can someone please explain...

F

fresh_poo

Guest
Half-Life combines great storytelling in the tradition of Stephen King with intense action and advanced technology to create a frighteningly realistic world where players need to think smart to survive. Half-Life has won more than 50 Game of the Year awards from publications around the world. Throughout the game, both friends and foes behave in sophisticated and unpredictable ways, a result of Half-Life’s powerful and innovative artificial intelligence. The intensity of the game also reflects the strong storyline, created by award-winning horror novelist Marc Laidlaw. Of course, there’s also a variety of exciting multiplayer scenarios, and an easy-to-use interface that will have you connected to the game of your choice in just seconds.

http://gamespy.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=339502

how can anyone compare the mediocre storyline of half life to the great stephen king? this is an outrage :angry: :angry: :angry: .
 
Or...you didn't play Half-Life.

i think i did and i saw no story beyond gordon escaping the black mesa into some unknown universe just to make some dude name the g-man happy. want a nice storyline, play deus ex.
 
im sorry but i cant really remember half life having much of a story line either.

but half life 2 looks the opposite.... it looks like stuff will be explained properly
 
Come on guys, how can you rip on a guy named "Fresh Poo" :naughty: . Obvioudly he's looking for attention or is a very early noob.

In order to experience the full Half-Life story you need to play Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and PS2's Decay mode.
 
Half-Life was inspired by a Stephen King novel
thats why
 
It doesn't have much of a storyline but compared to what was out at the time it felt amazingly in-depth ....and amazing.

In retrospect it isn't that amazing. It's still got fantastic atmosphere though.
 
Mr-Fusion said:
It doesn't have much of a storyline but compared to what was out at the time it felt amazingly in-depth ....and amazing.

In retrospect it isn't that amazing. It's still got fantastic atmosphere though.
Click to expand...

I disagree. The beauty of HL is that it doesn't tell you a story.. you live a story.
 
Come on guys, how can you rip on a guy named "Fresh Poo" . Obvioudly he's looking for attention or is a very early noob.

In order to experience the full Half-Life story you need to play Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and PS2's Decay mode.

i use fresh_poo as a name on many websites. i've played opposing force and blue shift ... nice idea to have different points of view in the game.

Half-Life was inspired by a Stephen King novel
thats why

which one would that be?
 
ShadowFox said:
I disagree. The beauty of HL is that it doesn't tell you a story.. you live a story.
Click to expand...
I agree.

If someone were to write down their experience of playing HL in the form of a novel, it would definately be comparable to a Steven King story.

I guess that's what i mean by atmosphere. Encounters with headcrabs are atmosphere in a game but they are story elements in a book.
 
Have you even read Stephen King? It's not his stories themselves that are great, it's their telling. He's admitted his himself. And that's exactly how Half-Life worked. I personally really do enjoy the story that's there, but it's the execution that made it awesome.
 
As I've told a million times, do not, I repeat, do not compare books, movies, and games. They are different media of entertainment and cannot be compared. That's why I alwasy get pissed when people compare the lord of the rings books to the movies.
 
By the way my quote is from Stephen King, that's why I'm happy HL2 is somehow related to him :)
 
Have you even read Stephen King? It's not his stories themselves that are great, it's their telling. He's admitted his himself. And that's exactly how Half-Life worked. I personally really do enjoy the story that's there, but it's the execution that made it awesome.

hmmm ... i've read plenty (~14 and counting) of king's novels and haven't heard of the mist. i'll look into this.

stephen king's stories are awesome because he has an unbelieveable imagination. yes, he also is a great storyteller, but his super-1337 imagination comes before that.
 
Like the completely original story about a girl that gets lost in the woods, or the one where there's a creepy house with vampires? How about a clown that scares children, or an abused woman that leaves her husband? His stories sound lame until you actually read them. In fact, I'd consider Half-Life's story to be better than most of Stephen King's, just from concept alone. But King is a master of delivery and that's why he's a good writer.
 
have a read of his short stories, thats where King truly reigns. survivor type, the long walk, quitters inc., the jaunt etc. some are only 10 pages long.
the running man is awesome, dont think of the shwarzenegger pastiche where a do good dirk "crime he didnt commit" daring trades blows with the christmas tree or jesse "i aint got time to bleed" ventura.
more like a big divide between rich and poor so people volunteer for these crazy game shows, the one with the biggest prize jackpot is the running man, cept its not in a gamepark but he's let loose, the agents follow and they dont wear costumes. the hunt is on. if you want to know where al-queda got their idea for 11/9 then this is it.
 
survivor type: ex doctor turned drug dealer on way home from thailand with a 5lbs of heroin, ship sinks, on rocky outcrop with heroin and medical bag. no food. breaks his ankle trying to catch a seagull, gangreen, amputates, eats foot. no food. amputates. no food....

long walk: contest for male under 18s. once it starts you cant stop, third warning is a bullet. last one walking wins. cool eh!

strange that the lawnmower man, 5 pages i think, had no mentally challenged guy, no doctor, no virtual reality. the only thing it has in common with the movie is that a guy gets run over by a lawnmower.
 
You read novels and you can't think of a better way to express yourself other than super-1337?
 
Compared to many of the other games that were out when HL was released, its story was fairly good, but certainly not one of the greatest stories very. Above average, but not brilliant.
 
no storyline??? obviously you didn't play or didn't pay attention as you play Half-Life, Blue shift, and Opposing Force
 
ShadowFox said:
I disagree. The beauty of HL is that it doesn't tell you a story.. you live a story.
Click to expand...

word.

Cut scenes have always slowed games down, from an involvment perspective. Even when you finish a level-go to menus- then go to a new level, its not the same as HL were you have control of every angle of every evolving part of the story. Nothing quite like it.
 
Yeah, if you got Steven King to describe every action sequence and every shot fired and every time a headcrab jumped at you, it'd be as good as a Steven King novel. But lets face it, you're seeing it right there in front of your eyes so you don't need that, you have your own thoughts and imagination. The overall storyline is quite flimsy, but the same holds true for King novels, too ;)

Maybe you need to be more imaginative, or get hold of a text based version of HL ;)
 
http://website.lineone.net/~wingerden/index.htm
Lamda Project

Heh. I rest my case.

Furthermore, HL has so many untold open places in the storyline. There was an accident, or was it? Was the initial "invasion" a coincidence and did the actual invasion not begin until the Nihilanth started holding the portals open when the military invaded Xen? And was that all of G-Man's plan? What is Xen in the first place? What do the last words of the Nihilanth mean?

I can think of a hundred more things that all tie into the storyline like this.

What you're saying is retarded, it's like saying LOTR is just a story about annoying dwarves who have to destroy an all powerful ring. Now I'm not saying HL's story is as complex as LOTR for example, but it's not as simple as you make it look, anyone can simplify a story like that.
 
fresh_poo said:
Have you even read Stephen King? It's not his stories themselves that are great, it's their telling. He's admitted his himself. And that's exactly how Half-Life worked. I personally really do enjoy the story that's there, but it's the execution that made it awesome.

hmmm ... i've read plenty (~14 and counting) of king's novels and haven't heard of the mist. i'll look into this.

stephen king's stories are awesome because he has an unbelieveable imagination. yes, he also is a great storyteller, but his super-1337 imagination comes before that.
Click to expand...

His imagination is pretty average
 
HL has a really great feeling,with all those dark places, and the zombies coming out from nowhere.
 
It bothers me that no one mentioned that the article stated "storyTELLING". This is where HL shines. Sure, aliens, one man against it all. Done to death. But the way it`s told.. man, genious. Stephen King also has very standard stories (sure some of them are really great), but his way of writing and presenting the story makes them special.
 
nimh said:
survivor type: ex doctor turned drug dealer on way home from thailand with a 5lbs of heroin, ship sinks, on rocky outcrop with heroin and medical bag. no food. breaks his ankle trying to catch a seagull, gangreen, amputates, eats foot. no food. amputates. no food....

long walk: contest for male under 18s. once it starts you cant stop, third warning is a bullet. last one walking wins. cool eh!

strange that the lawnmower man, 5 pages i think, had no mentally challenged guy, no doctor, no virtual reality. the only thing it has in common with the movie is that a guy gets run over by a lawnmower.
Click to expand...

I love Stephen King's old stuff...his new stuff just doesn't seem the same though.

I love Survivor Type. I love the ending "Chicken fingers, they taste just like chicken fingers!" or something similar...it's a twisted story.

About the Lawnmower man...I believe Stephen King actually had his name removed from that horrible movie. It basically has nothing to do with the story other than in name.

Rage is also a fairly underrated book, and in this day and age with a lot of recent school shootings, it's very scary.

One thing I hate is how people judge his stories on movies that were made from them (or any writer for that matter). The Shining is a great example. People generally love the movie, but it's Stanley Kubrick's vision more than it's faithful to the book. The book is by far superior, but many people don't really know it.
 
I did think the original HalfLife had very simple story.I'm hoping HL2 has more depth and interesting charactors, like DeuxEx1.
 
PvtRyan said:
http://website.lineone.net/~wingerden/index.htm
Lamda Project

Heh. I rest my case.

Furthermore, HL has so many untold open places in the storyline. There was an accident, or was it? Was the initial "invasion" a coincidence and did the actual invasion not begin until the Nihilanth started holding the portals open when the military invaded Xen? And was that all of G-Man's plan? What is Xen in the first place? What do the last words of the Nihilanth mean?

I can think of a hundred more things that all tie into the storyline like this.

What you're saying is retarded, it's like saying LOTR is just a story about annoying dwarves who have to destroy an all powerful ring. Now I'm not saying HL's story is as complex as LOTR for example, but it's not as simple as you make it look, anyone can simplify a story like that.
Click to expand...
I second that
(except Frodo and Sam are hobbits and not dwarves :D)
 
fresh_poo said:

stephen king's stories are awesome because he has an unbelieveable imagination. yes, he also is a great storyteller, but his super-1337 imagination comes before that.
Click to expand...

And he goes LEET!!!
 
RogueShadow said:
You read novels and you can't think of a better way to express yourself other than super-1337?
Click to expand...
I was thinking the same thing. If I was Stephen King and I was dead, I'd have started spinning in my grave at that description.
 
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