I don't think what made HL a great franchise was the story-line though, was it? It was the game play and open source. I mean, I'd prob go to see it if they ever did make a movie, but honestly - the story is very similar to Doom. HL2 would probably make for better movie story-line.

I never played the original so I couldn't say. Half Life 2 could work, and there are some things that could be really cool, and other things that just wouldn't work at all.

The silent, sort of faceless protagonist? Probably wouldn't work.

The creepy dystopian future, with guards with creepy radios and the evil mastermind? Could work, but it'd have to work hard not to be cliched. As is, if you transferred the world of Half Life 2 straight to a movie, it would almost seem a bit bland. I think there are more compelling 'nasty future' scenarios. Certainly visually richer ones. And while it works in a game world, since it's kind of designed to lead the gamer's eye to a certain area, it's not quite the same in a movie.

There are other things that work great in a game to keep your attention, but wouldn't transfer so well. Eg. Varied environments. We kind of expect a game to have a bunch of different locales, to hold our interest. Think of all the places you go in Uncharted 2. Think of Half Life 2... places like Ravenholme (ravenholdt?) are great because not only do they look different, they provide a different kind of game play. Intense, survival horror-ish gameplay. If you dropped that kinda thing straight into a movie? I reckon it would be jarring, if only because there's not the time to justify or explore it. You have a lot less time in a movie, so the need to dramatically change your backdrop is reduced and probably less effective.

So yeah, it could be cool, but a lot of the things that make the game cool mightn't make the movie cool, which could piss off plenty of fans.

I think there's pretty compelling evidence that a good game movie with a good budget could be great. Halo's live action (action oriented) sequences are pretty brilliant. Deliver Hope, and We Are ODST were both sweet. Ubi's latest ones, the Ghost Recon movies are just intense, and Assassin's Creed Lineage was pretty visually impressive, delivered a cool backstory and had some great action sequences.

The thing is, could they bring the same passion to a feature length movie? Would they have enough rad ideas to span that time? The Halo movies are barely over a minute. Lineage I think clocks in at around half an hour all up, so it's kinda like a shortish film. Butttt it's still quite different to anything you'd see in the cinema.

The first one was about Gordon Freemand obviously, but 90% of it was set underground as Gordon tried to escape Black Mesa and the minions coming through the portal - then escape the military - then go to Zen to kick some ass against the mastermind of the invasion. Even the portal opening was aided by the human "G Man" (*cough Doom*).