>>17110565its not that he thought it would do anything, but the characters did
remember that they know theyre fighting a losing fight and dont really have much clue as to what to do
so for some of them they just figure "ya lets 9/11 the combine maybe thatll do something idk"
also iirc they wanted to take the borealis back home and study it initially but alyx was a bitch and went for the 9/11 cause eli
>reservessure, and maybe thats how humanity put up for seven hours before just surrendering
ya the combine is op but that's their point. hl2 in its premise is about resisting even if the enemy is that impossible to defeat, and holding on to some hope despite it. u dont get to travel to their homeworld and genocide them lol but whats cool is doing what you can do, slowly taking a piece or two off their plate
interesting thing about them is that its still kind of a realistic take on what an alien regime out of humanitys reach would do us
they could give less of a fuck about humanity but just what they can get out of us and earth itself, theyre pretty much done as soon as they get everything they want out of it, no interest in torturing humans they just dip. iirc only reason they keep them around is cause breen convinced them humans have use somehow
its not about haha we're evil and kill everyone we come across, but getting resources like water lol, they work purely for their own benefit
which is rly how an op alien invasion irl would be and thats what makes hl2 a depressing world to imagine living in, its bleak to think about ur entire race being used for anothers benefit like how we do with animals
the beta was just straight up torturing humanity for the hell of it though lol
>>17110593u could say all the xen bullshit did was thin out the military resources, but at the end of the day its still "hurr durr aliens more powerful" lol, but ya again that's what makes the game what it is