The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

[TomLikesGuitar]

Combat Evolved?

This week MovieBob rants about Halo.

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I love how he rants about how honestly cool and in depth the story really is, but then pretends like he thinks its bad.

Congratulations MovieBob, you're just as brainwashed about the "need" to hate on Halo as the rest of the world.

bull....shit. People hate halo because its so overdone. it stole 90% of its content from other successful literature, games, or pop culture.

flood = Half life.
shields = starcraft.
etc.

[sarcasm]Yes.

Halo stole the idea of energy shields from... Starcraft.

There were never energy shields in any Frank Herbert novel.[/sarcasm]

Hell they date way back before Dune.

Oh, and having a relatively brainless alien race that ends up converting humanity into slaves dates WAY back before Half Life in science fiction. Hell they all tend to look the same too with their brain suckers and whatnot. Just because a fictional work wasn't released during your lifetime doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Do your fantasy theme research.

Way to prove my point that people will say ANYTHING to make Halo seem bad. It's like, when someone who dislikes Halo hears that another person likes Halo they HAVE to attack it. It just shows that you are an angry internet fanboy.

 

[Wolfrug]

This was awesome. More MovieBob! Wooo! Seriously kickass. I hope you keep doing video games as well, you've clearly got something going there. Discussing the terribly creepy way (monotheistic) religion is portrayed in Dragon Age could be a good starting point for instance

 

[tautologico]

Intriguing.

I also find fascinating that people are so sensitive about things they like (not taking a shot at Halo fans here, and I know I did some things like this in my life too) that they can't even watch a video that may be critical of something they like. Or watch it without thinking it was an "attack" to such thing.

People, it was not. It was overthinking indeed, good speculation, but he said nothing about the Halo games, nor that they suck neither that they rule. Chill and just enjoy. Or don't enjoy, your choice.

(Although I think it's silly to hate it just because he said your favorite game may have racist undertones, which are somehow shared in our culture and not blamed on this single game. But whatever).

 

[Varya]

Aight, I can't quote all of you, to much work, but to all of you who thinks he is over analyzing: Did you watch it? He said several times he didn't think it was an intentional choice, rather that it might be a uncontentious design choice based on our "common understanding" of symbolism. It's psychology.
Maybe it might be that the choices were made not on anything but "making the game cool", but then maybe Bungie should have taken a step back and seen that the symbolism was there, wether the symbolism was intentional or not, and made something about it.
Look, he doesn't say Bungie are in any way Nazi related or any other goodwinian argument, simply that looked in a certain light, the symbolism is there. (I mean, the blue eyes thing is kind of a big one).

 

[teebeeohh]

/like

and the blue eyes are most likely only there to show us that it worked, they could have given the spartans red eyes or another unnatural color, being manipulated killing machines and all

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Combat Evolved?

This week MovieBob rants about Halo.

Watch Video

I love how he rants about how honestly cool and in depth the story really is, but then pretends like he thinks its bad.

Congratulations MovieBob, you're just as brainwashed about the "need" to hate on Halo as the rest of the world.

It is called an opinion. Some people like Halo, some people don't. Get over it. I like Halo somewhat, the multiplayer can be fun sometimes and the story is okay, but I'm not going harp on people that don't like it.

Bob's video was funny and interesting, and even if I really really liked Halo, I would have still thought it.

Though I do believe that he was "reaching" with his message. But as I said before, opinion.

 

[Zhukov]

Well... you've certainly made your splash, for better or for worse.

Personally, I think the diversity in enemies stems from gameplay consideration more then anything else.

But the blue eye thing was a bit dodgy.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

As Bob said, no one plays it for the story or subtext

You can't say that about everyone though. I played Halo for the story, even after getting Xbox Live. Granted, MOST people don't, but still.

 

[Delock]

I always saw the subtext as being more of a rage against conformity/obedience given that the Covenant kept reminding me of the Crusaders and that the elites (the enemies considered to be smart and creative in the army) were considered the good guys once they decided to stop blindly following orders whereas the Brutes (portrayed as the muscle-headed, simplistic, lumbering foes) were evil once they stepped up to this role.

On the other side of the war, you have the Spartans, who are encouraged to find their own solutions to problems, who happen to live longer than the marines, who are even dumber than the Grunts and who seem to always look to you for every action they do. In addition, Master Chief blindly following orders was what almost destroyed the universe. Also, look at Foehammer, that pilot who kept helping you out in the first game. She says she's being tailed by enemies, yet never the less obeys the order to come and pick you up, leading to her death (and if you stay and watch like Cortana tells you to, there's a chance that you won't make it out in time). In Halo 2, you often see him pull off several plans of his own that get authorized rather than ordered that all seem to work, as opposed to several of the ordered missions that go awry. In Reach, all orders you get seem to only put you in danger or end with the death of a squad member. Reach itself is another big demonstration as well: the militarized planet that serves practically as a representation of Humanity's military is destroyed slowly with dependable items such as radar, evac vehicles, guns, ships, etc. taken out one by one. The final place to fall (other than the evacuation point) is a lab, a symbol of creative thinking. However, ODST provides the greatest example of them all: the jump. It almost brings up the old "would you jump off a bridge if everyone else did?" question that is used to counter stupid conformity, especially if you know about those pods and the fact that there is no real testing for either the jumper or the pod itself. Of course people playing without the knowledge don't really know this and brush off the completely warranted fear.

And then you have the Flood, parasites that eat the mind and that have a single hive mind (or operate blindly without one). These are considered to be the most evil of the three groups, as they not only overwrite life, but also knowledge itself (as seen by the corruption of Cortana and the infection of ships), despite the fact that this often leads to much more inferior results, all because they want everything to conform to their group.

This is the strong subtext I always got from the series, not some sort of subtle racism.

 

[DTWolfwood]

omg finally some1 else thought the same thing i thought when i say that commercial. There is no rhythm or reason for having that guys eyes turn blue

Probably would have been less fascist if it was a black man on that table with his eyes changing blue.

THEN AGAIN, who needs to be so P C about everything! They are spartans, based off of the spartans of old. therefore big burly white men makes a lot of sense plus they still have the Token Black Guy and Female on the team. XD

 

[Keava]

Must say that does set Halo on the exactly opposite of spectrum than, say Mass Effect, in which you work your butt for to unite as many different races and ideologies to fight one, monotone faceless machine things.
Yeah, that's why i'll stick to cRPGs rather than shooters.

 

[Mr. Omega]

I think it was looking a little too deep into things, but at the same time, that's what I enjoyed about it. Looking forward to future episodes.

Admittedly, I would have prefered a different topic, but as stated at the start, what better way to make a big first impression?

 

[firemark]

Personally, I want to know why you choose Halo? With all of it's fanboy/girls, it seems like you're trying to hard to make a splash with your first episode. Yes I've heard of the bad publicity is still publicity stunt and this just seemed too easy. I mean I enjoyed playing all of the Halo games and will defend some of them on creative merit, but the story...yeah...that's just way to easy to pick apart. Seriously, how many people have to pick on the space marines being an old, apparently dried up, boring storyline? It is, we know this, you know this and yet it still sold several million copies. What Halo does well, it does really well. What it doesn't do well is plot and characterization.

The idea that Halo is making some sort of social statement about racial inequality and diversity is just too far fetched. Let's look at it from a game developer's standpoint. When designing a shooter, is it better to have the player character shoot at the same thing over and over again, or for he/she to shoot at a variety of different looking/moving/acting enemies, each with their own weakness and strengths? Clearly the answer is to have a wide range of enemies to keep the game interesting. Therefore, a plot must be made that justifies a bunch of different looking aliens. I don't know if this is the ultimate driver for why it's so diverse, but it's more valid than the race idea. Does society still have issues with racism? Yes. In the United States we have a Black History Month. Do you know what this does? It further separates African-American's from Caucasian's by forcefully segregating the community for a month. I live in a city where, each year, there is a Black Expo. Is this supporting diversity? No! It is drawing lines in the proverbial racial sand, saying that we have our culture, you have yours. It is an underlying current in political, economic, and religious stereotypes and it only makes sense to try and find it in obscure places such as a videogame where you play against a variety of alien species.

I'm sorry, I guess I may have gone on a rant there, but I've come to expect better from Bob and I hope you get enough views to justify a more interesting topic next time. Overall, I like the premise and I like the person.

 

[walsfeo]

And so The Game Overthinker gets buried deeper yet under the ever growing pile of Moviebob's obligations.

This episode was just like a Game Overthinker episode, only on The Escapist.

Bob, I think you missed a real opportunity to contrast the Halo mono-culture against the multi cultures and integrated squad from Mass Effect.

In all I can't wait to see what else comes out here.

 

[SeanTheSheep]

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?

He repeatedly says things along the lines of "It's unintentional, but seriously guys?" So in short, yes he has, it just makes for less interesting discussion matter. Think if you had to write an essay on a book. Would you write about the plot and characters, or would you discuss the similarities between the book and the blueprint for a giant mecha-zombie dragon?
The blueprint option of course, because people will keep reading that one rather than discussion about how character x and character y talked a lot.

OT: While your inferences are technically valid Bob, like you pointed out, they don't mean anything, that's just an accidental projection of the human state of mind of "different is scary".

 

[person11]

The diversity was totally not the defining characteristic, Y'know

 

[sagacious]

I know it's kind of your job to over think things but would you not think that maybe the reason that the enemies in halo are alot more diverse then the player characters is because......they're the ones we're looking at all the time. It's a first person game remeber?

Also there are no good guys in halo. The spartans kill just as many humans as they do covenant, and in all of the stories surrounding the series, just as much sympathy is conveyed for the races of the covenant as for the humans, including halo 2 where you actually play as an elite.
In fact the only thing that comes close to a villain in the entire series is the flood......you know the homogenous consumption driven mass, the only aim of which is to propagate itself by means of wiping all individualism from the face the universe.

Exactly. He is reading waaay to much into this, and he's coming at it from the wrong angle. By the end of Halo 3 you're practically working with the Covenant against the Flood, whose STATED GOAL in the ark terminals is the utter homogenizing of the entire galaxy/universe.
Oh, and also: We were fighting the Covenant because their "arcane belief system" led them to try and wipe us out. I guess because they looked more diverse we should have just let them kill all the humans, right? Oh, and they were going to extinguish all life from the galaxy because their crazy prophets wanted to become gods. THAT is why we were fighting them, not because they were "the other". And honestly, DIVERSITY IN YOUR ENEMIES IS NECESSARY FOR INTERESTING GAMEPLAY. Oh, and one last point: you might want to note that for Halo 3, your team is comprised primarily of an alien, a black guy, a robot, and the love interest is an AI. If that isn't a diverse cast, I don't know what is.

wow, I never thought about it quite that way, but you are exactly right

 

[HT_Black]

Somewhere, A HALO designer just filled his pants. Kudos, Mr. Chipman. Kudos.

 

[imnot]

Atlhough is nice the covvies all work together, they are meglomaniacs, who will kill everyone and are bit mean and nasty, I mean the jackels eat grunts s o i'm told.

Still nice new show.