schru
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2015
- Messages
- 1,141
Well, quite obviously what you fight for the most part is not the extra-terrestrial conquering force, but the 'transhuman arm of Sector Seventeen Overwatch', i.e., modified human forces left in place to maintain the occupation, with assistance from some adapted synths. Moreover, forces which probably were never tried in very demanding conflicts.If i wanted to play devil's advocate, i would say the combine are not the actual force that conquered earth, but just the peace keeping occupation troops that were left behind. The problem with that of course is that Gordon fights his way towards the heart of their power and no other kind of army shows up to stop him so i guess that was it lol.
It's not really the case that Gordon fights his way to the heart of their power, as if he and the resistance beat them. The player is pursued for most of the game and has to scramble like a prey, while events eventually escalate around him, with his role being like that of an agent provocateur, as Dr Breen points out in a speech in Nova Prospekt. In that same speech he also says that their 'benefactors' are getting tired of their ineffectiveness and threatens them with being made redundant, whole the Overwatch announcer has funny messages about 'mission failure resulting in an off-world assignment'.
The street war goes on for a week without Gordon's involvement, and again it's more the case that Gordon slips through the chaos towards the Citadel, rather like in 'Surface Tension' and 'Forget about Freeman', with just two bigger confrontations taking place near the walls, giving the player just enough time to get inside.
As you go through some parts of the Citadel, it's obvious that the Combine is mobilizing much bigger forces. Dr Breen and the Advisers are not even that concerned with Gordon, seeing as they just pull him all the way up for an audience. I always thought that the view from above that you get of the city was supposed to feel bittersweet more than anything, after seeing the 'living' machinery and enormity of the Citadel.
The ending isn't even heroic—you blow up a reactor risking killing everyone, seemingly in accordance with some other scheme Breen was alluding to, seeing also as the G-Man takes you right out of the action then and there.
When you're back another week or so later in Episode One, the city around the Citadel is obliterated, presumably not because the resistance were effective at taking down the striders.
While blowing up the Citadel portal's reactor did leave the Combine cut off, they decide to sacrifice the whole thing to re-establish contact to their overworld. They end up obliterating the whole city, killing whoever's left. Episode Two is about preventing that design from succeeding, with the implication that whatever is left of humanity won't stand a chance otherwise.
All this aside, apart from the overly positive and polite attitude of the NPCs, which is just Valve's style, I think it's fair to say that Half-Life 2's plot is quite grim and has that nice thrill of being trapped in the midst of a desperate situation.