thepyrethatburns said:
Theron Julius said:
I've read Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Ghosts of Onyx, and the Cole Protocol and I enjoyed every one of them. They add so much more depth to the story which you couldn't really get across through the games. Honestly, I just don't get the trolls who can utterly denounce Halo without having read the books, although I will admit that I'm a poor judge on this matter, since I'm biased myself.
Jabberwock xeno said:
I am disspointed by the lack of intrest in this article.
Many people don't realize just how much story halo has to it.
In fairness, most people don't care.
It's like if I told you that Star Wars Episode III is much better if you read Labyrinth of Evil or how the Dark Horse comics really expanded the prequel universe. While that's true, most people don't really take that into account when they discuss the prequel trilogy. In all honesty, they shouldn't have to. If Lucasarts/Bungie is unable to make the primary canon source interesting, then stating that the secondary material expands the universe is not a valid defense. It doesn't make someone a troll if they don't read/watch/play every piece of a game universe before they denounce it.
I watch Waypoint and I've played the games (of which the side games are actually more interesting than the trilogy) but that's about it. If someone started talking about Lekgolo poetry, my attention span would check out probably faster than if I talked to either of you about Quinlan Vos. That doesn't make people trolls. It just acknowledges that different people have differing bandwidth for various fictional universes.
Your pretty much right on here. The extra material does certainly help flesh out and enrich the primary experience whether it be film or game but you shouldn't have to go to a book or a comic or a piece of fan theory for something to be explained that happened in the film or game. They need to stand on their own two feet and present their material in a concise and understandable manner and not leave any major elements of plot, story, character etc for these secondary sources to explain.
Now personally, I believe the main three Halo games don't fall into this trap; you certainly don't have to read the books or comics to understand what's going on so long as you follow the story closely. That stuff only gives you a greater insight, it only
enhances your experience not
defines it.
Reach on the other hand assumes a lot about the person playing it, and it's less about information from the books and comics than information from previous games which is the problem. It assumes that they know what the covenant are, that they appreciate why their fighting them and what ultimately happens to the planet Reach. Such assumptions are fine for the opening of any story; it's a common device to throw your reader, viewer or player right into the action and explain things from there. However, in Reach's case, these assumptions carry on throughout the entire game and if I'd never played a halo game before never mind read all the extra material, my understanding of the events around me would be limited to a basic "we human ,we fight evil aliens, we must save planet".
With the trilogy and even with ODST such knowledge is presupposed because it's part of a series: if you play Halo 2 and are confused about what's going on, then it's probably because you haven't played the first game. The reason such an explanation cannot be applied to Reach is because it isn't part of a over-arching storyline, it's a standalone story, and if your a new player to the Halo franchise things really ought to be explained a little more. Now of course, even the games within the trilogy need to, as I said earlier, stand alone on their own two feet, but if something isn't clear within the storyline it's probably more likely due to a lack of knowledge of previous installments than a failing in the story-tellers ability to convey said knowledge in the current game. It's like jumping into 'The Empire Strikes Back' without having seen 'A New Hope', sure it will still be one helluva ride, but the characters, universe and story all had their introduction in the first movie and blaming the second film for not adequately informing the audience about all that information is unfair.
There is of course a tipping point where one can explain things too much and too clumsily at that. Halo can be a bit guilty of just laying things out in speeches of exposition but thankfully it leaves just enough elements rooted in mystery without de-stabalising the story. The Forerunners are a good example of this- their form, their mission, their fate are all left in a rather vague ambiguity and another gaming franchise, Half-life, also effectively does this with the enigmatic G-man. Some would criticise such elements as being lazily or poorly written if their not defined enough and such people generally like things to be put in a little box and nicely wrapped in a red bow. What they don't realise or fail to accept, is that not everything can be explained, if it could, we wouldn't have the word inexplicable now would we. Sometimes things are ambiguous and mysterious and often we have to create our own meanings or make our own judgments on things, creating, in the case of fiction, another form of engagement and a very important one. For whilst we not only fear the unknown, we also find it tantalisingly irresistible to explore.
Such is why the Forerunners, G-man and even more so in the case of Star Wars, The Force, are all fascinating if not enthralling because they each require us as individuals, and as a community, if we so choose to become a part of one, to scrutinise, analyse and perhaps even define (though only in loose, rather indeterminate terms). Hence this is the purpose that extra materials serve: to allow those interested enough in the universe to explore it further and give them even more to chew on.
Well I seem to have got a bit off topic there but I feel you get my point, whatever it was.
