Disappearing enemies

[Planetary]

We all like the new enemies, right, a whole bunch of them. 3 new antlion types, Hunters, new Overwatch soldier, and Advisors.

But that comes at a price.
Some enemies have disappeared with less reason then poor old Barney.

1. No metrocops, but that's understandable, no metro for them to cop.

2. No stalkers. Yeah, I know the Citadel blew up, but couldn't a few have escaped on the trains (other then the one we crashed when leaving the Citadel, of course)

3. No rollermines. That's rather odd. A few rollermines at that ambush at the White Forest Inn would've been nice or out on the open road, plus I'm curious about what Hunters would do against a reprogrammed one. Are their darts enough to blow it up?

4. No hostile hopper mines. yes, I liked the rebel modified ones in the tunnel standoff, but where are the others? They could be nice traps on the road as well, and probably quite effective against a hunter, either gravity gun tossed or as traps.

5. The shield scanners. Or city scanners, for that matter. Shield scanners have little to do in the absence of hopper mines, but we do see a few city scanners on the big bridge in the Combine Convoy (sorry about the pun). Odd, since there is no city left for the city scanners, but wasn't the shield scanner a "spotter" for the strider in 'Follow Freeman' were they also completely obliterated by the Citadel explosion?



Wow. I wrote alot more then I thought. So does anyone have any other ideas why these enemies kicked the bucket? Or are my explanations already perfect?

 

[Iron_cube]

I really miss the cops, though I dont give a shit about the others

Oh yeah and I really really thought there would be some APC fights. But nooo

 

[Dr_Crowbar]

Well, we did get Antlion Workers and Hunters, y'know.

 

[Iron_cube]

I hate the combine soldiers in ep2.

The dirty models combined with the new blood effect makes them even worse than the regular clean grey ones.

 

[Stigmata]

Well remember, Episode 2 pretty much takes place a day after the Citadel is destroyed. The Combine in the region have no way to manufacture new forces, and all their rollermines and hopper mines were already set out, or were destroyed along with the Citadel. The few Scanners that survived were, as you said, patrolling along with the Advisors as they were moved out of City 17, so it would be kind of counter-productive to have those few Scanners actively searching for out-of-the-way enemies and leave the Combine patrols without any warnings of nearby enemies or ambushes.

As for Stalkers, they don't seem to be suited too well for combat. Besides which, they were never seen outside of the Citadel, so the Citadel's destruction surely killed all of them, or left the survivors buried under piles of rubble.

 

[Planetary]

I really miss the cops, thought I dont give a shit about the others

Oh yeah and I really really thought there would be some APC fights. But nooo

Thanks for reminding me, I forgot the APCs. They appear on the bridge along with gunships but we never fight either. Did the Advisors just say "That would be way too hard on the rebels, we won't send them"?

Yeah, an APC fight on the road would've been nice. Alyx driving, em with a turret on the back, or is that too Haloish?

There was an APC outside the Advisor shed, when the soldiers arrive, but it just sits there.

EDIT: I'm one forgetful SOB. There was a half new enemy, the fast zombie torso! But it hardly makes any appearance, except during the autogun sequence. Does the autogun count as a new enemy? Or is it more in the category of the suppression device and headcrab launcher?

 

[UseAbuse]

maybe the rebels blew them up with their l337 hax0rz skills

 

[Black Op]

Civil Protection: These forces were all stationed in urbanized areas, so all the ones in City 17 are either probably dead by now or have been gang-pressed to become Overwatch soldiers as an emergency measure.

Stalkers: Gameplay-wise, they work best in dark and closed spaces. Since these locations tended to have an antlion theme in EP2, it's understandable that they don't fit here.

Rollermines/hoppers: I would have thought rollermines would have been suitable to appear in EP2, tis a shame they didn't show up. Maybe VALVe just couldn't be bothered teaching the player how to make them friendly again? As for hostile hoppers, they only seem to show up in the city anyway. Which reminds me, we didn't see any hostile portable turrets either in EP2, but then again the Overwatch were not seen by the player to be on the denfensive.

Scanners: Shield scanners don't appear when they have no hoppers to drop. And since EP2 striders were found on open terrain with not much obstacles that can hide the player, one can argue that scanners weren't all that needed.


At any rate, any absence of a Combine weapon like the rollermines could be explained with the theory that no stockpiles were simply available at the time.

 

[Tyguy]

There isnt really any reason for any of those characters to appear outside of C17.

Stalkers sole job is to maintain the facilities in the citadel.
Rollermines would be pointless in the wide open-ness of EP 2.
Hopper Mines were used when the combine knew resistance would be at a certain place, so unless they use 490342 mines, they are pointless.
The scanners are in the same boat, they would be flying around endlessly.

I would of liked to shoot some metro cops but the point is that they would of taken away from the gameplay

 

[Planetary]

Weren't there a handful of turrets during the "Breach" at White Forest?

But I was quite glad that the chopper returned. It was strangely absent during the street war.

 

[Tyguy]

ya, but they were "ours", not placed there in the hopes we would run into them.

 

[Takekaze]

Rollermines would have been neat during the little car adventure. Definitely.

At least Barney didn't pop up disguised as an Advisor.

 

[kupocake]

Episode 2 is only a fraction of a full game though. If you take the equivilent chapters in Half-Life 2, there's a similar variety of enemies and a similar absence of them too. Mind you, Rollermines are puzzling, since Highway 17 is equivilent to the Driving-based chapters. For an in-Universe explanation, I suppose the fact that the Combine never had the area specifically occupied before a day or two before factors in heavily, but there are probably gameplay considerations too. The best way to kill those things in Highway 17 was to always throw them into the sea, which is obviously impossible in Episode 2. Alyx could reprogram them, but does that really make for interesting gameplay? I figure Valve just didn't find them a fun addition, so they left them out. I never really loved their appearances anyway, especially in HL2 which had such very long driving sections.

 

[leib10]

The only one that could've made an appearance were Rollermines and Hoppermines. I think they got rid of them because thanks to the wide open spaces, you could easily avoid them. Plus I think people were sick of them anyway.

 

[ranmafan]

ya, but they were "ours", not placed there in the hopes we would run into them.

Actually I don't think so. The Combine set them out to cut off access through the three tunnels, so they were clearly expecting somebody to come through.

 

[Cube]

Actually I don't think so. The Combine set them out to cut off access through the three tunnels, so they were clearly expecting somebody to come through.

Yea. There was also an enemy turret when you were sneaking past the autogun.