Video Games!
So yesterday, after I got home from work, a nice little box was on our front porch. Inside sat my new game system, in all it's silvery-black glory. I know that Microsoft did an unboxing so if you want to see what's inside, I posted the video below.
So after letting the system update all night and all the next day, I'm looking forward to playing with it. But the bad news? Halo 5 isn't playable until next Tuesday. So instead, I'll be "blastin' and relaxin'" with The Halo Master Chief Collection... once that downloads.
Halo is an interesting story. I'm not going to even try to summarize over a decade of world building that I still don't know everything about. However, I love the story too much not to talk about.
When I first played it I was drawn into the world not so much by the theme, or the gun-fighting, or the level design, but by the atmosphere created by Bungie's brilliant decision to not make the protagonist a strong personality. So what do I mean by that. Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, the grand hero of the series, was practically a blank slate in the first game. Sure, he talked. He wasn't the silent Doom hero who just grunted as you blasted demons. But instead, what little you got from him allowed you to project your self into his Olive Green armor. Bungie pulled you in by making you feel like the Hero. No past was offered. He's not even referred to by name until the second game. Everyone called you Chief, and that's who you were. The only Spartan left. Some NPCs even suggested you were a robot. Maybe you were! There were no novels yet. No animated shorts. No Halo Channel or Sequels or ODST spin offs. Just "Halo: Combat Evolved." The first game most Xbox players owned because it came with most consoles. And while all the critics talked about how Xbox had no chance of standing up to the Playstation 2, hundreds, thousands, millions of people were blasting Covies and saving the universe from the Flood, probably one of the most terrifying things I'd ever seen in a video game at the time, and I used to play Resident Evil 2 in the basement at night. (Once the power went out while I was playing and I flipped out. When the flood first poured out of the floor in The Library, it was daytime. I still flipped out.)
That's why that box was sitting on my porch. The game- no the story got me where Bungie wanted it to. Right in the "You can be a hero and save the world" part of every teenagers heart and mind. That "you can do anything" mentality that makes classics stick with people for so long. And now over ten years later (nearly 14 in fact) I still love Halo. The story has gotten deeper, wider, multileveled. Instead of the idealistic Humans vs Aliens story of the first game, pitting the human spirit of survival against a genocidal confederation of alien races, it's now much more. Now the good guys aren't so good, the bad guys aren't so bad. Maybe it's because the world has changed. The post-terrorist universe of the early 2000s has been replaced by skepticism and a world were it's hard to really know what's best, and who's good, and who's bad. But I promised no politics, so I'll just leave by saying that Halo has evolved with the times. They've created a fascinating world that's as multifaceted as our real world. But under it all, that fantasy of being the hero remains. John-117 stands as the consummate hero in a universe filled with treacherous covert organizations, dangerous terrorists both alien and human, and the ever present threat of the unknown, and fights to bring those who value "the greater good" together to keep the innocent safe.
Went from idealism to realism back to idealism. Most of the great stories do that the best. I hope my own tale can touch on this. I'm sure my first novel won't have even close to the depth of a franchise 14 years in the making, despite being almost as old (in concept, at least). So one day, when readers have a copy of my novel in their hands, digital or paper, I hope someone gets as inspired by my work as many were by Halo.
Merry Christmas, Shane!
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