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.
This is incredibly stupid. I played the 1st Halo and if the Covenant had succeeded in activating the Halo ring, all life in the galaxy would have been wiped out therefore if we had stayed in our "little corner of the universe" we would have all been killed.
Well looks like one game I will NOT be buying... was looking forward to Halo 2 also... Oh well...
The guy spouting off isn't a programmer - he's a Cinematics Director, so I guess it's his job to get a bit theatrical... ;0)
The only way I can see a video game taking a jab at our values is by having the goal that the losers win.
Yep...
We were killing Covenant long before we even saw Halo.
In fact we only found it when a blind jump was made IIRC.
May I suggest you stay away from "Shellshock Nam '67" as well.
If John Kerry wanted to make a video game, this would be it. Anti-American, Anti-Vet and just plain sick IMHO.
yea, looks like I will be staying away from those.. have to go with Half-Life 2 :)
That does seem like the most likely explanation. Bungie did similar things in the Marathon games, where you played on several different sides as the story progressed.
Anyone who is not in need of a Glassectomy will also take into consideration the other donations and to whom they are given. Teresa gave to Liberal causes. George Soros gave to Liberal causes. I'm not a Bill Gates phanatic but I know that he has given more to non-Liberal causes than either of these two very wealthy Liberals.
A hypothetical question: If I buy something that Michael Moore creates, am I not supporting Michael Moore and the causes he represents? What if Moore came out with a fantastic video game that everyone was talking about? Would he not still be the same person with the same anti-American agenda? He is not anti-GOP, he is anti-America...and his beliefs have very little to do with politics and a whole lot to do with a skewed mindset and distorted view of the world. If I knew a product was putting money in Michael Moore's pocket and there were other choices available, I would have a decision to make about which product I'd buy and why.
I've never heard of this person who created Halo, but if someone creates and sells a product to openly promote and finance a political/personal agenda I disagree with and a belief system I find dangerous, why would I want to put money in their pocket?
We have no way of knowing what the politcal leanings are of most game manufacturers. Or if we did have a way to find out, it never occurred to me to ask before.
This creator pretty much put his beliefs on the label. Once the consumer learns that the proceeds from the sale of Halo products will finance a radical anti-American agenda, the purchaser is now confronted with a choice, like it or not. This announcement/article is as good as a warning sticker on the package.
I had preordered a copy of H2. I will enjoy it.
This is odd because HALO follows a closer line of thought with one of Bungie's original titles - Marathon.
This bothers me, though, that they are now saying that humans are to blame? That doesnt quite sqaure with the HALO I have been playing for the past couple of years, or with the cortinata letters released in '98.
I need to research this a little more. The guy's name doesnt even sound familiar. Josh Sowell, does.
Maybe this is why a good chunk of the Bungie staff quit M$ and created their own company - wideload (located at www.wideload.com).
Wanted to follow up and say whom ever wrote the article is plain wrong about the HALO story line.
The HALO story line starts off where human colonies start to disappear and Humans find out that it is the covenant who are doing this and they go to war.
Covenant basically wipe out the human outpost before they get a chance to launch their major offensive based on REACH (good guy outpost).
In H1, you land on HALO, which is a superweapon. The game makes no bones about it that the HALO was made to contain the flood, which is a weapon which the long since gone aliens left as a "super weapon."
In short, the convenant are not attacking earth because of the destruction of a HALO.. the HALO was a weapon.
We will see what the story line gets into once I get my hands on my copy.
If anyone wants to email this creep here is some info:
http://www.ava.org/clubs/ramsteinroadrunners/footnotes/fn0401.pdf
the_statens@t-online.de
I finish Halo again last night and I see no way that this guy can be right.
What logic must you use to claim that a machine designed to kill all life is good? Or a relic to a race it is designed to destroy?
Halo was designed to stop the Flood, by killing the food source: us and them.
Here's a start:
Get the Fire Fox Web Browser Here
This was INCREDIBLY stupid in the high competition video game market.
If PS2 people have brains they will take advantage.
Perhaps there should be a warning label indicating the game contains intentional anti-american political statements. Let parents vote with their dollars.
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