Halo's Shadow

By Luke 4th Janurary 2008

The Halo music could be played over the Queens speech and it would not only be exciting, sexy and explosive it would take more box office earnings then all of last summers sequel fest put together. It would be the coolest televised event ever, regardless of what's on screen - this music makes anything good, thats why you're currently being forced to listen to it.

Forced? - You're loving it, I know I am.

It can give a dead guy and erection, that is the power of the music you are hearing... I hope as you continue to read this music pumps you up - as it does as you play Halo - this article is a long one, and you're going to have to scroll all the way down to the bottom to turn it off, oh and it loops, so have fun scrolling down.

In 2001 when Halo came out, I was excited, I'd been following this games bumpy development and eventual release for 3 years. My buddy Alex and I must have watched this video 100's of times. After an excessively long wait (shorter then Duke Nukem Forever (10 years?!?)) we were all finally going to be able to play the damn game. Then Suddenly Microsoft bought Bungie making Halo the flagship game for the Xbox platform rather then PC's and Macs, drastically changing the layout, structure and mechanics of the game, Mac users everywhere sadly acknowledged that this was a fatal blow to Mac gaming and that 3 years would now look more like 5. This was the end of Macs as Flagship computers for innovative gaming.

Microsoft 1 - Apple 0

Apple would then play catch up with a broken leg for the next few years before eventually allowing windows partitioning - sealing the Macs fate for big budget native gaming and development. Apple still haven't recovered as a gaming platform.

Not owning either a PC or and Xbox - I ended up playing through the game on a High spec PC at my fathers company (as I still do sadly for top end games like Crysis)... the game regrettably fell monumentally short of my expectations.

It was like waiting for a film you knew was going to be the next Matrix or Star Wars - instead being treated to Schumacher's Batman and Robin.

How to destroy a franchise.

I will now point by point prove that the Halo franchise exists purely because of a ill conceived and even worse executed dare that most likely origionated on a drunken night out. Microsoft then out of embarrassment, flogged their druken escapades until their morbidly obese conclusion shat all over my face last week.

If the following solitary point rolls over your head - make sure you read this whole article:

Halo is Halflife meets the Muppets - in space.

Combing Alien 2's armored Marines - With funny, family friendly purple colored Aliens is a retarded idea, or some kind of sick joke. Firstly I need to address the single most badass thing in Halo : Masterchief.

Just becauses the hero looks like this...

Does not make up for turd parade that is the Halo universe. Master Chief in contrast admittedly is shit hot, shit hot enough to make Pastor Phelps of "god hates fags fame" get a hankering for cock. Mr Chief also shares a name with 300's Spartans - just for a laugh.

Master Chief is probably one of the coolest protagonists from any game ever, Classic Doom's hero was merely a nameless scowling face - skillfully removed in Doom 3 in favor of the much more enjoyable heath bar. Most first person shooters have weak protagonists, even Halflife's in-depth characterization of Gorden Freeman lacks the slick helmet, raspy voice and cool bad-assery of Mr Chief. But just because he's cool looking - does not a good game make.

Onto the Aliens, what you spend most of the game introducing to high velocity bullets. The cool Covenant Elites, I'd been clamoring at an opportunity to finally combat these clever, worthy adversaries after the doop-ege of the games blanket of carpet bombage, PR and marketing....

Microsoft have too much cash and its your fault planet earth.

The Elites - the main Villains look interesting, unlike any Aliens in films or other games. They're original and mysterious, perhaps a higher intelligence of Aliens? A noble honorable race - worthy adversaries no doubt.

But it was not to be, the Aliens the game was marketed and sold on were then casually sidelined throughout the trilogy in favor of moving tee-pees called grunts.. they don't grunt.

They sound like Disney woodland critters who smoked just a ounce too much of crack. They speak perfect English and always run away, forcing you to gun them down like fleeing school children - highly honorably - right in the back, extra points for head shots.

To Masterchief, they're about as worthy an adversary as being in a Battletech Mech - and being paid a fat government salary to kick babies in the face - full-time.

This is clear example of how they dragged the games content down in order to market it to children, this made about as much sense as making Die hard 4 PG-13 - cutting all the films strong language, considering it sat on the shoulders of a trilogy millions love, millions of adults that is - this was a pathetic move allowing parents who grew up on 1,2 and 3 to now legally bring their kids to 4. Cool parents would have brought their kids anyway - in all its X-rated goodness. The more swearing, the better. But thats another argument. Back to the genesis of this travesty:

When the game starts, you think "Cool a Halo; a ring world, I've never seen one of them before. Original articial Sci-Fi Alien planet = savage. Humans and these gnarly Covenant dudes are about to duke it out? sweet - I'm in"

So you drive about on that cool Warthog for 3 or so levels... battling those cool Elites, with some annoying grunts running about like retarded children on sherbet, but you ignore the faults because you're just having too much fun on that damn Warthog, just driving, launching it off ramps and marvelling at the now antiquated graphics as it splashes through rivers and beaches. Remember circa 2001 this was much sweeter then the N64 competition - heres a real example of a game that came out the same year:

But then, oh dear, you reach the games half way point, its been pretty good up until now, somewhat repetitive, but still fun and pretty, surprising bigger in scope with every succeeding mission but still linear as hell - you've regrettably been introduced to the Halflife's uninspired imitation dubbed "The Flood" which are basically popcorn chickens that attach to people, then trans-rape-afigh stuff into popcorn chickens, (you following?) and then you meet a annoying humming bodyless knockoff of C3PO in the form of a hovering orb...

He's so damn irritating that my mind had formed a series of psychic barriers (like in Xmen 3) in order to forget his name, Halo 3 tragically jogged my memory, his name is 343 Guilty Spark. Guilty as shit Spark... You team up for a bit, then fight some more popcorn aliens, then you burst out of that place and suddenly Hey! You're back to the level you just completed before you got here. Then you complete that and get to the level before that... and the level before that... back and back, there's no stopping it, you literally play the whole game back in reverse order from the mid point, except now, you've realized the game makers are taking the piss. Or at-least, you should have.

in the end you drive a warthog through your crashed spaceship whilst being chased by popcorn chickens... its mildly amusing.

Halo 2 was shorter, (less painfull as a result?) It brought about the awe inspiring addition of duel wielding 2 guns, had a shit ending and thats about it. I've only ever played bits of it, never all the way through, and from what I can piece together from lots of peoples reviews is: my time was put to superior use text messaging my cat. This is something I was probably spending much of my time doing since I was 14, and didn't know what a girl was. My cat was reintroduced to tarmac in 2005 and Halo 2 is still considered the weakest part of pretty shitty trilogy.

Weaker then Halo 1, an achievement - Weaker then and Halo 3... a massive achievement. I shall now inflict a photo on you:

Halo 3 grossed more in the first 2 days of its release then any movie opening weekend box office takings - ever.

You made the richest man in the world, so much money - he himself started selling copies of a game he'd had no hand in developing, he'd bought it from another company, changed it for the worse, raped - pillaged, raped some more and then - re sold the damn thing right back to you, all while you - you Asian shiny haired asshole - gave him 60 dollars, a handshake and a smile.

Halo 3 was 7 years coming... the conclusion to the "worlds favorite trilogy of video games". It promised to overhaul, re-imagine and polish the whole game - prepping it for next Gen consoles... heftier machines, that can do heftier things on heftier screens for heftier man sitting on heftier furniture. Presumably the story would be huge, I for one expected a few more Spartan class warriors to show up, to see huge (I mean colossal) battles waging in a vast and expansive universe, this was Bungie's Return of the King.

I admittadly expected GTA size levels, which would lend themselves to multiple attack strategies, you should be able to explore and finally use all those vehicles properly, to the extent that Halo 1 had promised 7 years earlier, and more then anything I expected it to be shit long, as in epic, mammoth - Titanic! SO what did all that development, and confusing adverts that look like they were advertising Games Workshop miniatures ultimately amount to?

EVERYTHING NOW (get this) IS SHINEY...

I mean everything

Shiny Aliens, shiny metal, shiny sky, shiny plants, shiny popcorn chickens, shiny teepee babies - skiny rock, shiny lamp.

It was Titanic alright

Shiny = more money apparently. Microsoft seems to have gotten this strategy from focus groups exclusively made up of 3-6 year old girls, little girls being particularly fond of shiny things. Microsoft simply took that formula, copied and pasted, and ran with it, oh how they ran.

The arch-villain of the trilogy - the head of the evil spiritual enemy the Covenant looks like this:

I know...

Ball scrathingly scary, he sounds like Jar Jar binks, and looks like that Calamari guy from Return of the Jedi somehow interbred with a giraffe that was nailed to a suitably shiny sundial which hovers. He never gets out of his chair the whole game. He gets taken out by a transport ships crash landing... as if by accident.

The game can be completed in 5 hours, at a lazy, bum-scratchingly casual pace. I've heard if you complete it on the hardest difficulty you get to watch an exlusive video message from Bill Gates where he stares coldly into the camera as it tracks backward, revealing him to be nude - sitting on a throne of billions of our 1 dollar bills, he then starts to manicly laugh and point right at at the camera... right into your soul. - though admittadly I've only completed the game on normal.

In the end, (which you presume is the games half way point) that retarded talking C3PO orb from the 1st game turns up again, and gets grumpy. But not intimidatingly so. The HD screen made me notice the Marathon Logo in the middle of his eye, Marathon was a trilogy of vastly innovative games. Highly content rich, and it was Bungies big First person shooter before Halo, Some see Marathon 1-3 as loose prequels to Halo before Microsoft aquired Bunge. That Guilty Spark Fuck has Marathon's logo painted on his face, as if reminding you that you're playing a inferior game.

The annoying bastard hovers perfectly still, allowing you to casually pick up a conveniantly dropped laser cannon - as if the game designers constructed this as some kind of elaborate ruse, a farse, as if they were all collectively laughing at us - not even bothering to animate a moving target - get this: you shoot him 3 times - while nothing comes at you, then its all over.

Oh and you drive the warthog again, almost like a homage to Halo 1 - how bout you homage a not shit game instead?

You don't even see Masterchiefs face, learn his name, see chief finally hit that A.I. Cortana or even see him die heroically. It blows, Halo and its flunkies Halo 2 and 3 are bad, sup par - irrationally popular entertainment. They're simply un-innovative games that pride themselves at borrowing from a mishmash of other far superior sources. Worst of all Halo is derivative, it is dull and about as anticlimactic as watching a dead person decompose - they don't really pull anything out of the bag in the 3rd act.

Please, for our childens sake, save your damn money.

I played it co-op on my friend Manuel's Xbox 360 round on my fathers nifty HD projector, sure I had fun playing a game on a cinema screen, but co-op kicking babies in the face to the Halo theme song would probably be as much if not more fun. It doesn't mean the games good, innovative or remotely worthy of being dubbed by anyone the game of the decade... I have fun watching Highlander 2 as well, I'd probably have even more fun if Igotten drunk and went out clubbing seals, but doesn't mean I should do it.

And just when you're about to level the "But the multiplayer experience is blah blah blah" - I throw at you 2 impossibly annoying features that everyone on the internet is bitching about sacrificing any remaining self respect I might have attributed to the games designers.

Multiplayer Halo 3 features:

The same old game play types we've all been playing since 2000

Sniper rifles that don't kill people - see video

And melee attacks that do - especially when they shouldn't - see video

I hate the term overrated, it implies ones superiority over the mass proletariat, as if anyone has the right to shit on what's popular just so they can claim to be special, unique and informed with more insight that everyone else for some-reason is not partial to. People who blissfully cite away what's overrated are letting you know how wrong you are, just because it's their opinion, which is more worthy then yours.

So I will respectfully refrain from using that term, instead. I'd call it very, very, very, bordering on insanely and exploitively good business. Halo proves once again that the popularity of inferior products wins out over other far worthier goods. They alas are eclipsed in Halos shadow - but go unnoticed and unloved. Halo 3's Net profits outstretch several African countries GNP's. Which is impressive for a silly video game, about a shiny dude with a raspy voice in a shiny mini mech. outfit kicking the faces off shiny popcorn chickens and teepee muppets in space.

Space is shiny incase you didn't know...