Half-Life 2: A Larger Puzzle
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
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Half-Life 2 does an especially good job at subtle world building and visual storytelling, to the point where I missed 90% of the most interesting parts of the game my first couple times playing it as a kid. This does amazing things like making the world feel so much bigger than what we get to see, and gives the game a longevity that hardly any other games can compete with. There's always a new detail you might've missed that continues to build on the larger puzzle that the entire game world makes up.
And yes, the rant at the end is supposed to be near-incomprehensible. Just my way of quickly emphasizing how much thought Half-Life 2's story merits.
The music in this video is from
The Half-Life 2 OST by Kelly Bailey
Portal 2: Songs to test by Mike Morasky
one thing about how the suit has trackers. Gordon doesn't get his HEV suit until after he makes it to the lab. so they can't track him entering the building.
I don't know about that. There is a video about metrocops from Rescoez analysing their voicelines proving that from the second Gordon leaves the train he is being tracked and monitored by the Combine.
Metrocop chatter also reveals that their instruments have picked up something important that they're unable to properly identify.
@@zachariasnoack4894 he got scanned when leaving the train.
All combine chatter is actual communication for the ai.
MISCOUNT DETECTED IN YOUR BLOCK. I reckon the scanners take numbers. This triggers the raids.
@@StiekemeHenkExactly
the combine voice says miscount detected during the raid. i think they monitor people coming in and out so they can figure out when too many people are being housed
Reminder that the suit from Half-Life 2 is not the exact same as the one from Half Life, maybe Kleiner removed said tracking devices in this version.
It definitely isn't the same suit. In half life you can see multiple hev suits all around.
@@Senerski And Kleiner calls it the Mark V, in the first game it's the Mark IV (the suit itself says it in the booting sequence).
@@Mabra51 yeah
i always thought of them as just intergrated right behind the lambda logo in the suit
like if you could open it up like a panel there would be wires n stuff for like 8 tracking devices
Alyx makes use of the suit's radio and tracking functions in Nova Prospekt
Wait... was/is Glados helping hide portal tech from the combine. Remember she doesn't know what is "out there" but she's the only thing between "us and them"
glados was the hero all along
@@CrashManUltra maybe the real heroes were the killer AIs we made along the way
@@rudrasingh6354 As is often the case. Trust me. I am not a murderous AI trying to trick you.
Glad0s is aware of the Combine but doesn't actually know what's going on. She does say that she's the only thing standing between "us and them" so I think she is interested in protecting earth and she does know that if the Combine were to get into Aperture it would be the end. I imagine the Combine would have been trying pretty hard to get into the facility but were completely unable to while she's still active. Not sure how the time between Portal and Portal 2 factors in, maybe the Combine had already given up or were somehow not aware of Aperture
@@drpompo there’s only the implied and not the said to go on, but I believe that Portal 2 is set literally thousands and thousands of years into the future and that Chell is actually the last living human being (with the possible exception of Ratman). If you consider 1) the way that the computer says she has been asleep for “99999…” (years assumedly) so that suggests the time was at least several millennia since Portal 1, 2) the themes of isolation and a post-civilisation existence that fill the environment, and 3) Chell’s (implied) desire to find another human being, be it her parents (whom GLaDOS frequently mentions), Cave Johnston, or Ratman: Rather than meeting her mother, she only meets remnants of her - the ending is beautiful, the Opera sequence, it’s the most human thing in the world but it’s sung entirely by robots. When she gets to the surface, what is she greeted with? An empty field and no one around. Another blank space, and after that we don’t know what happens to her. Plus, GLaDOS was probably lying about the deer.
To those of you who keep saying "Gordon was not wearing his suit in the apartment section, that means it had nothing to do with it.
" etc.
The cause for all of this mess at the beginning of HL2 (apartment raids, rounding up citizen) WAS Gordon. Combine detected "miscount" in their system which was Gordon and they were searching for it. They were unable to identify Gordon, so they kept looking for him.
metrocops were already raiding the building before Gordon came in, so I dont think that is the case.
@@klittlet They were raiding it beforehand for a different reason, but when they found out Gordon was there, they targeted other citizens as well
Yes, and we Know this because in the Starting of the Game, where we are in a Train, One of the passenger says that he didn't saw us before or he didn't saw us loading into the train...
That's actually a very good point, you can hear overwatch saying "Attention, residents: miscount detected in your block".
Yeah
"I doubt anyone made it out of station 10 after they gave you the airboat"
Actually! If you come back after leaving station 10 with the airboat, the rebels have all been killed. It's also an opportunity for the player to find their first fast headcrab, since one spawns alongside the bodies.
After the level transition.
Damn, I never knew about this. I must play this game again and go back in there to see it for myself!
When you yelled “Actually” I thought you were going to be like: oh they’re all actually completely fine.
@@procyon6370 fancy seeing you here
Indeed. Are you a Half-Life fan as well?
5:12 The city/synth scanners actually do more than just 'foreshadow' Combine presence; in several parts of the game, they literally inform CP/soldier squad AI of the player's current location. This isn't really shown off too well in most of the game, but the clearest example I can think of is the strider at the warehouse near the end of the game -- there are infinitely spawning synth scanners as you climb the building, and if they're allowed to snap the picture, the strider instantly lumbers over to the nearest window (crouching if it has to) and begins firing.
It's actually really interesting how advanced the HL2 AI was and what it was capable of, and how little of that actually made it into the final product.
and this was in *2004*
It's amazing what goes into game AI in general, and the longer the development time, the more complex and prone to 'interesting' quirks they get.
I once accidentally let a character begin flying due to a single oversight in flagging their interaction with physics.
That was an early bug. Later on that character had to be debugged for a persistent fear state that resulted in them fleeing as far away from an opponent as they could.
What began as basic physics turned into AI psychology. I'm glad they weren't capable of communicating with each other by that point or it'd probably have routed the whole group.
Even the AI in HL1 always put up a fight despite only being able to shoot standing still. I remember when I threw a nade at them and one yelled, "GRENADE" and the other "SHI-" before exploding made me amazed. I don't think a lot of games now go into that much detail, maybe aside from Halo's dynamic enemies. Outside of that we mostly get bullet sponge enemies who stare at you until they die, but back then they were on to something that only a few FPS or games in general still use.
@@haavikwood290 Reasons why I like the Far Cry games, despite their failings, the AI is designed to react dynamically.
Problem is, even the best AI will feel like cardboard targets if two things are lacking;
Environment interaction and voices that give the player insight into their actions.
Actually Far Cry is a good example because there's a recurring enemy archetype that sneaks up on you silently and tracks you when it can. Since they come out of nowhere and provide zero vocal feedback to the player they come off as a simple seeker missile AI that might as well teleport in, despite being super complex if you happen to spot one going after an allied NPC.
HL2 has both issues to varying degrees, the latter thing is mostly down to the vocoder effect on Combine voices in general. Once your ears tune in how they sound, you notice all the neat touches like the grenade reactions and direct interactions with Overwatch command.
@@korstmahler Oh that's super cool. I'm always a big fan of dynamic AI. FEAR and Alien Isolation has some of the best AI I've seen. FEAR is able to use voice commands to a mind blowingly good degree. If you hide behind a shelf for cover they'll yell something like, "He's behind the shelf" of course that can only work in such a linear game, where as farcry relies a lot on the open-ended style of combat, making very specific callouts difficult. However, that doesn't mean they can't call out at all. Which is why you're so right, sound ques are some of the most important things in games with AI enemies.
Didn’t know anything about the Breen advisor or Epistle 3 until now. God-tier video
Creatotron Yeah, according to Epistle 3 Breen died in the Citadel and the Combine implemented his memories into a grub
Bruh you been missing out my condolences LMAO
@@doctorfaker391 epistle 3 is not canon tho
@@scantyer Well it was at the time of it's release, but after hl:a changing everything, not anymore, yes
At least breen got a advisor I fought they were heartless betrayers who uses what’s needed and leaves nothing apparently not
I've played HL2 dozens of times since my first playthrough in 2005. Almost every time I watch someone new play it, they find something I never have.
It is a treasure. Other than my first gaming experience with Thief: The Dark Project, Half Life 2 gave me the most memorable experience when I played for the first time. Both times were in the month of November, as fate would have it.
same I just find out about the combine and the flare thing.
Yeah, that's why I enjoy watching blind Let's Plays of HL2 so much.
I watched a friend of mine play it for the first time and they found a lot of small nooks with supplies in the level "water hazard" that i have never seen. They had stuff like 357. Ammo, health kits and batteries. I also found out there is a single combine elite in the game that uses an smg instead of the ar2 in the level "follow freeman". This game is just amazing with how much there is to discover
@@falloutgamer347 yeah that's why making mods and maps isn't so simple for hl2. The levels are way more packed than anyone realizes
"as far as i'm concerned, this is the canonical ending of the series"
HLA Gman: SIKE
although epistle 3 might figure in in some way. I don’t think something like that is out of the question
"Some say, that canon endings in some games are... inflexible. My employers think... diffrently"
I think valve was well aware of Marc Laidlaw's Epistle 3 release and realized if they are gonna move forward with Half Life, they needed to rewrite pretty much everything in regard to post Half life 2 ep 2 content.
hla ending literally just half life 3 confirmed
@@cupofspiders5830 Maybe just as an alternate timeline.
1:15 Correction: IN HL1 the Vortigaunts were being enslaved by the Nihilanth, the final boss of the game, NOT the Combine. The Combine conceptually didn't even exist until the start of development of HL2.
yeah i see a lot of this kind of thing, projecting the combine's presence into half life one. there is NOTHING in half life one that has anything to do with the combine as they only became aware of earth after the events of half life one.
@@flynntaggart8549 he does refer to the Gman when he says "you are man, he is not man", and "deceive you, he will deceive you".
But in that line he uses the third person plural "*their* slaves, we are *their* slaves", which must be about the combine, right?
There are a few plural collectives int he half life canon, Black mesa, Gman's employers, and the Combine. Black mesa obviously makes no sense; they had some dealings in Xen, but not enough to enslave the Nihilanth. Gman's "employers" (referred to in the epilogue of HL1) would mean that Gman is killing the Nihilanth on behalf of his employers who is also their boss.
I think it must be the Combine, nothing else makes sense
@@Thicite i think it's the opposite, the combine does not make sense. like the original post says, the combine didn't even conceptually exist until the start of development for half life 2. half life was valve's first game, they didn't know how well it was going to do and they weren't planning on writing the story out with a plan of a sequel, so they wrote a self contained story that could stand on it's own, which they did and nothing in the game alludes to possible a sequel other than the very last action the player takes in the game. as for the "their" thing, it's referring to gman and the group he represents.
While true that the Combine weren't conceptualized during the development of Half Life 1, they did retcon the Xen section of that game by saying the aliens in the border world weren't native to that environment but were, essentially, refugees fleeing the Combine. The aliens under Nihilanth's control became aware of Earth after Black Mesa started using teleportation technology to access Xen and tried to go there to find refuge from the Combine.
But in 1996, there was no reason to thing the aliens of Xen didn't originate there, and even in the retcon they kept in the point that the Vorts, Grunts and other higher intelligence aliens were slaves to Nihilanth.
Thicite I think the answer is in the video, G-Man and his employers are part of something much bigger that we just don’t comprehend in Gordon’s part of the story, so it could be combine or not. I believe the combine didn’t even exist or come into play until that time period where Gordon was asleep, and that’s why G-Man wakes him up
Love the video but one thing i think you got wrong is the combine controlling the vorts, The nihilanth is the one that enslaved the vorts as none of the creatures found on xen are native to xen itself as it is described as a border world. The nihilanth and all subsequent forms of alien life on xen somehow got stranded there and the nihilanth was among the strongest of them. But correct me if i'm wrong.
iirc the Nihilanth is the last of it's kind, being hunted by the Combine. He was trying to reach Earth as a means of safety.
You can clearly see that Nihilant got chirurgical scars on his body and he's floating on a weird mechanical device. Even if we don't aknowledge the Combine (because it was not a part of Half Life until the sequel), he is clearly a slave or someone who was a slave. He even says "We are their slaves" and "The last, I am the last". He also mentions the presence of the G-man by sayin' that "He is not human".
So it's not clear if he enslaved the Vorts and created the big bulky Vort-grunts, or if those grunts were ex-combine soldiers enginered like human combine soldiers would be in HL2.
The most popular theory is that Vorts and the controlers wich are big brainy flying vorts, they have the same body structure (same jaws, third arm...), were on Xen to avoid Combine control. Then humans discovered Xen, made some fucked up experiences on them. And THEN G-man delivered the crystal that would create the resonnance cascade. Random portals everywhere, Combine use those portals to invade earth.
@@-Zakhiel- I like your theory, but it got me thinking. So the Nihilanth has some resemblance to the vorts; third arm and jaws. I remember another video talking about how the vorts were all a hivemind, and after the Nihilanth's death they were freed but still part of their hivemind. What if the Nihilanth is a mutated vort designed by the combine to control the vorts, this explains the scars, cybernetics (very combine fashion) and it's similarities to the vorts. It also explains why it wants to run away from the combine, it just doesn't like being their slave, and also why the vorts are it's slaves; they're under it's control so it'd just see them as drones.
So in summery, the Nihilanth ran away from the combine to a the xen dimension, taking with it it's own private army of hivemind slaves
Maybe not controlling, but the vorts are definitely enslaved by the combine. In HL:Alyx there are some major plot points about freeing some vorts that are being enslaved by the combine.
moeity the vorts could have been enslaved by the Gman faction in HL1, but by the time of HLA and HL2 the combine have taken over as their slavers
"Relatively few spoken lines"
-
_Black Mesa East would like to know your location._
Underrated comment
We don't talk about r̶a̶v̶e̶n̶h̶o̶l̶m̶ black mesa east.
Wait a second, only now did I realise they drained the oceans in an attempt to find the Borealis. It is, after all, the most likely place for a missing ship to be, at the bottom of the ocean.
actually makes a lot of sense
I remember the borealis ship existent now, why was it important again?
@@gront5172 portal tech
It had portal tech that the combine needed?@@skibur848
@@gront5172 Tech they wanted. It was better tech than they had at the time and they wanted to reverse engineer it so they could use teleportation more often. You know when Alyx and Gordon were teleporting and it took forever compared to the one back at the lab? yeah. but better, it was tech developed by Aperture Science
It wasn't until recently when watching a playthrough of HL2 that I noticed that in the final fight with Breen, you see the portal opening above him, which is where the two airships arrive from, and the tops of the many citadels of the combine's overworld/capital city towering over the portal.
The city scanner foreshadowing was a very good way to silently announce "get ready to fight", when I first played i thought the metrocops wouldnt notice me if i killed the scanner fast enough
Oh man... that scene, "we'll see about that...", shivers down my spine first time I saw that, goosebumps every damn time.
But didn't the Gman say something to the effect of "my employers" somewhere in HL1?
I have recommended your services to my emm... employers. And they have authorized me to offer you a job! They agree, you have limitless... Protental...
He does indeed, making me believe the entire Half-Life series (apart from HL:A, kind of... anyways) is just a series of tests for Gordon, to eventually get hired by the "employers"
@@mattstorm360 I wonder if Trent Reznor is a HL fan...
@@dioclias Nah, half-life 1 is the test.
Half-life 2 is the job. Gman is controlling your actions and funnelling you down a path during that game.
In episode 1 you are freed from gmans control which is why you never see him during the game.
In episode 2 you never see him until he gets you back under his thumb, and he is PISSED.
In Alyx gman seeks out a new employee. Alyx. "A previous hire has been unable, or unwilling to perform the tasks laid before him. We have struggled to find a suitable replacement... until now"
7:30 Counter point: The Scientist says the HEV suit is full of trackers, but in this point of the game Gordon isn't wearing the HEV suit since he gets given one by Kleiner later on (It probably also means The Gman took Gordon's original HEV suit)
Either that or gman took it off of Gordon and give it to kleiner for modifications
Or, it has to do with Gordon leaving behind a trail of bodies and a down hunter chopper that lead straight to Black Mesa East.
My mind was absolutely blown when you showed that the advisor seen in episode 1 and 2 is Breen.
How did I never notice that?!
well, it's not intended to be him. epistle 3 ( github.com/Jackathan/MarcLaidlaw-Epistle3/blob/master/Epistle3_Corrected.md ) shows that breen is a grub/baby advisor who asks to be killed because he realises he is a prisoner of the combine. his model from episode 3 leaked, it's here: lambdageneration.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Juvenile_advisor1.jpg
@@figp123 maybe Laidlaw changed the story after those two episodes so... But it would make sense for that advisor to be Breen considering what this guy said in the video
@@andrei.cr2 why would he have changed the story after those two episodes when it was always planned to have three episodes? epistle 3 was always the planned conclusion.
@Creatotron No but the way it was testing its powers suggesting it wasnt used to them. It also didn't just look at Gordon but it locked eyes with Gordon and didn't look away even when it was hit.
"i elected to establish my administration here."
A beautiful example of doublespeak.
what does it mean?
@@d.d.h6749 one person cannot be the vote in an election, and appointing yourself administrator is not an election either.
@@keilafleischbein59 If you have immense political power, you can choose to operate wherever you want. "I elected to establish my administration here" Implies he was told to administrate a wide region, then elected to operate out of city 17. No doublespeak.
Hear of "elective courses" in high school or college? That's not doublespeak either.
@@lambdaman3228 did breen really have any political power? Or did he just follow directions.
Who says he even actually chose 17, and was not assigned? Only breen.
@@keilafleischbein59 All good points, but you're proving mine in the process.
We don't know anything about what's behind the statement. We only know the content of the statement. You claiming that it is "doublespeak" implies you know what's behind it. You don't. I don't.
Not every statement you don't know the background on is doublespeak.
4:57 "There are a couple of "crate" ways" I SWEAR IF THAT WAS UNINTENTIONAL...
and he said it as he broke a crate
7:41 you're actually right about this. the NPC who gives you the airboat will be killed by a fast headcrab if you drive the boat to the gate near the map's end and drive back.
As usual, amazing video. That theory on Breen as the advisor in episode 2 is itching me to replay the game again (About time).
Thanks! I can't actually take credit for that thoery, but I'm a firm believer in it! A lot of people think the Mark Laidlaw letter disproved it, but I have to disagree
Leadhead all that his letter proved is that breen hates being in an advisor
Just a correction. Breen was not ever an advisor, In Epistle 3 (Marc Laidlaw's script for HL3) Breen was actually turned into some sort of slug creature.
He was turned into a slug in Half Life 2 Beta, back when he was still a Consul. Laidlaw named Borealis Hyperborea from HL2 beta in Epistle 3, so I guess the slug form was also the stand-in for Advisors
in light of half-life: alyx, it's time to remake this video!
i was thinking the same thing
He made a video on HL:A
7:05 didn'T Dr. Kleiner modify the HEV suit? I believe he would had taken care of all tracking devices.
Found this video & channel via the Half-Life subreddit and glad I did! This was well spoken, edited and analyzed :) Your recent 'channel forecast' video is very promising, wish you all the best mate, keep em coming 👍 PS: I rly like the thumbnails you make!
Thanks a ton! The thumbnails are one of the most fun parts of the process!
I played the game for the first time this year, and it still holds up. Sure the graphics aren't particularly amazing (although incredible for something from 2004), but the whole feel of the game is something nothing else has achieved for me since. It just has a very distinct feel to it that is very realistic and surreal at the same time. And I loved that while the game was linear, it almost felt open world in a sense due to the fact that everything was just one single take. No cutscenes or other distractions, each level flows from one to the next. Sound design is also on point. Overall, coming to this game 16 years after its initial release, I rate it a 10/10. Most games that old would have turned me off because of their graphics, but this game is a masterpiece
I also played HL2 (and HL1 for that matter) for the first time just about two or three years ago. I was quite comfortable with the graphics at that point having played many hours of Gmod and had a wonderful time; I'm not even a FPS fan!
I played the game for a bit this year when I got the Orange Box on my PS3 to play Team Fortress 2, I got stuck for a bit not knowing how to progress but i'm slowly learning what to do and it's pretty fun
@@Xhepyxopila Awesome, keep it up! One of my favorite games of all time
Any game valve makes is always a masterpiece (we are not going to talk about artifact)
Half life 2 (even HL1) still hold up to this day because of the wonders of the source engine
Portal 2 is also one of their best games and with graphics that look like they're from 2018 and not 2011. Even the story is incredible too
Any game valve makes is always a masterpiece (we are not going to talk about artifact)
Half life 2 (even HL1) still hold up to this day because of the wonders of the source engine
Portal 2 is also one of their best games and with graphics that look like they're from 2018 and not 2011. Even the story is incredible too
Leadhead: We question game a lot in the intro and get answers quickly
Me: BUNNYHOPPING THE WHOLE INTRO!
Your content is literally the best I've seen how do you not get more views
I mean it is a game from 2004
@@gumbowumbo6784what, I'm talking about the quality of his videos
frankie todd I’m dum yeah my bad I was thinking about the game but yeah his editing is top notch and music selection
and presentation
@@gumbowumbo6784 yep
I was actually shocked to find out there are WAY more citadel then the one we see in Half-Life 2 and it’s episodes.
I guess we deduct 1 citadel to the citadel counter
@@gorrilamode6425 There's at least 2
Big misconception / error regarding the HEV suit and traking by the combine: at the beginning of the game you don't wear it, so the Combine can't be using the suit to track Gordon and raid the apartments. Also raids are happen all the time, that would be before Gordon is even taken out of stasis.
Me, someone who has been playing Half-Life games throughout my entire life and consuming all content, obvious, secret, cut, and canon.
Also me during several parts of the video:
"Wait, _what?"_
I have no idea how he figured all of this stuff out
He makes lots of unfounded assumptions, like the player seeing breengrub in ep 1.
I think the argument for Breen being the advisor is flawed, it relies on far too much coincidence, it's likely ALL advisors know of Gordon's existence because not only is he "Anti Citizen One" but Breen has also briefed them on his existence at the beginning of the game. Futhermore, both Breen ,the GMan and Eli reference Gordon having some sort of "contract", the meaning of this is elusive but it's likely many 'higher powers' know of Gordon's existence.
Also why would the advisor just get up and leave? It didn't even try to consume Gordon first it went to a random soldier who it only let go because it realized he was dead. Knowing Gordon is a threat and also having him powerless to resist means that it's far too much of a coincidence to assume it went after him just because it's Breen.
We also see MANY advisors throughout the game, we also see MANY get launched from the citadel as it's destroyed, what are the chances Breen as an advisor just happened to be launched in your direction?
According to Marc Laidlaw, Breen was turned into an advisor grub, and he asks Gordon and Alyx to kill him because he realises he's a prisoner of the Combine.
You can read about it in Epistle 3.
@@liyifenn That is true but I was under the impression that advisor grubs were very defenseless, not even able to move really.
Gordon can't even take a turret with him out of Nova Prospekt. A hero so badass yet so helpess. We all definitely got a reality check of the ages with this franchise.
i'm very very glad i wasn't the only one who noticed how many people sacrificed their lives to help gordon on his mission. really makes the "messiah" description of him by the breencast worthy of more thought. these people put huge faith in gordon. they just KNOW he'll be able to save them. in their heart. in instinct.
There's always the real chance that the story of Half-Life has been made up in the JJ Abrams style. Just make up new questions to hide that you have no answers. If there really was a complete story that is almost fully told, they probably would have wanted to tell the conclusion at some point. But it seems to be that the motivation to make Half-Life games has always been to develop new technologies before anything else.
I assume they always just made shit up as they went, with there not actually being any answers to any of it.
iirc Kojima did that with the MGS games too, leading them to have lots of strange characters, complex stories, and an inconsistent timeline, but it ends up seeming like it was much more complicated and planned out than it really was.
I agree technology has been at the forefront of these games, and definitely a big part of Gabe's motivation. However I think Half Life 2 they really did create a hell of a world with an interesting, if subtle narrative(except the some chosen guy saves the world bit). If you saw the art book that came with the collectors edition of HL2, it really shows a wealth of detail and connections throughout the storyline, characters and world. I will agree some choices are made simply to show off the engine and new tech, and that's also how I knew they were waiting for VR to improve and become more commercial before releasing a new game. But still, I believe... at some point in my life, they will finally conclude the series and I'll be satisfied. If I die before I know who the Gman is, I'll haunt Gabe's fat ass for eternity
That's not true per say, I think Half Life 1 and it's expansions originally wanted to do something on par with Deus Ex where the events of the games themes usually pertained to Government Conspiracies and Coverups the earliest iterations of Half Life 2 ((Taken from Raising the Bar)) would've had Gordon Freeman working as an Agent for the G-Man who at that time was the original "Administrator" of Black Mesa forced to do his bidding due to an alien parasite embedded in him that would kill him if he disobeyed, He would've gone on a globetrotting quest to stop several alien civilizations that were invading the Earth but Gabe didn't like that idea as a sequel and had Laidlaw and the writers go back to the drawing board, I think you can sort of see some hints at this original idea for the universe in the Gearbox expansions with the G-man being seen at the HECU base in Opposing Force observing the units training. Even in Half Life Decay Dr Keller refers to the administrator as a "Bureaucrat, not a Scientist" A bureaucrat tends to be a government worker and the G-man's name is a literal slang for "Government Man"
If you knew how many failed attempts at HL3 and spinoffs there were, you wouldn't think that.
People have been steaming over where to take the story for 15 years at this point.
JJ Abrams? Remember when Gabe Newell and J.J. Abrams spoke on stage in 2013 and planned to work together on a project that was possibly a Half-Life movie or show?
czcams.com/video/a7mihllgiro/video.html
Of course being Valve. It was postponed/cancelled.
You don't have to determine the Combine can't transport like Kleiner's machine can. Mossman tells you when you first meet her.
The apartment raids are ongoing when you arrive, they aren't in response to you. It's just worldbuilding done to teach the player who the Civil Protection are and that raids are a regular thing in this world. Furthermore a cool detail is you get to revisit the area after Nova Prospekt, and indeed the citizen who predicted their home would be seizes was correct... you can see all the doors are bricked up. From this, plus the metal barricades that slowly move, demolishing buildings as they go, the player might guess that the raids are ways of slowly thinning the human population without making it obvious what they are doing and inciting panic, while the barricades come in and sweep away the city for the future planetary inhabitants.
As for Black Mesa East, the story makes it clear Mossman has been collaborating with Breen, and the player may surmise it was her that reported Gordon's location in Black Mesa East and suggested the Combine move in at that time to capture him. I believe when the player runs into Mossman in Nova Prospekt this is either confirmed outright with what she is communicating to the Combine when you catch her, or at least implied. Plus they "captured" her at Black Mesa East and she is running around the facility free., confirming she was working with Breen at that time.
Not sure what the Combine would learn from Eli, but Breen seems to be trying to convince Eli to publicly denounce the rebellion (likely the Combine have put the responsibility for quelling it on Breen). Mossman and Breen seem to think some research Eli is doing is important, though Breen seems to think Mossman can finish it (and it's clear Mossman is trying to save Eli's life; either she has some romantic interest in him, or she simply truly believed Breen has humanity's best interest at heart and thought Eli would be OK. When Breen reveals Eli's life is not valuable to him, she turns on Breen). I don't think we find out what that research is. We find out later Eli knows about the G-man, perhaps the research is related to that. Who knows, maybe it somehow hooks in to Half-Life Alyx with the story there.
I like the idea that the advisor is Breen, that perhaps fits in with the scrapped Episode 3 outline we got. Though the Breen there was passive and merely spoke to you, IIRC, so that bit doesn't fit. That said we can assume all advisors would know about Gordon and what he has been doing to bring down the Combine, and would hate him as much as Breen would. Still, it's a cool idea.
You can glean some ideas about G-man. For example, he clearly had a role in getting humanity noticed by the Combine; he is in Sector C before the experiment. Acquiring Gordon is something he couldn't have anticipated, but clearly he is happy or at least neutral about what Gordon did since he chooses to hire him. And we can assume he approves of Gordon's actions in HL2, which G-man knew Gordon being Gordon would do. So we can assume the G-man hates the Combine, and perhaps that he believed humanity had the ability to defeat the Combine (even if it took a while, and rebellion to do it) and so manipulated events to force a conflict. There are some theories that say G-man is from a rebellion of some other species under Combine control, looking to get them overthrown. I like that one but who knows. Others suggest G-man is literally short for Gordon Freeman and is an older version of the character traveled back in time, but given how different the characterization is it seems unlikely to me.
Combines: *Arrives*
Humans: "Welcome back to Vietnam!"
12:30 About the Gman and Black Mesa, I’m pretty sure he detonated the nuke to destroy the short range teleportation technology in the Lambda Labs. If he hadn’t had done that, the combine wouldn’t need humanity, so they would annihilate them and thereby screw the Gmans plans.
Gman is pretty obviously a representative of one of the combines more powerful rivals, a rival which also made enemies of the vortigaunts.
He's explicitly an enemy of both the combine and vortigaunts and refers to "his employers" several times suggesting that he is more of an ambassador/agent than a lone entity.
Given that his employers have him disrupting combine and xen activity on earth (and also catalysing both) it seems obvious that his employers are trying to pit xen and earth against the combine (perhaps vorts working with humans against the combine is seen as an easy way to provide decent amounts of damage to the combine empire and xen/nihilanth without using many of their own resources.
when i first played this game i was about 12 and was completely oblivious to the story around me, but i still get weird nostalgic chills when I drop down into the sewers of city 17
Actually at the beginning of the game he wasn't wearing the suit so he didn't get those people killed
Except that when the combine start their assault, you can hear a voice in the background calling out a "miscount" in the amount of people in the house, because Gordon is there as an extra person
1:35 the vortigaunt talk about you being their savior, i thought it was fairly obvious that the Nihilanth was the one controlling them and using them, but they were afraid of the Combine, hiding in Xen
4:44 they do have a teleport technology, Judith Mossman talks about it when you get to Black Mesa East, talking about how their teleporting mechanism is not interdimensional and that they would freak out to know what technology they developed. You also escape through a teleporter after judith takes away Eli again! And you notice that it's really slow (1 week to teleport)
1:19 this isn't true, at the time Zen was only place the combine couldn't go because of the Nihilanth. In exchange for keeping the Vortigaunts safe from the combine the Nihilanth enslaved them to work in HIS factories to make HIS army.
And the evidence is?
@@thecuchikiller there’s no combine present in zen during half life 1. The vortigaunts stop attacking after the nihilanth is killed. In addition zen is needed for the local teleportation used during half life. The combine didn’t know how to teleport locally and steal our zen relay tech to build the small tele-porters in hl2. Which mean they didn’t know about zen until this point.
I don't wanna be that guy but it caught me off guard its spelt xen
Gordon didn't lead them to Eli. I think it's the speech in Nova Prospect when Breen says something like, "...even though we theoretically could have taken him at any point in the last 6 years." They had a spy there, and a huge surveillance network. I would agree with the other comment here saying Kleiner would have removed, or at least deactivated, any trackers in the HEV suit he gave Gordon. Remember, the Red Barn and the Main Station were raided before Gordon arrived to each. Cries for help over the radio came from every station. The Combine knew exactly where the Railroad ran and just didn't shut it down. They wanted Eli's lab to continue gaining resources to finish their work on teleportation, as Breen says to Judith in the Citadel. Then once it was done they could swoop in, capture and exterminate literally hundreds of resistance members at once cause they know where they all are. Take their work, and be done with it. Let me know if I missed anything.
"this is the cannon ending"
Valve and HL:A: HAHAHAHA no
Maybe both of the endings are canon, who knows
One big gripe is the entire Nihlanth angle is backwards. He wasn't helping the combine. He was raising an army to fight them. Killing the Nihlanth is what paved the way for the Combine to invade earth. Remember, the Combine can't teleport, the Nihlanth had almost total mastery over it. Add another tally to the "Gordon gets everyone killed" chart.
"There is some kind of european language on the walls" The most American thing i ever heard about Europe......
Hint: its bigger than Pluto,the smallest (former) planet in the solar system hint: its expanding from Europe to North Americas border
Edit: Nvm new hints i remembered its probably other country. Hint: its in the Balkans Hint: they we're part of Yugoslavia if you know about it
Just because he doesn't have a detailed knowledge of every European language doesn't mean you have to be rude and condescending about it, get off your high horse, man.
@@BlownOutSpeakers Taking my comment right there in that rude way,he reffered to it as "some kind of european language on the walls",thats why.
@@randomgameplay5078 I know that, you were still being rude and condescending though.
7:34 is wrong, we don't have the suit on at that point. That was just them detecting 1 extra person in the block
im a simple man, i see half life, i click. good video. subbed
That’s literally what I do when I see Portal / Half-Life
I always thought the nihilinth controlled some kind of border-dimension between the combine's world and Earth. It was more powerful than the combine and holding it or a similar empire back from invading other dimensions by its presence, and the seven hours war starts as soon as it dies and the combine is actually able to invade.
The Seven Hour War started a few months after the Black Mesa incident, though, so this is kinda unlikely. What I think happened, is that the Resonance Cascade was so powerful, that it acted as a sort of signal powerful enough to eventually come up on the Combine's radar, and draw their interest.
As a massive portal fan im glad that aperture is relevant to the story of half-life in someway, and that GLaDOS is actually kind of a hero
How was GLaDOS a hero to half lifes story? I'm a massive valve fan and played every one of their games atleast 30 times, and the only thing I can recall from the portal games is that GLaDOS occasionally goes up to the surface and sees humans.
@@therealmrj1 Well maybe hero is not the right word, but she is definetly helping out indirectly at the very least by not letting the combine get into aperture. I mean if they got hold of the portal gun, reverse engineered it and mass produce it, well, they would get a shit ton more powerfull.
At least thats what i think :P
@@joaovc2002 Oh yeah that does make more sense
@@therealmrj1 GLaD i got my point across, btw i love your pfp, is the little dude yours?
@@joaovc2002 Yes she is, got her like last year. Great quarantine buddy
I don't think you can say with any certainty that Breen got transformed into an advisor or that Gordon's suit was the reason for Black Mesa East being compromised (Mossman would have already made BME's location available to the combine and this was the only likely place Freeman would be heading to) There is a lot of conjecture in this video which is great but ultimately the story hasn't ended and can go in a number of different ways.
I think g-man is trying to influence events to end the combine and he can only nudge events to avoid the combine noticing him. The "employers" are the combine
I've replayed HL2 countless times over the last decade or so, and I never noticed the metrocops shot flares into the sky on some occasions. The world building in this series is amazing.
I have learned to live without knowing the final answers to most of the Half Life mysteries, it's very interesting to develop our own theories, after all. But the one thing I can NOT understand (and it really bugs me) is the fact that we come across all those known characters from HL1, who were clearly from (or at least living in) America, yet the game takes place in some Eastern European country. I can't find a reason as to why they would all be living there, other than it being the only habitable place left on Earth, but there's little to no mention about the world outside of City 17.
They get relocated often. The original concept was to have random language voice lines for every npc in the game with subtitles in the language you play in, because the combine are trying to prevent humans from coming together to plot a rebellion
That sounds very interesting, but sadly, it doesn't answer the question. Kleiner, Eli and the other scientists who worked at Black Mesa are obviously fugitives, working in secret on the technology that could be the last hope for mankind. So why would they locate their main research lab so close to city 17? Other than for narrative and gameplay purposes, or the reason I gave in the main comment, I don't see a logical answer to that.
In the video it states that "the reason nobody has been brainwashed is because of their scientific prowess". Or something along those lines.
Given this, I think there's a chance the combine might have kept them together on purpose in order to allow them to develope the technology so that the combine could utilize it. Which could explain how the combine attack black mesa east right after you arrive. And how they knew exactly where you were going.
7:33, no that's just what metrocops do. Gordon isn't even wearing the HEV suit when he enters that building.
my biggest question was always how far ahead half-life was planned
About the suit tracker thing, gordon isnt wearing his hev suit until red letter day, the reasoning for the apartment raids is because he was scanned immediately upon leaving the train, overwatch says "miscount detected in your block" meaning they probably were raiding apartments for the person that wasnt supposed to be there, i doubt the HEV suit would still have tracking in it, the suit in hl2 is different from the one in hl1 and its safe to assume kleiner took something as obvious as trackers out of it.
Thank you for reminding why we love Half-Life.
Also in HL1 there is a broadcast from Kleiner referencing contacting "the larger forces" forces possibly larger than the combine
Wait, so Alyx killed Breen's advisor? Holy SHIT thr implications!
Gordon doesn't have his H.E.V. when we he meets the two citizens before the apartment scene. The combine keep close track of the amount of citizens on a block, and Gordon is spotted the second he enters the block. You hear the combine announcer talk about it.
Gordon was not wearing his suit in the apartment section, that means it had nothing to do with it.
Gazi Osman Paşa he was the reason the raid happened though, as the dispatch voice is talking about ‘miscounts in your block’
i don't really have an eye for that subtle storytelling, but there's one thing that caught my attention near the beginning of hl2. there's this section where you jump in a train car, there's a guy and a vortigaunt there watching a tv with a gman on it. before you get to move on, the vortigaunt says "we serve the same mystery". seemed to me like he was talking about the gman. a nice little foreshadowing for the involvement of vortigaunts in the whole gman stuff in the episodes.
1:18 no its the giant thruster big brain baby who happens to be running from the combine
yeah
The advisor that kills Eli in EP2 was Breens Advisor form
7:32 He didn’t have his suit at the start of the game.
Yet... this was always a plot-hole that I felt Valve just never addressed. He was put into cryo/stasis in his suit right after closing the rift between Xen and earth. Why wouldn't he have his suit on at the start of HL2? (I know he doesn't, but it's always felt more like a plot-hole that Valve just never addressed then anything else.) Mostly because G-Man specifically stated that he earned the suit and it was the only thing he did not confiscate from him/the player at the end of Half-Life.
It's not that big of a deal, and it doesn't break the game, but it always just felt like a strange plot-hole in another-wise pretty tight and narratively written storyline.
@@MrRjwagner I never saw it as a plot hole, it just wasnt something the G-Man could let gordon use on his mission - he presumably WANTED gordon to be spotted by the combine in order to rile them up and force a direct confrontation with the resistance to happen *now*. That's the only reason he could have for putting gordon in the train, where his arrival could not fail to attract notice and force his hand. However if he had the suit, he would have had to fight his way out and perhaps been recognised *too* early for the G-Mans liking
Every thing in half life has been planned by the gman from resonate cascade to the "missing" of alyx in the end of hla
@@MrRjwagner just because he was put into stasis with the suit doesn't mean he has to wake up in one.
heck, for me the real reason why the Gman let Gordon keep the suit at the end of HL1 was because he didn't want to see him in his undies.
0:48 i will return once i play them all. Half life, ep1, ep2, opposing force. 4 left.
7:30 Gordon didn't have his suit yet.
The "surgical strike clearly directed at Gordon" could easily have been meant for the rebel outpost in that area.
If they had Gordon Freeman in mind and were actively able to track his location I would think they'd send more than a few headcrabs to do the job.
You entering the trainstation: "What happened to the aliens? Is he really a leader or are the benefactors? Is combine enslavement a Gordon's fault?"
Me entering the trainstation: *hops to the exit*
Yeah it's not funny, but that's really me and probably lots of other players. Just going forward without paying much attention to details. Sad, I know, but I'm spending a lot of that "wandering" time outside of game, for example watching such videos.
Well, now they know about jack about the Borealis since Alyx deep-fried that advisor.
Why the truck is he playing half-life source?!
Note that there's no HUD in any of the game footage in this video. It's easier to turn off the HUD with the console in Half-Life: Source than the original. HL: Source is also less prone to video recording errors.
@@Pikminiman Half-Life Source is one glitched video game and is the error.
I don't think that the combine managed to tap into the hev suit's trackers, because in episode 2, the combine passes right by gordon and alyx on their way to white forest. why would the combine pass up an opportunity to try to kill their doombringer?
additional lore not mentioned in this vid. half life alyx is mostly about finding who they this in gordon, which explains why the vorts couldn't take him out of stasis before hl2
Something good to note is that the Combine are only capable of multi-dimensional teleportation, not inter-dimensional teleportation, they can only travel from there present universe to another safely and efficiently. This is explained by Mossman in Black Mesa East when your heading to the elevator. She explains that humans have the capability to efficiently teleport within there own dimension, while the combine have a very non-efficient and dangerous form of teleportation within dimensions that requires an immense amount of energy. This can be seen at the end of Nova Prospekt, as the mere use of there version of an inter-dimensional teleporter can completely destroy an entire facility after using it only twice, while there multi-dimensional teleporter works very effectively.
6:43 The obvious answer is that there are maps in a lot of the resistance bases showing where the next base is. All they have to do is find one and then they all fall like dominoes. Honestly, when I saw these maps, I facepalmed at the stupidity of the resistance for not only having these maps, but prominently displaying them on the walls of their hideouts.
Not too sure if anybody's mentioned this, but G-man is Gordon either from another reality or from the future, presumably a Gordon from a universe where the combine wiped out humans altogether or a future where the humans prevail but he then has to go back through his life to make sure certain events take place correctly.
I think Kleiner, who upgraded Gordon's suit, was probably smart enough to remove or disable those trackers beforehand
7:04 Gordon isn't actually wearing the suit yet. He puts it on in Kliener's lab. I also don't think the combine track the suit this way because they would have tracked it in Kliener's lab way before gordon got there, unless the tracking systems only activate when the suit is powered on.
"the greatest _human_ lead research facility on earth" lol
Every time I come to half life universe, I find something that I never knew before
This makes me keep coming back to it
About that suit, it's not the same as from the hl1. Kleiner said that he stripped off the tracking device from the suit. And he even put some additional Combine Mechanics on that suit for upgrade, which this explains why the suit is chargeable to Combine's power, instead of Human Electricity.
7:22 - 7:40
Gordon doesn't have the H.E.V. suit yet at that point in the game.
Have you ever listened to the cut VOX lines from Half Life 1? They tell a whole narrative of their own as originally they were intended to play in every map. You get this story about the facility gradually falling to chaos and the military gradually escalating their violence against Freeman and the Black Mesa personnel as they become more desperate and vengeful before they are overwhelmed by the alien invaders.
I never even knew you were supposed to stop at that red barn, I’ve always just flown by hahaha
correction at 1:10 the combine weren't the ones controlling the vortigaunts it was the nilianth who was controlling them which the nilianth was trying to escape the combine.
when you think about it, half life's core concept is a lot like berserk's concept. both gordon freeman and guts have their lives changed by the hands of forces they cannot understand, and have to keep pushing forward and fight no matter how futile and small their efforts end up being in the grand scheme of things. i love stories like this, it shows how small we are yet how much we fight for survival, even when we know we're basically powerless
I think one of the most interesting aspects about Half-Life 2 in my opinion is that, like Half-Life 1's HECU grunts, there is a language among Combine soldiers and Civil Protection teams as-well-as an ever-present Overwatch that's directing them and help keeping them organized.
This Overwatch, which I have to imagine is an automated computer from the Citidel that's ever looming over the remnants of the human race, confirms if you listen that any citizen willing to join the Combine Civil Protection team will receiver double rations, better living conditions, better wages, and POSSIBLY mating privileges. While some of these things I'd imagine are immediately delivered upon to help incentivize cooperation, I'd imagine others are left to be hoped for that "Surely if I do a good job, they'll give me some of the rewards they promised." There's also the ever-looming threats of reassignment, shift changes to less favorable conditions and tougher postings, and Combine "enhancement" which I forget if it's offered as a benefit without explaining what that exactly entails OR if it's offered as a punishment as it's fully well understood that becoming a Combine Soldier means stripping every last shred of your humanity until you're a soulless drone just cognizant and autonomous enough to maintain a strategic tactical presence in combat.
The fact that the Combine have systems in place, governmental structure, organization, a very clearly expressed directive that if you throw away your humanity, turn on your neighbors, and submit that they will reward you. That resistance is futile and ultimately the fate of the entire planet, let alone the human race, rests solely in their hands. How many worlds and how many species have they done this with already? They've clearly gotten very good at it!
2 years later but your videos are my favorite videos about HL. Makes me want to replay the series
You brought up how the suit can be tracked, and then used an instance where he ISN'T wearing it as an example. I think it's more likely that the combine can track him because of their mass surveillance
The Vortigaunts aren't making soldiers for the Combine, they're making them for the Nihilanth. And it in't a theory that the Nihilanth is holding the portal to Earth open so the aliens can escape the combine, that's just a basic plot point.
I don't even think humanity's scientific knowledge is a fan theory. The combine is using Judith to learn how to build a teleporter in Nova Prospekt from Eli's tech. When we teleport at Klieners, aside from some plugs and levers that need pulling, both Alyx and Gordon are able to teleport practically back to back. However, the Combine's teleporter takes a few minutes to recharge after each use. Human tech is shown to be better than the combines. I love this games story telling
Damn, I have never noticed metrocop shoot out flare untill you mentioned it and showed the scene. I had no idea they do that.
G-man also makes clear that he isn't human in Alyx. When she says, "who are you" he answers "Perhaps what I am is not as important as what I can offer you"
Ok, that Breen advisor is a new thing to me
4:35
If I remember correctly it's confirmed by Dr. Mossman when you arrive at Black Mesa Easy during Half-Life 2
Tbf I think it's safe to assume Kleiner removed the tracking devices from the HEV suit, doesn't even seem like they use it themselves, nobody seems to have any idea where Gordon is until he gets to whatever place he's headed to.
Slavoj Zizek makes a great comment about the film Children of Men that is also relevant to the Half Life series. The main character or characters are sort of boring, but by being boring they highlight the background. In the same way that Children of Men isn't so much about Clive Owen's character, Half Life is not so much about Gordon Freeman but rather what is happening around him. The fact that he isn't some ostentatious action hero allows you to focus much more on the backdrop of the story.