Lair of The Tark
 
After two false starts (stupid forefox stop crashgin goddamit!). Anyway, with valve saying they're going to return to the character of Adrian Shepher it got me to thinking what an Opposing Force 2 would look like.

He should be a Combine Elite.

Part 1: Drafted.

The game begins with you in a metal coffin thing on a train being awakened by the G-Man. He tells you that you are being drafted to finish the mission you first began or soething cryptic along those lines. He never says anything explicit like kill freeman or any of that. From there you your train arrives in Nova Propekt where you go through a rather painful looking sequence wher the corporals humanity is stripped away with in and out of conciousness images of stalkers and various robotic implements doing some rather horrible things to him. This is where he'll get his HEV suit type ability to see his health and armor and subsequently select his weapons. From there he's taken through a short training section that gives him his first two weapons, a Pipe Wrench and a Combine Assault rifle before being thrown into the fray during the portion where Freeman is infiltrating the prison. There are fights with antlions of all three varieties, zombies and plenty of squad usage as you now have combine soldiers working for you. (oh and now you can walk through combine barriers. :) ) The AI for these soldiers needs to be better then typical HL2 where the damn rebels dont bother with little thigns like grenades and cover. Along the way you should also get a submachine gun and the pistol.

This portion ends with a quick puzzle to get an engie combine to detonate the door leading to the teleporter just as freeman and alyx make their escape. The malfunction snatches you up in the teleporter as well and thus comes the second part.

Part 2: Counter Insurgency

This second part has you being teleported at sometime roughly after Gordon, Alyx and Dr. Kleiner exit the lab along with a good portion of the room you were in busting walls smashing equipment and opening up areas into City17 that were previously unexplored.

This is the aprt I've been wanting since the main game. Shoot me some rebels. You're not given an exact reason why you should be shooting at them but the fact that they're shooting at you while screaming "COMBINE!" is reason enough to shoot back. HEre the squad shoot outs become more prevalent and more weapon s get dropped into your hands including a Shotgun and, the ability to deploy Manhacks(!!!) that target your enemies but leave you and your squadmates alone.

At some point we should get into a very neat squad portion that gives you the command of a pair of Hunters. Their are a number of puzzles involving using the hunters flechettes to break some doors and things down for you that your pipe wrench doesn't seem to affect. IT also helps that said hunters are rather tough in combat however if both die you lose the game so it becomes a balance of sending them into situations where their toughness will triump but not into situations where they'll get killed.

The level ends as you get a great vista shot of the top of the Citadel getting blown up. Thus putting you into the events of Episode 1.

Part 3: Evac route

At this point you get back together with your combine mates and renew the chase for freeman. This portion is what I want to call, keep the tank alive as you'll basically be following a strider around with your squad while it shoots people and they shoot at it, you, and the squad with you. It's important to take out the rocket carriers as they'll eliminate the strider removing a good portion of the firepower you're running around with while making it impossible to progress (striders blow up obstacles).

After this sequence you find what happened to Dr. Breen. Rather you find his bloodied and broken corpse being chewed on by zombies. :D There's notmuch more to say about this other than you get glimpses of Alyx and Gordon running through the city or the aftermaths of their work.

Eventually you reach a point whre you pile into an APC (or Dropship) and go after freemans train. The citadel kerplodes and you black out as the vehicle is blown to bits.

This marks the half way point in the game and a turnin point for this character.

Part 4: Loose Ends

You wake up on an old airforce base strikingly similar to the one found in Adrians training tutorial. As a nod to the old expansion you see a man in a lab coat attempting to revive a fallen combine soldier. He expresses relif that you were alive and explains that he cut off your behavioral suppression systems (like you really ahd a choice in shooting rebels) so you are no loner under the combines sway. He explains that there were those who wanted to kill you and understandably but he values life. NAturally your weapons have been stripped from you. He explains that they're here to retrieve a nuclear warhead located deep underground to keep them

Outside the room you find a group of rebels trying to cross a barrier but failing miserably (sparks fly jokes are made). This is a training part where your employed to go after the plug that's out of reach to drop the barrier for the rebels. (Do it or we'll make your short remaining life so miserable...) They go through and that's that short bit.

This is a short part where you don't ahve any weapons (save a combat knife if you do a bit of exploring which the rebels comment on but do nothing about) essentially you're dodging zombies until you can drop a barrier and let the rebels come in and clean house.

This portion ends with a battle against a number of Pit Drones (DUN DUN DUUNNNNN Race X!) that actually teleport in and start killing off rebels.

This leads to a part where only one, maybe two people can progress. The surviving rebels argue for a bit agreeing that Shephard definitely needs ot go through since he can deactivate the barriers. The vortigaunt with them agrees to come with you simply because the others aren't willing to risk their necks to help combine scum.

Continuing in next post.

 
So after some long thought and a lot of scribbling in a notebook I've decided to dive in and take the bull by the balls.  Why the balls? Because the horns are sharp and the bull can see you rather clearly when you do that.  In this case I'm grabbing him where it hurts and ehre he can't effectively get at me without causing more pain.

Now where was I?  Oh, right, I'm speaking of an experiment into a youtube series reviewing tabletop games along the lines of other kinds of reviewers.  With any luck I'll garner some good attention and hopefully do a lot of good for the hobby.