Dr. Breem is a misspelling that makes me laugh, I don’t know why.
Ah I remember seeing the You Tube comments on his speeches and seeing how many people think he did the right thing in selling out to the Combine.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"It's something that there is a degree of moral ambiguity to. Let's be honest, the Combine were going to win the 7 hour War no matter what, so I can see why surrendering to make sure humanity survives in some form or other (and perhaps with the opportunity to fight back at another point) would be for the best.
It's just that Breen seems to enjoy being Ambassador for the Combine a bit too much and you get the impression that, even if it wasn't necessarily initially for this reason (though it might well be), working for the Combine has become less about protecting humanity and more about protecting Breen and allowing himself to rise through the ranks.
During his televised propaganda speeches, Breen says that he is proud to be a collaborator because he sees the Combine as enabling the next step in humanity's evolution. Who has looked at all of us on this planet — fighting wars, wasting resources, rejecting science, being racist, believing all kinds of stupid shit — and not imagined some external agent forcing us to stop being such idiots?
Half-Life 2 says that this is a very bad idea because we don't want to be impressed into a galactic empire that regards the autonomy of its subjects no higher than we'd regard the inner lives of ants. Obviously, it has to make that claim because otherwise Dr. Freeman might be on Breen's side. The Combine won and will likely continue to win. Do we choose humanity's extinction over the possibility of a greater future, even if it's morally unconscionable to us?
Note that I am not taking a side here, merely observing that Breen's reasoning is not completely flawed.
Few revolutions succeed without external aid, and the G-Man represents an inscrutable third party in all of this. So do the Vortigaunts, who are clearly on humanity's side. There's a resistance to the Combine and we're now officially part of it.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 17th 2024 at 9:54:59 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
If the CM threads weren't on hold, I would probably take Dr. Breen to then, just because of Villain Has a Point.
Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Nov 17th 2024 at 9:54:12 AM
Once Upon A Time.TBF, they were slaves to the final boss whose name I forgot back then. So self defense.
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Plus I have to point out that the Combine has stolen so much resources from Earth and imposed a shitty government that only Breen benefits from.
Plus all his supposed reverence for our benefactors is transparently false because the moment he has Gordon at his mercy, he's quick to gloat that he can make whatever deal he wants with the Combine.
Edited by RedHunter543 on Nov 17th 2024 at 11:04:50 PM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Yes, the Nihilanth had been keeping the Vortigaunts enslaved. It's too bad that we never got a huge amount of official lore about Xen, just a lot of inferences. I don't remember if the Nihilanth was keeping the Combine from discovering Earth, or if it was our use of portals to defeat it that brought us to the attention of the Combine.
Either way it was acting as a spoiler in the whole business, and without it all Hell broke loose.
What keeps Breen from having the moral high ground is that he's so clearly acting as an opportunist rather than a true believer. He'll do whatever it takes to maintain his own privilege. Weirdly, he reminds me of the Empire in Skyrim: a puppet government that convinces itself it's acting in the best interests of humanity.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 17th 2024 at 10:30:06 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I like free full-length games, so I nabbed HL2 yesterday just for that.
Also got HL1 and Blue Shift yesterday since they were dirt cheap. (Seriously, less than $2.00 for them together? Complete steal!)
The camera in HL1 feels a little too buttery smooth. Maybe I'll get used to it over time. Also, how do I get subtitles in HL1?
And stupid question: even if they acknowledge HL2 turning 20, we're probably never getting Half-Life 3, yeah? Like, HL:Alyx is probably the closest we're gonna get to that at this point? (Haven't gotten around to seeing spoilers but apparently, things happen there...)
Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Nov 17th 2024 at 4:48:37 AM
> It's too bad that we never got a huge amount of official lore about Xen, just a lot of inferences. I don't remember if the Nihilanth was keeping the Combine from discovering Earth, or if it was our use of portals to defeat it that brought us to the attention of the Combine.
Theory I have is that during development was a focus on gameplay first and story telling 2nd,it reminds me how System shock 2 came out a year after half life 1 and it felt massively dated by comparison because the RPG elements did not transfer well at all into the first person shooter gameplay,and that includes how they told their respective stories,I honestly prefer System shock 2's story because it's everywhere thanks to the audio logs,also SHODAN is super compelling.By comparison,half life is fairly minimalist at times but the gameplay is really fun.
have a listen and have a link to my discord serverSomething I thought about (that this new packaging of Half Life 2 with it's episodes reminded me of) is that the start of Half Life all the way to the end of Episode 2 tells one unbroken narrative that never leaves Gordon's head. The end of 2 leads directly into Episode 1, and Episode 1 leads right into Episode 2. There's no time skips between the second game or it's episodes (well, there's a bit of time between the episodes, but IIRC Episode 1 ends with the Citadel explosion knocking Gordon out whilst on the train and then Episode 2 starts with Gordon waking up in the wreckage of the train). There is a massive time skip between Half Life and Half Life 2, but Gordon is in status for this period and it's implied that, from his perceptive, he goes straight from the ending of the first game into the beginning of the second. That's quite neat.
It also means that, from Gordon's perspective, in the space of a few days at most, he got on the monorail at work, did an experiment, accidentally started an Alien invasion, fought the aliens, fought the military, saved the day, got put in status, woke up in a dystopia, fought the dystopia, started a massive revolution, killed the Combine Ambassador for Earth, blew up the Citadel and destroyed Earth's de facto capital, fell in love with his colleague's daughter, made it to a silo and then saw his colleague get killed.
Edited by king15 on Nov 17th 2024 at 11:09:56 AM
When someone says something against him, he just stares at them in Hugh Laurie.
Edited by VutherA on Nov 17th 2024 at 3:47:32 AM
I once again recommend the absolutely stellar machinima series Freeman's Mind, which attempts to give a voice to Dr. Freeman: a paranoid, neurotic voice.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

The achievements are now very messed up. Fortunately I got them back, but seeing the world achievement stats, most people haven't bothered to claim them. Achievements that used to be given for free are now at 0.01% completion.