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[lemon10]

Spoiler: Minor spoilers and my stupidity (click to show/hide)

Two play-throughs and I didn't realize the Combine were an alien faction!

*facepalm* That's pretty impressive actually.

[Darvi]

I never found out by playing the game either :V

[Dutchling]

Spoiler: Minor spoilers and my stupidity (click to show/hide)

Two play-throughs and I didn't realize the Combine were an alien faction!

*facepalm* That's pretty impressive actually.

Alien? but but...
wtf?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The combine are the 'Big brother is watching you guys' of the civil protection, right? I'm sure I've heard some dude saying that he is so desperate for food that he wants to join civil protection. How can they be alien? Everytime Civil Protection is spotted by an ally he screams 'Combine!'

[Kalalification]

I don't know why everyone makes such a big deal about HL2. I played it when it first came out and thought it absolutely sucked monkey balls. I still think it does today. The story is utter crap as well, and I'm certainly not impressed with the "gameplay" if you want to call it that. The only good things to come from the HL series are Garry's Mod and CSS.

[Dutchling]

I recently finsidhed it and although I agree that the story is just crap, the setting is pure awesomesause. The gameplay is great, it's not the same thing the whole time and when you think it is you end up in a zombie vilage throwing serated iron discs at the zombs. It's one of the few games I actually finished playing.

[de5me7]

i think both hl1 and 2 are great games, not sure sure about episode 1, 2 is ok.

I will summaries all the important aspects of the story of the first game in the following spoiler

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There is a very large underground science complex under the nevada desert. A fresh graduate called Gordon Freeman turns up for his first day at work and is assigned to test some gem type materials in lab. Two doctors known as Kleiner and Vance (they arent named in th first game explicitly but they feature in 2 alot) oversee the experiment. Gordon moves the material into a reactor beam used in the test and a 'resonese cascade' or to you and me, a portal opens and aliens invade the facility. Cue about 8 hours of shooting aliens around a large set of labs. The military invade but get killed. Freeman is sent by a bunch of scientists to what is thought to be the alien homeworld, known as zen, to kill the Alien controller, which is a giant floating fetus. Every now and again in the game he sees a guy in a suit known as G Man wandering round. At the end of the game G Man has an inconclusive chat with him.

in Half life 2 the hole story is relocated to eastern europe, and some of the scientists which were pretty name less and faceless in the first game are given roles faces and names.

I'd recommend playing HL1 as its an important bench mark in first person action game history, and a good game. Alot of the puzzles, shooting mechanics, level design and approach to story telling have become text book for the industry.

imo whats great about the hl games isnt the story in its self, which when it boils down to it, isnt much more complex than kill the alien invaders, with a slice of conspiracy and few semi intersting characters. What makes the games good is how they blend the story telling and game play well. Rather giving your character meaningless tasks and then playing cut scenes.

[alway]

There's only 1 thing I can remember which is good to know from Half Life 1, albeit only for teh lulz: you ruined Dr Magnison's casserole by microwaving it until it exploded in the start of HL1, and he never forgives or forgets what you did.

[Grakelin]

Spoiler: Minor spoilers and my stupidity (click to show/hide)

Two play-throughs and I didn't realize the Combine were an alien faction!

*facepalm* That's pretty impressive actually.

Alien? but but...
wtf?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The combine are the 'Big brother is watching you guys' of the civil protection, right? I'm sure I've heard some dude saying that he is so desperate for food that he wants to join civil protection. How can they be alien? Everytime Civil Protection is spotted by an ally he screams 'Combine!'

They're cybernetic aliens.

[Jreengus]

Aren't civil protection humans who work for the combine?

[Grakelin]

You're right, they are:

http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Civil_Protection

Just the police, though.

[alway]

They are specifically referred to as transhuman units, especially when Dr Breen is the one talking about them. Basically they are cybernetically enhanced and supposedly have brain modification which make them much different from your average human. The combine themselves are aliens who came through the portal storm and are made up of numerous races, many of which appear to have be engineered rather than evolved, with the leaders being the Advisors (so far as we know anyway). Almost all of their technology seems to have a bio-mechanical nature; hunters, striders, dropships and gunships are all bio-mechanical organisms.

[Sordid]

The story is utter crap

I agree with that, actually.
You are plonked down into the city with no idea whatsoever about what you're supposed to be doing. So you wander at random until you meet up with some dudes, who tell you to go and meet up with them again somewhere else. When you get there, the main dude gets captured, so you set out with his daughter to rescue him from an evil base. When you do so, the girl gets captured for a change, so you set out to rescue her from an evil base. You find her in the main baddie's evil base and then you make a nuke explode in her face. The end.
That's not a story, that's just random shit happening. You have no goal or objective other than the vague "stick it to the Combine". Initially it looks pretty good, even though they ask you to take a ridiculous and unnecessary detour on foot. But they say that once you get to Black Mesa East they're going to forumulate a plan of action etc etc. But things go pear shaped pretty much the moment you get there and from that point on you spend literally the entire rest of the game rescuing people (and you utterly fail at that, I should add, since all three of you end up in Breens clutches in the end, and it's only due to his incompetence, not your efforts, that you get free again).
The HL series is often lauded for its storytelling. Yes, the seamless presentation of the story with no cutscenes and no point where you lose control of the character is impressive. But the story itself that is presented is crap.