| Reasonable said:
Actually, while its good for a videogame, Halo I would argue that its characters and situations are typically oversimplistic (even allowing for Cortana and Captain Keyes). In truth they are more standard plot points that anything of a truly narrative nature. I think the points made were fair enough - even if the Hero who makes a mistake is a cliche that's still a heck of a lot more of a character than the eternally calm Master Chief. The truth is that most games like Halo, Gears, etc. do play to certain very rigid and adolescent archetypes. The young guys who love MC do so becuase he's cool, wins and never makes a mistake as such. Almost no videogame I can think of have characters with true arcs and narrative discovery. I believe this is possible, if only based on a title like Silent Hill 2 which does take the lead character through one heck of a voyage of self discovery, to some very unpleasant places. But while I would rate Halo very highly as a game, as a narrative it is a set of elements taken from other works (both film and literature) to provide a strong background to an extremely simple plot in the service of a lot of cool videogame mayhem. |
I agree that Halo is lacking as a narrative, I was referring specifically to how gender roles functioned in the game (the entire Halo universe is like that - it's not an inherently male fantasy unless you believe that war is inherently male). Gamerace was referring to the role of women in the game.
For the record - I recommend the Mother games, the work of Fumito Ueda, and certain Zelda titles.
