Resurrection: Halo

Resurrection is a regular feature in which we reminisce about a game from way back when. This week Peter Willington takes a deep, spiritual look at HALO:COMBAT EVOLVED.

HALO. THINK about what that word instantly brings to mind for you, just for a second… Halo. Halo…

If you immediately thought of the revolutionary – or should that be evolutionary – FPS Halo: Combat Evolved, first launched on the original Xbox back in 2002, then congratulations, you’re a gamer and proven my point that ‘Halo’ has become an idiom, a word that is now associated with ’sticking’ Covenant, online multiplayer, and tea bagging rather than its original meaning in terms of religious iconography.

Yet on many levels Halo truly is an entirely religious experience. From a sheerly critical perspective, the amount of praise from games reviewers and the levels of dedication from fans, borders on the zealous. It’s almost impossible to criticise the series without facing the wrath of the all seeing, all knowing, omnipotent being that is the internet and thousands upon thousands of people every day log into the Xbox 360 multiplayer servers to put time into – what has become for many – a way of life.

The Halo spirit

But let’s move away from that and focus on the narrative and themes present within this first entry in the Halo series. The eponymous world on which the vast majority of the title is set is worshipped by the Covenant – a term itself with significant religious meaning – who refer to them as Sacred Rings, entire planets essentially that have been in place for many years, installed by the Forerunners. Yet the human outsiders see these mega structures as a threat to their existence and, more importantly, as potential weapons. As they indeed are in some respects, with the power to wipe out all nearby inhabitants to stop the ever present threat of The Flood from corrupting whatever life forms may be in the vicinity. We could say then that these structures are present to enable a similar situation to the spate of ritualistic cult suicides committed by real world groups such as Heaven’s Gate or the People’s Temple; an object worshipped by a group that will literally give their lives to it in pursuit of a noble cause.

The central protagonist – Master Chief – is essentially resurrected at the beginning of the title, again with obvious spiritual ramifications for several of the world’s religions. As the main character flows through the corridors of the great, temple-like buildings that are found within Halo: Combat Evolved, the player is treated to many sights and sounds common place in the holy buildings of our past and indeed of our present. Complex symbols line the walls of this soon-to-be tomb, a not too far cry from the Pyramids of ancient Egypt, blood and bodies litter the battlefield and remind us subconsciously of a more brutal religious past, of blood-shed in the name of this – in the eyes of the Covenant at least – holy war.

Particularly resonant is one moment within the Silent Cartographer act, whereby a dead marine can be found lying within a pool of his own blood on what arguably looks to be a sacrificial altar. All of this of course is accompanied by a mix of rock /electronica or – more fittingly – classical pieces with a choral lilt and indeed the loading screens themselves are accompanied by angelic vocals as data is pulled from the disc into the Xbox.

Of course Halo: Combat Evolved is more than this too, it’s a great shooter that changed games design from the corridor focused blasting of genre predecessors to a more free form of gun fight, with battles pitched across massive distances, with multiple opponents and allies in a variety of vehicles. In addition, it owes as much to spirituality as it does schlocky science fiction movies from the early 90’s, as much to cults and sects and denominations as it does to the modern US army, the Larry Niven’s Ringworld novel and Akira. But the next time you fire up this near-decade old classic, keep an eye out for the presence of religion and you’ll be surprised at just how much faith Microsoft and Bungie put into Halo…

Interview: Lorne Lanning on Oddworld

The Oddworld series became a 1990s cult classic. Now, Daniel Lipscombe catches up with creator Lorne Lanning to discuss his aims for the series.

A HIGH-PITCHED and warbled voice speaks only one word: “Hello.” A bizarre and almost spooky looking creature peers through a hole in the menu screen and looks at you  affectionately with wide eyes. Despite his alien appearance, Abe is lovely to look at, not only for being a well-designed lead character but because he genuinely looks inviting. He’s a welcome change from many other successful gaming characters.

That voice was supplied by Lorne Lanning, the creator of Abe and, in fact, the world that surrounds him. The environment of Oddworld is a captivating one; this is a  place full of creatures much stranger than Abe – and, in fact, a lot scarier.

It’s no coincidence that Abe, Munch and even Stranger to an extent look kind and humble: they have to be a polar opposite to their enemy. The Oddworld games have a sense of the fairytale about them, with a downtrodden protagonist who wants nothing more than to be happy, and standing in his way a hideous creature whose nefarious plans would destroy everything sacred and pure. Oddworld heightens that edge by making the sinister characters look unappealing and shrewd.

I had the pleasure to ask creator Lorne Lanning about his characters and the world that surrounded them. As someone who is drawn to Oddworld, I wanted to know what he thought drew gamers in to his creation. “I’ve heard most often that it was their connection to Abe,” Lanning says. “I think the ultra-innocence of his character set against the diabolical backdrop of the corporately dominated world he lived in was something that gave the experience a light heart, but with relevant content that people could relate to. Something they weren’t, and maybe still aren’t, getting a lot of out there.

“Each of the species on Oddworld, at least the sentient ones, is reflecting a certain trait of humanity, a certain behaviour that we can relate to and know from our own world,” Lanning continues. “We wanted to take these human behaviours and break them into unique species. The idea was that the general moral behaviour of say, the banking class, should be represented as a unique species.”

Above and beyond

It’s obvious that those who played Lanning’s creations were experiencing much more than a puzzle platformer or an action game. There was heart and soul in every being and every moment in the franchise. “The character design was a good place to start looking at what we were going to create,” Lanning postulates. “It set some deep thinking into the core make-up of these rather silly characters- giving us a rich soil out of which a lot of creative exploration, both in design and character depth, could grow.”

And so the fairytale comparison moves onwards. We have archetypal characters with big dreams and a rich environment for them to thrive. But just like the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, Lanning and his production team wove a wonderful plot into each game, full of morals and humanity. As Cinderella stepped from an oppressive shadow, so too did Abe. And who can forget the moment when Stranger revealed his secret and became the saviour of his people?

As a younger version of myself, I never really saw that moral standing clearly – perhaps the fart jokes got in the way. After revisiting the franchise as an adult, Abe’s story became a beautiful tale that inspired me, and after talking to Lanning it’s clear that the morality of the Oddworld tales was a large part of its creation. “I think these issues, morals and ethics, are a core human challenge, particularly in our modern times,” he says. “It was in the ‘80s that I began to learn just how dirty many things were when looked at from behind the scenes. That’s when Abe’s character development began. I wanted Abe to balance against the extremely morally corrupt that I also wanted to portray in his adversaries.”

Continues…

]]> http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/interview-lorne-lanning-on-oddworld/feed/ 4 http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/the-godfather-ii/ http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/the-godfather-ii/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:26:05 +0000 Lewis Denby http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/?p=407 By Lewis Denby

You always run a hefty risk with film-to-game conversions (or, in this case, book-to-film-to-game conversions), especially when you’re bouncing off a work as influential as The Godfather. Even disregarding its literary beginnings, it’s a franchise that totally epitomises a generation of filmmaking ideals, a release that paved the way for Hollywood’s previously crumbling studio system to climb back to global domination. So there’s a pretty high bar to vault over. You’re also always, without exception, going to piss off a lot of people. People who herald the original version as a universe-defining, soul-enlightening masterpiece that should never, ever be touched by anyone. When you’re making a direct sequel to something within the same medium, it’s already problematic. When you’re porting it over to a different form entirely, you’d better be ready for reactionary dynamite.

The cynic in me would say that for every stick of TNT you’ll get a big wad of cash, so it’s not exactly likely to be at the top of Electronic Arts’ list of worries. It’s also, in the scheme of things, not that important for any reason other than this one. A slow, creeping, character-led drama was never going to lend itself to a straight conversion. That’s not a big-budget, mass-audience videogame release, and I’d wager that the thousands of people who complain that they wanted something closer to the films would be lying to themselves a bit. People want explosions, fights, and the ability to drive really fast and charge down civilians. I remember someone, somewhere on the internet in the run-up to Far Cry 2’s release, asking if you could “run over zebras and chop its legs off.” That’s what we want in our games, surely. Bloodbaths of cathartic violence.

So the roots aren’t important. Suffice it to say, like the original game, The Godfather II’s similarities to the source material end with the name and a few snippets of script where relevant. That’s not a problem. This is a game, not a film, and I’d argue that trying to incessantly borrow from movie-making conventions is only going to hold this interactive medium back from potential innovation. What is a problem, though, is where EA have deemed necessary to take the fiction. In a way, I’d like to give The Godfather II the benefit of the doubt and say it’s a postmodern pastiche on ASBO culture. I don’t think that’ll stick. So we’d better look at it like this.

In The Godfather II, you’re often encouraged to beat up women.

Now, going back on everything I’ve just said and referencing the source material for a minute, wasn’t there a rather large thread in the first part of the Godfather saga involving a guy we were supposed to hate for doing just that? Yes, Carlo, his name was: a despicable character who takes joy in abusing his pregnant wife. So imagine my surprise when an early compulsory mission took me to a small bar run by an attractive young lady, and the game told me her main weakness was being punched in the face.

That’s the problem with The Godfather II. It’s not that it betrays the source material something rotten, or that there’s anything particularly broken about it. It’s just so horribly judged, through and through. In this case, the judgement seems to have been that taking Grand Theft Auto IV, adding a sprinkling of the ever-popular RPG and strategic elements, and penning a new, “mature” storyline would work. And, in a sense, it kind of does. The plot remains somewhat engrossing, even if it does occasionally take an extended cigarette break while you idly blast through a series of repetitive, loosely-connected missions. The action, though uninspired, is solid enough, and zooming around in period cars isn’t completely horrible. The strategic elements, mainly involving monitoring your finances and employing new henchmen, are perfectly functional and a pleasant enough idea. Everything works well enough in isolation – which makes it even more impressive that the experience as a whole feels like a clumsy and mildly offensive attempt to ride on the back of other people’s success. It just doesn’t quite work.

Nothing melds together to create a cohesive experience. Even the premise is maddening. You play as a mafia don… who regularly goes around behaving like an imbecilic little shit, smashing everything in his wake and generally presenting himself more like a troublesome youth than a calculated proprietor of organised crime. You’ll view myriad cut-scenes that suggest otherwise, but as far as the actual game part of the game goes, it’s all about mindless thuggery. It makes no sense.

It could have been fun. It might be, for you. Like its influences, there’s still the opportunity to ignore the main plot entirely and go on a rampage around town, stealing cars and ploughing into innocent bystanders like you’ve just graduated from some sort of vehicular crime indoctrination facility. Grand Theft Auto, even within the hard-hitting maturity of the fourth iteration, presents these segments as a respite from the rest, a chance to flex your muscles in high-powered sports cars and giggle along to the radio as citizens shout perplexingly hilarious remarks at each other before you turn them into a big blob of red gloop. In The Godfather II, when you kill an innocent bloke who just happened to amble out in front of you, people scream and cower in absolute, tangible terror. Doctors rush to their aid and attempt to resuscitate them. Onlookers cry, “what have you done?” Christ. There I was thinking mindless highway tomfoolery was a laugh.

If you get past the gut-wrenching guilt, you’ll find a series of sprawling city maps to explore. Which is a nice idea on paper, until you realise there’s no soul or character to any of the environments. I couldn’t tell you about a single location in the game, except the admittedly exciting opening sequence in Cuba. It’s all a blur. You’ll regularly find yourself driving round in circles or missing your destination completely, since everywhere looks the bloody same. It’s all brown, lifeless and disengaging. There’s not a single speck of enchantment in it.

On a more obvious gameplay note, the real issue is that, despite the added strategic “depth”, it’s not always that important to fully utilise it. You’ll have to keep one aye on your money, but the whole game is remarkably easy, meaning the tactical planning and “levelling up” seem largely irrelevant. You can send your henchmen in to do the dirty work for you, and they’ll usually come out unscathed. That’s no fun. You can go in with them, raiding every business in town, and rarely perish – and even if you do get “hospitalised” during these missions, all the game does is spring you back to the last checkpoint. Everything’s such a stroll, and it doesn’t really matter what you do in the run-up to each task. It’s completely pedestrian, and horribly monotonous.

Still, there’s an odd sense of satisfaction when you’re dangling a member of a rival family off the roof of a hotel, waiting for him to get scared enough to submit to your demands. There’s something strangely invigorating about methodically kicking in every television set in an electrical shop before the owner agrees to cough up for protection. There’s still a nagging sense of competition between the immature, comedic violence and grown-up family tragedy, one that leaves a sour and decidedly uncomfortable taste in the mouth – but hey. Not bothered about that? Sure, buy the game. You might quite like it.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

5/10

We’re all familiar with the cult classics. Unusual, quirky little games, hidden away from the public eye but adored by the select few who stumble upon them; niche releases with a very specific appeal, shunned by those without the necessary mindset. We’re talking about the Pathologics, the Fahrenheits and The Paths. The art games that appeal to a select few, and divide opinion something rotten.

Braid is the art game that appeals to everyone. In a sense, it absolutely screams “cult classic”, but its gameplay is accessible and invigorating enough to transcend such status. The glowing reviews and stratospheric marks for the 360 version, released through Live Arcade last August, surely went some way to popularising this oddball indie adventure. But really, most credit has to go to developer Jonathan Blow, for his astounding aesthetic direction and tight, evolutionary game design.

Braid proves that games don’t have to be inaccessible to make an artistic statement. They don’t have to obstrue their mechanics or stray too far from the beaten path in order to speak to their audience. They can be pure and traditional – albeit with a clever spin – and use that to their advantage. There’s nothing at all abstract about these 2D, side-scrolling planes, or the enemies that plod around their platforms. There’s nothing immediately unfamiliar about the lost princess story that dominates the main bulk of the game. But in Braid’s conventionality lies a compelling subtext, a deeper layer of meaning, and a tragic and haunting story of obsession and regret. Braid is clever.

Certainly, this side of Braid will divide opinion, and has done extensively on the Xbox. The narrative is fragmented and ambiguous, and its refusal to stick to anything like a linear path will be offputting to some. It’s presented primarily via a series of memories between levels, snapshots of lead character Tim’s life prior to the events of the game. And it’s at least heavily implied that these in-game events aren’t real at all, but a fantasy-orientated representation of his blinkered fixation on achieving his goals, without considering the wider implications. It’s not until the closing moments that the story reaches coherency at all, and even then the conclusion is wide open to interpretation. It could be that the PC audience, more traditionally sympathetic to abstract expression in videogames, is more receptive of this than a large portion of its 360 players, but it’s still not for everyone. Which is in no way to say one opinion is more valid than the other. For me, the ethereal beauty of Braid’s story is what lifts it into the dizzy heights of wonderfulness, but do be wary of the mark at the bottom of the page. It’s a 90 for me. It won’t necessarily be for you.

Equally, though, it’s such a high score because there’s something here for even the most traditionalist gamer. Ignoring the plot strands completely still leaves a brilliantly stimulating puzzle-platform game, one that never outstays its welcome and rarely stagnates. Intrinsically linked with the game’s theme of hindsight, its primary mechanic is the manipulation of time, which allows the elaborate environmental puzzles to be solved.

Initially, the sole available ability is rewinding to correct mistakes. You might be forgiven for assuming it’s the same principle as a number of other releases, most notably Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but Braid sports a couple of keen differences. Firstly, the whole game completely revolves around time control, with the platforming being almost incongruous to anything else. Secondly, as Braid progresses through its five main stages, the laws dramatically change. In the second section, time appears to stand still, before you realise moving to the right causes time to move forward, and moving left erases everything you’ve done. In the third, rewinding causes a split in the continuum, releasing a ghostly representation of Tim into the world, resulting in a bizarre teamwork session between actions past and present.  Things get progressively stranger until the final level, unlockable by solving all previous puzzles, which completely defies expectation and sets up a remarkable twist in the tale.

This constant re-writing of the rulebook means regularly casting aside everything you’ve learnt so far. Complacency never hits, and the difficulty remains consistent throughout. There’s one section of really, moronically stupid design: a couple of levels involve races against the clock where certain items reject your time-manipulation and continue in motion regardless, and failing to achieve your goals in the meantime means starting the level from scratch. It means you’re often unsuccessful because of your lack of platforming prowess, not your ability to think logically around the problem, which is idiotic in what is essentially a puzzle game. (UPDATE: Since this review went live, I’ve been contacted by a few people – including the developer – who suggest I may not have quite understood this collection of puzzles.  While having the mindset explained to me does soften their blow (no pun intended) a little, I maintain that forcing the player to start the level again if he/she makes a mistake is a design choice that leads only to frustration.) But, fortunately, it’s all over quickly enough. The rest is delectably good. It’s always challenging, often completely bizarre, but when you work out what to do things slot beautifully into place.

The one overarching problem with Braid is one that’s only so apparent because the rest is so ferociously good. Though the time mechanics are clearly linked with the narrative statements, the rest of the gameplay is not. That it’s a platformer would be completely irrelevant, if it weren’t for the frequent references to Super Mario Bros. This wouldn’t be such an issue if the story were presented differently, but there’s a part of me that wishes it were all more closely tied in. There’s nothing that suggests Braid wouldn’t work just as well – if not better – poured into a different mould entirely: a mould in which the story could play out within the game, not during its intervals. As it is, it’s the only thing that threatens Braid’s status as a truly remarkable piece of work, a revelatory example of storytelling and design.

There’s something for everyone, and that’s important to remember. Whether you gel with the story or dismiss it as pretentious twaddle is immaterial when the game beneath it is so enjoyable. It’s also slightly cheaper than the price the 360 version emerged at, meaning the admittedly disappointing length doesn’t sting quite so much. At just a few hours, Braid certainly left me aching for more, but perhaps that’s testament to its quality more than anything else. It’s a triumphant achievement for its indie developer, and its PC release will hopefully pave the way for more to come. A shining example of how artistic expression and pure, unabridged entertainment don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

9/10