Hello, Linux.
Posted on 11/08/2004 2:01:36 PM PST by Republican Radio™
Halo 2, the sequel to the top selling game for Microsoft's Xbox, will be released on November 9th.
Joe Staten, the Microsoft employee and writer responsible for the storyline of both games, will use the new game (targeted at teens) as a political protest against the Bush Administration.
For those who don't know story of the Halo games, it takes place in the future when vicious and radically religious alien forces called "The Covenant" are in a war with the human race and have trapped a lone human warship light years from Earth near the heretofore unknown Halo, a huge ring-like world manufactured and abandoned millennia ago by a powerful race. Unfortunately, Halo is still inhabited and activating its immense power will bring forth "The Flood," a bio-mechanical army that will wipe out all human and Covenant life in the universe. Your mission a genetically-modified human soldier in the game of Halowas to fight the Covenant, the Flood, and destroy Halo before it is activated and all life as we know it ceases to exist.
Halo scribe and Microsoft employee Joe Staten was interviewed in the November 5, 2004 issue of Entertainment Weekly (subscription required) about the new game. In the interview Staten says the Halo 2 story follows the Covenant "holy war" invasion of Earth brought on by the fact that Earth military forces destroyed Halo at the end of the first game. Unlike in the first game where Halo was a life-destroying superweapon, in Halo 2 we are now told that Halo was one of many and are "utopias, safe havens in a universe filled with terror." Halo 2, according to Staten, will show the story from "both the humans and aliens" and makes militant Earthlings into the imperialist bad guys against the religious Covenant aliens who consider Halo as a religous relic. "You could look at it," Staten says of his Halo 2 storyline "as a damning condemnation of the Bush Administration’s adventure in the Middle East." Microsoft has taken a straightforward action game classic in the original Halo and decided to make a political statement with Halo 2.
It begs the question: Why would a gamer or the parent of a gamer pay $50 to play a game that will force the player to shoot hundreds of "bad aliens" for hours to advance in the game and then at the end of it admonish the player for shooting the bad aliens? "These aliens weren’t really ‘bad’—they were just misunderstood and we awful human beings had no business ever leaving our little corner of the universe. You, and all humans like you, are violent and bad but the aliens are more highly-evolved, peaceful, caring beings that we should have respected and loved rather than murdered."
If Joe Staten and Microsoft want to make a political statement (and as anyone living near Microsoft HQ in Redmond, WA will tell you, the overwhelming majority of their employees in Redmond, WA are violently anti-Republican), they can do it without my money funding their next political statement. It will be a drop in the bucket, of course: Halo 2 has a rabid fanbase clamoring for the product and over $50 million is pre-order sales means the game is already massively profitable prior to its retail release.
To the gamers that will say "I’m going to play it because it’ll be fun and I can see past the politics to enjoy myself"—fine, that’s their right. However, I urge those concerned about the rot in American pop culture to spread the word about Halo 2 and Microsoft's hateful view of the Bush Administration.
Lousy Demondrats!
Joe Staten? I believe they mispelled his name, isn't it Stalin?
When GWB revises the tax code he ought to get even with Bill Gates for this crap
jeepers, creepers..this guy needs to read Laura Ingraham's book and Laura should add a new chapter "Shut Up and Code".
I think the aliens, with their superior technology, should find away to eradicate the violent and xenophobic humans without causing casualties. Isn't there a intergalactic organization that will mediate? Can't we find a solution?
Hello, Linux.
By their very nature, video games are conservative - better players score higher and win more. Also, any shoot-em-up implicitly supports RKBA. Let them play.
im playing that tonight,HALO 1 was awesome,loads of fun
Next you're going to tell me Ender's Game is also a slight towards W, even though Card has been outspoken in his support of our President.
I'm not a fan of FPS games so this is a non-issue for me, but it occurs that if this Mr. Staten thinks he's making a big statement that he's a) loopy and b) going to be ignored by 99.99% of purchasers, who will see the ability to play as the aliens as a fun multiplayer option.
Too late. Bush has already won.
And I won't be buying Age of Empires III if it comes out.
Uh, bud, how about a little perspective here, it's just a video game. Most of the school kids I know are clueless bozos. They wouldn't know a civics lesson from a bicycle seat.
Hey Microsoft. How dumb are you people? Who was it that tried to break you up? Who wouldn't accept the settlement deal? How much have you fools been bothered in the last 4 years? Fools!
Just wanted to get that out there before we have another silly boycott call.
I'm not sure how he distinguishes his version of "Bush hate" from the Islamic jihad. Based on this article, I might interpret it as a condemnation of Islam.
Believe me I see way beyond the politics of this game. My kids love it and It really doesn't matter to them if the aliens are good guys or bad guys... People read way too much into things... If an Alien shoots at me I am not going to try and reason with it.... see I am not a liberal and neither is the alien.
Ridiculous! My son was a beta tester for this game and MS wouldn't do something as stupid as this.
"Next you're going to tell me Ender's Game is also a slight towards W, even though Card has been outspoken in his support of our President.
I'm not a fan of FPS games so this is a non-issue for me, but it occurs that if this Mr. Staten thinks he's making a big statement that he's a) loopy and b) going to be ignored by 99.99% of purchasers, who will see the ability to play as the aliens as a fun multiplayer option. "
This is the best post on this thread and one that I entirely agree with.
Bill Gates in particular, and Microsoft as a corporation, are quite GOP-friendly. It's just their techies that are largely anti-Bush.
Is this anti-Bush message blatant, or would one have to be a member of the looney left to possibly arrive this interpretation? Can't believe they would risk 'alienating' a large part of their customer base. They may be leftist, but they like their money as much as the next guy.
That seems ridiculous. In Halo, you fight alongside your fellow marines to save the free world.
The Covenant are the Islams, if anything, and the Flood is a biological WMD that the terrorists are looking for.
Is Halo just a rip off of Larry Niven's RINGWORLD?
BFD..Like me and you coughing up a 100th of a cent for GWB
August Caesar used to declare his ultra-rich opponents "enemies of the state" and seize their fortunes for the treasury. Of course, I am not suggesting that W pursue this course of action against his decadent dissidents...just that Gates, Soros, et al read their history.
I wouldn't worry about the political angle. I love to play the Oddworld games. In them I play a revolutionary "Mudokan" who frees his fellow slaves from their evil overlords. The overlords ruthlessly suppress the peaceful "Mudokan" religion and essentially rape the planet. And this sounds like who......?
Never crosses my mind while I play.
For some ridiculous reason, I think the political undertones may be missed by the players.
And people don't believe me when I say Microsoft is evil.
http://www.rockstargames.com/sanandreas/
And who's the boss?
How else can one maintain a permanent bad mood? Some people need to have someone to boycott, be pissed at, or feel as though they are out to get them.
I'm glad to see evidence that the universe is still in good working order.
Or you can simply register as a Democrat ;)
Far Cry rocks...if you got horsepower under the computer hood...
3.4 @ 3.8 Prescott, Liquid Cooling
PNY 6800 GT @ clocked to Ultra speeds, Liquid Cooling
Northbridge Liquid Cooled
SATA 74 "big birds" Raptors Liquid Cooled
2MB 2x2x512 dual OCZ PC4400 Premiums
Smokin.... :-)
Yawn. It is a GAME! Even if there is a political subtext to it, no one will notice. Who cares. Personally I am addicted to Codename Panzers, Call of Duty, and Combat Missions: Afrika Corps.
What say ye?
Why is anyone even suprised.
I VOW to the 58,000 + names on
The Viet Nam Wall who never came home
"I will do everything I LEGALLY can
to expose Hanoi Kerry once and for all."
MSM still refuses to tell the real story about Hanoi Kerry!
ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, NY Times
is part of THE cover up of the election.
Do you wonder why the Left whines about the election results?
They still think Hanoi Kerry is a "war hero"
They don't know what a traitor he is!
And I don't know about you but
I'm sick and tired of the Right media saying
"what an honorable man Senator Kerry is"
Why isn't the Right all over Hanoi Kerry
to be impeached from the US Senate?
"In a bombshell development that could have turned President Bush's victory into a landslide
had it come out before the election, John Kerry wrote in his Vietnam war diary that
he met with "terrorists" in Paris - a revelation that "flabbergasted" his running mate John Edwards."
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/11/7/101350.shtml
And still the MSM,
ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, NY Times
hide the truth from America.
And still 99 US Senators refuse to impeach this traitor.
Timeline of John Kerry
http://www.archive-news.net/Kerry/JK_timeline.html
Hanoi Approved of Role Played By Kerry and VVAW
http://www.nysun.com/article/3756
The whole 42:09 Stolen Honor online FREE right now! E-mail it NOW!
Stolen Honor nails Kerry and the VVAW
and how they lied at Winter Soldier.
And how Kerry lied to the US Senate in 1971
And how Kerry and his pack of liars caused our POW's to suffer!
Kerry and the DNC cannot stop
EVERYONE on the internet from seeing this!
http://stolenhonor.com/documentary/watch-video.asp
EXPOSE HANOI KERRY!
Distribute these url's!
http://tonkin.spymac.net/hanoikerry1.html
There is a backup site
if the 1st url is unavailable.
http://stophanoikerry.150m.com/
Who cares, halo is a fun game, I will buy 2 when it comes out. And no, halo tournaments will not be left wing cocktail parties. It will be a bunch of video game fans playing capture the flag against each other.
I've been Beta Testing this here at MS, during lunch etc... for months, and I've not seen anything that is anti-Bush etc...
Me thinks this is just the one guy giving his idiotic opinion, and nothing more, but I could be wrong I just havn't seen it, though.
I try not to read into video games. Or movies. Or song lyrics. Or TV. It's called entertainment.
Maybe Statin should have released it on schedule to have had any impact on the election... It would have made me happy, but may have kept some NRA guys home home from the voting booths.
Oh well, Statin was lazy and his plans were foiled.
Like my 16 year old will really care, LOL.
He plays Halo with his friends and it's all about kills and scores. If this guy thinks that a teenager is going to tune into his "political" message, I think he's sadly mistaken.
So you're blaming Gates for the political views of his staff? Get real.
MS doesn't hire people based on their political views. They hire based on technical expertise. It happens that they recruit a lot of their staff from the West Coast, and they also have a strong college recruitment program. It should be no surprise that they get a lot of Lefties this way.
Would you suggest that Gates screen his employees for their political affiliations? That's exactly the kind of behavior that makes people like John Edwards salivate.
His message seems far too vague to affect any young mind fush of mush.
Roger, that--Far Cry stomps Halo into the ground (that includes 2).
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