http://www.msnbc.com/news/682836.asp) about the Special Forces. After 9/11, I didn't think I'd have much of an appetite for gaming anymore, but Halo has proven somewhat cathartic. Is it because the Covenant are religious fundamentalists who believe that everyone else is of Satan and must be destroyed? Is it because many of us did feel that our existence, or at least our way of existing was threatened by the terrorist attacks of last year that Halo's standard "save the human race" plot doesn't seem so fanciful?
Like all good fiction, Halo is satisfying as imagined experience. We have a cause to fight for, and the enemy is beatable. (I could give another rant about how the beating the Flood is much less satisfying because their vegetative mindlessness make them a boring enemy, but I'll save that.) It is just a game of course, and as far as war experience goes it gives us almost none. Beating T&R on legendary is a walk in the park compared to spending days laying on the ground looking through the scope of sniper rifle, sipping fluids through a straw and eating pellets so that you don't have to crap.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has thought about how lucky we are to live in a place where we play war games for entertainment when in other parts of the world people are fighting to survive. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels grateful for those who are fighting now so that we have the luxury to obsessively read a message board related to a game financed by a billionaire in Seattle. Sometimes I feel guilty about this, too.
Did anyone else have this guilt assuaged a little by hearing voice actor Pete Stacker talk briefly about his Vietnam experience on the Outtakes page? Based on what I can tell about Pete's personality, he was probably an excellent bullshit detector if the script veered into stupidity. It adds another level of meaning to gameplay, too, when you realize that a voice yelling "covering fire" may have yelled those same words in an infinitely more important context.
The highlights of the game are when I'm fighting alongside the marines, and I feel like they're depending on me. The work of Pete Stacker and company deserve much of the credit for this effect. I care about these collections of polygons that we call characters. At the risk of sounding pretentious or of this sounding like a love letter to Bungie, depth of character is what has set their games apart from the competition, whether demonstrated by the mutterings of a dwarf or the rantings of a rampant AI.
Also, knowing Jason Jones penchant for "war porn" does tell me something about the respect the makers of this game have for the horror of real human conflict. My favorite moment in the game occurs seconds before the lifepod launches, when the Marine says, "I don't want to die out here!" The MC's gesture towards him conveys a greater humanity and sense of pathos than I've seen conveyed in a game before, especially when we realize minutes later than that Marine does indeed die out there.
It's exciting to think what is possible, and to think how much more characterization will happen as NPCs become more lifelike. I hope that Bungie leads the way.
Gorehead
