Overwatch Soldier
From Combine OverWiki, the English Half-Life Wikia
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Overwatch Soldiers are intelligent infantrymen that work in squads and have a variety of attack methods. While Civil Protection has jurisdiction over the relatively minor affairs of policing the cities, Overwatch Soldiers can be found everywhere, and form the backbone of the Combine military occupation force on Earth.
Overwatch Soldiers usually travel in APCs or Dropships. When a squad of Soldiers need to be deployed quickly into a combat zone, Dropships are used.
Overwatch Soldiers are one of the games' most common foes. They are frequently encountered throughout most of Half Life 2, Episode One, and, to a lesser extent, Episode Two.
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[edit] Appearance & Capabilities
Overwatch soldiers wear advanced body armour, which protects their torso, groin, arms, and thighs. The armour is typically coloured grey and has a simple urban camouflage design. They wear advanced helmets with masks that cover the soldier's face. The mask contains blue goggles which glow. Overwatch soldiers wear an Overwatch insignia on one of the arm pads.
Overwatch soldiers are usually equipped with sub-machine guns, shotguns, or pulse rifles, in addition to grenades.
Overwatch soldiers typically work in squads of four to six, each squad having at least one soldier armed with a shotgun and another armed with the AR2 Pulse Rifle. Soldiers make use of squad tactics and will attempt to flank its enemies and cover each other.
Overwatch soldiers are initially encountered in the coastal wasteland outside the city, patrolling the highways for resistance activity and staffing Combine outposts. They can, however, be found anywhere the Combine requires direct military action, as soldiers can be quickly transported from the Citadel to a desired area via dropships. Overwatch soldiers are also tasked with guarding high-security areas, monitoring stalkers in the Citadel and serving as staff in the Nova Prospekt. In addition, they also serve as pilots and gunners of the Combine hunter-choppers.
Overwatch soldiers are confirmed to be humans that have undergone extensive modifications including, but not limited to, brain surgery, chest surgery, removal of genitalia and sexual organs, and implantation of various mechanical devices in the throat and around the abdomen, and are likely to have their memories replaced. This procedure is carried out at Nova Prospekt and the Citadel. Some players like to think of Overwatch soldiers as human synths; Dr. Kleiner describes them in Episode One as "post-human" in reference to their enforced enhancements.
Despite the extensive surgery and modifications they receive, Overwatch soldiers still appear to have certain human characteristics - for instance, they will grunt in pain when attacked, and during the Nova Prospekt chapter, Doctor Breen is giving what appears to be a morale-boosting speech to them, and they sometimes can be heard shouting expletives in the heat of battle, indicating that they still have human emotions to a certain extent. They also communicate over radios, but unlike Civil Protection officers, are not spoken to by dispatchers. Based on announcements made over the public address system of Nova Prospekt, punishments for failing to achieve objectives include "permanent off-world assignment." The threat of being reassigned to what may be the fringes of the Combine empire is apparently an effective method of motivating soldiers to succeed.
In combat, soldiers fire their weapons with decent accuracy. Depending on the difficulty level the game is being played on, soldiers can take a moderate number of hits before dying. If a hostile target is at point blank range, a soldier will hit the target with the butt of his weapon.
[edit] Tactics
Overwatch soldiers use squad tactics extensively, and will utilize a number of modern infantry tactics, such as flanking, fire and movement tactics, and even bounding overwatch against the player. Depending on the situation and surroundings, you can exercise a great deal of tactical flexibility while fighting Overwatch soldiers. There is no one tactic that exploits any particular weakness, the trick is to use the right tactics for the situation.
First of all, situational awareness is key - pay attention to avoid walking into ambushes. If you listen as you enter an area, you may be able to hear your enemies' hushed radio chatter, indicating their presence. If you know your enemy's position before they know yours, you have an advantage. Secondly; once in combat, avoid being surrounded or being caught off guard. Don't get so preoccupied with one target that another gets you from behind.
If you get behind cover, a squad of soldiers will either send a soldier up to investigate while the others cover, or a soldier will throw a grenade at your position to drive you out. If you're behind cover, and you hear a soldier making his way towards you, move out of cover quickly and dispatch the soldier, then you can either move back into cover or move elsewhere. If a soldier has tossed a grenade at your position while behind cover, pull out your Gravity Gun, pick up the grenade, and toss it back at them. This will then confuse them as they attempt to get clear of the blast. While this is happening, you can either fire on them or move to a new position.
Try to keep your distance from soldiers, as they resort to a damaging melee attack if you're in range. Also, soldiers equipped with shotguns do far more damage at close range.
Soldiers almost always move to cover when they have to reload, or if they're injured.
Soldiers have more health depending on the difficulty level you are playing on.
[edit] Trivia
- Originally the uniforms were intended to have randomly generating alphanumeric unit numbers on them, as well as have a different camouflage design, yellow undergarments and dark orange goggles. However, due to gameplay and programming issues, the design was reworked.
- Alternate, green-colored Combine soldiers with glowing orange eyes were seen in preview screenshots of Half-Life 2: Episode One, at the time when the episode was still called Aftermath.[1] It is unclear how this variation differed from the rest of the Combine Overwatch, as they were replaced by regular Combine soldiers in the game's final release. These same green-colored soldiers can also be seen in the main menu of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. It is interesting to note that they have the Elite insignia on their leg pads.
- During Half-life 2: Episode Two the soldiers armour and boots are flecked with mud, indicating they have been travelling by foot for long periods of time.
[edit] See also
| Units of the Combine | ||
|---|---|---|
| Humanoid: | Civil Protection · Overwatch Soldier · Overwatch Sniper · Overwatch Elite · Nova Prospekt Guard · Stalker | |
| Synth: | Combat Pod · Crab Synth · Dropship · Gunship · Hunter · Mortar Synth · Shield Scanner · Strider | |
| Other: | APC · Hunter-Chopper · Manhack · City Scanner | |
