Why Bungie doesn’t thrill me
Posted 05.17.2007 in Video Games, MediaYesterday’s post about interactive storytelling must have been prophetic. Today, Microsoft and Bungie Studios, the creators of the terrifyingly popular Xbox 360 games “Halo” and “Halo 2″ announced the laydown date for their latest title, “Halo 3.” Bungie doesn’t hesitate to point out in its press release that “Halo 2,” with its record-shattering $125 million in sales in the first 24 hours after its release, “changed the way people think about interactive entertainment.” The third release is universally expected to blow that record out of the water. (Press release here.)
For comparison, the second film in the Wachowski brothers’ marketing monster, “The Matrix Reloaded,” has so far grossed just over $280 million in the four years since its release. (link)
According to the “Halo 3″ press release, the new game “will set a new standard for interactive storytelling and social gaming by engaging consumers worldwide in Master Chief’s epic battle to save humankind.” That’s Master Chief, not the lovable milkshake from Aqua Teen. I’m curious and more than a little skeptical that when a Microsoft minion starts talking about “interactive storytelling” they’re talking about the kind of dynamic storytelling that should be happening in popular games. “Halo 3,” if it even somewhat resembles its earlier siblings, will have a linear plot that forces players to follow a predetermined path, without even pretending to allow much exploration.
So it’s not surprising that the official trailer is glisteningly rendered with a beautiful sonic architecture and powerful emotional drama. It’s seems impossible until the last fifteen seconds that you’re watching anything other than a preview for a high-budget CG sci-fi film. Despite their rhetoric about revolution and interactive storytelling, it’s fairly clear that the industry is still using linear, cinematic concepts to design and market their games.
Then again, maybe it’ll be something new and exciting. I don’t even own an Xbox.
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The last good game to come out of Bungie was Oni. It shook off the traditional shackles of most FPS games (well, strictly speaking, since you could always see your character, it was a TPS). First off, hand-to-hand combat was (re)introduced as a fundamental method of fighting enemies, which, as far as I know, hasn’t been repeated before or after Oni. You could throw opponents or do special combos including, amusingly, the back-breaker. It also was a much more strategic game because it forced you to carry only one weapon at a time, and the kind of weapon you were carrying changed how fast you could run. Not only that, but you could choose to be stealthy by sneaking up behind players and using the back-breaker move to take them out quickly, or you could choose to just waltz in with guns blazing. (This is in contrast to most FPS games where you really do just fight your way through the whole time.)
There were also two critical points in the storyline where you could actually choose to go in different directions. One level allowed you to take one of two paths to get to the end of the level where both paths reconverged. And near the end of the whole game, it also presented a choice which affected the big boss battle at the very end of the game. Still overwhelmingly linear, but it made it interesting enough for a lot of replay value.