Aw, sorry. I didn't realize I would come across that way -- I was actually aiming to be a bit meek. I was worried that if I did voice any opinions I'd just be shot down, thesizzler, but it appears I erred too far in the other direction.
I thought the stuff about human psychology was kind of interesting. I have a weakness for those kind of cognitive-hacks things. I read a lot of research by a guy named Boaz Keysar, on the topic of egocentric communication, and thought it applicable.
I can, however, tie that into Halo. There is a concept in psychology called 'flow'. You might think of it as a sort of Zen state. Bear with me, please, this is really cool!
Flow is the state you enter when you're 'in a groove', when you feel a kind of exhilaration, as if you there's momentum behind every one of your actions. You you can make the right decisions without deliberation or conscious thought. You've probably felt this quite a bit when playing Freespace. I think it's what really makes Halo great.
Halo, as a game, is highly elegant. The designers integrated three aspects of combat - melee, grenades, and gunfire -- in a way that no prior game had accomplished
quite as well. As a result, every single encounter in Halo is a fluid, holistic dance. The shield bar serves as a kind of timer, keeping the beat -- once it's depleted, you need to take a brief rest and then launch into another stanza.
Do you see what I'm saying? The combat is continuous rather than discrete, as opposed to a title like, say, Gears of War, which consists of punctuated bursts of violence while moving between cover, or System Shock, which is more atmospheric than balletic. In Halo, when your gun runs dry, you throw grenades, or you melee, or you go for cover, or you move to allow a friend to cover you. As a player, you move through a continuous network of actions -- a kind of enormous flowchart.
What Halo does, and the reason it's a masterpiece, is build a
better flowchart than other games, even superlative games like Far Cry, Call of Duty 4, or Battlefield. It's more seamless. It sucks you into the flow state more successfully, and it has fewer flaws that might knock you free of it.
There are two other aspects I'd like to highlight.
The first is design. Particularly in Halo 1 and 3, the art style is gorgeous and elegant, and each enemy comes with a distinct set of behaviors that gives them a real personality. The AI is superlative -- the Elites in Halo 1 are, along with the Replica soldiers from
FEAR, the game enemies that I most respect as opponents. The game physics do exactly as much as they need to in order to enhance the combat, and nothing more; they don't distract or overpower it. Halo 1's physics engine was particularly notable for its phenomenal handling of vehicles and collisions.
The second is atmosphere. The Halo story is beautiful in its minimalism. On the surface it appears to appeal only to testosterone-infused prepubescent males, but it goes deeeep. There are layers and layers of clues that are intentionally aimed (by Bungie) at a more mature audience, namely the older fans they grabbed with Marathon and who have remained interested for more than a decade. The story's enhanced by a masterful soundtrack (slightly overblown towards the Halo 3 end, I think).
So, er.
I know you're probably already picking out areas to criticize, possibly even some gaping, humiliating holes, thesizzler. But I think that Halo's genius isn't resident in any one place. It's an emergent phenomenon, a kind of polished magic. Halo is an elegant shooter because it focuses
entirely on combat, nothing more; there are no puzzles or RPG elements. It always puts fun before realism.
There are plenty of weaknesses in the game which probably spoil the magic for
some people. For others, everything clicks, and it's one of the greatest games ever made.
I guess that's my nutshell answer: Halo is the shooter which best makes everything click together.
I will also note, as I did earlier in the thread, that it's really accessible and addictive. There's a small group of girls in my dorm who get together to play Halo every week, particularly cooperative campaign mode. They won't touch other games. Of course, you may just say that's because it's too simple?
This really isn't meant as an assault on other games (which I love dearly). I definitely understand the points other people make. But I also think Halo can stand on its own and earn some respect alongside other games; it doesn't need to be torn down.
Now, if people are
ignoring other games in favor of Halo, that's a separate issue, but not a reason to tear into Halo itself.
Does that all seem reasonable, or am I accidentally seeming somehow rabid again?
