My HL2 story

[BAD]

I had to do a short story for school, so i thought to myself "What has an epic and compelling storyline that i could use as the back bone for mine?...DUH, Half Life!" It connects the ending of portal to hl2 ep3.I need some ppl to critique or slam my work. I had to tone it down for school too, but here it is in installments.

It felt good. It felt good to be out of that stuffy base. It felt good to have the sun illuminate our route and not florescent light. But the best part was the wind in my hair. I had never felt the cool gentleness that was the summer breeze. Heck, it felt great. The only downside to this was imminent danger. The trade off for being outside the two foot concrete walled base was safety. I wouldn?t have picked this mild comfort over the dank base had I known what was going to happen.

The car bounced along, causing its passengers severe nausea. Well, car is not exactly the right word; large hunk of scrap metal made to be used as a car was a better description. As I drove our pile of junk along, the two men in the back seat, Buck and Steve, were arguing over a map. "I'm telling you it was a left back there." Yelled Steve over the engine's deafening noise. "How was I supposed to tell, this area's geography has been completely changed ever since the invasion." Retorted Buck, loudly. "There was an arrow pointing right!" Yelled Steve. "Yeah and we went right!" Shouted Buck now frustrated at Steve. This time Steve practically screamed "Agh! Remember the Vort' said to go left at the arrow pointing right!?" "Oh, yeah." Said Buck meekly. "WHAT? I can't hear you." Steve yelled, though it was obvious that he could because he had a wide grin on his face. "Will you two shut up already? Jeez, you're like an old married cou-." "Look!" Yelled both men simultaneously. As I turned to face forward a bush off the trail to the left of the car exploded as an eight foot tall robotic looking tripod leapt out of the brush. "Oh no," I whimpered, "it's a hunter!" I swerved to avoid the mechanical beast, but we began to fish-tale. We would've hit it, but at the last second I regained control. The jalopy's tail end smashed into the monster's legs, knocking them out from under it and sending its box like head into the cold, hard earth. Buck and Steve howled with joy. But their elation was cut short as three more of the robots jumped out of what was left of the bush and followed in a fast and steady gallop, as I knew would happen. I tried to get the cars turbo going, but it wouldn't respond. "Looks like we're going to have to the old fashioned way boys" I yelled. At this moment Buck and Steve's training kicked in as they pulled out their submachine guns and began to fire at the box that was the robot's processing core. This could've proved successful, had every shot hit, but the car's unstable movement was enough to put more than a few bullets off their intended course. "Damn this car!" Yelled Buck. A sound like a mouse being snatched by a hawk pierced the air as a small blue light in the lower part of the front robot's box lit. "Get down! It's priming its rounds!" I shrieked, as a hail of dart like rounds impacted the car's outer frame. "Well that was a whole lotta' nothin'," Said Buck, as he yanked a small dart out of the roll bar above his head, "hey, why is it shaking?" "Get rid of it and get down!" I screamed as all the darts began to shake, and then explode. Buck was hysterical, "That thing almost got me!" He whispered almost at tears. Not understanding how upset Buck was, Steve added "Yeah, sure is a good thing we got you with us, Jess." With that comment Steve unleashed a hail of gunfire upon the lead hunter. Fortunately, this time more than half of the nine millimeter rounds impacted upon the hunter?s box head, and at least three hit its glass eye. The hunter fell!

 

[Jintor]

For the love of gods, put it in the right forum, and un wall-of-text it. Please. My eyes are bleeding.

 

[Pesmerga]

What's with the ???s all over the place.

 

[cyk]

The encoding keeps screwing up on these boards. I saw this topic an hour ago and it was fine, and this happened a few days ago too.

 

[Narvi]

There's a little button when you post which turns smileys off. Please use it.

Do we still have a Fanfic subforum? I haven't read The Daily Citizen in ages.

 

[cyk]

HOW I USE PARAGRAPHS!?!

You should seek tutoring or something if you thought this was a good submission to an English class.

 

[Jintor]

There's a little button when you post which turns smileys off. Please use it.

Do we still have a Fanfic subforum? I haven't read The Daily Citizen in ages.

Actually from what little i can read before my eyes begin to fill with blood it's actually fairly decent writng. The problem is that you should be after marks, so submitting fan-fiction is always a big no-no. Also, paragraphing and spacing is REALLY, REALLY helpful. Some of the type-setting problems are from this forum's incredible problems with copy-pasta but, still, you should edit it much better.

The Daily Citizen is dead, and it's not likely to get better. Most of my effort is going into the Zombiecon.

What button is this?

 

[Narvi]

The Daily Citizen is dead, and it's not likely to get better. Most of my effort is going into the Zombiecon.

What button is this?

The button in the miscellaneous options in the Additional Options at the bottom of the reply box.



Like that, see?

 

[Saruke]

The following is as nice as I can possibly say it.

All people who write fan fiction need to be shot and dragged through the woods to be violated by crazy mountain people.

If you want to become a good writer you have to think up orginal ideas or else you become reliant on other people for inspiration.

So the next time your teacher asks you to do some writing try to come up with your own ideas not just copy someone elses.

 

[Jintor]

Wrong. Fan Fiction is another step on the way to being a decent writer. But it's sure as hell not near the top. (Although some fan fictions are pretty awesome, but the vast majority are complete and total shite).

 

[ríomhaire]

No one will want to read that monster unless it's divided up into paragraphs.

 

[Druckles]

I decided to be helpful, unlike the other people in this forum, and give you some useful advice. Try reading the following fanfic. It's really quite inspirational:

John Freeman

 

[nurizeko]

tl;dr


Seriously mate, I can read the LOTR trilogy in a 3-4 night sitting, or a 2-3 day spree if I really want to, but jesus, break that up a bit.

Also a personal thing but perhaps a small intro line, just to tell us what it is about and stuff would help, Its bad enough I don't wanna read it for its length and lack of spacing, but I don't even know what your story is about so I don't wanna risk reading this bleed causing wall just to find out if I care to read it or not.

Fail.

 

[BAD]

ok sry bout that, this is like my second time posting ever. and i will now break it up.

p.s.
What i did was i copied it from a word document and that wwhat you see up there is the final product.

p.s.s.
Saruke i already said that its not just for this site,its for school, but it thot it wud be cool to post it.

 

[cyk]

Correcting only for grammar and spelling, hopefully not damaging your vision in the process:

It felt good. It felt good to be out of that stuffy base. It felt good to have the sun illuminate our route and not florescent light. But the best part was the wind in my hair. I had never felt the cool gentleness that was the summer breeze. Heck, it felt great. The only downside to this was imminent danger. The trade off for being outside the two foot concrete walled base was safety. I wouldn't have picked this mild comfort over the dank base had I known what was going to happen.

The car bounced along, causing its passengers severe nausea. Well, car is not exactly the right word; large hunk of scrap metal made to be used as a car was a better description. As I drove our pile of junk along, the two men in the back seat, Buck and Steve, were arguing over a map.

"I'm telling you it was a left back there." Yelled Steve over the engine's deafening noise.
"How was I supposed to tell, this area's geography has been completely changed ever since the invasion," retorted Buck, loudly.
"There was an arrow pointing right!" Yelled Steve.
"Yeah and we went right!" Shouted Buck now frustrated at Steve.
This time, Steve practically screamed. "Agh! Remember the Vort' said to go left at the arrow pointing right?"
"Oh, yeah," said Buck meekly.
"WHAT? I can't hear you," Steve yelled, though it was obvious that he could because he had a wide grin on his face.
"Will you two shut up already? Jeez, you're like an old married cou-."

"Look!" Yelled both men simultaneously. As I turned to face forward, a bush off the trail to the left of the car exploded as an eight foot tall robotic looking tripod leapt out of the brush.

"Oh no," I whimpered, "it's a hunter!" I swerved to avoid the mechanical beast, but we began to fish-tail. We would've hit it, but at the last second I regained control. The jalopy's tail end smashed into the monster's legs, knocking them out from under it and sending its box-like head into the cold, hard earth.

Buck and Steve howled with joy. But their elation was cut short as three more of the robots jumped out of what was left of the bush and followed in a fast and steady gallop, as I knew would happen. I tried to get the car's turbo going, but it wouldn't respond. "Looks like we're going to have to do this the old fashioned way, boys," I yelled. At this moment Buck and Steve's training kicked in as they pulled out their submachine guns and began to fire at the box that was the robot's processing core. This could've proved successful, had every shot hit, but the car's unstable movement was enough to put more than a few bullets off their intended course.

"Damn this car!" Yelled Buck. A sound like a mouse being snatched by a hawk pierced the air as a small blue light in the lower part of the front robot's box lit. "Get down! It's priming its rounds!" I shrieked, as a hail of dart like rounds impacted the car's outer frame. "Well that was a whole lotta' nothin'," Said Buck, as he yanked a small dart out of the roll bar above his head, "hey, why is it shaking?" "Get rid of it and get down!" I screamed as all the darts began to shake, and then explode. Buck was hysterical, "That thing almost got me!" He whispered almost at tears. Not understanding how upset Buck was, Steve added "Yeah, sure is a good thing we got you with us, Jess." With that comment Steve unleashed a hail of gunfire upon the lead hunter. Fortunately, this time more than half of the nine millimeter rounds impacted upon the hunter?s box head, and at least three hit its glass eye. The hunter fell!

Some notes about the dialog, which really stood out as... not good:

• YOU DON'T NEED TO HAVE A VERB FOR EVERY LINE. You don't need "retorted," "shouted," any of that stuff for each time a character speaks. In fact, many authors don't use speaking verbs beyond asked, shouted, said, and other basic ones, and they use them sparingly.
• Of course, the obvious one: each time a different character speaks, that's a new paragraph. Shouldn't you have learned this in 3rd grade?
• You said things like:
  
  "Hello there." Shouted John.​
  Notice the capitalization and punctuation. You should say:
  
  "Hello there," shouted John.​
  And if it's an exclamation or question mark:
  
  "Hello there!" shouted John.​

Besides the dialog, watch out for commas, which you forgot some of. I could list more, but I'll leave that for anyone who reads my fixed version of your story.

But, hell, we need all the fan fiction we can get, and at least this isn't a story about a bicycle. Good luck with your future writings.

 

[Headcrab Pie]

Something I wrote.
Uh.....Somthing screwed up in this. It's really hard to read.


The Shelling of Ravenholm


Chapter 1
I walked out of my house and watched the sun set. I always enjoyed that. However, I hadn't had time to watch the sun slowly sink to the horision. I had 6 hours of long duty ahead of me. Watching the radar and waiting. True, radar specileist was an important job, but it was extreamly boring. The occatinal crow would set of an alarm, but other than that....nothing.

I sat down and turned to my buddy, Richard. One good thing about this post was that you could talk for hours without worry. I always liked Richard. He was an ex-marine, and could react to anything that came his way. We talked about old times, the latest rumors, and anything that we happened to think of.
"So," he began, but was cut off by a "bing...bing...bing". It was the sensor, I turned to it expecting a foot long object, but it wasn't, it was about 7-8 feet long and vaugley bullet shaped. "Any idea what that is?" I asked. "Lemme check the handbook" he said, pulling out a battered book.

"Uh-Oh". He said, "What?" I replied, he held out his handbook to the page he was on. On it was a metalic object, labled "Long-Range Parasite Rocket" or LRPR's, I knew immeditly what the "Parasites" were. Dubbed "Headcrabs" due to the nature of infestaion prosess, they were no real threat alone, but in large groups, it was a huge problem.

"Sound the alarm, they know were here." Richard said.
"Well, mabye it's just one that got off course." I replied hopfully, but that idea was cut off as dozens more appered on the radar. Each one contained at least 3 of the parasites. Each one could kill with out mercy, or worse. I ran over to the switch labeled "Alarm" and switched it on. Nothing. Not a sound. I flicked it back and forth, but no sound rang out. Ravenholm was under attack, and only us knew it.
Chapter 2

"It's not working." I said, dry-mouthed
"What?" Richard asked.
"The alarm, it's broken"
I watched the blip get closer on the radar, closer to us, closer to hunderds of citizens. And we could do nothing.
"Let's go" Richard suddenly said.
"Why, where?"
"To the town to warn everyone!"
We both knew we wouldnt make it in time, but we had to get there to help people. Richard grabed a pistol from the rack and ran out. I wasnt much for guns, but grabed an axe. It might be useful to chop down a door or somthing. Or as a weapon.
I ran out, Richard was already a few hundered feet away, but I was in better shape and caught up to him. Neither of us actually had a plan or anything, but we ran on. Somthing other that the LRPRs was bothering him, but I didn't quite care at the moment. The only thing I wanted was to get there, get some saftey, and go back into hiding. Of course, that wasn't an option.
Suddenly, somthing screeced over us. I only saw it for a split second, but it was a LRPR alright. It was sure to hit Ravenholm, no questios asked. They were deadly accurete, fast, and near impossible to divert. And it contained headcrabs. One of the sayings made up was "A Strider can kill you, a pulse rifle can kill you, but a headcrab won't kill you but make you wish it did". I had never seen their handiwork and never wished to. Some people who had woke up screaming for 3 months afterward. I had no intention of that happening.
About 5 minutes from the town we heard a smash. Not "glass falling off a table" smash. A " Eight foot long solid steel canister crashing into a building" kind of smash. We heard screams, which was ironicly, good news. People nearby survived, and could run away. We heard more smashes, more screams, even some gunfire.
We ran though a gate into the town graveyard, and stopped. For there imbedded in the ground, was a LRPR. Some people had came close, and we joined them. Richard was about to shout something, most likely to tell everyone to stay back, but somthing cut him off. It was a hissing, like esaped air. The source was quickly found. The LRPRs back end opened up, and somthing crawled out.
Chapter 3

Richard acted the quickest. Within a second, he raised his gun, unfortunaly, his shot was blocked by the people standing around us. The thing screeched, and lept out at the people standing in the front. Most dodged away, but one unlucky man either couldnt get away, or was facinated by the creature that had emerged. The 'crab landed on his head, closed itself around it, and we heard a crack as it penatrated his skull. He gave a shout, and tried to rip the thing off, to no avail. He thrashed, tugging at the thing latched on his head, and fell to the ground. His yells subsided, and all was quiet. Until the crack of a gun sounded out. The creature upon the mans head twitched once and died. Richard sighed, and lowered the smoking pistol. I understood, the guy was, or should I say had, been still alive, but once one of those things latched on, it was death or somthing much worse. The others used to tell stories, decribing the host condition afterwards. The headcrab tapped into the hosts nervose system, and though that they could compleatly control it. Totaly. They said the front the chest down to the stomach was open, almost falling out. Blood covered it, and the feeding prosess was grotesque. It would rip meat off of its prey, and simply shove it into the exposed gut. Somehow, the host was kept alive, as you could hear it moans.
Richard spoke up, "Alright people, we have to round up as many people as we can. Can any of you use a gun?" A few people raised their hands.
"Alright, see that red building over there? It's got a stockpile of guns,ammo, and food. Divide into three groups of five and go and collect as many people as you can. Send them back here and make sure some of them are armed."
I don't know if it was Richards quick plan or just becuase of what happened, but the people sprang into action. They grouped together, and I was plesently surprised to see that it was very even. Of course, twenty years of constant peril had made them fine people. The people who had weapon experience headed doen to the shack and sson came back with SMG's, Shotguns, pistols, and in one case, a crossbow. They were quickly divided up, and Richard grabed a shotgun. He handed me a SMG.I looked at it unstedily.
"What?" He asked.
"I'm not a gun guy."
"So?"
"I don't know how to use this thing!"
He sighed and handed me a pistol.
"This any better? You point it at stuff and pull the trigger."
I looked at the gun for a second, then took it and straped it onto my belt. I kept my axe though. Even though I really hoped I'd never get it a situation where I'd need it, its sharp blade comferted me. It somehow reminded me of my teen years, playing baseball with freinds. I don't know why. Maybe just because of it's vaugly baseball bat shape.
"Lets go."Richard mutererd. "I want to get in before the 'crabs start to infest this place."
"Fine" I sighed, even though I would rather stay behind, acting as a guard. Call it cowardly, but I didn't want to get anywhere near any of those things. But I didn't have much of a choice.
Chapter 4

We walked toward the east side of town. Richard seemed to have his mind set on going that way, as he bypassed several other empty alleys. I was just about to suggest we go down a likley looking hall when he abuptly turned into a street. We ran down it, eyes glancing at every nook and cranie. The place was in ruins,with pieces of tile and brick strewn about. Bullet holes marked the walls and ground. The sight was made worse by the lighting, the sky had darkened, and night was almost upon us. The last thing we wanted was to have to do this in utter darkness. I noticed that there was no signs of any people. I would have expected large groups looking for ways to escape. I asked Richard about this but all I got was a dismisif mumble about safehouses where people went during times like these.
But an absence of people didn't mean an absence of parasites. We ran into alot of them. And I noticed that there were several type of them. The lumpy, slow ones like we saw crawl out of the LRPR. They were eaisily taken down by Richard's shotgun or pistol. But the other two were not quite as easy. One was almost identical to the first ones exept they has skinyer legs and moved about three times as fast. But once they got hit they died just as quick. And the other one was a lot differnt. Instead of a tanish colouration, thay were dark black. So dark that somtimes we didn't spot them until they jumped at us. However they were much slower than either type. But they could take a lot of ammo to put down. One of them took a direct shotgun blast and kept moving.
We kept moving toward the eastmost part of town. Why, I didn't know. Richard had no relatives that I knew of, but I had never seen his place. And he didn't talk about his personal life. But I followed him for an hour before we heard gunfire. A lot of gunfire.
"Hear that?" I questioned, even though he had to have."Sounds like one of the rescue groups." Sudenly he looked hopeful, as if the fact that a rescue group was in trouble was good news. He ran into a building, racing up the stairs. Confused, I followed, and we acended to the roof. When I got there I quickly found the source of the gunfire.
About two hundred feet away, in the town plaza, three men were fighting an onslaut of the parasites. One of them seemed to have past military training, as he fired his SMG in short, controled bursts. The other two where clearly not weapons experts. They simply held down the trigger of their guns till they ran out of ammo, then would slam a fresh clip in and press the trigger. I expected Richard to drop down and try to help, but he simply looked at them for a few seconds, then said in a low voice.
"Leave them"
I thought I must have misheard him. Richard had always done the right thing. Always. But now here was just going to abandon three men to their deaths.
"What?"
"I said leave them."
I stared at him, shocked.
"We can't just leave them here to die!"
"Listen, we have more important things to do. We have to go find some civies to get out of here, not help some people who are capable of doing so themselves but are to stupid to do that!"
We stared at each other for a full minute. Richard broke the silence between us. In a dertermined voice he stated that he was going to keep heading east. Then he walked down the stairs. I looked back over at the three men. One had fallen to the horde, and the others were running out of ammo. I knew that neither one of them would make it out of there. I walked down the stairs, leaving the sight behind.
Chapter 5

Neither of us spoke afterwards. Richard blew his way though anything that got in his way, and I followed in stunned silence. I counldn't believe what had happened. Richard, my best freind, had left three men to die a horrible death. I was sickened. But I followed him anyway. I don't know why, but I did. And he never stopped to look for any "Safehouses". I felt they were a lie, or he just didn't care about any civilans.
He stopped in front of of a apartment. He looked up at it's damaged walls and looked extreamly worried. There was a large hole in its roof. It appeared that a LRPR had smashed though its roof. Richard bashed open the door to the apartment and charged in. I walked in after him, unsure of why we were here. I heard footsteps from the next room, and was expecting civilans or a rescue squad. But it wasn't, it was a headcrabed person. And this 'crab had control of it's host. It shambled around aimlessly, that is until it saw me. It limped over, trying to reach me. That goal was quickly denied by Richards shotgun. It blew the poor thing apart. Blood, human and parasite, splattered on the walls.
Richard gave me a steady look, then walked over to the stairs. I followed him until he got to the forth floor, as he got off and walked to room 013. I had no idea what was happaning. That is, until he took a small key out of his pocket. So this was Richard home. But why had we come here? He sighed, and turned the key in the lock, and opened the door.
Something launched itself out of the door and slammed into Richard. It drew back a clawed hand and slashed him across the throat. Blood gushed from the wound, and I knew he would die from that loss. The thing was still clawing at him. I raised my pistol and squezzed the trigger. Nothing. The gun wasn't loaded. It turned to me and smashed into me. I smashed into the wall and had the wind knocked out of myself. The thing stood a few feet away, just looking at me. I backed away and felt my hand hit something. It was the fire axe.
I took it in my hand and slowly stood up. The creature leapt forward, claws outstreched. Years of baseball took over and I swung the axe right into it's head. It simply collapsed, dead. I stared at it. It was a sickining sight. All of it's skin was torn off. I could see each individual bone. Only musle was keeping it together.
I walked into the room. It was a cozy place, apart from the blood on the walls and LRPR stuck in the floor. It must have torn though five floors before coming to rest here. There was a picture on a desk. I picked it up. It showed Richard and a woman holding hands. She had a diamond ring on. I sat up and ran out to the corpse of the 'crabed human and looked at its fingers. A diamond ring rested on it.
Richard had been killed by his own wife. And I killed her.
I turned to leave but heard a slight shuffling sound. One of the 'crabs was slowly crawling towrdward me. I grimaced and rasied my axe. It jumped at me and I swung. But I misjugded its speed. The axe missed. I felt weight on my shoulders, and...
Crack.

 

[Laguna Company]

The following is as nice as I can possibly say it.

All people who write fan fiction need to be shot and dragged through the woods to be violated by crazy mountain people.

If you want to become a good writer you have to think up orginal ideas or else you become reliant on other people for inspiration.

So the next time your teacher asks you to do some writing try to come up with your own ideas not just copy someone elses.

We don't know what the exact requirements of Bad's teacher are. If it's an "original" piece that Bad needs to write, well, this isn't it.

Having said that, while original ideas are great way of expressing your own creativity, external inspiration is extremely important.

Saruke, have a look through your favourite films, songs, paintings, buildings, etc. Ideas in one piece of art tend to inspire other pieces of art, and so those ideas find (hopefully) new expression.

Ideas are very important, but so is execution. I don't think fan fiction, as an art form in general, should be so quickly dismissed.

 

[Acepilotf14]

I was thinking of doing a fan fiction for school, starting and found that if you write any game into a story it gets intensely boring.

"Quick, Gordon, Shoot that zombie!!!" Alyx said as she kicked a zombie to the ground, and quickly shot it several times in the headcrab. Gordon pulled out his shotgun and shot several shells into the surrounding zombies, well placed shots to the headcrab squirming on their heads. the headcrabs flew off and landed limp near the bodies, which fell as well. Without the headcrabs to support them, the bodies are just deadweight.
"Gordon! We need to wait for the elevator to come down! Hold here.. Wait.. Quick! Flash your flashlight on that zombie!" Gordon flew the light, illuminating several zombies as Alyx shot her custom pistol and dropped a few. Gordon continued to pump shotgun blasts at the zombies, dropping one after the other. Suddenly, a zombine ran at them, a primed grenade in his hand.
"Look out!" Alyx screamed as the zombie flew at them. Gordon quickly pulled out his Gravity Gun and grabbed the grenade out of his hand. The zombine stood, dumbfounded, as Gordon shot the grenade back at it, and killed off several zombies and the zombine.
"The elevator is here!" Gordon and Alyx backpedaled into the elevator, still letting fly bullets at the ever-increasing number of zombies flowing out of the corridors. Headcrabs jumped about, but they had just made it.
"Nice job handling that flashlight, Gordon!" Alyx chuckled. She sighed and leaned against the side of the rising rickety elevator and waited. It had only just begun.

Damn, that ended out better than I had thought. :\

 

[Laguna Company]

I was thinking of doing a fan fiction for school, starting and found that if you write any game into a story it gets intensely boring.

"Quick, Gordon, Shoot that zombie!!!" Alyx said as she kicked a zombie to the ground, and quickly shot it several times in the headcrab. Gordon pulled out his shotgun and shot several shells into the surrounding zombies, well placed shots to the headcrab squirming on their heads. the headcrabs flew off and landed limp near the bodies, which fell as well. Without the headcrabs to support them, the bodies are just deadweight.
"Gordon! We need to wait for the elevator to come down! Hold here.. Wait.. Quick! Flash your flashlight on that zombie!" Gordon flew the light, illuminating several zombies as Alyx shot her custom pistol and dropped a few. Gordon continued to pump shotgun blasts at the zombies, dropping one after the other. Suddenly, a zombine ran at them, a primed grenade in his hand.
"Look out!" Alyx screamed as the zombie flew at them. Gordon quickly pulled out his Gravity Gun and grabbed the grenade out of his hand. The zombine stood, dumbfounded, as Gordon shot the grenade back at it, and killed off several zombies and the zombine.
"The elevator is here!" Gordon and Alyx backpedaled into the elevator, still letting fly bullets at the ever-increasing number of zombies flowing out of the corridors. Headcrabs jumped about, but they had just made it.
"Nice job handling that flashlight, Gordon!" Alyx chuckled. She sighed and leaned against the side of the rising rickety elevator and waited. It had only just begun.

Damn, that ended out better than I had thought. :\

Right. I think the quality of these sorts of stories depends on whether you're truly adapting the game and developing the characters, drama and themes or just transcribing the events of the game.

 

[cyk]

Right. I think the quality of these sorts of stories depends on whether you're truly adapting the game and developing the characters, drama and themes or just transcribing the events of the game.

Exactly.

There is no way you can novelize a game. It's like trying to novelize an action movie, but an action movie that is 10 hours long and has little to no dialogue.

 

[Laguna Company]

Exactly.

There is no way you can novelize a game. It's like trying to novelize an action movie, but an action movie that is 10 hours long and has little to no dialogue.

I think the author's challenge is to take what emotional story there is and develop it as part of this process of adaptation and dramatisation. It won't happen automatically.

Certainly in each successive installment of "Half-Life" the emotional story has been brought more and more to the surface. The way the games are being made with these qualities in mind, in the future it might not be a technical question of whether it's possible to adapt them. (I think the answer would be a more definite "yes," because there would be more to work with.)

The argument about not adapting it would, in my view, have to do with whether a novel, film, etc. could explore these dramatic stories any better than the games themselves.

 

[BAD]

ok, part 2. lol, u guys r slaughtering me, but i did ask for it. thx cyk, atleast you looked past all the grammical errors to actually read my story (i'm being serious, lol). also notice this is not detailing gordon's exploits, but rather filling in the gap between hl2 and half life, this is kind of my theory on how the two games will actually come together, with actual storytelling elements, however bad they may be. thx for taking the time out of your day to give me helpful advice.

All of us screamed with joy, but we were interrupted by that piercing sound again. This time we knew what was coming. We all ducked. The guns fired. There was a faint thud and nothing happened. We looked up and there were no darts protruding from the cars frame. "They missed?" I asked. "That doesn't normally happen." Buck was not convinced and he began to search the car. Steve laughed "Don't jinx us now Jess." "I think she did." Said Buck with all the seriousness in the world, as he pulled a dart from a metal mud flap. "They're trying to immobilize us!" I yelped. Since this was decidedly the worst possible moment, the turbo kicked in. "No no nnno no-o nn-o" I sputtered as the car's bouncing became more rapid. "A-at l-least this'll p-put some distan-nce between u-us and them-m." Said Buck.

And indeed it did. We stumbled through the forest at a shockingly fast rate, for this was the hunk of junk I mentioned before. The dart's timer must have been extended somehow, but to me it didn't last long enough. The darts exploded directly above the rear left tire inside its housing. The car's left wheels departed from the ground. In that split second the bouncing stopped. My entire life flashed before my eyes, as this was surely the end. I remembered the time I blew up the science lab at my elementary school. I remembered my first car accident. I remembered my wedding. I remembered my baby being born. I remembered that I was driving to work when the invasion bagan. I remembered when they ripped my son from my hands. "No..." I said to my self. "No." I dug my fingertips into the steering wheel until they bled. I did all I could to regain control of the car as it began to spin out. We went into the underbrush. I heard nothing from Buck or Steve. As far as I knew at that moment, they were dead. All I could focus on was the steering wheel and the spinning forest around me. I fought and fought against the impossible force that kept the steering wheel in place. Then we hit a root. It must have been a big root because it was enough to flip the car. Then there was no more forest. Don't get me wrong there was still a heck of a lot of spinning but no more forest. As we were upside down in the air I heard Buck scream, "Oh shi-." A very large crash interrupted his vulgar exclamation. My head slammed into the steering wheel and my consciousness was given a run for the money. I heard the screech of metal but I was already blacking out.

 

[cyk]

I'll read through that later, but tip: indentions don't work on the forums, just double line-space between paragraphs

 

[BAD]

Ok part 3. plzz actually read it. don't bother grammatically correcting it anymore, i wud just like opinions on the story itself, if not, don't bother. this part was pretty rushed, so it will sound that way. thx again.i also didn't bother indenting as it rly can't be that hard to read without indenting.

“Who’s playing the drums?” I asked drowsily.
“Shhhhhh, you took quite a nasty hit to the head,” said a male voice. “Stay down and stay calm.”
The drums started to beat again, and then the sound shifted into something more recognizable, gunfire. “Ok, well at least tell whoever’s doing that to keep quiet.” I replied.
“Okay. HEY SHUT UP YOU LOUSY HUNTERS!” Barked Steve.
I laughed and tried to open my eyes. They stung and my vision was tinted red.
“Yeah about the hit to the head, you’re bleeding pretty badly so just keep calm and don’t move; I’ll have you cleaned up in a jiff.”
As Steve dressed my wounds I tried to listen to the gunfire to figure out what was going on. I soon realized that there were some smg reports mixed in with the higher caliber gunfire. “So Buck was holding his own, guess he can rise to the occasion” I thought to myself. I figured out that we were in some sort of compound. I saw that we were in the corner of a courtyard. The car was right side up, and it looked as if it had a new wheel. “How long was I out for?” I asked.
“About three hours.” Steve replied.
“Wow, how’d you guys manage without me?” I asked.
“Hey we’re not that hopeless.” This time Steve laughed.
“YEAH! Got him!” “Guess that’s Buck.” I laughed, which hurt.
“Hey guess who’s awake!” Yelled Steve to Buck.
Buck walked over “Looks like you missed all the action.”
“No, I was driving the car, remember?” We all laughed.
I began to look around. Steve predicted what I was thinking, “I can’t figure out exactly where we are, it seems deserted, and it’s not on the map. I think we’re in some kind of science facility though.”
“How’d you come to that conclusion smarty pants?” Said Buck sarcastically, propping my head up so I could see the words “APERTURE Science Testing and Research facility” written on the wall.
Steve glared at Buck, and then continued, “We’ve tried to radio base but all we get is static. Apparently the Combine hasn’t found this place, before now, either. They seem very interested in it too. They have been pounding on us. Buck and I are almost out of ammo. If they want this place so much it must be important, but if we stay here much longer we’ll run out of supplies. It’s your call Jess.”
“Well, I say we mark this place on the map, leave, try to make radio contact with base, and see what they have to say about this.” Right as I finished the wall above our small patch of cover exploded in a hail of bullets.
“Buck, you hold them off; Steve, help me into the car you’ll be driving.” Just then a large explosion rocked the area. Debris rained from the sky as large chunks of the biggest building broke off.
“What are the Combine doing?” I yelled over the din.
“I think that came from inside the building. I don’t think it was them.” Yelled Steve.