The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

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Blind Sight

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Brian Hendershot said:
Well Bob certainly taught me one thing. If you want your videos to be viewed and talked about alot, just make the fanboys angry.
Or make misinformed statements that have no real grounding in reality and just shows that your bias is directly affecting how you interpret content. I mean, hell, I'm not even a Halo fan, but I was amazed that he drew such a weird and overthought conclusion. Mario faces off against a large array of enemies with different aspects, while his comrades-in-arms (such as the Toads) are pretty much identical. But of course Mr. Chipman doesn't see closeted racism in that, because he likes Mario. In my field, we have a nickname for what Bob did in this video (i.e. interpret things based off of bias rather then actual content), it's called a 'Virgin Mary Cheese Sandwich'.

camazotz said:
I mean, we don't hear anyone talking about Fracture or Legendary, do we????? Nope, not unless its the sound of repeated gagging noises and groans of money flushed down the toilet....
Well Fracture can serve as a biopunk vs. cyberpunk analysis, I haven't really played the game in awhile but that's what I got out of it, I never played Legendary so I can't comment on that though.
 

CarlsonAndPeeters

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Its funny. Reach is the first Halo game I've owned (after playing lots of splitscreen at friends' houses) and they make no effort to explain who/what the Covenant is. So I wasn't like Movie Bob, questioning the fascist motives of Bungie, but I did want to ask, "why are the covenant evil? why should I care?"
 

Terminate421

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Really? He dedicated an entire weekly episode to bash the Halo franchise? Not to mention, he would insult people who do their fucking job? (Bungie)

Moviebob, or Bob Chipman, isn't the intellectual who I actually thought he was. Hating on something just because it exists is a poor example of ones opinion, and to shove it in our faces makes it all worse. Its like he has to be right about everything. I don't hate people for opinions, only for what they do unto me. Movie bob hasn't crossed that boundry but he's lost thousands of points on my scale....

Also, the blue eyes? Whats with that? Lots of people have blue eyes, does that make them part of the "master race" too?
Its called a game, Halo has never been bad, and its campaign, in the way I see it, is a solid story told excellently. Still far from a game like say....Mass Effect, but they way its told is still powerful enough to be that way.
 

Bruden

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Oct 26, 2009
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Ok, Bob read deeper into the game than he should have, mostly because it's really just a game that used a faceless protagonist to shove the player into the action more, and a multifaceted enemy to mix up the action.

Now, what's hilarious here, is that the deeper reading that Bob railed about here, is so off base it's hard to believe that someone who's intelligent enough to go searching for the deeper meaning came up so terribly wrong. Most likely this is because from Bob's own admittance he's not a fan of Halo, so he probably hasn't payed any attention to the story line at all if he's even played the other games.

If you draw back and look at the 3 games (reach, wars, and odst don't really count because they added side stories but nothing to the main plot we didn't already know.) the idea that the "pure race" Spartans are the good guys is just plain not there at all. Sure, people assume the Humans are good because we're human and we're playing the humans so obviously we're the good guys. That view doesn't really hold up under scrutiny though. In the course of the 3 primary games the humans let loose the flood into the galaxy and spend 1/2 the time destroying the only tools proven to exterminate the flood. Letting loose the thing that pretty effectively wiped out all life in the galaxy is not exactly what you'd consider a good thing. And while we're at it lets talk about the idea that the writers are supporting the master race Spartan's sameness policy, what is the one thing that rings true for the whole of the series? It doesn't matter what Master Chief is doing, all that spartan gun slinging does nothing to prevent humanity losing every single battle against the covenant. By the end of the second game it's been made clear that Earth is the only remaining human population center. Halo 3's ending leaves an entire continent glassed, people are worried about a little co2 causing global warming, after glassing Africa all of Earth is going to be uninhabitable. So where does that leave humanity? We refused to use the Halo weapon to kill all life in the galaxy, but we also let loose the only reason to use the Halo weapon. The master race Spartans have officially helped the human race survive... not at all, and we have to look to the expanded universe novels to take comfort in the fact that Humans have a couple tiny colonies on Mars and a few moons around Sol to survive on till we can find another habitable world to drop all our refugees on.

Now then, how about the covenant. Obviously they're evil because they're against the humans. Again evidence doesn't really support this. Sure we see some members of the covenant species are evil, the EU novels reveal that the prophets knew fully that humanity was descendant from the forerunners (the covenant's gods) and labeled humans demons because it was more convenient for their religion to survive. But in the games alone we see the elites figure out they've been lied to and switch sides to help the humans hauling along a bunch of grunts who as Bob himself pointed out fight simply because those are the orders and generally in war time disobeying orders tends to get you dead slightly faster than obeying them. And here again we see the issue with the idea that the Halo games are anti diversity, as it's abundantly clear that the Covenant are not only winning, they're winning so hard that their most devoted troops have to flip sides just to stop the humans from going extinct by the end of Halo 3.

The idea that Halo is in anyway promoting the Nazi master race ideals, or is preaching the evils of diversity is the uneducated man's surface reading from the game. The same kind of simplistic insight is what leads people to think Guy Fawkes wanted more freedom in his attempt to blow up Parliament.
 

MatthewGill

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Feb 22, 2010
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First off congrats on the new show, but you missed that the Covenant are "evil" because their prophets are trying to cover up a blemish in their religion. Basically the Forerunners made the Halo rings and stuff and the human race are their decedents and are able to use their technology. The Covenant races can't so the prophets decide to kill humanity in order to cover up this problem. So the Covenant is not a slave army just a religious group that so happens to have Brutes and Elites, two warrior type races that are superior to humans. I see your point but it doesn't match up in context, which is the context of the Halo universe. Still though congrats on the show and I hope I get to watch it each week.
 

StayPuff

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Apr 11, 2010
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whats the name of the fox pundit who calls people Nazis? Glen Beck=Movie Bob. Gee i guess i didn't realize how easy it is to twist words into the view i want.
 

sharkinz

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Apr 26, 2010
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I just want to ask what the point is of ripping on a game thats from a previous generation? I personally love the Halo series and I just think its lame that people still make videos that rip on Halo merely for the sake of ripping on Halo. I understand that these are all opinion based (which is why Moviebob does not like Halo and I love it) but this video criticized the Halo games for things that many other "great" games do.

I know its only my opinion but I find it lame that people still hate on Halo for all its cliches. When you play a Halo game you know exactly what you are going to get, it may not have an award winning story, or top of the line graphics, or characters that melt your heart but the games are still fun to play with great fast paced action and incredibly fun online play (but again thats just my opinion).
 
Aug 1, 2010
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Well thank you Bob. I watched this video expecting you to rant for 10 minutes about how crap Halo is and I was presently surprised that you did not.

I am blown away.......... In confusion. Did Bob really just make a five minute video about how Bungie is racist because the bad guys are diverse? Really? It was sort of interesting, but very very odd at the same time.
 

GuerrillaClock

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Another Halo rant? Really? Well, I suppose if you're launching a new show, the best way to get it loads of views and comments is to make a flamebait video like this one.

As mentioned, the Covenant are all different because you need to shoot more than one kind of enemy. If all you did was shoot Elites, Halo's famed open-ended strategy system would be dead and it wouldn't have been a success. You can't judge games by the same rules you do films, Bob, because games need to make certain decisions based on their interactivity, and nothing else. If you're going to talk about undertones, a lot of the religious stuff would have been a more interesting point, but I guess going for the more flamewar-enticing option (at least on a gaming forum like this one) of implying "OMG HALO IS RACEIST" (sorry, that's essentially what he did) is pretty much par for the course after the Expendables review taught Bob that controversy = success.

EDIT: Also, I forgot the Flood, and evidently, so did you Bob. Awfully convenient you didn't factor in the entirely uniform hive mind enemy in Halo, especially after praising the same sort of thing in Starship Troopers.
 

Havzad

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Oct 9, 2010
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epic debut, i look forward to more,
seriously bob maybe its just me but the way you look at things and explain them is amazing, i loved you as movie bob, i think i'l adore you ask big picture
 

JohnGD117

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Sep 15, 2010
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I think, mostly, the whole Covenant as a group of various species decision was made from the design perspective as a way to vary the enemies and to allow for alternate sizes, shapes, and varying levels of combat prowess without going down the whole Doom "demon undead" mode. Aside from chex quest and halo, most shooters I can think of with widely varied monsters ALWAYS choose the supernatural or fantastic in order to vary their mobs up.

I think if any Covenant-associated message was intended, it was a rather hamfisted jab at organized religion, and perhaps the variety was supposed to enhance that message. The implication being that no matter how varied the practitioners, i.e. the Covenant races from wimpy and stupid grunts, feral jackals, honor-bound hunters, and noble and cunning elites, organized religion can inspire us to terrible decisions and actions we otherwise wouldn't espouse.

And as an added level of irony, the Covenant wage a holy war against the incarnation of their Gods (the forerunners), as the forerunners are humanity.

End point: Religious extremism removes your individuality and leads to the murder of your God.

Mostly, though, it was an excuse to vary the enemies :p
 

Endocrom

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I made three predictions before watching: Bob would show a picture of Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds, Insult the intelegence of people who like the games, and give a spoiler to Halo 3 (which I haven't played)

Glad to see I was wrong.

About this whole Conformity vs. Diversity thing, the Covenent may look different, but they all wear their conformity on the inside. Jeeze Bob, can't you stop with the visual prejudice :Þ
 

romxxii

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Feb 18, 2010
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Waittaminute. Bob gets two shows and a column?! Not for nothing, his movie reviews have at least been informative. But I don't think his previous work warrants giving him a new series.

The LRR guys have 4 shows, and it's understandable. Each show is something totally different. You have sketch comedy, news satire, rifftrax, and that slow mo breaky thing. That's 4 different genres.

This new show is what? Bob ranting? Don't we already have that with his movie reviews? I mean, what's the point? If it's a rant on the game industry, I'd watch Extra Credits. If it's a rant on a particular game, I'd watch Yahtzee. This show is kinda superfluous, TBH.

If Russ Pitts wanted a new video series, why not give it to someone who'll bring us something fresh, and not just the same style of ranting, but now on topics other than movies?
 
Sep 17, 2009
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gigastrike said:
Nautical Honors Society said:
That was just really terrible.

Lack of racial and cultural diversity? Are you kidding me?

The Noble team is made up of many people of many different cultural backgrounds.

This is really a matter of you looking too deeply into an issue when it really is just "Humans vs Aliens".
Try to look at the big picture. Yes, Noble team is "culturally diverse", but look at the Covenant. They're made up of mulitple species (not just races) that are just about as different from each other as humans are from slugs; maybe even more so because at least Humans and slugs have a common ancestor (I'd also like to point out that Grunts can't breath the same air as Elites). Yet you insist on lumping all aliens together as if totally original DNA is equivalent to just having a different skin color.

Compared to the Covenent, Humans have no diversity whatsoever.
I was using that as an example of how he is just scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something controversial to talk about.

There is no proof (yet) that Aliens exist, so I can't really judge how diverse they are compared to humans...
 

Mstrswrd

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Mar 2, 2008
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Sober Thal said:
Yep, there goes what little respect I almost had for the movie guy.

Comparing Starship Troopers to Halo. That's so original and thought provoking.

Spartans are just like Hitlers master race... yeah, I guess that was a joke or something.

Bob is way to much an intellectual for me to even try to understand him. I quit.
He's been comparing Halo to Starship troopers since he's started internet videos. Specifically, he's always held the position that "If you want to know what Halo is, combine Starship troopers with Starship troopers, a little Ringworld, and a lot of "Meh"" (Note that I am paraphrasing quite a bit). He's also said that if you want the tyle of story that Halo has, you should just go read/watch Starship troopers, as it's much better.
But yeah, not the most original thing in the world.

If I was rude, I apologize.
 

GuerrillaClock

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Jul 11, 2008
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duck-man said:
Hehe, >500 comments! (Granted it's the first of a series) I think the extra show will pay off, they're not too crazy :D
I think you can put that down to the fact it's about Halo, something guaranteed to ignite a flamewar on here at the best of times, but since Bob is biased as all hell against Halo, it was going to end up worse than usual. I dunno, I think Bob knew what he was doing when he made this video.

Flamebait topic + stupid, misinformed and downright wrong arguments made = flamewar + views + comments. Big start for your new show. I think, if he makes a video about, say the economy, it won't do nearly as well, even though it's a much more important thing.
 

Luke5515

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Aug 25, 2008
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I enjoy escape to the movies very much, so I'm fully willing to give this a chance.
First episode, I'm not expecting the holy grail of all web videos, and it was pretty good, but i found it a little boring.
That being said, I will tune in for all the other episodes and even if it falls apart and gets to the intellectual level of the annoying orange, I will still keep watching because Movie Bob is one of the only sources I trust for reviews on movies, and now social commentary.
Also, I think it needs a new catch phrase. Just saying.