Who TF actually understood the story before 2010's video essays? Looking through old forum posts and Wikipedia edits, most people didn't even know the Combine were aliens for at least a year because the storytelling is so vague.
>most people didn't even know the Combine were aliens for at least a yearI played it and eps 1 & 2 multiple times in the '00s. It wasn't until xXscrimbimblo4269Xx made his 2022 8hr video about it that I realized the combine weren't just wombats that evolved sentience all of a sudden like I had thought.
>>12277706Makes sense when they cut 90% of the enemy variety out of the game.>no houndeyes >no alien grunts>vortigants are your friends now>no squidbull>ichthyosaur only seen once while teleporting>no snarks>no alien controllerInstead you slog through the game mainly fighting only 3 variants of zombies and headcrabs, combine, antlions/antlion guards, barnacles. Sometimes theres alien dropships and striders but those parts are boring. (Not counting acid antlions and hunters in the episodes). You barely see stuff resembling aliens for the first 75% of the game besides zombies which can be explained from the combine airdropping headcrabs. Guess they couldn't figure out how to drop bullsquids out of the sky.
>>12277706That just shows how good Dr Breen's propaganda is that it even works on the player. Collaborationist regimes always try to distract citizens from the fact they are under occupation by keeping up an image of things being business as usual, hence the garrisons are mostly made up of locals (not unusual in empires) and the administration has a human face as well. Breen avoids talking about the Combine as much as he can, and even when he does talk about them he uses euphemisms like "our benefactors" without once explicitly saying they are our lords let alone extraterrestrials. I think if you walked away from Half-Life 2 with the impression that Breen was the big shot and the Combine weren't aliens, that was kind of the point.
Did you not play Half-Life 1?Why would you not immediately know they're aliens?
>>12277768Because the Combine weren't in Half-Life 1.
>play a tech demo>wants to understand the "story"
>>12277764Finally a high IQ post
>>12277706>this is some kind of totalitarian dystopia, breen is in charge?>ok there is some kind of shadowy group breen answers to >wait breen is talking about seeing crazy space wonders and there's these slug creatures he's brown nosing on vidcom, this must be some kind of nightmarish galactic empire.there's nothing really remarkable about the game's story as far as being opaque. you're supposed to be in the dark at the beginning of the game but eventually enough obvious hints are dropped that you should roughly know the dynamics at play.
>>12277829>there's nothing really remarkable about the game's story as far as being opaqueNobody fills Gordon in on anything, and you get like two glimpses of the slugs throughout the whole game?
>>12277768My first thought
>game about alien invasion>you don't fight any aliensno wonder people hate this game
>most people didn't even know the Combine were aliens
>>12278118>it's about an alien invasionyou kind of completely missed the subject matter here.
The Combine themselves (besides the Advisors) are gone from Earth, with only humans who joined the Combine going through various stages of becoming living machines and the already-Combined races that make up the Striders and Gunships being the frontline units occupying the planet.And you are transported 20 years or so into the future where only a few lines of dialogue provide some important updates but most people are too concerned with their daily lives under occupation to care about history.As a kid, I basically understood the Combine as aliens who used Gordon's time in Xen to conquer Earth but I never got the whole suppression field thing for obvious reasons. I was used to never seeing children in games by this point.
Lamarr is the real mastermind behind the scenes.
>>12278179Epic reddit Upvote Now!
>>12278091>you only see the aliens twiceAnd that wasn't enough for you to understand that there's aliens?
>>12278283First one is really easy to miss and the second one is also really easy to miss
I suspect it's bait but zoomers are so dependent on YouTube they might really not understand something as simple as "aliens have taken over the earth and you're fighting back" without it.
>>12278447Cool, then you missed it.Gordon, and by extension yourself, never learned that there's aliens. That's how your story went.
>>12277706>most people didn't even know the Combine were aliensWouldn't people have figured that out just from all the Synth enemies?
>>12278134>That picrel lol
>the earth has been invaded by worm creatures with technology much more advanced than humanity, what could they be?>must've just spontaneously evolved!
>>12278505maybe if valve didnt cut all the alien looking stuff
>>12278528>the earth has been invadedHalf-Life 2 never says this; this only gets brought up in the Episodes.
>>12278668You DID play the first game, didn't you?You didn't jump into a series with the second entry and complain when you didn't understand the story, right?
>>12278668sir... please...
>>12277706You literally fight aliens in the first one.
they're not aliens if the combine colonized the place. the humans are just living on reservations.
>>12277706>people are retardedYes.
>>12277706https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Half-Life_2:_Raising_the_Bar
>>12278454Zoomers live rent free on your head, lol
>>12278704>>12278819Where are the Combine in Half-Life 1?
>>12278668>Half-Life 2 never says this;this is probably bait but there's a newspaper in Kleiner's lab that says "EARTH SURRENDERS - Combine victorious in Seven Hour War"
>>12279712woah woah woah, you expect me to read something?
>>12277764delete this anti semetic post right now.
>>12278149 only humans who joined the Combine going through various stages
>>12279712In Eli's lab actually
>>12277706What the fuck else would the combine be?
>>12279775I was being a bit facetious but it's an collaborationist occupation storyline not an invasion one, how the aliens are going to be portrayed in both is going to be quite a bit different. it's natural that manipulated humans become the main enemy.
>>12277706>>12277764Everyone knew they were aliens, numbnuts. They had a fucking monolith in the middle of the city patrolled by tripods that shot energy orbs, and had a suppression field that kept people from breeding.
>>12278134Is that guy retarded?
>>12279856https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Half-Life_2&oldid=12628143This edit is from 5 months after the game came out and there's still no mention of the Combine being aliens. In fact, the consensus at the time seemed to be that they are called "Combine" because they are transhumans (ie combining flesh and machine).
>>12279712>>12279835Eli: "Dr. Breen... He's the Administrator of this whole vile business now. He ended the Seven Hours War by managing Earth's surrender. The Combine rewarded him with power."It's right out there at that point.
>>12279959https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/914642-half-life-2/faqs/38075He doesn't say that.
>>12279973>https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/914642-half-life-2/faqs/38075>Dr. Breen-It is me you should be concerned about, I can still deliver earthbut not without your help.
>>12279973yes he doeshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpRSteLXzTcthis entire sequence tells you exactly what's going on. if you didn't realize that the combine were aliens then you weren't paying attention
>>12279981this video is an AI fabrication.
>>12279978>I can still deliver earthThat could mean anything. You know the Lord's Prayer, right?>>12279981>yes he doesSo he only says that if you go up to that specific part of the wall and look at the newspapers. The person who wrote the transcript on GameFAQs certainly missed that.
>>12277706>Who TF actually understood the story before 2010's video essays?Me. I've never watched a single video essay about a video game.
I played the game in 2009 blind with the orange box and knew the basics of what was going on, puppet government, alien overlords, wild card g-man. I'm sure I had a primer of the plot absorbed by osmosis but I definitely did not watch any full on half life 2 video essays before I played it.
>>12279987>That could mean anything. You know the Lord's Prayer, right?
>>12277706>Who TF actually understood the story before 2010Literally everyone who played it that year.Jesus christ society really is getting dumber and dumber.Dont drink battery juice.
>>12280282You say that like it's a bad thing. All I see is less competition for me.
>>12279865Yes and that made him a millionaire. He's the Russian Mr. Beast but instead of charity he beats women, scams his fans and of course the main feature is playing online slots.
>>12280041I remember "video essays" not even existing back in 2009 because YouTube videos could only be 10 minutes.
>>12280334>YouTube videos could only be 10 minutesthat didnt stop this guy
>>12280330>millionaireLiterally 0 people became millionaires off of streaming or making youtube videos lolPewDiePie has 250 million subs and pays under $1K a month for his tiny turd of a house in Japan.Mr Beast lives in an apartment with 4 other guys lolThey're all broke. It's all fake and gay.
>>12279692You didn't think the aliens just went away, did you?
>>12280605The Xenians? No, of course not. But the Combine weren't in Half-Life 1.
>>12279880> they are trans
>>12280779following the reply chain, it looks like you're confused>earth got invaded>>half-life 2 never said that!>did you play the first game?>>COMBINE WEREN'T IN THAT ONE!what are you arguing exactly?
>>12279865No just Russian
>>12280912not him but presumably something along the lines of "The Combine could just as easily have been a human-led technocratic government using Xenian technology than actual aliens themselves." Really the only contradictory evidence is the EARTH SURRENDERS headline which indicates the Combine are from outside Earth.
>>12277706>before 2010's video essaysback then you just googled "game name story synopsis", and every time without fail there would be some GameFAQs thread with a big brain poster spoonfeeding you all the major plot pointsWe used to do this for shit like Silent Hill 2 and 4, Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) etc
did you miss the lore dumps in kleiner and eli's lab?
>>12280586A claim that bold needs to be accompanied by evidence, otherwise it just comes across as cope.
>>12281003>back then you just googled "game name story synopsis"i've literally never thought to do thatwhy would you?
>>12280964>"The Combine could just as easily have been a human-led technocratic government using Xenian technology than actual aliens themselvesthe problem with this interpretation is the complete absence of any kind of cultural ingroup outgroup. you would expect if humans were the overlords there would eventually be some reference to an imperial core or you would find commonalities among the oppressed. aliens is a pretty intuitive assumption when it seems like humans as a species are the cattle.
i just played raising the bar redux and why can't beta autists make something that feels like a real video game that would release in retail
>>12281605calm down Frantz Fanon, this is a videogame we're talking about
>>12281610>why can't hobbyist amateurs match a multi million dollar playtested product
>>12281682my vocabulary might have been pretentious but the meaning is basic plot tropes being absent. evil human government has details that inevitably show up and when they don't you eventually assume aliens or something else like most people who played the game on release did.
>>12281683i don't think a first-person shooter from 2003 would cost that much
>>12280912>half life 1 has aliens>but they are xenians, with no mention of the combine >half life 2 shows xenians being oppressed by earth's ostensibly human government >no one ever says the combine are aliens
>>12281003Seriously wtf? These stories are written for small children to understand. Why would someone need it explained?
>>12277706>most people didn't even know the Combine were aliens for at least a year because the storytelling is so vague.Only a retarded zoomzoom could say this and actually believe it.
>>12281810The combine are aliens because their architecture makes no sense for Humans to have designed it. It's all a bunch of weird jagged edges and funky geometry haphazardly slapped onto crumbling ruins, that alone is the biggest hint the Combine aren't human if you haven't figured it out immediately.
>>12280605you killed them all, there are no grunts or hostile vorts in 2, other than headcrabs theres hardly any xen fauna at all half life 2 pulled a halo 5 except there wasnt a stupid book to fill players in on what the fuck happened
>>12277764I'm noticing things
>>12282484Because approximately 1 in 4 American adults have kindergarten levels of reading comprehension.
>>12282721
>>12282940and you think they're human?
>>12282746>half life 2 pulled a halo 5Kek
>>12282940Your example is some douchebag making a concept that 100% would get rejected because the locals would get pissed, not a global tyrannical regime. And even if that renovation got made, if you went inside it would still have normal human environments a normal human could interact with, which the Combine don't bother with.Also the Combine shit is blue metal, I don't see no god damn blue metal on Earth.
>>12277706i struggle to see how its possible that you can even get out of the intro without having a basic understanding of the plotline and the overall setting. they honestly did a pretty gud job fitting all that in for the intro/train scene imo
>>12279880The Combine police forces were humans that were modified, but the "combine" race were unequivocally aliens. >>12278729
>>12280330>yes and that made him a millionaireNo it didn't. He was a russian nepobaby retard who was using prostitutes as beating posts. He's a fake, gay, retarded, slavnigger reject who uses his daddy's money who has minor connections with the Russian mob to sperg out online and pretend like he's a personality and not some irrelevant grifting asshole manchild.
>>12283515>the "combine" race were unequivocally aliensWhich character, prior to the Episodes, says: "after the Resonance Cascade, the Combine took notice and invaded Earth"?
>GORDON, MY OLD FRIEND, PLEASE FUCK MY DAUGHTER!What did he mean by this?
>>12284851actually most people didn't pick up on the lore here until years later.the undertone is that Eli actually wants to fuck Gordon. People just assumed Alex because gays didn't exist until 2018.
>>12277706>Who TF actually understood the story before 2010's video essays?Do you have some kind of developmental disorder?
