2.net has found a secret weapon within Half-Life 2: Episode 1 -- The black hole grenade.

While this thing does look to be very mouth watering, a word of caution for some players is in order since some who tried it out have reported crashes after entering the code needed to enable the grenade. For those who own the game and want to try it out, enter these words in the console: "hopwire_vortex 1" then "give weapon_hopwire."

Anyone interested in seeing what it looks like, there's already a YouTube video of it up.

Source

Tags: Black hole grenade, BlackHoleGrenade, PC

Reader Comments (72)

Whoa.

That's awesome.

'Whoa'

Thats what i thought when i saw this vid too!

Wow. That is fucking awesome. They keep coming up with the coolest weapons. I mean, they have the Crowbar, the Gravity Gun and the Portal Gun. And now this (I assume it'll be used in a future episode)?

I said the same thing too

Simply, wow.

The effect is pretty cool, but this can't compete with the black hole grenade from MDK2 in terms of cool factor.

I'm guessing the next innovative gun would be a marvel called the Tiny Car Gun.

Here's how it would work: using an internal portal system that's connected to another portal at a Miniaturized Auto Dealer, the gun would launch tiny cars which would have their own individual AI-controlled tiny drivers who can drive in circles around enemies, distract them, crash into them, etc. At one point in the game, Gordon will come across a large box of disassembled Hot Wheels tracks, and the player will use this to control the chaos of the cars.

Simply put, the people who make those Rube Goldberg devices in Gary's Mod are gonna have a field day with this ground-breaking innovation.

whooooaaaa indeed.

How the hell did he figure out this code. Did he sit around entering random messages into the game?

I would like to repeat what #1,2,3,4,5 and 8 said:

Woh...

Actually it sounds like something out of Ratchet and Clank

Been trying this thing out, and managed to kill myself and Alyx a number of times. However, once I set one off, I try to give myself another and it won't let me. Any ideas?

It IS like something out of Ratchet and Clank. There was a weapon that had the exact same effect in the third R&C game. I doubt there's a connection, but hell that looks just as much fun! :D

That. Is. Freaking. Awesome. I can't wait until that is an official game weapon! Agh, I can't wait until Episode 2.

gah, i was just dreaming up my dreamgame and black hole grenade was one of the weapons!! whenever i think i come up with a great idea, i find some company who already did it.

does the portal gun have TIME portals too?

Lame, another weapon they are copying from the Turok series. Get some original ideas Valve.

Oh yea...Turok was a far superior series to Half-Life too right?

/rolls eyes

I agree with Frank, except for the dissing of valve, since valve rocks. Turok did the black-hole grenade too, that even had different modes of firing, and it was cube-shaped, it was very cool. But no valve are not lame for copying it. If they were smart, the next gun they would copy would be the Cerebral Bore from Turok 2.....omg!

GSI, he never said Turok was a better series, but that they are copying.

Personally I haven't played Turok so I can't judge. But don't misread what he said.

This's been out for a while...before Romeo found it, at least (which was a while back in its own right). My mates were kicking this around. Interesting warp effects, though. Very cool.

Number 10--my mates were looking through Episode 1 for leak entities (which they did add, sortof). "find hopwire" brought this up.

True...but he is attacking them for using a weapon that was used in another game. If that was the case then every FPS game with a basic pistol, shotgun and machine gun is lame for copying whatever FPS game used it first.

Nice weapon, cool effect. Shame the environment looks like crap, though.

I'm more interested in the part of it adjusting gravity. I'm wondering if the HL2 engine can simulate gravity and the AI necessary to be able to stand on surfaces based on the change in gravity.. (Not to mention the portal potential)

Thats... so... awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's more of a satchel charge than a grenade though.

Meh. That didn't look that great. The Gravity Vortex launcher from the Chaos UT mods was much more impressive. Aside from just grabbing anyone near it and crushing them into a mutilated ragdoll, it actually stayed a while and affected the trajectory of projectiles, even grabbing them into orbit. It looked awesome in the middle of a battlefield having tons of floating balls of plasma and rockets swirling around it.

Ha! More like a strictly contained and localized black hole grenade! Gordon and Alyx would be way within the event horizon.

ZOMG! PWNED!!!

#26

You can have a Black Hole with a small event horizon. If you decrease the mass in the singularity to the mass of the Earth, you will get a small event horizon (a couple of cm IIRC).

I wonder if you could be partly sucked into the black hole, right when it starts closing up. That would definitely be... messy.

@1-5 and others: ME TOO!

The Singularity Generator from Blood 2 (1998) predates Turok 3's PSG. Anybody got an earlier instance of the black hole gun/grenade idea?

Its not like its anything new, Ratchet and Clank: Up your arsenal (released in 04) had a gun called the rift enducer which basically did the same thing except it was a gun that fired black holes instead of a grenade.

Actually it reminded me of the Men In Black cartoon.

#29
Yes, Painkeep for Quake had a weapon called a Gravity Well (Early 97 I think). It was a cube that you dropped that sucked everything in, just as the name suggests.

Actually, if any of you remember the sci-fi movie "The Arrival" from 1996, the aliens in it use a device almost identical to this to clear out rooms.

Come to think of it, there was a Black Hole Generator starship weapon in the old-school PC game Master of Orion back in 1993. I don't think there were any cool effects of enemy ships being sucked into the singularity though.

Anyone remember a movie called "Ghost Busters"?

Anyway you can use it twice?

Just found out, use impulse 101 to get 5 more after using the rest of the code

Hidden weapon, probably going to attempt to unveil it in episode 2... by which time they should have fixed the crashes (and perhaps the source engine stutter also ;P )

what in the world is that!?
that's just... just.. well...
CRAZY!

#10 - Valve gives away the source code to HL2 in the SDK (of course the engine is closed source), so it was just a matter of time before a mod developer noticed it.

This was in MK2 aswell.

That if awesome, i wounder what other secrects it has....

tbc

Warhammer 40k has Krak Grenades, which are similar. That's 1987.

It might not be anything new in itself, but it's going to be a lot more interesting than previous black hole weapons due to HL2's fantastic physics engine. See that deforming bridge on the Episode 2 trailer? Imagine chucking a black hole grenade onto a structure like that and watching the deformation as it caves in on itself. Or imagine using one to divert an incoming missile. Or... imagine the possibilities, if you will.

Kind of reminds me of the alien weapon in the the movie "The Arrival" (starring Charlie Sheen).

Jenever: Krak grenades are nothing special, just powerful anti-tank grenades. Nothing involving black holes.

Well, that looks... lame. I mean, Prey had much more interesting ideas in it, if you're amazed by that then you really should try playing Prey.

I've tested it using Hammer and you can make your own map and play around with it. I put 20 chairs in a room... funny stuff.

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The HL2: Episode 1 black hole grenade

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