Something called the "Half-Life Effect"

[UnearthedArcana]

Sure, it's called "stop daydreaming and pay attention, you're almost dead."

Mindfulness is more energy exertion than most of us are willing to put forward, but some conditions make it easier.

Also, you actually do get better in Half-Life when your health is at a critical level. Enemies fire less accurately, you take less damage, do more damage. There are many, MANY changes, but they're all so silght that you can't notice them.

Black sort of did that. Time seemed to slow down just a tiny bit when you were at critical health, and your vision got much sharper. I don't know as it had any real gameplay effect, but I seemed to play better in that 'Oh shit' mode.

 

[DrWhoopPhD]

It happened alot in Prototype, and left 4 dead. But why the half-life effect.

I agree with it being the Left4Dead effect,
When you're the last alive, you suddenly just rape everything that flys at you, headshotting hunters midair, doing 180 spins to jam your bullets up a smoker's nose etc etc.

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

If this is true, then why haven't I completed HL2 yet?

 

[Chipperz]

If this what they call the "Half-Life Effect" then perhaps we can also coin the "Call of Duty Effect" term to describe the act of being shot in the back by a person 200m away, or being knifed in a similar fashion be the person hiding under that speck of dust you just walked past, seconds after you achieve your 3rd consecutive kill.

I swear people just lie in wait until you get ONE POINT away from that big killstreak you've been working for, and then pounce on you out of nowhere just to be a pain in the ass! Thats happened to me too many times to count.

Thank christ, I thought I was just shit! It happens waaaaay too much to be coincidence...

 

[sgtshock]

I remember Timesplitters 2 doing something like this in the story mode.

You had a health bar (rather than a number) that would go down every time you were damaged. At the very beginning of a level, it seemed like a single bullet would get rid of a quarter of your health. But as your health got lower and lower, enemies did teasingly less damage. In other words, the lower your health, the slower your health went down. The result was you spent 90% of the game with less than half health, keeping you constantly on edge.

At least I think they did this. I have no other explanation for it.

 

[ArcWinter]

I do this all the time when playing MW2 splitscreen with my friends. I can dodge bullets by inches and then shotgun 'em right in the face. It makes them angry.

 

[Finbark]

Normally, I will do amazing up until the point I'm about to die then panic, run, crap myself, and get shot in the back.

 

[Chamale]

For me, it's the opposite. When my health gets low, I get so obsessed about finding a healthpack that I start to suck. But once, in a single-player game of Battlefield 1942, I was messing around while I thought I had a God-mode cheat on. I ran across an open street with no cover to stab several German soldiers to death, and after I got 5 kills one of them shot me, so I realized God-mode was off.

 

[PixelKing]

F3=Behoemoth,veryhard,assault rifle

 

[CloggedDonkey]

I don't know how many times in battlefield: Bad Company, in the multilayer. your near death fleeing back to you base when suddenly 2 or 3 enemies are right in front of you, you take them down with the minimum amount of ammo, head shotting all three, just to get healed back up and get sniped.

 

[WolfLordAndy]

Tf2, as a scout, can run around taking one hit kills while full health. But then take me down to 2hp, and you'll find me duck and weave between every bullet, rocket, etc. Not only will the dodgying and luck increase, but suddenly accuracy goes way up as well!

 

[The Hairminator]

The fact that you can't screw around when low on health is what makes some games good.
And OP was wrong in his statemnt, atleast regarding halo. In both Halo:CE and Halo:ODST the protaganist have a healthbar.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

To me this is "run out of ammo in my main gun on CoD4 splitscreen and am down to a pistol+knife". Then, I kick ass.

 

[Georgeman]

It's the fear of traveling back in time 30 minutes to the last checkpoint that triggers this! No really. The harsher the punishment, the more heightened the reflexes.

 

[Lemon Of Life]

Sure, it's called "stop daydreaming and pay attention, you're almost dead."

Mindfulness is more energy exertion than most of us are willing to put forward, but some conditions make it easier.

I'll just steal your post, mate. It sums it all up pretty well.

 

[lacktheknack]

Welcome to the Escapist!

In Titan Quest, there's actually an ability that Necromancers can get that, upon reaching 10% health, this effect kicks in and you start regenerating massive health. I'd say that's the best example of this phenomenon.

 

[Spitfire175]

Surely, everyone has this

Yes.

I call it the Doom effect. I remember playing an entire level without taking a hit, with just 6 hp left. Modded game, no health pacs or armour.

 

[buddee1]

its called the "fight or flight" reflex, when you see that your in danger your body uses adrenalin and becomes more focused

 

[Captain Pancake]

Wait, doesn't EVERYONE have that?

Prime example, Prototype, I was near dead right from the get go (40 seconds in, made some bad choices(hardes difficulty BTW)) and I beat him after that mark without taking a hit.

Surely, everyone has this

Didn't prototype have a built in feature that made you temporarily invincible when you were close to death, as well as giving you a critical mass attack to use?