Slashdot Mirror
Halo 'No Longer Just a Game' For Microsoft
News.com has a piece looking at the way that Halo has transformed from game to franchise for Microsoft and the Xbox. Despite the heavy advertising and branded products that seem to be everywhere in anticipation of next week's launch, the company is still trying to keep the IP as pure as possible. "Microsoft is wary of watering down Halo, meaning it would rather walk away from deals for Master Chief pajamas or Covenant sippy cups. Microsoft had little experience in talking to toymakers and others about how to transfer an onscreen experience to real objects. But such experts exist in the licensing arms of movie studios, so Microsoft partnered with 20th Century Fox to act as the main licensing agent for the Halo brand. Items that did not make the cut were a Halo-themed lottery ticket, lingerie modeled after a female hologram character, and toy guns based on the game's weapons. Instead, fans can expect high-quality action figures from McFarlane Toys, a tabletop game from WizKids, and replica weapons for mature buyers."
It never confused me at all; I'm ex-Navy and it made perfect sense to make the main hero a Master Chief.
They are godlike characters, answerable to no one; they can not be busted in rank in any normal fashion, Officers fear them, enlisted both fear them and are protected by them.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Bungie's been doing that sort of story driven universe for a while. Halo shares a lot in common with the storyline that ran through the Marathon series, years ago when Bungie was a Mac only developer. I played the original marathon way back when, but never got around to the rest of the trilogy (I think it was a trilogy). But a few years ago I came across a website that basically listed all of the text from the game, almost as a screen play, and reading through it all was a reasonably entertaining story.
The Halo universe might not be 100% original, but it's got a lot of background and detail, and as such has a good bit of potential for future projects. A RTS game of some sort could certainly be interesting, or maybe one day an MMO that finds a way to combine individual soldier combat with large scale spaceship combat and all that. There's nothing insurmountable stopping anyone else from making games like that, but having a reasonably well known and already partially described universe to place the game in gives it more legitimacy and hopefully can give players a more immediate connection to a game.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Agreed. Halo (and Marathon) may not be divinely inspired, and it may not be The Best Sci-Fi ever. In fact, I don't think anyone would seriously argue that it is. But it has a huge leg-up that many stories that extend into series (or franchises) lack -- consistency. Bungie has a "Halo Bible" and it sticks with it. It presents the sci-fi and then does a pretty good job of avoiding the deus-ex-machina that's exceedingly easy in sci-fi works. You fight against bad guys and, using strategy, tactics, and the things at hand, you win.
Most games can't even stay consistent from start to finish. Halo can be accused of copy-paste level design in spots, but at least the story and actions follow an arc and are internally consistent.
I just have to say, both my father and grandfather acheived the rank of Master Chief in the Navy. When I was growing up and I told kids that my dad was in the military, they always asked me what rank he was. I always felt a little let down when I saw that "Master Chief" never got the same recognition as "Master Sergeant" or even "Corporal", because I felt that it didn't accuratley describe what a tough son-of-a-bitch my dad was.
Thanks to Halo, however, the title "Master Chief" gets the name recognition it deserves. It's not an easy, everyday thing to acheive. My brother, who was in the Navy for 16 years, saw less than 5 Master Chiefs during his service.
So all hail the Master Chief from Halo, because an E-9, no matter the service, is a motivated, intelligent, bad-ass individual and deserves to be recognized.
Actually it's the same as Sergeant Major (E9), rankwise. in practice it's different, A Navy command Master Chief is differed to by everyone but the actual Officer in charge of the command, and they will be darned polite.
Navy also has warrant ranks, the only difference is in the navy you have to be a Chief (E7+) before you make warrant, while in the Army you can get there from E5+.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.