Something called the "Half-Life Effect"

[MiracleOfSound]

I don't lose health. I don't think I ever died in Half Life 2 or in the Episodes. I died in the first one because I couldn't get the hang of the zero gravity jumping. And

Spoiler

in Episode 2, they got to the base a few times but I didn't die, everyone else did.

I guess it's my way of playing games. Silent Hill taught me to save your good weapons and to always run from no win situations and take enemies as the come. It probably takes me long to win a shooty game as a result, but I don't die so I'm clearly awesome.

You'd get annihalated online.

 

[dududf]

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?

Ye, my last second life went off near the begining, and I never bothered with the "Critical" Mass things, I just stuck to my X2 strength, blade, and whip.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

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

Not exactly... the fight or flight response causes panic attacks, which make you anything but focused.

 

[ShotgunShaman]

GRAW2. Oh man. Doing the co op missions offline, with just two people, only able to get shot 3, maybe 4 times total? Each mission taking at least 2 hours? Each one we beat, we were on our last set of legs, but we did it. BY GOD WE DID IT.

 

[Therumancer]

Nope. I usually just die. I think it's known as 'not being very good'

Same for me. I got a very cheap copy of Left 4 Dead 2 (not the steam sale) and am playing solo to learn it, and in general when I get low on health and out of healing it just means I'm about to die... not that I'm going to suddenly turn into Rambo.

 

[Wanocorc]

this sound's like "achieving the glow", thats what G4 called it anyway, which is basically where you become a unstoppable wrecking ball without really conciously thinking about what to do next, it just happens. Sounds like some of the glow kicks in when you realize your about to get roflstomped by some baddies.

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

I don't lose health. I don't think I ever died in Half Life 2 or in the Episodes. I died in the first one because I couldn't get the hang of the zero gravity jumping. And

Spoiler

in Episode 2, they got to the base a few times but I didn't die, everyone else did.

I guess it's my way of playing games. Silent Hill taught me to save your good weapons and to always run from no win situations and take enemies as the come. It probably takes me long to win a shooty game as a result, but I don't die so I'm clearly awesome.

You'd get annihalated online.

What at HLM? I wasn't bad at it but I wasn't great. Put it down to lack of practice.

 

[MGlBlaze]

I'm not sure why it's called the Half-Life effect. Ever try and play the origonal Half-Life on hard mode? If you're down to your last sliver of life, you will die. A LOT. Seriousely, the enemies (the soldiers especially...) take so many hits and are so accurate, it's pretty much unavoidable.

Half-Life 2 is better with this, though.

 

[teutonicman]

That too has happened to me while playing batman. Another time was when I was playing fallout 3, there were a number of super mutants on my ass and a overlord suddenly joined the party with me almost dead. I thought shitshitshit! so I pulled out my nuke launcher fired one off ducked in a house for cover from the fallout and managed to kill the remaining stragglers with vats and the plasma rifle. It was really god damn close.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I don't lose health. I don't think I ever died in Half Life 2 or in the Episodes. I died in the first one because I couldn't get the hang of the zero gravity jumping. And

Spoiler

in Episode 2, they got to the base a few times but I didn't die, everyone else did.

I guess it's my way of playing games. Silent Hill taught me to save your good weapons and to always run from no win situations and take enemies as the come. It probably takes me long to win a shooty game as a result, but I don't die so I'm clearly awesome.

You'd get annihalated online.

What at HLM? I wasn't bad at it but I wasn't great. Put it down to lack of practice.

Same with me, that's why I said it.

I play single player shooters like you, cautiously, tactically and patiently... but when I went online 6 months back I was in for quite the shock... I got destroyed until I learned to play fast and aggressive.

[sub]I still get annihalated though[/sub]

 

[lolandrew4]

I rarely have this, mine is the "Spartan Last Stand" where you may die, but your going to take down as many enemies as possible. Like in Zombie Survival mode in TF2 I was hiding in a rock outcropping when I became the last person on the human side alive. The Zombies have discovered where I am, so as soon as they started swarming in, I (as a demoman) detonated all of my stickies, killing me and half their team.

 

[Cmwissy]

Happens to me allot in GTA IV - Last level on the boat - I kicked some ass with 20% health and no armor.

Also happens in Assassin's creed 2; One block of health and I counter every move.

 

[Swaki]

in dragon age, once in awhile i got distracted thinking of food and water and other things ive had to take out of my schedule to make room for more dragon age, and before i knew it Wynne was dead and the rest of the team was almost there, then that would invoke the genius strategies of Odin and i would somehow murder half the darkspawns of the world.

 

[elricik]

It happens to me mostly in JRPG's, which is weird. I'm usually facing a boss, and all but one of my party characters are dead, so I've only got a few more turns left before I am defeated. So I usually pull of a strategy op epic proportions (usually by pure luck) and end up defeating the boss with my last party member.

 

[tigerguy786]

I thought I mentioned it, but my friends and I refer to it as the half-life effect because we first noticed it on the first Half-Life and because it deals with being at low though (though not necessarily critical health).

I think it's more than just paying attention because I can play games at full alert-ness and still not play to the same degree that I do when the "Half-Life Effect" kicks in. It just seems like I'm suddenly playing completely differently.

EDIT:

And OP was wrong in his statemnt, atleast regarding halo. In both Halo:CE and Halo:ODST the protaganist have a healthbar.

I'll give you ODST, but the first Halo had regenerating shields that were much more important than health.

 

[roryyeung]

I think it's also something to do with agression and speed. Either you slow down when low on health, therefore giving you a better chance, or you speed up, making you harder to hit and harder to manuver against. For example, in Modern Warfare 2's Co-op Special Ops mode, with just seconds on the clock, me and my friend were forced to sprint the final stretch, just spraying the enimies as we went. Despite the veteran difficulty, we made it... just about,because we just ran past most of the bad guys, rarther than sticking about to shoot them and be shot.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

So there's an interesting phenomenon that some of my friends and I have observed and it is this: In a game when the player reaches the point of critical health they experience a boost in skill that allows them to survive. This applies to games that do not have regenerative health (so Halo and the like don't count). Most recently it happened to me in Batman Arkham Asylum. I had just beaten a titan and there were over a dozen thugs left in the room and I was one hit away from death. Then the Half-Life Effect kicked in and I managed to beat them.

Has this ever happened to any of you?

It can work in games that have regenerating health. I was playing the Bad Company 2 Beta when I got sniped, so I had very little health (and it was pretty hard to see). Enemies were coming, and I managed to get a 5-kill-streak without getting hit once.

 

[R3dQu33n]

I thought I mentioned it, but my friends and I refer to it as the half-life effect because we first noticed it on the first Half-Life and because it deals with being at low though (though not necessarily critical health).

I think it's more than just paying attention because I can play games at full alert-ness and still not play to the same degree that I do when the "Half-Life Effect" kicks in. It just seems like I'm suddenly playing completely differently.

EDIT:

And OP was wrong in his statemnt, atleast regarding halo. In both Halo:CE and Halo:ODST the protaganist have a healthbar.

I'll give you ODST, but the first Halo had regenerating shields that were much more important than health.

It's actually like people have said before. A big part of it is adrenaline. Adrenaline works by heightening the body's senses and making the brain go into overdrive, working much faster. For example, during an adrenaline rush a human's eyes can take up 50% more information than normal, if not even more so. It's why you're typically so tired after an adrenaline rush, because it makes your body go through energy much faster.
It's left from when we actually had to fight to survive in a much, much harsher world than the one we live in today.

 

[koeniginator]

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

Probably this.

DEFINITELY this.