Interesting coincidence

I just finished reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a very interesting book, and I noticed that the narrator refers to the oppressive world outside the mental asylum as the Combine. That made the reading much funnier to read, because I kept picturing Nova Prospekt... In either case, Do you think the storyline people at VALVe were at all influenced by that book? It seems they have, as the Combine is big and oppressive in both the book and in Half-Life 2. Any thoughts?

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The Plane, my ongoing HL2 comic.

No, that's just what the word means:

"To bring into a state of unity; merge."
"To join forces for a common purpose"
"An association of people or groups united for the furtherance of political or commercial interests"

They both picked the word for obvious reasons.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

It's quite a famous book, so I wouldn't be surprised.

And notice in many parts of the game, you can find psychiatric unit looking interrogation rooms with TV monitors.

It really reminds me of a psych ward I used to work at.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

It's not such a bad film either. Jack Nicholson does the ol' clucky nutter role quite well.

man, i'm intrigued.... I oughta ask Valve directly :biggrin:

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The Plane, my ongoing HL2 comic.

I've just finished writing a 3000 word essay on social and cultural
intertextuality in Half-Life 2 for my design theory class. You'd be
amazed how many references there are just in the first chapter.

References to books 1984 and Brave New World, fears of technological
advancement and genetics, real world locations and governments past and
present, etc etc. It's a surprisingly rich cultural and social text.

I then tied it into the idea of games as valid texts for educational
purposes, replacing books that many kids just don't read anymore.

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

Once you've submitted your essay, I am interested in reading it.

Isn't it nice to incorporate gaming into scholastic work? I wish I could've done that when I was in college. I did do a report on the design of Excel interface (yes, the spreadsheet) for a design class I took.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

I've just finished writing a 3000 word essay on social and cultural
intertextuality in Half-Life 2 for my design theory class. You'd be
amazed how many references there are just in the first chapter.

References to books 1984 and Brave New World, fears of technological
advancement and genetics, real world locations and governments past and
present, etc etc. It's a surprisingly rich cultural and social text.

I then tied it into the idea of games as valid texts for educational
purposes, replacing books that many kids just don't read anymore.

I agree, and I think that's because Half-Life isn't just a game like
"pong." Its the equivalent of a fully realized/interactive
novel. Marc Laidlaw is a serious writer, and as such the richness
of the intertextuality is not surprising.

I forget which Lit Theorist described it as such, but the
Deconstructionists call this intertextuality "freeplay," or "the rustle
of language." It's certainly interesting that videogames are
moving closer to becoming an acceptable and sophisticated type of text,
joining in with novels and movies as a communicative medium.

this thread belonged in "Recently Read" :sad:

You want a thought provoking book, read "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"

You will be thinking by the end I promise.

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The best things in life, aren't things.