You know something? I never understood how Halo got branded as a popular game in the first place. Despite the fact that I never went to college for four years (not the fun party college, the college where everyone hates everyone else and works all day), and the most important thing that i cannot stress enough is that: Halo is fucking overrated and every single gamer should aspire to something better.
You know why? Because Halo is the closest the human race has come to the ever increasing paradigm of utter outdated cliche, which was a perfect story when it was actually an original idea. You probably have an excellent idea of what I am talking about. That's fine. Follow closely and listen astutely, nodding all the while, because my opinion is objectively true. Why? because I'm an elitist jackass who's opinion is wholly relevant, despite my lack of an arts degree.
The greatest advent of the 1990's was the concept of games with in depth narrative. Games without context or story are always more boring than games that leave you actually invested in it's events. This is particularly important because games, as an interactive medium, have the power to potentially make you more emotionally invested in them then in any movie. A movie is a passive event. Halloween is boring because we don't care about that dumb ass baby sitter. Silent Hill is scary as hell because we've invested time and energy in James Mason, and as such, the idea of him dying and not finding out what the fuck is going on terrifies us.
So it astounds me that here in the 21st century, 8 years after we met George Jetson, we still have not figured out how to make video games with stories that don't make want to jab ice picks in my ears until I can no longer hear the characters speak. That's not to say there aren't good stories. Half-Life is fantastic, and if you look me in the eye and call Deus Ex boring I will kill you were you stand. But four years of studying screen writing, novel writing, and mythology have made me realize one thing, and is that that Halo is the same utter tripe that we have been force fed for years. See, Halo's universe is trite, unscientific, cliche ridden, generic, and often times simply nonsensical. But the way that Halo tells its story is evidently removed of all intellect, many infer this is due to it's console platform status. Personally I would not deign to make such an outrageous statement as I prefer to remain utterly impartial.
Two years ago my girlfriend made me play a JRPG. I am firmly of the opinion that nothing good has come out of Japan pretty much since Cowboy Beebop ended, but she had breasts so I decided to give it a shot. She popped Xenosaga Episode III or whatever the hell into the PS2 and began one of the most painful experiences of my life. Endless backstory, offered to be in shards by both my girlfriend (who insisted you had to play Xenosaga's I and II, even though they sucked to truly understand) and the game's absurd narrative, boring mangirl characters with no redeeming quality, and it took me an hour to realize there was a story.
But this right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwDzavJIIzI
This is plain ol' story telling. Everything you ever need to know about the Halo universe up until the mid game twist is established in in under four minutes with barely any real talking:
-The protagnist(s) are human
-The bad guys are aliens
-The bad guys are more advanced
-The good guys are losing, and running away
-The good guys are determined and spunky fighters who have a secret weapon
-The thing in space is very important, but no one knows why.
-You just made most classical sci-fi movie viewings feel like dejavu
Now compare it to this:http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/unskippable/1190-Devil-May-Cry-4
I love Unskippable, and you should too, but for right now lets ignore the commentary. Have you found whats wrong with this Halo yet? The answer is this: IT ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING. Whatever the purpose of this Halo was, it wasn't to make us CARE about any of it's characters. We're supposed to like Master Chief because we play as him, but really he's mind-numbingly archetypal and bland. Then how many minutes of pointless action, and then nothing. The only tension created, the only question raised, is pretty much how to convince your game retailer to refund you. If you are writing a story, this is literally the worst question the audience could conceivably ask. Thus we come to the conclusion: Ha;p is boring because we don't care what the hell is going on (also many other reasons too numerous to mention in this short post). Sure wading through alien flesh is amusing, but there's nothing behind it.
If you ever try to write anything ever, all you need to do is remember this one golden rule and you will not suck to the point of inducing suicide in your readers: every action should have entertainment value. Or rather, every single thing your character does should be to propel the plot forward, and resolve a conflict in his or her life? But why should a writing tip matter for a video game? Because video games are a fucking amazing storytelling medium, and should not be ruined by people thinking that just because they're not making a movie doesn't mean they shouldn't have an engaging story. And everything you do in Halo fails abysmally at this purpose. Think about it.
First to Tenth level, Kill bad guys, wait to skip cut scenes so you can get back to shooting.
Are you seeing a common pattern here? At the end of the day, everything you do in Halo boils down to one repetetive action: running down hallways and murdering the hell out of everyone that isn't you. But each level in Halo has a self contained story arc, so that not only are you progressing through that level and advancing that story, but you are also advancing the overall arc of the game. In that first 3 minutes and 30 some seconds of intro, we get the question: will the humans survive and save earth? And as the game progresses, and we get new challenges and new questions, all of which get answers, we also get an answer to the question asked at the very beginning as long as we survive. And if you were mildly excited by any of this, I recommend you go out and purchase yourself a nice science fiction novel or perhaps a more artistically creative game.
By deftly and succinctly assigning importance to everything you do, true gaming art turns performing a repetitive task for 10 hours into a fucking adventure par excellence. Think about that. You are sitting in front of a TV for 10 straight hours, doing absolutely NOTHING except twiddling your thumbs, and because of a decent store its some of the most engaging hours of your life you have ever spent. That is utterly genius. And I should know. I dont have an art degree.
I'm not going to talk about the weapons or gameplay because every mouth breathing self diagnosed aspergers patient with working fingers and a replica Katana has already done that to death a hundred thousand times over. I am simply shocked that no one seems to have ever put thought into how Halo's popularity reflects the degeneration of contemporary intellectual society. Sure Halo can be a frat boy game, predominantly because it's a bad game. It's accessible. Some have compared it to the Original Star Wars Trilogy in brilliance, if you do you're a defective person.
A good story taps into that collective unconscious we all share and enraptures us, and Halo is a fantastic example of how to retell a the great stories of the past in a video game in a long, monotonous and utterly dull fashion. Halo is not a perfect game, not even a good one, but every single one of its flaws is startlingly overlooked by it's fan-boy audience. And it's cliche ridden universe reveals that writing a good story often requires some actual talent.
So please, video game companies. Hire some screen writers. They'll probably not work for nothing, but they know how to construct a story. Take some cues from Bioshock for example, and make a game that's fun AND interesting.
Thanx.
My heartfelt thanks and acknowledgements to user 'Unmitigated Hatred' for his considerable contribution to this post.
You know why? Because Halo is the closest the human race has come to the ever increasing paradigm of utter outdated cliche, which was a perfect story when it was actually an original idea. You probably have an excellent idea of what I am talking about. That's fine. Follow closely and listen astutely, nodding all the while, because my opinion is objectively true. Why? because I'm an elitist jackass who's opinion is wholly relevant, despite my lack of an arts degree.
The greatest advent of the 1990's was the concept of games with in depth narrative. Games without context or story are always more boring than games that leave you actually invested in it's events. This is particularly important because games, as an interactive medium, have the power to potentially make you more emotionally invested in them then in any movie. A movie is a passive event. Halloween is boring because we don't care about that dumb ass baby sitter. Silent Hill is scary as hell because we've invested time and energy in James Mason, and as such, the idea of him dying and not finding out what the fuck is going on terrifies us.
So it astounds me that here in the 21st century, 8 years after we met George Jetson, we still have not figured out how to make video games with stories that don't make want to jab ice picks in my ears until I can no longer hear the characters speak. That's not to say there aren't good stories. Half-Life is fantastic, and if you look me in the eye and call Deus Ex boring I will kill you were you stand. But four years of studying screen writing, novel writing, and mythology have made me realize one thing, and is that that Halo is the same utter tripe that we have been force fed for years. See, Halo's universe is trite, unscientific, cliche ridden, generic, and often times simply nonsensical. But the way that Halo tells its story is evidently removed of all intellect, many infer this is due to it's console platform status. Personally I would not deign to make such an outrageous statement as I prefer to remain utterly impartial.
Two years ago my girlfriend made me play a JRPG. I am firmly of the opinion that nothing good has come out of Japan pretty much since Cowboy Beebop ended, but she had breasts so I decided to give it a shot. She popped Xenosaga Episode III or whatever the hell into the PS2 and began one of the most painful experiences of my life. Endless backstory, offered to be in shards by both my girlfriend (who insisted you had to play Xenosaga's I and II, even though they sucked to truly understand) and the game's absurd narrative, boring mangirl characters with no redeeming quality, and it took me an hour to realize there was a story.
But this right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwDzavJIIzI
This is plain ol' story telling. Everything you ever need to know about the Halo universe up until the mid game twist is established in in under four minutes with barely any real talking:
-The protagnist(s) are human
-The bad guys are aliens
-The bad guys are more advanced
-The good guys are losing, and running away
-The good guys are determined and spunky fighters who have a secret weapon
-The thing in space is very important, but no one knows why.
-You just made most classical sci-fi movie viewings feel like dejavu
Now compare it to this:http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/unskippable/1190-Devil-May-Cry-4
I love Unskippable, and you should too, but for right now lets ignore the commentary. Have you found whats wrong with this Halo yet? The answer is this: IT ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING. Whatever the purpose of this Halo was, it wasn't to make us CARE about any of it's characters. We're supposed to like Master Chief because we play as him, but really he's mind-numbingly archetypal and bland. Then how many minutes of pointless action, and then nothing. The only tension created, the only question raised, is pretty much how to convince your game retailer to refund you. If you are writing a story, this is literally the worst question the audience could conceivably ask. Thus we come to the conclusion: Ha;p is boring because we don't care what the hell is going on (also many other reasons too numerous to mention in this short post). Sure wading through alien flesh is amusing, but there's nothing behind it.
If you ever try to write anything ever, all you need to do is remember this one golden rule and you will not suck to the point of inducing suicide in your readers: every action should have entertainment value. Or rather, every single thing your character does should be to propel the plot forward, and resolve a conflict in his or her life? But why should a writing tip matter for a video game? Because video games are a fucking amazing storytelling medium, and should not be ruined by people thinking that just because they're not making a movie doesn't mean they shouldn't have an engaging story. And everything you do in Halo fails abysmally at this purpose. Think about it.
First to Tenth level, Kill bad guys, wait to skip cut scenes so you can get back to shooting.
Are you seeing a common pattern here? At the end of the day, everything you do in Halo boils down to one repetetive action: running down hallways and murdering the hell out of everyone that isn't you. But each level in Halo has a self contained story arc, so that not only are you progressing through that level and advancing that story, but you are also advancing the overall arc of the game. In that first 3 minutes and 30 some seconds of intro, we get the question: will the humans survive and save earth? And as the game progresses, and we get new challenges and new questions, all of which get answers, we also get an answer to the question asked at the very beginning as long as we survive. And if you were mildly excited by any of this, I recommend you go out and purchase yourself a nice science fiction novel or perhaps a more artistically creative game.
By deftly and succinctly assigning importance to everything you do, true gaming art turns performing a repetitive task for 10 hours into a fucking adventure par excellence. Think about that. You are sitting in front of a TV for 10 straight hours, doing absolutely NOTHING except twiddling your thumbs, and because of a decent store its some of the most engaging hours of your life you have ever spent. That is utterly genius. And I should know. I dont have an art degree.
I'm not going to talk about the weapons or gameplay because every mouth breathing self diagnosed aspergers patient with working fingers and a replica Katana has already done that to death a hundred thousand times over. I am simply shocked that no one seems to have ever put thought into how Halo's popularity reflects the degeneration of contemporary intellectual society. Sure Halo can be a frat boy game, predominantly because it's a bad game. It's accessible. Some have compared it to the Original Star Wars Trilogy in brilliance, if you do you're a defective person.
A good story taps into that collective unconscious we all share and enraptures us, and Halo is a fantastic example of how to retell a the great stories of the past in a video game in a long, monotonous and utterly dull fashion. Halo is not a perfect game, not even a good one, but every single one of its flaws is startlingly overlooked by it's fan-boy audience. And it's cliche ridden universe reveals that writing a good story often requires some actual talent.
So please, video game companies. Hire some screen writers. They'll probably not work for nothing, but they know how to construct a story. Take some cues from Bioshock for example, and make a game that's fun AND interesting.
Thanx.
My heartfelt thanks and acknowledgements to user 'Unmitigated Hatred' for his considerable contribution to this post.
