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| Re: Criticism of Bungie storytelling | |
| Posted By: reprobate | Date: 1/26/08 5:31 a.m. |
In Response To: Re: Criticism of Bungie storytelling (Narcogen) : No, no, NO. Characters should never talk between themselves solely for the : purpose of revealing something to the audience. They have to have their : own reasons for doing so. The war has been going on for decades-- it's far : past the point of one marine muttering to another about "why the : Covenant attack". It'd be like wondering why rain is wet-- it's been : true for so long that there's no need to talk about it. Heck, there are : probably marines on the PoA who were born after the war started. They've : never known a time when humanity was not at war with the Covenant. It was a bad example and I wrote it in a little bit of a hurry, I'll concede that, but even the average foot soldier whom you come across might wonder occasionally, "Hey, there's other Spartans, aren't there? Why is he alone?" They would especially consider that later on during the events of Halo 3. Humanity has been utterly decimated by the war and basically any moment the Covenant want to, they could kill all the humans left. Maybe every human alive has wondered outside of the scope of the game why no Spartans are around to save their butts, but given the standard doctrine of "Spartans never die," I think it'd be perfectly within reason to sneak up on some marines who didn't know you were coming who were just wondering amongst themselves, not intending for the Chief to hear, what happened to the rest. At that point do they all just assume they're dead or fighting elsewhere? : This is the kind of writing flaw that plagues a lot of other games,
You can have the greatest story in the world, but if you don't tell it then it doesn't mean anything. I already used Half-Life above as an example, so I'll use #2 (and by extension the two episodes) to demonstrate. Half-Life 2 basically does everything that was listed there: it makes the story simple enough for people to understand, it repeats story fairly frequently, and even literally plasters hints about the world and its background on the walls. Now I've seen people criticize even Half-Life 2's story, but it isn't hyperbole to state that many fans and critics of FPS games, and even just games in general, consider it to be one of the best games of all time. The kind of criticism that Halo gets for its story is not usually one of the complaints that people have for Half-Life 2. I suppose you could try to make the argument that what Bungie attempted with Halo is more complex or in-depth than what Valve did with Half-Life 2, but Valve's world is just as mysterious as Halo's, and of similar detail. Valve never even states why the Combine (the Covenant of the Half-Life world) are doing what they're doing, but the players at least get a peak at the answer in game. Why are they on Earth? Well, it looks like they're draining it of all its resources, so that's at least one reason. Why they couldn't have just been nice and traded with us, who knows, but there it is. Why are the Covenant killing all humans? If you're looking for an answer in Halo, you won't find one. The Covenant at that point is as two dimensional as any other alien species who has ever been whooped on in video games. Half-Life 2 shows you its story visually when its characters aren't talking to you or each other, while Halo raises many valid questions and either never answers them, or answers them only part way. In the sequels, we learn (those of us who haven't read outside story) that there is a clear order and structure to the species in the Covenant. There is a kind of leader or master race even above the Elites, and they want to fire the Halo rings because Great Journeys kick ass. And that's fine and good, we're beginning to see an actual society behind the Covenant. It still doesn't explain why they're doing what they're doing to humans, but at least they're not just targets to shoot. It isn't until Halo 3 that it is specifically laid out (even though most of the Halo story fans had figured it out or suspected it by now) that humans "are Forerunner." OK, that's neat, but wait... don't these Covenant guys worship the Forerunner? So why are they attacking us exactly? So the fifth Halo novel comes out (post-Halo 3) and we finally get a glimpse of the answer behind the big question, why the Covenant is murdering humans. And the grand answer is... because the leaders knew that humans were Forerunner and were afraid of a possible shake up of the Covenant. Only... the Covenant reverted to civil war anyway due to their bidding. So what's the deal? The only answer that I've seen that sounds reasonable is that the Hierarchs wanted to make sure that they kept all the power for themselves that goes with being the leaders of the Covenant. I don't know what the real reason for any of their actions are, but I think that's a pretty good example of just how extremely murky the story is even to the hardcore. How anyone can expect a casual story fan to figure that out is beyond me. Half-Life 2 shows us that the Combine are here, they've enslaved nearly everyone, are hunting those who resist, and want the Earth for its resources (if not something else). It explains it in such a way that doesn't require a PhD in Half-Life 2 to understand while still remaining mysterious. There is a history just as tangible in Ravenholm as there is in High Charity, and throughout the rest of the Half-Life Earth as there is on ancient Forerunner installations. : Good thing there's multiplayer for them, then. I wouldn't want the campaign
Well... all right. I just think it's possible to retain most of the mystery of the story without having to alienate as many people as it does. It's rewarding for those who know what's going on and put the time into looking everything up. As I've said before, I enjoy all the novels and comics (except for maybe Uprising) that Bungie has put out, but in order to understand the story, you really do need to have them.
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