Since when do “dark” and “serious” go hand-in-hand.
Duke 3D is bleak as fuck, and the game’s environments are designed to basically be almost apocalyptic, but serious it is not.
Judge Dredd comics have made me laugh more than any series I’ve ever read, but the whole environment and political state of the universe is just depressing.
I know people joke in tight situations to ease stress. It’s all my opinion and preferences, but the whole suffering and slavery part wasn’t executed that well. Yes, people were shot, beaten for nothing, forbidden to reproduce, turned cyborg, eating nutriments erasing their memory, having brains sucked out and shit… but then magically, the resistance is massive, there’s hundreds of crates with supplies and other things like super machinery (buggies and all), not to mention those secret bases everywhere. Honestly, White Forest came out of nowhere, as the whole point of HL2 was to get to Eli’s place, but that didn’t turn out well since they found them “somehow” with scanners. The question is, how come the hell didn’t the combine find Black Mesa East before? Same for White Forest, it wasn’t hidden AT ALL.
Don’t tell me that the super alien worm race that conquered Earth in 7 hours (WITHOUT Overwatch forces back then) are suddenly dumb as hell and defeated in no time.
Neither they were aware of Kleiner’s laboratory, things like teleporters, computers and such must take lots of power and the whole place was in the center of Combine’s doing, made no sense to me.
I know no stories are perfect, but my expectations are high. And yes, there exist well executed games.
in Ep2 white forest fits perfectly, Black Mesa East was found because gordon created havoc to the combine and was followed to there, before that the canals were a secret path. Kleiner´s lab is behind concrete walls,
and had passed 20 years of the 7Hour War maybe just 15% of the original combine is still active…
This is not StarWars where there were a story before the story, Valve must hell manage to create world from not to much and is hard… well they have done it goddamn it.
Perhaps Kleiner didn’t dig up just the teleporter, but the power source alike?
Perhaps the supplies existed entire twenty years, safely stashed?
Perhaps the White Forrest base wasn’t so much of HIDDEN, rather than looking inactive, with only two to three dozen personnel living under the ground?
About the buggies, that existed before, you hear Alyx talking about it existing for a longer time when you’re introduced.
Secret bases can be kept secret if very few people know about them.
They found Black Mesa East by simply following Gordon.
Remember WWII’s French, Polish and whatever campaigns? Wehrmacht didn’t keep all the attacking forces there, did they? Same thing, there’s not nearly as many Combine forces as there were during the Seven Hour War - and since we shut the portal down, there propably won’t be any more in near future.
Geez, quit searching all the BAD STUFF.
Ever heard of the WW2 resistance movements? 
I’d say that it’s because of the overly violent and oppressive combine regime that they have such a massive resistance. And it’s a big world with lots of desolated areas, so big bases and improvised machinery make perfect sense.
City 17 is just a city. This is still a world scale assault.
I’m not sure what your point is?
Another thing I don’t get is why didn’t they turn every human into a Combine? Breen literary begged those aliens to spare mankind, they agreed, but “our” race had to obey. So if their only viable future was to be either a part of the “Combine Hierarchy” or being annihilated, why is that, that there still were many “uncyborged” people around 20 years later? Unless I missed something.
Yeah, it’s nitpicking, but if one looks closely enough, many things weren’t explained properly or not at all. One could argue that there wouldn’t be a game if it had to make sense, that’s understandable… :freeman:
That was the goal for all of two, arguably three chapters.
They found it because Mossman was a traitor. The combine were waiting for Gordon Freeman to arrive before attacking, since he’s pretty dangerous and all.
Oh, you are right, dumb my head, almost forgot that she even exists lol. I guess it happened when she locked up herself in that room, but she never was a believable character, what if Eli had died during the ambush? 
I have a mixed feelings about her, something about her is well done, but the “love story” between the two of them is… creepy to say at least.
Love story? Honestly, I don’t think there was one. Eli seems to miss his wife very much.
(Also, interesting note: Alyx actually wears the necklace that you can see her mother wearing in that picture. Alyx tends to hold it whenever she’s worried or scared. It’s a really neat detail.)
The resistance is not only big in relation to the city the game centers around, but it’s definitely bigger than we could even fathom due to the scale of the initial invasion.
This is where the thread should have ended
Before Black Mesa East (the chapter) the resistance was more concentrated on making an underground railroad style operation to get people out of the city. One can only assume that people who made it out joined the resistance to help others. If this organization has been in place for some time, perhaps even a decade, then it’s not surprising they have some material to work with.
Plus, after Gordon destroys Nova Prospkt, the Resistance and the Combine go to war, so even normal citizens would probably be pressed into working with the Resistance, because, well, consider the alternative.
There must be still millions of Combine units available, Episode Two made it seem like Combine are the minority and now “trapped” despite City 17 not being the only one. There’s at least 9 more cities close around and apparently set in ex-Soviet nations. It didn’t appear to me like they tried their best to destroy the White Forest missile, more like a secondary goal at best.
The Borealis sure must be important since they relocated most of their forces in there in my opinion.
That’s likely why Valve decided to go with a full-fledged title, would have been very anticlimactic to destroy them all in a 4-5 hour Episode.
The reason the C17 Overwatch were cut off was because the dark relay network that connects all of the Earth’s citadels was disrupted when Gordon blew the C17 Citadel reactor in HL2.
The whole network is down, and each city is cut off from the other due to the massive disruption. It’s sort of like a single wire circuit for electrical outlets- if there’s a problem anywhere on the line, none of the plugs are usable.
Additionally, since Earth is post apocalypse and there appears to be no telephone or communications for the Resistance beyond radios, they have no other way of contacting other Citadels short of sending couriers. Ostensibly, some of the Advisor pods that blasted off from the Citadel during the ep1 explosion may be couriers of some kind.
The other question would be how Combine forces continue to use vehicles in Episode Two. Their main supply depots at Nova Prospkt and the Citadel are both gone, so how on Earth do they fuel their choppers? Presumably they may have some kind of mobile reserve, which explains how choppers are still flying. Either that, or the Combine have been taking over Rebel installations and using their fuel. Considering that the Combine did hit Rebel installations other than White Forest in ep2, this is plausible. Regardless, the Combine’s push to White Forest would probably override concerns about couriers, because help would arrive too late anyway.
They use whale oil.
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Very good.
Oh, the mystery of Borealis solved :retard: nah, remember how they stole Gordon’s buggy (Scout Car)? I bet that they reverse-engineered it and are gonna use the Tau Cannon against Gordon 