Loved the H.E.C.U Marines in this more than the original half life

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#41

The xen alien are far less dangerous than the zergs and the combine defeating the military might of earth was just a plot device. The U.S alone could had defeated the weak combines, add in the other super powers like russian, china, great britain etc. are just overkill.

And to tell you the truth, the combine were even weaker than the xen which is just sad.

No you people that just wants the alien to win every battle ARE MAKING MY BLOOD BOIL.

If you want them to put dead marines next to bullsquids, zombies etc than the same should apply for the alien side like putting dead aliens next to marines in other parts, eye for a eye.

[COLOR=‘Red’]Merged posts. Please don’t post multiple times. You can quote multiple people at once and if you need to add more, you can use the edit button. Thanks.

#42

you do understand just how long the 7-hour war lasted, right?

#43

seriously, devils barber, your whole argument is “us soldiers are the strongest forces in the universe and xen forces are super weak!!!11!!11”

there is no reason to believe that xen forces are weak

you probably haven’t played HL1

also, making the HECU win would change the plot of HL

how would that be a good thing?

#44

Yeah 7 hours and it doesn’t make sense the combine were weak as hell, even the xen seems more brutal and powerful than them. Realisticly even a third world country could had defeated the weak combine. Like i said the combine SOMEHOW defeating the military might of earth is just a plot device for the sake of story even tho it doesn’t make sense.

#45

I’d agree with the BMS team when they stated in that article on NBC that there is a lot of unappreciated detail…I was on the look out for it…slamming props with the crowbar…noticed jigglebone papers in binders etc. Beautiful, top-of-the-line, best crafted mod and game within an 8 year time span. Apparently 3D Realms, etcetera were too busy playing World of Warcraft and did not summon the intelligence to create Duke Nukem. Other games like Too Human were evidence of moronic direction.

#46

I’m finding Devils Barber’s posts a bit strange. Are you American or a Soldier or something? Why are you so caught up on the Xen or Combine not being more powerful or able to win against us?

#47

It would be better, also making SENSE at the same time. in the later games you could be fighting aliens, new aliens, different aliens and also the military as the major enemies. The government could be trying to kill you and also capture/enslave and study the aliens.

#48

The Combine weren’t weak. The Combine were complacent. After nearly two decades of dominance over the humans and having humans more or less repressed and oppressed to the point of a certain kind of perverted form of “peace”, the Combine became complacent and probably drew back most of their forces. No need for an all-out assault on those that aren’t fighting back, right?

So, they were taken by surprise when Gordon Freeman spurred a rebellion and destroyed their Citadel.

#49

Actually, I’m fairly certain that the reason they won City 17 was that they gave everyone and their mother rocket launchers. There was even that one scene in Episode 1 where the rebels are fighting with RPGs for no apparent reason at all.

#50

Dude seriously, I’m an American Soldier, a veteran of OIF. If you think a fighting force made of less than one percent of the United States,(which is all the branches combined including the non-combat arms soldiers) is strong enough to defeat an entire interdenensional invasion force (that can teleport in an out of any defensive perimeter, vehicle, building, or fortified position we would set up to defend against them; probably have much more advanced technology in more quanteties than we do) you are out of your mind. And all your talk about eye for eye and thinking everyone just wants to see dead marines, stop taking it personal. It’s to drive home a major plot point that was in the original game. It’s a GAME. Stop acting like they want to actually see dead marines in real life.

#51

Yeah. He keeps saying Xen forces and the Combine are weak. Wtf is he on about? There is absolutely zero reason to assume any alien forces are weaker than humanity’s forces combined. He’s on a serious superiority trip. LOL WE WIN ALL

#52

He thinks they were weak because he was talking about the Combine Overwatch soldiers.

He doesn’t realize the Combine Overwatch soldiers are NOT representative of the actual Combine military! :smiley:

#53

All modern militaries utilize the concept of a group of soldiers( be it a team, squad, platoon, company, ect) having a 360 degrees of a security perimeter while doing everything. Moving from point a to point b there are is at least one soldier looking in a direction in each direction by which an enemy can approach or attack from. If you can teleport or place a portal through which you can appear into that security zone then you are able to attack the weakest part of that unit and you will definitely gain not only the element of surprise but can also establish fire superiority. Fire superiority is what over 90 percent of the time wins the battle. By appearing in the middle of a group of the enemy can also cause them to accidentally kill each other while they are shooting at you. Hell a few suicide waves with head crabs and houndeyes would have the same effect as a wave of suicide bombers teleporting into the middle of a squads perimeter. And just looking at the news at how easy of a time we have at stopping regular suicide bombers should tell you how effective that is.

#54

I’m not ‘pro’ the idea of HECU being in the Xen chapter. However, they clearly don’t have a problem with being in the dimension itself as we see Earth military hardware in Xen during the G-man montage at the end, don’t we? Or am I getting mixed up?

#55

I’m pretty sure that’s going to get retcon’d considering the g-man was “human” before valve thought of hl2.

He had a pistol and an ID card in his briefcase, everyone simply assumed he was part of the government.

#56

That was an engine limitation of the original halflife not being able to have more than one sky box between load times.

#57

The combine were much, much stronger than their occupying force was. Those soldiers you fight didn’t exist until after the takeover - what they attacked with was all those synths (so like, thousands of striders), the advisors, and some unseen combine non-human soldiers. But, think about the advisors - seriously, we have killed NONE of them in any of the HL games. Even DOG, a robot that could go toe to toe with a strider, only injured one at best. These things alone could just /stroll/ through our armies, sucking each soldier’s brain out one at a time. I believe it was a plot point in Episode 2 to make DAMN sure the portal was closed because otherwise the reinforcements would stomp all over us, or even possibly say screw it and destroy the planet.

Also, again, Xen works because they really are infinite. The borderworld has species pouring in constantly, either on the run or simply lost. They end up crossing over. Furthermore, as shown in Interloper, alien grunts are mass produced in giant organic factories. It’s like a zombie apocalypse - no matter how weak the enemy might be, you have limited men and ammo. Sooner or later, your tank armour is gonna break down from constant impact, you’re gonna run out of ammo, and you’re gonna get tired. That’s when you lose.

That’s what happened to the HECU, they just couldn’t keep fighting. Oh, and then the indestructible aircraft arrived to screw them over further, and the damn hard to kill gargantuas.

Oh, and bear in mind the Xenians were plaguing earth at the same time the combine attacked - BM’s destruction was a failure as more portals started to appear through which they attacked us.

#58

Some posts have vanished. Some infractions were also given. Please have a civil discussion instead of arguing while trading insults.

#59

If the HECU look to powerful in the game or did had much leadership as enemies was because (i think) the Devs focused to much on them in BM, and are now focused on the aliens for the Xen part.

#60

This topic is truly astounding. I’m not sure why I’m even responding but I feel I must.

If Gordon Freeman - an untrained scientist - can defeat low-level Xen aliens then obviously a well-trained military could achieve the same thing. However, the issues at hand are a) the sheer volume of aliens and their unpredictable appearance, b) the larger aliens (like the Gargantua), c) the military’s lack of experimental alien weapons (Tau Cannon and Gluon Gun) and d) the military’s lack of hazardous environment protection equipment. Considering the US military struggles with conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, you have to assume that an alien invasion would be a tad more challenging. Considering the military had to retreat and nuke the Black Mesa facility - and in Half-Life 2 clearly lost to the alien invasion - it’s clear the military did not have the upper-hand in the conflict.

As for a military invasion of Xen, the obvious reasons against it would be a) they have no way to get there, b) even if they did they don’t have protection from the environment, c) even if they could survive they’d quickly run out of supplies (ammunition, health, etc), d) the lack of intelligence would make such an attack foolish and e) without a long-jump module they would be stranded on a piece of rock.

As for balance in Black Mesa, I found the experience to be excellent. I thought there were enough aliens; I thought the marines were tough but manageable; I saw the marines lose to aliens, so they clearly weren’t all powerful. I’d been looking forward to the release on this mod since it was announced and it managed to live up to my very high expectations.

Finally, the OP is either obsessed with the military and verging on delusional or having fun at everybody’s expense. I really hope it’s the latter, as the former would be very concerning.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.