XBox 360 Rally

Halo is huge, without question. The original Halo: Combat Evolved has sold well over five million copies, and was almost single-handedly responsible for putting the original black brick, the Xbox, on the map. It’s sequel, Halo 2, sold a reported 9.2 million copies since it’s release in 2004. That brings us to Halo 3, which has already become the fastest game to reach 1 million pre-orders. When Halo 3 is finally released on September 25th, I have a working theory that every Xbox 360 console will brick inside of 72-hours.

…wait, why the hell am I giving you guys a history lesson on Halo? Y’all should know this! Moving on!

TIME Magazine has a story about Bungie and the Halo franchise on their website, and it’s a fascinating read. On one hand it tells an interesting story regarding Halo’s breaking out of the gaming industry to become a mass-market multimedia property, while simultaneously showing exactly why the mainstream news media still simply does not “get it”.

I found it especially compelling to read about some of the things the guys at Bungie went through in an effort to finish Halo 3. From recording different sounds for every footstep on every surface while working twenty-hour days, to one designer who has to drink a Diet Coke to kill the caffeine cravings so he could sleep.

Also, did you know that Marty O’Donnell, Halo’s audio director, is also the man who penned the Flintstone’s Chewable Vitamin jingle? I did not know that. But that’s neither here or there.

Now, while hearing the story of Bungie’s dedication to completing their game, and doing it right, is indeed compelling… you also had statements like this:

There is an invisible subculture in America. Those who belong to it love it with a lonely, alienated, unironic passion. Those who don’t belong to it walk right by, uncaring, just as people walk right by that unmarked building in downtown Kirkland.

It’s sad to see that in an article written about one of the biggest properties in the entire gaming industry breaking out into the mainstream, the core fanbase (in this case, gamers) is still painted as “lonely” and “alienated”. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe I’m not understanding it correctly because it’s 5:30am and I can’t sleep. But hearing gamers still being referred to with such words just irks me.

Also, I don’t think Lev Grossman, the person who wrote this, actually played Halo.

Much of the action consists of the Master Chief shooting alien antagonists while swapping Eastwoodian one-liners with his sidekick, a computer program named Cortana who appears as a sexy hologram. … They’re full of literary touches and evocative phrases–the Master Chief travels in a spaceship called the Pillar of Autumn.

…I haven’t played Halo for a while, but I’m pretty sure the Pillar of Autumn got blown the eff up. The rest of that… I’ll let you fanboys eat up.

[TIME Magazine]

Microsoft, Xbox 360, Bungie, Halo 3, Master Chief, Cortana, Pillar of Autumn, TIME