Brudny 1
Barry Brudny
Mrs. Crawford
AP English Language
3 March 2010
The Everlasting Game
“Boom Shakalaka!” My friend Tim has just pulled off another miraculous kill in
an online game of Halo, and he is becoming more permanently drawn in to the video
game phenomenon that is the foundation of our friendship. Tim and I met two years ago
on an online game of Halo and, after hitting it off, we’ve been great friends ever since.
It seems that no matter when we hang out, we always play Halo. It is as if Halo is more
preferable to us than sports, movies, or television. Judging by the 200,000+ gamers who
are constantly playing Halo online, Tim and I are not alone. So what is it that makes Halo
so successful? The answer is innovation. Due to its ingenuity in both its design and online
play, Halo has forever changed the video game industry and has earned its place as a
subculture in society.
Before I can talk about what makes Halo presently successful, I will
explain why it was successful when it first came out. To be successful, Halo had to be
better than the most prominent game at the time, Half-Life. According to Arthur Asa
Berger, Half-Life was a revolutionary game at the time because it was the first game that
was an adventure-shooter. That means that, while Half-Life was a shooting game, it had a
driving plot and crazed action that could also classify it as an adventure game. The game
thrived at the time, just like Halo would later, based on its ingenious design. It was the
first game, with the exception of Star Wars, that brought its players into an unfamiliar
territory (Berger). In the game, the players would assume the role of a doctor who was
summoned to a research facility in New Mexico where the researchers there had
successfully opened a time warp to another dimension (Berger). Upon arriving at the
facility, the aliens in the other dimension cause “hell to break loose” in the research
facility by taking it over and trying to kill everyone there (Berger). As the doctor, you
would have to fight through hordes of aliens, who were very primitive and unchallenging,
in order to stay alive in hope of making it out of the wretched facility. Therein lay the
problem of Half-Life; it had an enticing story but it lacked real challenge (Berger).
Then came the most influential game to date, Halo. In 2001, Bungie, the gaming
company responsible for the video game phenomenon, released “Halo: Combat
Evolved,” which was the first in the line of Halo games which would become one the
most successful gaming franchises ever. Halo captured the hearts of its gamers by putting
them in the shoes of the elite, witty, and overall “badass” main character, Master Chief. It
became a huge success, selling over four million copies within its first two years out,
which was a staggering number at the time (Pikover).
To better understand the craze gamers had with Halo, I interviewed Tim, who has
been playing the Halo series for almost ten years now. When asked what made Halo so
special to gamers when it first came out, Tim gave a response that was very similar to the
reasons why Half-Life was successful. He explained that Halo brought innovation to the
gaming industry. Halo brought gamers to a futuristic time, the year 2552 to be exact,
where, due to advances in technology, humans had become able to branch out to distant
galaxies (Lepretre). Also, the game began by informing the gamer about a long-waged
war between humans and the Covenant, the alien forces, much like Half-Life did
(Lepretre). As lead producer for Halo, Curtis Creamer stated in an interview with Game
Axis, the major difference between the aliens in the two games is that the covenant:
“react to the player in intelligent ways no matter where, or from which direction, the
player engages the” enemy. According to Tim, this story immersed the gamer into a new
and exciting world that captivated the gamer and made them crave Halo, crave the new
futuristic experience. I followed by asking Tim: “So, aside from the futuristic storyline, is
there anything else that made Halo a better game than Half-Life?” Tim informed me that
Halo was the first game to have a regenerating shield for its main character. In Half-Life,
if your player was hurt, then the only way to regain health would be to find a health pack
that was hidden somewhere in that level. This setup angered many gamers because they
would not be able to find the health packs and would be forced to repeat the level again
and again until they finally got lucky enough to not die. In Halo, if the player is hurt
during any level, they can regain their health simply by staying out of danger for a few
seconds to regain their health, resembling reality, where people do recover from injuries,
but just more accelerated (Lepretre).
In short, Halo did everything Half-Life did and more, and did the similar things
better. A research facility in New Mexico was supplanted for a vast and unknown
universe. The aliens from Half-Life, who were primitive and more like roadblocks than
enemies, were exchanged for the covenant, which could strategize and effectively make
the game more difficult. Halo used its superior, futuristic timeline and its innovative
health system to overtake Half-Life and become the premier game of the gaming
industry. Halo’s success would later be extended as its sequels, Halo 2 and Halo 3, both
sold over 8 million copies upon release and continued to captivate the gaming
community. (Pikover).
While I have discussed certain aspects of what made Halo a superior game, I
have yet to mention its most important component: its gameplay. To put it simply, Halo
is a high-octane game that is very immersing because of the constant focus it requires to
be successful at. One second you could be walking down a corridor and not see any
enemies on your radar when, suddenly, you walk around a corner and get assassinated by
an enemy that was crouched so they would not appear on you radar. However, that
enemy could then just as quickly be killed by one of your teammates because the enemy
revealed his position. It is a constant oscillation between success and failure at a very fast
pace, causing quick fluctuations between joy and sorrow that, ultimately, makes for a
very entertaining time. According to Sam Lagrone, Halo “is like middle school
dodgeball: No one stays on top for
long.” This may seem like a
negative side of Halo, that when
you are doing well you know that
soon you will do worse. However,
this is a redeeming factor for
Halo’s gamers. When players are
winning and on top, even the thought that they will eventually die does not take away
from the fun they are having. Also, when gamers are losing, they also know that, while
they might be killed now, they will always get a chance to avenge that death later.
The best example of the success of Halo’s gameplay is how long numerous fans
played it online. From my own experience, I have seen that the most successful games
have a thriving online population for 1 to 1.5 years after the game’s release. After that
time, the game’s fans will move on to the next bigger, brighter game. Halo 3 has been out
for 2.5 years and its online popularity is still in tact. This is partly because Halo is open to
everyone: men, children and, yes, women of all races. Contrary to popular belief, women
do actually play Halo. According to Elizabeth Sweedyk and Marianne de Laet, women
make up 40% of all video gamers (Willis 109). This variety of its gamers helps boost
Halo to a higher plane of gaming, where more gamers participate because it is loved by
all ages, races, and sexes. In fact, just last year, Halo 3 recorded its 1 billionth game
online. The game took 3 minutes and 19 seconds, which is shorter than an average Halo
game (“Changing the rules”). Bungie estimated that if every game only took as long as
the billionth game did, then it would take 6,300 years for one person to play a billion
games. Now, since that game was shorter than an average game, that means that Halo’s
fans have played even more than 63 centuries years worth of games (“Changing the
rules”). That number alone speaks testaments to the long-lasting appeal of such a
successful game series… and Halo 3 is still thriving.
While Halo is an extremely successful game that has evolved from the video
game realm to become a prominent subculture among both teens and adults, it does not
come without its criticisms. Like many video games, Halo is accused of being a waste of
time for its gamers. Critics claim that gamers could be more productive by actually trying
to learn something instead of playing a war-based video game that has no benefits besides
instant gratification. To this argument, Halo executives take a contrary stance, stating that
Halo educates its gamers (Willis). Halo teaches its gamers how to respond to unexpected
events by forcing its players to ask themselves how, what, why, and where about each
situation. For example, if an enemy is about to kill you, to avoid your imminent death
you must quickly devise a plan to kill them first. Halo teaches a gamer to observe new
predicaments and to create solutions, just as people must find solutions to predicaments
in real life. By quickly asking how, what, why, and where, a gamer might decide to
bounce a grenade off the floor so that, after the bounce, it will detonate on an enemy, and
then follow that with a few seconds of assault rifle fire to subdue the would-be killer.
While these solutions are very graphic,Halo does educate its gamers how to overcome
their obstacles.
While Halo is still such a huge success, it will eventually not be played as
much because of a newer, better game that will come along. Fortunately, however, while
the Halo game might not be part of mainstream society in the future, the subculture
created by Halo will live on for a very long time. Due to its immense success, Halo has
been marketed by Bungie through other media. On top of the three main video games that
have sold millions of copies, there have also been Halo books (depicting adventures
untold in the video game series), Halo clothing lines (exalting Master Chief by plastering
his face on every garment of clothing to be found), and there is much talk about a Halo
movie (Pikover). In addition, while Halo may not remain the most popular game in the
future, any game that replaces it will have features that Halo brought into the video game
industry, such as an innovative storyline and regenerating health. Therefore, while the
Halo game might eventually circulate out of the gaming market, its legacy to the video
game industry, and the subculture it created will continue to live on.
Works Cited
Berger, Arthur Asa. Video Games. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2002. Print.
"Changing the rules of the Game." Campaign 15 May 2009: 22. LexisNexis Library
Express. Web. 1 Mar. 2010.
I picked this article because it provides a
great statistic that shows the popularity of Halo's online gaming
Creamer, Curtis. "Saying Halo: Interview With ODST’s Lead Producer." Interview by
Toffee, Mr. Game Axis. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2010. I picked
this website because Game Axis is a very prevalent gaming site. I chose this
interview because it is with an executive from Halo who has been with Halo since
its creation, making him an expert on Halo
Halo 3. N.d. Hanranded's Weblog. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2010.
<http://haranded.wordpress.com/tag/halo-3-cheats/>. I am using this photograph
because it vividly shows the high action that Halo offers its gamers
LaGrone, Sam. "How 'Halo' became golden with gamers." The News & Observer 28
Sept. 2007: n. pag. EBSCO: Mas Ultra. Web. 28 Feb. 2010. I chose this article
because it provides personal insight to the online world of Halo
Lepretre, Timothy. Personal interview. 21 Feb. 2010. I chose to interview Tim because he
has been playing Halo for almost 10 years as well as other games, making him an
experienced gamer who can reflect on both the past and present of gaming
Pikover, James. "Five Reasons Why Halo: Combat Evolved is the Most Important Game
of the Decade." Brave New Gamer. N.p., 20 Dec. 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.
I picked this website because Brave New
Gamer is a site devoted to allowing individual blogs about the significance of
gaming. Im choosing this blog because it discusses the impact of Halo on gaming
Willis, Laurie, ed. Video Games. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Print.