The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

[Nokterne]

He obviously has no idea what he is talking about, I could literally breakdown the flaws in every single criticism he had of the games if I had the time/cared enough.

I mean, it's almost cringe-worthy how narrow-minded he is. Do you think maybe there were OTHER reasons the Covenant were made diverse group of aliens? Like, oh I don't know, to add some variety to the fucking gameplay? So the game wouldn't become like every other shooter where you just shoot the same copy/pasted soldiers over and over again?

 

[i7omahawki]

If you truly believed in what you were saying 'variety of enemies + similarity with allies = wrong/fascist/hitler' then why not bring up Mario (a game you purport to love) up to the same critique?

Mostly because that actually wasn't the point.

As for applying this to the Mario franchise... I'm not sure what the point of that is supposed to be, but okay:

2 Italian-Americans, 2 human-looking Princesses of indeterminate nationality, a race of upright-walking humanoid mushrooms (and later humanoid beans) an island's worth of sentient Dinosaurs, whatever the Piantas are supposed to be, living stars, living clouds, a variety of talking animals, plants and fish plus a spacefaring metaphysical woman in a comet and "good" versions of almost every creature-type usually seen fighting for the other side versus... an even more varied enemy army. That seems pretty well-balanced, to me.

I thought that was the entire crux of the argument? Otherwise I'm not sure what the point of it was. It seemed mostly to be about kicking a game you don't like, for reasons that aren't particularly sound, when there are plenty of other valid points that could have been put forward that would actually address what is wrong with Halo games.

In the Halo franchise, you have Spartans, Marines, ODSTs, pilots, engineers, commanders, generals, from all over the place (a variety of different accents, skin colours, beliefs, from all sorts of different human planets.) In Halo 2, as many people have pointed out, you not only play an Elite, but the Covenant splits up, one half siding with the humans. So Elites, Hunters and Grunts join the ranks of the humans, as well as the temporary alliance with the Forerunners, brings the diversity of the UNSC to be pretty much equal to the Covenant, only they don't enslave those races.

While you have demonstrated that plenty of diverse allies/supporting characters feature in Mario, how many do you actually play? As far as I'm aware Mario and Luigi are the only central playable characters, sometimes you can play as Yoshi, Peach or maybe a mushroom. To me that seems on par with playing as Spartans, ODSTs, and Elites. Despite the difference in 'races' in Mario, there is a still a monoculture, the Mushroom Kingdom, anyone who dissents gets a firm foot on the head.

 

[constantcompile]

I thought Movie Bob's pointing out of the somewhat creepy fascist undertones in popular videogames was just that; his pointing out of the somewhat creepy fascist undertones in popular videogames?

I'm a Halo fan myself, and it's not difficult to see the connections now that they have been pointed out to me, especially since I've also dabbled with Warhammer 40k; specifically Space Marine fluff. Movie Bob made legitimate points, even if it is far easier to find flaws in something you already dislike - look at politics.

What I took away from this is simply that it's good food for thought. Take any alliance that has been brainwashed/misled/indoctrinated/enslaved by its leader into destroying you. Now consider - just consider! - that the brainwashing/misleading/indoctrinating/enslaving is actually a figment of your imagination, that in reality this was a diverse group of individuals fighting together for a common goal, and that *you*, the focus of their efforts, are actually the one who's in the wrong.

I know that isn't the story of the Halo Universe, but if you read through the Terminal Archives of Halo 3 (link: http://haloterms.bungie.org/ ), it's clear that even Bungie's own writers have dabbled with the idea that maybe, just maybe, humanity, like the Forerunners before them, are actually preventing the advent of a golden age of peace and prosperity.

Whatever your stance on Movie Bob's opinions, anyone who has read the novels should agree that humanity, in the Halo series, borrows HEAVILY from fascism, especially considering that John 117 himself was outright conscripted and placed into the military as a child.

 

[Mycreativename]

holy crap. an escapist video with 890 comments? that's nuts. Movie bob made a big splash in the pool.

 

[Mosstromo]

Great that you have more ranting grounds Mr. Movie Bob. I like your rants, and now with multi-personalities!
Super cool. And as usual with your film diatribes, I find myself agreeing with your arguments here too.

Regarding Bungie's attempts, well, from that truly clear dichotomy on feelings for Halo that exist in the world, being completely binary where you are either a 0=have no love for it, or a 1=you are its sex-servant, I do belong to the zero persuasion. I have nothing to say to defend or justify its existence. Nevertheless, I want to believe ("want" is the important word) that maybe Bungie could be doing as Paul Verhoeven did with precisely Starship Troopers, were he criticised mankind's many flaws without removing us from the protagonist's role. Unlike District 9, were we eventually move outside of our race to experience life from the "outsiders" side to fully understand it, in Starship Troopers we remain the humans all along thus providing the moral conundrums at our elation when much Bug ass is kicked while still knowing that we are the ones to blame for we are the first aggressors and invaders (or the ones on the weaker side of our own hypocritical moral spectrum). I hope, that this is Bungie's idea.

Mmmmmm... I couldn't even kid myself with what I wrote... It's probably just as you said. In the end what do I care? Halo is garbage, and is congruent that all about it is too.

 

[Faerillis]

Woot new MovieBob show!

However a note upon the concept of Halo. We all know the flaws with Reach's story, in that it is the setup for a bigger story that they all seem to be presciently aware of... But of the Halo story in general I have found a massive, fatal flaw with your argument.

The Spartans and The UNSC in their homogeneity was not powerful enough to over-throw the arcane belief systems on their own. They allied with a group of all but two Covenant races before they could do.

 

[fundayz]

ugh more moviebob? AND he starts it off by comparing Halo to Nazis? Talk about grasping at straws.

 

[TornadoADV]

I lul'd. It was a decent troll attempt by somebody who knows nothing of the HALO mythos. Like people who think that the first Starship Troopers movie (awesome parody as it was) was exactly like the novel, which is was not even remotely like.

 

[Semi-Human]

I'm sorry but this is just sad. Looks more like trolling then anything else. If you know your looking to much in to this then what are you doing making the point anyway? Maybe you should look in to that before you start projecting what ever personal dislikes and issues you have.

Yeah halo isn't perfect, its not even that great. But its certainly not as horrible as some people here think it is.

The difference if variety is simple to explain. Killing the same kind of opponent gets dull. And adding different kinds of guys on your team is pointless unless it adds to game play. In Halo the Humans vs every one else is also done to create the feeling of a underdog.

Also, like people have already pointed out, you spend part of the 2e game playing as part of the covenant. Bye the 3rd game part of the covenant and humans have teamed up. Al Bob really did here is flaunt his ignorance and take a position popular with the crowd so they could vent some nerdrage

 

[TheWwwizard]

That blue eyes bit is creepy.

Has it crossed bobs mind that maybe their isn't some big ugly subtext and maybe the reason for all the different creeds and colours of the enemies is to give you more variation in the things you shoot at?

That's how I always thought of it, I mean if you send a game out with one enemy throughout the entire thing people complain there's only one enemy and say the game sucks. But he did say he's probably looking into it too much.

 

[i7omahawki]

If you truly believed in what you were saying 'variety of enemies + similarity with allies = wrong/fascist/hitler' then why not bring up Mario (a game you purport to love) up to the same critique?

Mostly because that actually wasn't the point.

As for applying this to the Mario franchise... I'm not sure what the point of that is supposed to be, but okay:

2 Italian-Americans, 2 human-looking Princesses of indeterminate nationality, a race of upright-walking humanoid mushrooms (and later humanoid beans) an island's worth of sentient Dinosaurs, whatever the Piantas are supposed to be, living stars, living clouds, a variety of talking animals, plants and fish plus a spacefaring metaphysical woman in a comet and "good" versions of almost every creature-type usually seen fighting for the other side versus... an even more varied enemy army. That seems pretty well-balanced, to me.

I apologize for double-quoting, if thats actually a thing, but I felt I had something to add that was lacking in my previous posts, namely that I respect your opinion, and your outlook on movies and games.

Not saying that because I think your ego is brittle enough to be damaged by the hate you've recieved for this particular installment of your new venture, but that it was something that was missing from my response to it. Sure, I think this particular piece doesn't deserve much credit, but your other reviews (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Toy Story 3, even your review of the worthless Twilight New Moon was worthwhile) makes you respectable, and thus I should treat work you have done that I don't agree with, with a little more respect.

I look forward to your next 'Big Picture', even if I disagree entirely with this one.

 

[Mantonio]

Well, that was horrible and pretentious.

I'm not exactly a Halo lover myself, but for the love of god Bob, you're reading FAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR too much into this. There's no ingrained 'omg multi culture bad / single culture good' thing going on. You said it yourself, the Spartans are meant to be reminiscent of the Spartans, and the Covenant are supposed to be the same for the Persians. THAT'S ALL.

Stop being such a pseudo-intellectual, you just end up making yourself look stupid.

 

[Logic 0]

It's official the over thinker has spilled over into the escapist ... and it's amazing.

 

[tobiasbrackner]

Dude, I love your very insightful movie reviews. However, I cannot help but think that you are approaching Halo from a movie critic and not a videogame critic. The primary reason that the Covenant are such a diverse race is (as many others before me have pointed out) to provide clear and interesting targets for the player to shoot at. Now while you do make valid arguments about the concept of multi-culture vs master race, those really only show up if you look at the game from the outside. Inside the game Bungie makes even the Spartans a diverse group with members from various ethnicities and Halo 2 ends with the Elites joining the humans bringing along their Hunter buddies.

Now, say for example the Covenant appeared friendly at first. Appeared to join with and aide the humans, infiltrating all strata of human society and slowly usurping control, then suddenly oppressing humans more and more until they had no other choice than violent revolution, killing these aliens and any sympathizers, also going to their homeworld and completely eradicating all of the species from the universe to make it safe for humanity. THEN I would find a much stronger argument towards it having a Nazism subtext.

However, that is not the story of Halo. In Halo, humanity gets blindsided by a hyper-advanced alien army that completely outclasses the entire human military save for the Spartans. Now while the Spartans may have some "master race" qualities about them, you must also realize that they were taken from all around the world to become these super human killing machines, and even then they got taken to the curb by the Covenant. Really, if there is anything to be disappointed about for the sake of diversity in the Halo franchise, it is that the story is really told from an American perspective. i.e. all of the majority of the soldiers you see in game appear to have American accents and even the lack of ethnic diversity among the military's brass. Then again, that can be chalked up to the fact that the game is made in the good ol' USA and it may not be easy to get voice actors in foreign languages and make them not sound like stereotypes (offset pretty well in Reach by the Spartan from, what, Bosnia?)

Also, that was kind of a low blow at the characterization in Reach. I mean, yes when you break them down the characters fall into standard tropes. At the same time, I am sure that you know how hard it is to make a character who is not some trope or another. I felt that they handled their implemented character tropes rather well and at the very least much better than other games. At the same time, my character development experience is from my Senior year of highschool English (which in all fairness my high school was a 4 year college prep course).

 

[Kurokami]

I love reading too much into things.

Also...Movie Bob is the one to get a second show? No offence ment but...Movie Bob?! Da fuck?

Can't wait for that Hit with an Axe spin off...

This show probably takes very little time and effort to make since its basically him ranting on about stuff, which would be a dream job for most of us, I'm sure.

That wasn't meant to be criticism or some kind of insult to Bob btw, just saying it takes nothing to prepare.

 

[TurboPanda]

so let me get this straight

When the covenant found humans they branded them as heretics and used this as a justification for launching a genocidal campaign against a relatively helpless species.

and the Spartans are the Nazis?

 

[arch4non]

I believe MovieBob has confused multicolored with multicultural. Just because the Covenant is made of different races doesn't mean it's the multicultural rainbow he makes it out to be. Instead, it's a theocracy where one dominant race rules all the others.

 

[Deadman Walkin]

Even though you probably won't read this due to 26 pages of other comments, why did you choose Halo Reach? I didn't play ODST, but Halo 2 was probably the best of the series, and Halo 3 wasn't the best but the multiplayer was a blast. Halo Reach was a big meh. Predictable plot, fairly thin characters and some more crap.

 

[PhiMed]

Yeah... normally I like MovieBob's stuff, I enjoy his columns, but I think this was stretching for symbolism that wasn't there. I mean, the Covenant design and backstory could have been as simple as "this is an inversion of the normal roles in aliens vs humans stories, which usually have disparate humans band against one homogeneous alien force."

His analysis can be interesting, but this felt more like simply prodding the Halo community for a reaction, and reaching for connections that are not in evidence. MovieBob is better than that. Here's hoping the next video improves.

You hit the nail on the head. He's trolling Halo fans. He's not better than that, and never has been. He has always taken a lot of pleasure in trolling the fanbases of franchises he dislikes.

Whether those franchises are Halo, Twilight, or Christianity, he pokes and prods while laughing maniacally. The popularity of the franchise and the seriousness of the fanbase are both directly proportional to the maliciousness of his tweaking. He is a part-time critic, but a full-time troll. Don't ever assume he's better than that, and you'll never be disappointed.

Okay. Though to be fair, I find his movie analysis -- when he's not talking about a franchise -- tends to be quite well-informed. The problems start when he gets away from talking about movies, which is one reason why these videos concern me a bit. I'm not really a fan of the franchises he generally goes after, so his trolling doesn't register with me, though I can see how it would be annoying.

The other issue is that film makers and reviewers on this site have to try and compete with Yahtzee, who's got a strong persona going on already. They need their own shtick, and in some cases they're still finding it.

Regardless, MovieBob was starting to sound like Glenn Beck for a minute there. That's something the Escapist, and the gaming community, REALLY doesn't need.

I didn't say he was bad at his part-time job. I just said it's a secondary goal. He's quite good when he decides to focus. He goes off on a lot of tangents, though.

It's the nature of criticism to be somewhat inflammatory, but I think he's taken that aspect of critique a bit too much to heart. Rather than being a side effect of honest opinion, I think he actively seeks to inflame more often than he should. It all reeks of desperate cries for attention, kind of like the female archetype for which he so often proclaims his affection: The "aggressively alternative" girl.

 

[Signa]

Carter's eyes turn blue to indicate that the surgery worked. It's not that they turned blue, MovieBob, it's that they turned so vibrantly blue. You can't show eyes turning vibrantly brown. Considering that those are the only two common eye colors, they were kinda limited by human biology. If his eyes had turned, say, bright red, it would look like he had been turned evil or something. Blue is the perfect middle ground between showing the surgery success and making him a superhuman freak.

Playing devil's advocate here, but couldn't they have turned them vibrantly green? You know, the color everyone associates with Halo and Master Chief?

I've not played much of Halo, but I didn't think eye color was a topic that had been canonized in the games. They could totally have done it and MovieBob wouldn't have had the ammo he did.