Half Life 2: Anti New World Order Video Game

Solaris

Solaris

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PrisonPlanet said:
The very first part of the game is almost identical to 1984 (everyone wearing blue-jumpsuits, being herded around to compact militarised cities, giant electronic billboards of "Big Brother" on every wall, the militaristic police using excessive force at every juncture). I highly recommend that you have a look at it, because it blatantly shows the state in a bad light, and the revolutionaries as heroes.
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Alex Jones respect count +1

I <3 You really alex.

Edit: OMG PRISONPLANET LINKED TO US!!!
 
Haha PrisonPlanet.

Seriously.. woo .. great... some nutjob thinks HL2 supports his ideals. Woo?
 
ComradeBadger said:
Haha PrisonPlanet.

Seriously.. woo .. great... some nutjob thinks HL2 supports his ideals. Woo?
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It does.

The combine are becoming increasingly similar to the US police force, who have gradually started carrying more assualt rifles, and wearing blacker outfits and such. There preparing for martial law here, just like in city 17, now we can be gordon freeman in real life, and shoot policemen!!!
 
The similarities don't end there! I hear bush hides a giant yellow alien who tells him what to do in the white house.


similar to the US police force, who have gradually started carrying more assualt rifles
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Actually last time I checked they still just carry one. More than that would just start to get heavy.


wearing blacker outfits and such
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They change uniforms to fit the area they are in, and right now they are mostly a dark blue or tan. [SARCASM]But I can see how you could confuse that with black.[/SARCASM]

The new world order begins! HERE!
 
What?
They are, I tell you!

You'll all be sorry when it happens.
 
Solaris said:
It does.

The combine are becoming increasingly similar to the US police force, who have gradually started carrying more assualt rifles, and wearing blacker outfits and such. There preparing for martial law here, just like in city 17, now we can be gordon freeman in real life, and shoot policemen!!!
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Good job I live in the UK then (or is it? With all the calls for more armed police, etc I may not be safe.)

Quick, everyone, go to Somalia the US govenment and their combine overlords wont touch us there!
 
What the writer is trying to say in that letter, is that the game is good, and it encourages people to fight against an injust authority, and portrays the hero as someone who fights an orwellian 1984 nightmare.
 
Sainku said:
The similarities don't end there! I hear bush hides a giant yellow alien who tells him what to do in the white house.
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Cheney!
ZING!

What the guy doesn't understand is that the game is far more nuanced than that.
I always saw the combine/rebel dynamic as modernism vs. postmodernism.
Expression through uniformity vs. expression through a pastiche of details.
The combine feel they can find the truth through destroying the past, while the rebels take elements of the past, like Gordon and the other BM characters and mix them with combine technology to dreate a unique team.

There's also constant hinting that the rebels are not the good guys either, just a lesser of two evils.
The combine use their own form of pastiche as well, through the synths, stalkers and overwatch. But to much more sinister effect.
They really aren't so different from the rebels, so the game asks where borrowing ends and theft begins.
The whole thing is quite ambiguous up 'till the end.

Oh yeah, but it has references to 1984 therefore it's purely counter-hegemonic. :p
That's a really shallow analysis.

I think the elements vaguely borrowed from hundreds or thousands of science-fiction stories (including 1984), show that the game itself has no illusions of being outside the scope of postmodernism. Yet it does manage to create a very unique whole from the disparate parts. Very few of the elements are as overt as "striders look like tripods lol" while many more are subtle nods that you would not normally notice. ("Breen" is the name of the oppressive soldiers in Aeon Flux, etc.)

The rebels are the 'good' team because they don't use coersion to spread their ideas, and instead let the individual members choose for themselves.
Gordon thinks he is being an individual - yet tons of emphasis is placed on exactly how little he knows about anything, and how his actions are controlled by outside forces like the g-man.
He's raging against the machine, but he barely knows how the machine works. So when he's asked what he's done other than destroy, there are no clear answers.
Again, the rebels are the lesser of two evils, but they are still not purely good.

The game is almost as much a criticism of half-baked "Bush = Hitler" protests (or prisonplanet websites :O) as it is of people like Bush himself.
 
Solaris said:
It does.

The combine are becoming increasingly similar to the US police force, who have gradually started carrying more assualt rifles, and wearing blacker outfits and such. There preparing for martial law here, just like in city 17, now we can be gordon freeman in real life, and shoot policemen!!!
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.....
Have you even been to the US, Solaris? :|
 
Ive watched lots of alex jones films......

Hmm where are hints that the rebels are bad?
 
Haha, now that it's mentioned, it's almost like the game is directly criticising Solaris.

"Americans carry assault rifles I saw it on a movie once. Hail to the proletariat!"
 
I've never seen any policeman carrying an assault rifle/smg/anything but a handgun EXCEPT after 9/11

I hope you die in a horrible car accident Solaris
 
I just hope he stops listening to mindless propoganda. There's enough in death in the world to throw off the universal balance.
 
hmmm so thats explain those big bugs I saw in the beach the other day
 
i agree with mecha on his very well put analysis of the overarching themes within hl2.

as for militarization of the US police, i don't see any of it. Police still carry around the same ole glocks in their holsters and shotties in their cars, not assault rifles. At least as far as I can see. Its not exactly a good idea for police to use weapons that are more likely to kill bystanders with stray bullets than the ones they use now, considering assault rifle rounds are highly prone to punching through many walls before stopping.

SWAT on the other hand, as near I can tell, has always made use of military grade weapons, but thats mainly for taking down heavily armed suspects.
 
Keep it civil guys. I'd hate* to get all police state on your collective asses.



*not really
 
Pi Mu Rho said:
Keep it civil guys. I'd hate* to get all police state on your collective asses.



*not really
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They just said they want me to die!
Surely that breaks some rule and warrants more than a mere generic warning.
 
They've both been warned privately - don't assume that nothing has happened just because you haven't seen it.
 
Solaris said:
:eek: You hope I die? Becuase my opinion differ? Well **** you!
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If it makes you feel better I don't hope you die in a car accident.
I just hope you get hit by a car and have the stupid knocked out of you.

Not really, I hope you live a long injury free life and that alex jones drowns in his own dirty pool of deceit and lies.

Also normal police forces don't use rifles at all unless the situation is out of control, and only S.W.A.T teams and the like use assault rifles.
 
Sainku said:
If it makes you feel better I don't hope you die in a car accident.
I just hope you get hit by a car and have the stupid knocked out of you.

Not really, I hope you live a long injury free life and that alex jones drowns in his own dirty pool of deceit and lies.

Also normal police forces don't use rifles at all unless the situation is out of control, and only S.W.A.T teams and the like use assault rifles.
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Hmm maybe what Ive seen isn't fairly edited.

But what I can't help but see whenever theres a protest and its on the news [In the USA], theres a really strong police present armed with MP5s, and the like as if they are trying to be intimidating, the Police in the UK do this alot too.
 
Mechagodzilla said:
Haha, now that it's mentioned, it's almost like the game is directly criticising Solaris.
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..but then who isn't directly criticising Solaris?
 
People would argue that the police have their guns on show, to reassure the public that they are suitably equipped to deal with a threat (not like the bobbies are going to chase a suicide bomber off with truncheons, blowing their whistle). However, it's mainly the government that says that.
 
Solaris said:
It does.

The combine are becoming increasingly similar to the US police force, who have gradually started carrying more assualt rifles, and wearing blacker outfits and such. There preparing for martial law here, just like in city 17, now we can be gordon freeman in real life, and shoot policemen!!!
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Effective weapons? Black outfits?

Oh noes!

edit: Solaris is Breen.
 
Solaris said:
Hmm maybe what Ive seen isn't fairly edited.

But what I can't help but see whenever theres a protest and its on the news [In the USA], theres a really strong police present armed with MP5s, and the like as if they are trying to be intimidating, the Police in the UK do this alot too.
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You really need to tone down the whole 'cause' thing
 
Having talked to several police officers in the past couple weeks. At an accident site, late at night being stopped while jogging.

They're just like you and me. They're human beings, and you're an idiot to think there's some great big plan to take over the country in some big police state... like the members of the police forces and the army are mindless sheep.

And as for the army? I know alot of people in the military, I'm sure plenty of you in the states know alot of people in the military. They're human beings. Kind, caring, the vast majority of them, with families, with friends... dreams, goals, aspirations.

They're not going to be in some plot to turn the united states into a police state. The security might be becoming tighter and tighter... but I can perfectly assure you, it hasn't and I doubt it will effect me at all as an individual, or us as a people in a vastly negative way.
 
Raziaar said:
The security might be becoming tighter and tighter... but I can perfectly assure you, it hasn't and I doubt it will effect me at all as an individual, or us as a people in a vastly negative way.
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People say this sort of crap without any kind of foresight.
 
hehe you can interpret HL2 on a multiple of levels, but the very core meaning of it.. as we are human the core relation is to the emotional and physical nature of whats being shown to us, resistance to change, sexually, morally, and culturally. Its a triple wammey.. the worst kind of opression, supressing the entire nature of what we are to pressure us to conform with their ideal's, belief's and culture, and exploiting our fears to encourage that process.
 
Absinthe said:
People say this sort of crap without any kind of foresight.
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You can honestly look outside and tell me the shit is hitting the fan? That the reality that we're going to be caged up like animals in our neighborhoods by police is just around the corner?

Gotta be kidding me.
 
[SARCASM]No, you have it all wrong. Half life 2 is about not wanting to leave behind your childhood(the resistence), and the transitions forced on us (Breen) and emotional barriers (Combine) one has to pass before he/she becomes an adult.[/SARCASM]



If america were to be turned into a police state, I doubt it would be done by our current government and police force.
 
Raziaar said:
You can honestly look outside and tell me the shit is hitting the fan? That the reality that we're going to be caged up like animals in our neighborhoods by police is just around the corner?

Gotta be kidding me.
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I didn't say that. I do believe, however, that the tightening of security and curtailing of civil liberties does have effects. Perhaps they don't slam into your face. Perhaps you, as an individual, truly are unaffected by it. But there's not telling what kind of effect it will have one, two, or ten years down the line. And you may just find yourself eating your own words.

Sainku said:
[SARCASM]No, you have it all wrong. Half life 2 is about not wanting to leave behind your childhood(the resistence), and the transistions forced on us (Breen) and emotional barriers (Combine) one has to pass before he/she becomes an adult.[/SARCASM]
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I thought it was a metaphor for rough and vigorous anal sex.

And for the love of God, do not ask me to explain why.
 
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