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Halo Stuff
14 years ago
General
I have a confession to make.
I've never been a huge fan of the Halo series.
Don't get me wrong, I've played through at least a couple of the titles, engaged in multiplayer, and actually purchased one of the titles, but in spite of the contributions and ideas the franchise has contributed to the gaming community I've never been able to immerse myself in it or fall in love with it. I might be one of those rare gamers who best likes his experiences served with engaging stories and populated with interesting characters.
Particularly in the realm of first person shooters, common wisdom seems to dictate that story is unimportant when every possible moment of the game is filled with people shooting at you, but sooner or later all the bullets and streaking globs of plasma fail to distract me from the often awful truth that there is no substance behind it all. While in this respect Halo stands stronger than, say, Call of Duty, it has lots of room for improvement.
It's clear now that the impending Halo projects are focused on either revisiting the first game or carrying on the story of the Master Chief, a character who I never particularly liked in spite of the fact that his survival was annoyingly essential to my continued progress in the game. In my experience there are two kinds of successful protagonists in first person shooters: The 'silent loner' who navigates the world as a practical mute, allowing the player to fully transport themselves into the game (E.G., Gordon Freeman) or the 'talker' whose dialogue and reactions to the events going on around them dictate how we feel about the character and story.
The 'silent loner' depends on a strong supporting cast of characters with depth and personality to compensate for the relative blank slate of the player character. The 'talker' requires a careful balance of sympathy from the player as well as the ability to execute the fantastical, allowing us to vicariously experience something we never could in real life through a plucky protagonist.
Sadly, the Master Chief tries to be both and accomplishes neither. He talks on occasion, but nothing he ever says really makes the player appreciate him as a human being. At the same time, there is little in the game world to compensate for the relatively bland Master Chief. With the possible exception of Cortana (I stress 'possible'), you never get the impression that anyone fighting for MC is really essential. 'Sarge' is a walking stereotype and the Arbiter offers similarly few surprises. Just about no one evolves or changes throughout the course of the game. By the end of it all, no one has really learned anything through their experiences.
The Halo franchise has made three earnest attempts to breathe a little life into the games, but all of them have focused on the 'badassery' of humans and largely excluded what I think would make fabulous storytelling material: The Covenant.
Before I continue, there's an old rule about science fiction: Science Fiction is about people. A lot of people read this as 'about humans', but it doesn't take a genius to interpret the the phrase's alternate meaning: "Science Fiction must appeal to the human condition".
Thus far, the lore surrounding the Covenant has been... somewhat sloppy. From game to game, it changes so drastically that it can at times confuse the player. For instance, "Hey, didn't these guys side with the Elites? Now they're against them? Wha happon?", or "The Prophets hate Humanity because they're damned dirty apes. As a result, they hired damned dirty apes (Brutes) to help exterminate them. Que cosa?"
The Halo universe has no shortage of races. It has no shortage of characters. It almost certainly has no shortage of ammunition and exotic death-flinging goodies. What it lacks is actual 'character', something for the player to become a little emotionally invested in. True, saving the Earth is a big deal, but when the Earth of the future is populated entirely by insipid cliches, there are occasional moments where you actually want the Covenant to win and wipe us from the universe. I mean, at least they have pretty colors. Given another moment of thought, however, you quickly find out that the Covenant races are roughly as flavorless as the humans by your side. It's constantly made clear to you that they're all either A: Religious Zealots or B: Idiot Cannon Fodder.
The events that drew Halo 3, and the 'big story', to a close could usher in a new storyline. Surprise! Humanity wins, Covenant loses. But what does that mean for the Covenant, or really anyone for that matter?
So here's an idea. About a decade has passed since the Covenant lost the war against the Humans. It's been a complete fiasco, a disaster. The races of the Covenant are diverse, but they all accepted the religion of the Covenant in exchange for technology, spacefaring capabilities, and the subsequent promises of vast wealth. Instead, everyone from the Sangheili to the Kig-Yar to the Unggoy have poured vast fortunes and lives into a war that went bust. The Elites rebelled, seceding from the Covenant altogether.
Now, the Covenant is falling apart from the inside. A fissure has formed between those races and individuals loyal to the Prophets and those that want complete autonomy. The Elites, having won their independence, have found themselves and their homeworld to be the latest target of the Covenant. Alliance with the nearly shattered humans has done little to aid them. The prophets gather a battle fleet from their reluctant, war-weary allies to decisively cleanse the Sangheili in one clear message to all: This is the price of betrayal.
The Sangheili have to act quickly. They know they cannot stand against the combined might of a new fleet in their weakened state. Their only hope is to stir up rebellions among the other races, building a new Covenant to stop the old.
You are a young Sangheili warrior caught up in the race's desperate efforts to mount a defense against the coming storm. Despite your lowly status and your inexperience in war, events soon conspire that will place you at the tip of the spear. The Sangheili cannot afford to turn away any allies, from Human refugees to the lowly Unggoy, from heretics to rebels. The Humans once fought for their survival and for their freedom as a species. Now you must do the same, bringing a final end to the Old Covenant.
I've never been a huge fan of the Halo series.
Don't get me wrong, I've played through at least a couple of the titles, engaged in multiplayer, and actually purchased one of the titles, but in spite of the contributions and ideas the franchise has contributed to the gaming community I've never been able to immerse myself in it or fall in love with it. I might be one of those rare gamers who best likes his experiences served with engaging stories and populated with interesting characters.
Particularly in the realm of first person shooters, common wisdom seems to dictate that story is unimportant when every possible moment of the game is filled with people shooting at you, but sooner or later all the bullets and streaking globs of plasma fail to distract me from the often awful truth that there is no substance behind it all. While in this respect Halo stands stronger than, say, Call of Duty, it has lots of room for improvement.
It's clear now that the impending Halo projects are focused on either revisiting the first game or carrying on the story of the Master Chief, a character who I never particularly liked in spite of the fact that his survival was annoyingly essential to my continued progress in the game. In my experience there are two kinds of successful protagonists in first person shooters: The 'silent loner' who navigates the world as a practical mute, allowing the player to fully transport themselves into the game (E.G., Gordon Freeman) or the 'talker' whose dialogue and reactions to the events going on around them dictate how we feel about the character and story.
The 'silent loner' depends on a strong supporting cast of characters with depth and personality to compensate for the relative blank slate of the player character. The 'talker' requires a careful balance of sympathy from the player as well as the ability to execute the fantastical, allowing us to vicariously experience something we never could in real life through a plucky protagonist.
Sadly, the Master Chief tries to be both and accomplishes neither. He talks on occasion, but nothing he ever says really makes the player appreciate him as a human being. At the same time, there is little in the game world to compensate for the relatively bland Master Chief. With the possible exception of Cortana (I stress 'possible'), you never get the impression that anyone fighting for MC is really essential. 'Sarge' is a walking stereotype and the Arbiter offers similarly few surprises. Just about no one evolves or changes throughout the course of the game. By the end of it all, no one has really learned anything through their experiences.
The Halo franchise has made three earnest attempts to breathe a little life into the games, but all of them have focused on the 'badassery' of humans and largely excluded what I think would make fabulous storytelling material: The Covenant.
Before I continue, there's an old rule about science fiction: Science Fiction is about people. A lot of people read this as 'about humans', but it doesn't take a genius to interpret the the phrase's alternate meaning: "Science Fiction must appeal to the human condition".
Thus far, the lore surrounding the Covenant has been... somewhat sloppy. From game to game, it changes so drastically that it can at times confuse the player. For instance, "Hey, didn't these guys side with the Elites? Now they're against them? Wha happon?", or "The Prophets hate Humanity because they're damned dirty apes. As a result, they hired damned dirty apes (Brutes) to help exterminate them. Que cosa?"
The Halo universe has no shortage of races. It has no shortage of characters. It almost certainly has no shortage of ammunition and exotic death-flinging goodies. What it lacks is actual 'character', something for the player to become a little emotionally invested in. True, saving the Earth is a big deal, but when the Earth of the future is populated entirely by insipid cliches, there are occasional moments where you actually want the Covenant to win and wipe us from the universe. I mean, at least they have pretty colors. Given another moment of thought, however, you quickly find out that the Covenant races are roughly as flavorless as the humans by your side. It's constantly made clear to you that they're all either A: Religious Zealots or B: Idiot Cannon Fodder.
The events that drew Halo 3, and the 'big story', to a close could usher in a new storyline. Surprise! Humanity wins, Covenant loses. But what does that mean for the Covenant, or really anyone for that matter?
So here's an idea. About a decade has passed since the Covenant lost the war against the Humans. It's been a complete fiasco, a disaster. The races of the Covenant are diverse, but they all accepted the religion of the Covenant in exchange for technology, spacefaring capabilities, and the subsequent promises of vast wealth. Instead, everyone from the Sangheili to the Kig-Yar to the Unggoy have poured vast fortunes and lives into a war that went bust. The Elites rebelled, seceding from the Covenant altogether.
Now, the Covenant is falling apart from the inside. A fissure has formed between those races and individuals loyal to the Prophets and those that want complete autonomy. The Elites, having won their independence, have found themselves and their homeworld to be the latest target of the Covenant. Alliance with the nearly shattered humans has done little to aid them. The prophets gather a battle fleet from their reluctant, war-weary allies to decisively cleanse the Sangheili in one clear message to all: This is the price of betrayal.
The Sangheili have to act quickly. They know they cannot stand against the combined might of a new fleet in their weakened state. Their only hope is to stir up rebellions among the other races, building a new Covenant to stop the old.
You are a young Sangheili warrior caught up in the race's desperate efforts to mount a defense against the coming storm. Despite your lowly status and your inexperience in war, events soon conspire that will place you at the tip of the spear. The Sangheili cannot afford to turn away any allies, from Human refugees to the lowly Unggoy, from heretics to rebels. The Humans once fought for their survival and for their freedom as a species. Now you must do the same, bringing a final end to the Old Covenant.
A relative 'blank slate' main character has its advantages as well. This would enable a bit of a 'lite' RPG where over time you can send your character down the path of your choice. You could change your character's build to best suit your combat style. I know some people love dual-beamswords, but that shouldn't stop people from making their characters better marksmen or heavy weapons experts.
After Halo:CE the world did not fall in love with the game, but it's multiplayer mode. Naturally, more resources and time were devoted to this specific portion of the game. The story suffered for it. Characters fell apart, the ominous feel of artifacts in space quickly became common, unlike Halo, which felt mysterious and special. It contradicted itself, left gaping plotholes and overall, didn't satisfy. The characters don't arc or evolve. They situation seems to shape around them, rather than them changing to fit the situation. The characters are stiff. While a recognizable personality is good for a character, a personality that remains flaccid all the time is a poor one.
Naturally, the game is still more popular than god and there are fanboys (and more than a few military junky girls) that will perpetuate it's existence. Oh well.
Everyone already knows that Halo boasts a good multiplayer experience. It just has to figure out how to harness the power of a good story again.
But then again, would the game have sold as well as it did if you WEREN'T some powergaming uber-soldier who pulled off some of the most ridiculously macho stunts. ("Permission to give the Convenant back their bomb sir?")
Anyway, now that's out of my system... Yeah, having a story about the Convenant AFTER they lost would be an interesting direction to go. After all, they only failed to defeat the human "heretics." That's got to cost the Prophets some face.
On your point about the franchise itself, Halo Reach may somewhat fit what you were referring to up there, as far as the "silent protagonist with a cast of supporting characters" in the form of the rest of Team Noble, though whether they're effective is mostly in the eye of the beholder there.
To focus on games... "Back in the day", when video games were inexpensive to produce (the technology requiring millions of dollars simply didn't exist yet), it was possible for true artists (writers) to be very close to the actual product being produced. Often, the one and only writer for a game's plot was, simultaneously, the project director and lead concept artist. This led to games like Baldur's Gate, and its sequel, which for those of us who played it, can attest for its quality (in its genre and production date). The requirement for modern games has led us to place powerful and skillful people in places of authority during the game production process who are not artists. The dirty secret is that these wonderful AAA games with amazing graphics and refined gameplay just aren't possible without huge investments of money, which requires a representative of investors (often a corporate officer) to ensure the product will make a return. After all, their job is to make money, not to entertain.
Like drug addicts, we find ourselves in self-destructive cycles where we perpetuate the production of "poorly written" games because, well, we buy them! You said so yourself, that you purchased a Halo game. I'm not saying you're wrong for doing so (just the opposite, Halo can sometimes be quite fun), but that's what the powerful not-so-silent silent partners in the game industry see. People, lots of people, buying games based not on their narrative quality, but on features like graphics and brand name (which is why we see so many damned sequels).
There ARE games out there, Jodi, and those who've read my block of text, which are like the ones we're looking for. When we look for them, however, we need to accept that the kinds of people who make these games aren't always going to be our big-ticket producers. We're going to often have to accept that games aren't going to be as polished and finished while still maintaining that strong link between artistry and their design. We're going to have to accept that the games which really make our day are going to look and feel ugly, at least until we can show those with the resources, those who have a responsibility to generate income from an investment, that investing in people who are passionate as they are professional in the game industry is an equally smart move.
Bust out your wallets, people, and go find some independent games. I'll be right there beside you.
I think that the gaming industry as of late has started reacting to gamers' demands for better storytelling, or at least some developers have. I've spent way more money on Rockstar than I ever have on Bungie because of that phenomenon, and it's the same way with Bioware. Without actual sales statistics to go on, I can't definitively say "Bioware > Bungie lawl", but it's possible in the industry to be both commercially successful AND story oriented. Consequently, that's where my money goes.
I suppose I'm a bit fussy about recycling content and gameplay as well. If a sequel is basically a rehash of the previous game with a "2" or a "3" strapped onto it, I'm unlikely to pick it up. Can't say the same for Call of Duty fans, though.
And I agree, that it seems like there's a cool new "turnaround" coming, where we find ourselves no longer interested in the latest and best graphics, but where we find ourselves (the consumers) looking for as much substance as any other serious effort into storytelling, regardless of the medium.
I like you guys already.
I like your idea though, but I'm really not a first person shooter fan...
Sorry, dude, but fuck that. It's just lazy.