Why the name "Half-Life"?

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Kur7aMuS

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I'm a new Half-Life 2 fan...I've never played the original or Half-Life 2 PC for that matter but I recently beat the Xbox version. Today I've brushed up on the story, read a few theories and speculation, but I still haven't figured out why the series is called "Half-Life".

PS-I'm a pretty big Halo fan and I was very excited to know that there was another FPS out there with a deep story, and a enthusiatically speculative community.
 
Radioactive material has a 'half-life'.

That is:

The half-life of a radioactive substance is the time required for half of a sample to undergo radioactive decay. The term also has pharmaceutical and other uses.

More generally, for a quantity subject to exponential decay, the half-life is the time required for the quantity to fall to half of its initial value.

(wikipedia.org)

In the original game Gordon is a scientist working at a research facility, working with radioactive substances.

I imagine the cool name just sprang from that.
 
I know the denotative definition of Half-Life...I just wanted to know why the game is called Half-Life...I'm guessing there must be a logical explanation rather than Valve thought the name would be cool.

I was also thinking that it could be something that would only be answered once we know the full story...now that would blow my mind.
 
I would e-mail him but I'm new to this community and I don't even know where to begin to find his e-mail.
 
It's been discussed half to death (rofl, no pun intended, half death) but overall I believe Valve just thought it was cool, a scientific term to go with the whole atmosphere, so they took it and ran with it.

It was originally called Quiver, but that was mostly a different game.
 
Hmmm...I guess I'll just have to live with that answer...but it would be totally amazing if the reason for the name "Half-Life" was revealed in the final game of the series...that would be genius.
 
Hmmm...I guess I'll just have to live with that answer...but it would be totally amazing if the reason for the name "Half-Life" was revealed in the final game of the series...that would be genius.
Click to expand...

Not really it wouldnt. I thought it was plainly obvious why it is called Half Life - as thescotster19 has explained - because the main character is a scientist and the whole game revolves around scientific events :rolleyes:
 
AfternoonLemon said:
Not really it wouldnt. I thought it was plainly obvious why it is called Half Life - as thescotster19 has explained - because the main character is a scientist and the whole game revolves around scientific events :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but that just doesn't make sense to why it would be called Half-Life. If the game revolved around radioactive material (like if the portals required a radioactive element or something) then I would understand but...
 
Yes, it has to do with scientific stuff, and it's just a cool name. There's no relation between the name and anything in the game besides the fact that it has to do with science and Gordon is a scientist. Other than that, it's just a neat name.
 
Well I guess you can explain it because the world in the game is decaying hence "Half-Life".
 
Theres no real game connection i'm pretty sure, its as Ennui said.

Look at the expansions...did you do physics at GCSE level even?

Blue-shift? (the light reflected back into the UV spectrum, opposite to red shift i guess)

Opposing force? (basic physics about motion of forces etc)

Decay? (well obvious...)

I study chemistry and biology at A-level so not much of a physics man, but i know they are all those kind of terms. Funny how they just do fit in.
 
Does "Aftermath" has a physics or chemistry meaning too? :>
 
Rofl im a huge halo and Half life fan, is there something wrong with that :P
 
Ennui said:
It was originally called Quiver, but that was mostly a different game.
Click to expand...

Are you serious?

I played that once, it was... weird.
 
Kur7aMuS said:
I'm sorry but that just doesn't make sense to why it would be called Half-Life. If the game revolved around radioactive material (like if the portals required a radioactive element or something) then I would understand but...
Click to expand...
Well, the stuff you put into the beam is a Xen crystal, and was most likely a bit radioactive. The portals are created by the Xen crystal, which is composed of a unknown element (The scientists tell you something and reference to the mass spectrometer, a machine used to derive what elements certain materials are made of.) .

So meh.

EDIT : Just see it this way : The game 'Fable' is RPG-like. Does the name imply this? No.
The game was supposed to have actual growing trees, so why not name it 'omg this game has actual growing trees' ? Because it won't sell.
I'll take "Half-Life" over "Omg this game has actual growing trees anytime" :p

Half-Life sounds like the sechs, so they chose that name.
 
Opposing force? (basic physics about motion of forces etc)
Click to expand...

Ummm.... I thought it was because you were playing a character from the 'opposing forces' in the original Half Life game?
 
Excellent double meaning with "Blue Shift" - one being Barney's daily routine, the other being a description of something approaching the observer. One might say that Half Life has a similar double meaning - one being something Gordon works with (as a physics professor working with "anomalous materials") and the other a forwarning that the odds of him living decrease with time, predicting an increasingly difficult adventure. Opposing Force, while a less subtle reference to an idea in physics, works too. I don't personally think that Valve or Gearbox thought this far into their titles (I think they just thought it sounded cool), but I do think it's neat that, in retrospect, they work with these double meanings.
 
It seems to me that Half-life is also a fairly clever double meaning.

1: The time it takes for half of a number of radioactive isotopes to decay. Fits in with the general science theme of Half-life, especially HL1.

2: A description of the most common enemy in Half-life: the headcrab/zombie. The zombies could be described as being half alive, hence Half-life.
 
There are sooo many possible meanings that have all been discussed before, lets just leave it at ... its an ace name, end of :P
 
It says, quite clearly in Raising the Bar, why it's called Half-Life. IIRC, it's because it's both original and evokes a Sci-Fi feeling.
 
There is another reason for the name. In HL1, the Lambda Complex plays an important role in the game, and Gordon's HEV suit also has a Lambda symbol on it. Lambda, in physics, is used to denote the half-life of an element. So it works well togehter.

It's not a huge thing, but a nice little tidbit.
 
I think they chose that symbol because it was called Half-Life though. :D
 
I think Half-Life wasn't the original name for it. Anyway, I think it just kind of "fit together" for them at one point, so they decided to use HL as the name.
 
Half-Life is a great title because it makes people wonder, 'Why the hell did they choose that name?'. Just like how we wonder Who the hell is the G-Man, whats really going on with the combine, etc etc. Part of being a Half-Life fan is having fun speculating and predicting what will happen next. So, abstract titles like Half-Life and Blue Shift only push that element.... i think i confused myself
 
Kur7aMuS, it makes a lot more sense (or at least you understand better how
it fits in) if you have played the original Half-Life.

Since you have not, suffice it to say Valve made it rather clear that the
game title and chapter titles were supposed to have more than one meaning
thruought the game.
 
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