Web Animation / TheParryGod

Protection units are flatline. Spikewall is solo active.

Holding for Advanced Directive.

—Multiple Overwatch units

TheParryGod, real name Richard Makk, is a YouTuber and animator who specialises in creating high-quality short films set in the world of Half-Life, using Source 2 Filmmaker.

The videos tend to focus on The Combine from Half-Life 2 and Half-Life: Alyx (using many of the latter's assets), and their Resistance enemies, with particular care and attention given to the Transhuman forces of Combine Overwatch, who provide many clear demonstrations why these utterly inhuman Super Soldiers are rightly feared by the shattered remnants of mankind.

TheParryGod's videos provide examples of:

• Adaptational Badass: The Overwatch soldiers are shown to be far more lethal and competent than would be possible in the games, making Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance look almost unbelievably tough in being able to take out dozens of Combine troops on their own.
• Armor Is Useless: Averted. The body armour of the heavy Combine infantry can shrug off small-calibre rounds rather easily.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's not clear if "Tom", the semi-auto pistol wielding rebel from Patient Zero, survived or not. We don't see where Spikewall's last shot went, but we don't hear him scream or any other sounds of him getting hit either.
• Big "NO!": Jake, the hazmat-suited rebel and probable leader of the group in Protectors, has this reaction when Lily, his Implied Love Interest, is headshotted by the Ordinal.
• Black Comedy: This absolute gem from Spikewall in Patient Zero, as he searches for the remaining rebels after brutally slaughtering most of their squad:
  Spikewall: Attention, Hostile Targets. You Can Come Out Now. It is Safe.
  (hears movement)
  *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*
• Blatant Lies: Spikewall, after gunning down three of the rebels, reassures the two survivors that it's safe to come out now. Then, one of them accidentally kicks a bottle, and he knocks down half the building firing his tau shotgun towards the noise. Though the fact that he refers to them as "Hostile Targets" probably gave it away before that.
• Boom, Headshot!: Frequently.
  • In Protectors, Echo-2 shoots a headcrab right off its host, and the Ordinal nails Lily when she is forced to duck out of cover to take out his Manhack.
  • In Patient Zero we get Spikewall splitting a rebel's head in half with his tau shotgun, and the shotgun-armed rebel miraculously managing to put down the Combine behemoth with a slug straight through the eye.
• Born Lucky: The Resistance member known only as "Rebel Shotgun", who appears both in Anti-Citizens and Patient Zero seems to be this. While he's definitely a Badass Normal for surviving two separate encounters with Overwatch heavy infantry, he only avoids being clobbered by Wallhammer because a stray bullet hit a conveniently placed propane tank which explodes and cripples the Combine soldier. And then his defeat of Spikewall in Patient Zero seems equally likely to be a lucky shot as opposed to him just being that good.
• Call-Back:
  • The corridor where the climactic fight in Protectors took place is revisited in A Tape From City 17, complete with the decaying corpses of the rebels killed in the shootout.
  • This Time Tomorrow is filled with references to the films preceding it, including the immediate aftermaths of Protectors, Anti-Citizens, and Infestation.
• Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: Once the Ground Protection Team disembarks from their transport in Patient Zero, the Overwatch AI issues an announcement encouraging all persons in the vicinity to 'cooperate' with the Combine patrol.
• Canon Foreigner: Some of his videos feature "transition period" Overwatch soldiers who are meant to be successors to the Alyx units and predecessors to the Half-Life 2 ones. "Spikewall" is a transition period shotgunner and direct upgrade of the Charger, while the soldier briefly glimpsed in This Time Tomorrow is a more standard unit.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: In Blue Eyes, a Combine Hunter fires a flechette right through the head of a rebel, who is only able to gurgle in shock/horror/confusion for a brief moment before it blows up.
• Curb Stomp Cushion:
  • The Resistance fighters in Protectors get wiped out, but manage to kill both of the stabilisation team's Grunts and score a hit on the APF.
  • In general, the Resistance are always shown to be competent — they have plans, they set ambushes, they're good shots, and are normally more than a match for Civil Protection. But once Overwatch shows up they're dead meat: without any heavy weapons, HEV Suits or Plot Armor to help them, they're completely outmatched by the Combine Super Soldiers.
• Distinguishing Mark: Rebel Shotgun is identifiable by the Combine insignia tattooed on his forehead, the same one the Lone Vortigaunt in Half-Life: Alyx has on his chest.
• Energy Weapons: Spikewall in Patient Zero is a variant of the Combine Charger/Wallhammer from Half-Life: Alyx equipped with a tau shotgun, which is just as terrifying as it sounds.
• Found Footage Film: A Tape From City 17 presents itself as a series of video tapes recorded by a citizen who arrives in the city by train, stays for some time, then stows away on another train and leaves the city.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In the opening shots of Protectors, a Cremator can be seen walking behind the passing Razor Train.
  • At the start of Anti-Citizens, a Ordinal's backpack, rigged to act as a jammer, is placed beside the door of the CP outpost — this was highlighted by TheParryGod himself after a commentor asked what the opening dialogue (the different CP teams reporting in) meant — which explains why the CPs mention a loss of signal.
  • "Rebel Shotgun" can be seen loading his weapon with slugs, presumably as they'd be more effective against Spikewall's heavy armour than buckshot — this almost definitely saves his life.
• Hackette: The female rebel in Anti-Citizens, who's able to breach a Combine door lock, operate their alien computers, and is probably responsible for rigging the rebels' jammer, too.
• Lightning Bruiser: Patient Zero's Spikewall is fast and can run around as though he's not wearing God knows how much heavy armor, while also capable of tanking an absurd amount of punishment and only going down thanks to a shotgun slug through the eye.
• Mirroring Factions: At the very beginning of Patient Zero, a Civil Protection officer is seen nervously drumming his fingers against the reciever of his SMG. Later, "Rebel Shotgun" shows a similar nervous tick as he and his team are waiting for the Combine to reach their position.
  • In general, Civil Protection officers display noticibly human traits and emotions, most notably fear and panic. This is sharply contrasted with the Combine Overwatch.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: One can assume that you do not want to mess with something called Spikewall. And you'd be right.
• Neck Snap: In Anti-Citizens, Wallhammer hits a rebel with his truncheon so hard that his head turns 90 degrees, breaking his neck.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond:
  • If your name's Gordon Freeman or Alyx Vance, Combine troops are tough, but still mere obstacles to be bowled over. To poorly equipped, ragtag bands of rebels with at best minimal training, they're terrifying.
  • Similarly, when you're wearing Powered Armor and equipped with a Gravity Gun, Hopper Mines are just a nuisance to be tossed away. When one activates mere centimetres from the unlucky CP driver in Patient Zero, he can only plead futilely in horror as it launches itself at him and blows him to shreds.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The improvised jammer used by the rebels in Anti-Citizens is stated to be an Ordinal's backpack, implying someone was able to take one out — no mean feat, given that they're really damn tough and never alone.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The rebels' ambush in Patient Zero worked, and they wiped out the Ground Protection Team. Problem is, they got more or less the same in return, with at best two members of their squad being left alive by sheer luck and/or Improbable Aiming Skills. it's unclear what they hoped to gain.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": The last words of the Civil Protection officer in Patient Zero, when he goes to retrieve a piece of captured Combine "equipment" and walks into an active Hopper Mine.
• Shmuck Bait: After gunning down most of the resistance fighters in Patient Zero, and forcing the rest into hiding:
  Spikewall: Attention, Hostile Targets. You Can Come Out Now. It Is Safe.
• Shout-Out: The firefight at the climax of Protectors is set to a mashup of "V" and "The Only Thing They Fear is You"
• Soundtrack Dissonance: This Time Tomorrow, a showcase of the Combine's totalitarian rule with call backs to the dreary endings of previous animations, is set to an upbeat cover of the titular song by The Kinks.
• There Was a Door: In Anti-Citizens, the rebels' intelligence-gathering operation is rudely interrupted by Wallhammer smashing right through a wall to attack them.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • The first CP to notice that rebels have broken into their outpost in Anti-Citizens resignedly mutters "Shit" before being gunned down.
  • Similarly, one of the rebel soldiers in Patient Zero is already aware that attempting to fight an Overwatch soldier isn't going to end well.
    Rebel MP5: Shit! Why's there a solder with 'em?
• Unbroken First-Person Perspective: Infestation is presented entirely from the eyes of an Echo unit accompanying a Wallhammer into the Quarantine Zone.
• Uncanny Valley: Very intentionally Invoked with regards to the Overwatch soldiers, to emphasise that these twisted amalgamations of flesh, bone and machinery are not human in anything other than a superficial sense.
  • For one thing, they don't seem to feel pain or fear. Both the Rebels and CPs are depicted as being anxious and scared before and during combat, while the Overwatch troops will advance unhesitatingly, displaying as little self-preservation as tactically logical.
  • When the APF gets shot in Protectors, he exclaims "I'm Hit! Bodypack holding!" What sort of thing has a 'Bodypack'? What the hell is under that suit? Do you even want to know?
  • And then there's the utterly unsettling gurgling, roaring noises that Spikewall makes in Patient Zero. Are they cries of pain? Frustration? A battle cry? It's not at all clear.

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Overwatch. Sector is clean.

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