Who are the Combine?

[DelaZ]

Gamasutra has an interview with Valve writer Marc Laidlaw talking about story and narrative in Half-Life 2. He does offer some choice teasers from his dialog for the sequel... Half-Life2.


Here's a line I cut: 'When you think of the creatures we've driven to extinction without a second thought, aren't you grateful the Combine isn't just another one-dimensional superpredator like…well, like ourselves?' *1

Here's one I haven't cut yet: 'What did I expect from the man who brought civilization to a screeching halt?' *2


*1 Hmm..

*2 Is he talking about the G-man?

 

[Frank]

Maybe the G-Man is God? God-Man...

 

[nw909]

Government-Man?

 

[JunkieXL]

Originally posted by nw909
Government-Man?

You are correct!

 

[aku ankka]

Originally posted by DelaZ

Here's one I haven't cut yet: 'What did I expect from the man who brought civilization to a screeching halt?' *2

That could be about Gordon and Xen too.

 

[ApocalypseNow]

.

 

[Gunner]

^^ wow Apocalypse! That blew my mind!

And the link requires a membership...

 

[Ridic]

dudes didnt you read the email from gabe? He said the Combine are actually Birds that mutated into fish then mutated into humans. They have to wear a mask cause if they dont their guts will fall out of their mouth. Alyx;s mom is a combine. Yaya

EDIt- the point is, we dont know......yet.

 

[Dux]

They also Hoover your house for free. Such a great service they provide.

 

[Stigmata]

The 2nd quote is probably the Gman talking to Gordon after Gordon beats a bunch of guys by blowing the s*** out of 'em. It really fits well.

 

[Think]

I think that a combine is a alien.

 

[ComradeBadger]

THE Combine is a massive fortress that is eating City 17. There are Combine Soldiers, and they are human. Nuff sed

 

[Feath]

That hasn't been proven yet. They could not be human.

They could be part human, part robot. That would explain the noise when they die.

 

[Cyber$nake]

They ARE human, or they have translators because in the videos ive heard them say a few things:
When the combine drops down with the hydra thing behind it, he said "Dont Move" (at least in one of the videos, i dont think he said it in the other).
When gordon is on that roof and shoots the wood beams tied together with wham everyone, you can here in a strange voice say "MAN DOWN!"
so there human, or translators

 

[Cyber$nake]

Actually he doesnt say dont move, he says "hold it there." and he screems like a human too

 

[Guest]

Exactly, this is one of the major reason that i like hl2's story better than doom3's story. Don't get me wrong, I'm 30% a doom3 fan and 70% a hl2 fan now. Someone made a joke, saying:"it's Mars, why don't we just nuke the ****ing place". I kind of agree with him. The ennemis in doom3 are zombies and creatures from the hell, in fact they just look like animals or something and they don't even have the technology to travel to Earth. Besides if one man is able to take them down, so why should we bother in killing them?!! I don't see how they are a threat to the humanity. The ennemis in doom3 are just some inferious creatures. Valve handle fairly well in designing the ennemies, they are human like creatures with high tech stuff. human is the most superious creature that we have seen in the real life. We are strong, not because we are zombies with animal like physical strength, but because of our intelligence, high tech, etc. In fact, we human are the superpredator in the world(the one that we know up to day) , the rivals can only be the human like superpredator from other dimension or something even more superious(GOD, maybe?? not sure). Hl2 has a lot to do with the theme "superpredator"; human fight against combine to see who is really superious, who is really the superpredator and who will be the one (Jet Li??); For the inferious creatures such as antlions, to be manipulated and to be enslaved are their fate.

Man i just realize how much i like hl2, percentage of fanatic degree just increased by 5%, from 70% to 75% now.

 

[ComradeBadger]

^ Thats food for thought..... the inferiors being manipulated 'theme' was present in HL, the scientists, while human, were very naive, and exploited, the same with the soldiers in Opposing Force... very interesting voodoo

 

[Guest]

thx, i'm not a believer, but i had read few parts in the Bible, i like the part that talks about Satan and his legion the arc angels, cuz I find the theme of superpredator is very strong.

 

[Typhon]

100 bucks says the combine are guaranteed not to be human.....in the german version...

 

[Guest]

they are not human, but they must be human like creature in order to rival with human. I don't want to kill bunch of inferious creatures, that's like massacre and pure ownage.

 

[Ro@cH]

Gamevoodoo: The Resident Evil line of games were full of inferiOR creatures, slow moving zombies, kneehigh raging dogs, generally stupid, low-tech creatures. But, they did manage to scare the sh!t out of people, Resident Evil and it's successors were relatively popular games. Doom3 has both creatures that are inferior as well as superior(speed,strength,intelligence). I do think you're right, killing 150 bloodthirsty rabbits is less appealing than killing 50 combine soldiers.
It's human nature that feeds the need to match ourselves with, or even exceed,our superiors. It's what drives any war, any fight, any struggle.

 

[Guest]

hey Ro@cH, see my reply in the thread "Thoughts on designing ennemies, come in and share"