The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?
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I just want to ask what the point is of ripping on a game thats from a previous generation? I personally love the Halo series and I just think its lame that people still make videos that rip on Halo merely for the sake of ripping on Halo. I understand that these are all opinion based (which is why Moviebob does not like Halo and I love it) but this video criticized the Halo games for things that many other "great" games do.
I know its only my opinion but I find it lame that people still hate on Halo for all its cliches. When you play a Halo game you know exactly what you are going to get, it may not have an award winning story, or top of the line graphics, or characters that melt your heart but the games are still fun to play with great fast paced action and incredibly fun online play (but again thats just my opinion).
I know its only my opinion but I find it lame that people still hate on Halo for all its cliches. When you play a Halo game you know exactly what you are going to get, it may not have an award winning story, or top of the line graphics, or characters that melt your heart but the games are still fun to play with great fast paced action and incredibly fun online play (but again thats just my opinion).
Well thank you Bob. I watched this video expecting you to rant for 10 minutes about how crap Halo is and I was presently surprised that you did not.
I am blown away.......... In confusion. Did Bob really just make a five minute video about how Bungie is racist because the bad guys are diverse? Really? It was sort of interesting, but very very odd at the same time.
I am blown away.......... In confusion. Did Bob really just make a five minute video about how Bungie is racist because the bad guys are diverse? Really? It was sort of interesting, but very very odd at the same time.
Another Halo rant? Really? Well, I suppose if you're launching a new show, the best way to get it loads of views and comments is to make a flamebait video like this one.
As mentioned, the Covenant are all different because you need to shoot more than one kind of enemy. If all you did was shoot Elites, Halo's famed open-ended strategy system would be dead and it wouldn't have been a success. You can't judge games by the same rules you do films, Bob, because games need to make certain decisions based on their interactivity, and nothing else. If you're going to talk about undertones, a lot of the religious stuff would have been a more interesting point, but I guess going for the more flamewar-enticing option (at least on a gaming forum like this one) of implying "OMG HALO IS RACEIST" (sorry, that's essentially what he did) is pretty much par for the course after the Expendables review taught Bob that controversy = success.
EDIT: Also, I forgot the Flood, and evidently, so did you Bob. Awfully convenient you didn't factor in the entirely uniform hive mind enemy in Halo, especially after praising the same sort of thing in Starship Troopers.
As mentioned, the Covenant are all different because you need to shoot more than one kind of enemy. If all you did was shoot Elites, Halo's famed open-ended strategy system would be dead and it wouldn't have been a success. You can't judge games by the same rules you do films, Bob, because games need to make certain decisions based on their interactivity, and nothing else. If you're going to talk about undertones, a lot of the religious stuff would have been a more interesting point, but I guess going for the more flamewar-enticing option (at least on a gaming forum like this one) of implying "OMG HALO IS RACEIST" (sorry, that's essentially what he did) is pretty much par for the course after the Expendables review taught Bob that controversy = success.
EDIT: Also, I forgot the Flood, and evidently, so did you Bob. Awfully convenient you didn't factor in the entirely uniform hive mind enemy in Halo, especially after praising the same sort of thing in Starship Troopers.
I think, mostly, the whole Covenant as a group of various species decision was made from the design perspective as a way to vary the enemies and to allow for alternate sizes, shapes, and varying levels of combat prowess without going down the whole Doom "demon undead" mode. Aside from chex quest and halo, most shooters I can think of with widely varied monsters ALWAYS choose the supernatural or fantastic in order to vary their mobs up.
I think if any Covenant-associated message was intended, it was a rather hamfisted jab at organized religion, and perhaps the variety was supposed to enhance that message. The implication being that no matter how varied the practitioners, i.e. the Covenant races from wimpy and stupid grunts, feral jackals, honor-bound hunters, and noble and cunning elites, organized religion can inspire us to terrible decisions and actions we otherwise wouldn't espouse.
And as an added level of irony, the Covenant wage a holy war against the incarnation of their Gods (the forerunners), as the forerunners are humanity.
End point: Religious extremism removes your individuality and leads to the murder of your God.
Mostly, though, it was an excuse to vary the enemies
I think if any Covenant-associated message was intended, it was a rather hamfisted jab at organized religion, and perhaps the variety was supposed to enhance that message. The implication being that no matter how varied the practitioners, i.e. the Covenant races from wimpy and stupid grunts, feral jackals, honor-bound hunters, and noble and cunning elites, organized religion can inspire us to terrible decisions and actions we otherwise wouldn't espouse.
And as an added level of irony, the Covenant wage a holy war against the incarnation of their Gods (the forerunners), as the forerunners are humanity.
End point: Religious extremism removes your individuality and leads to the murder of your God.
Mostly, though, it was an excuse to vary the enemies
I made three predictions before watching: Bob would show a picture of Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds, Insult the intelegence of people who like the games, and give a spoiler to Halo 3 (which I haven't played)
Glad to see I was wrong.
About this whole Conformity vs. Diversity thing, the Covenent may look different, but they all wear their conformity on the inside. Jeeze Bob, can't you stop with the visual prejudice :Þ
Glad to see I was wrong.
About this whole Conformity vs. Diversity thing, the Covenent may look different, but they all wear their conformity on the inside. Jeeze Bob, can't you stop with the visual prejudice :Þ
Waittaminute. Bob gets two shows and a column?! Not for nothing, his movie reviews have at least been informative. But I don't think his previous work warrants giving him a new series.
The LRR guys have 4 shows, and it's understandable. Each show is something totally different. You have sketch comedy, news satire, rifftrax, and that slow mo breaky thing. That's 4 different genres.
This new show is what? Bob ranting? Don't we already have that with his movie reviews? I mean, what's the point? If it's a rant on the game industry, I'd watch Extra Credits. If it's a rant on a particular game, I'd watch Yahtzee. This show is kinda superfluous, TBH.
If Russ Pitts wanted a new video series, why not give it to someone who'll bring us something fresh, and not just the same style of ranting, but now on topics other than movies?
The LRR guys have 4 shows, and it's understandable. Each show is something totally different. You have sketch comedy, news satire, rifftrax, and that slow mo breaky thing. That's 4 different genres.
This new show is what? Bob ranting? Don't we already have that with his movie reviews? I mean, what's the point? If it's a rant on the game industry, I'd watch Extra Credits. If it's a rant on a particular game, I'd watch Yahtzee. This show is kinda superfluous, TBH.
If Russ Pitts wanted a new video series, why not give it to someone who'll bring us something fresh, and not just the same style of ranting, but now on topics other than movies?
I was using that as an example of how he is just scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something controversial to talk about.gigastrike said:
There is no proof (yet) that Aliens exist, so I can't really judge how diverse they are compared to humans...
He's been comparing Halo to Starship troopers since he's started internet videos. Specifically, he's always held the position that "If you want to know what Halo is, combine Starship troopers with Starship troopers, a little Ringworld, and a lot of "Meh"" (Note that I am paraphrasing quite a bit). He's also said that if you want the tyle of story that Halo has, you should just go read/watch Starship troopers, as it's much better.Sober Thal said:
But yeah, not the most original thing in the world.
If I was rude, I apologize.
I think you can put that down to the fact it's about Halo, something guaranteed to ignite a flamewar on here at the best of times, but since Bob is biased as all hell against Halo, it was going to end up worse than usual. I dunno, I think Bob knew what he was doing when he made this video.duck-man said:Hehe, >500 comments! (Granted it's the first of a series) I think the extra show will pay off, they're not too crazy
Flamebait topic + stupid, misinformed and downright wrong arguments made = flamewar + views + comments. Big start for your new show. I think, if he makes a video about, say the economy, it won't do nearly as well, even though it's a much more important thing.
I enjoy escape to the movies very much, so I'm fully willing to give this a chance.
First episode, I'm not expecting the holy grail of all web videos, and it was pretty good, but i found it a little boring.
That being said, I will tune in for all the other episodes and even if it falls apart and gets to the intellectual level of the annoying orange, I will still keep watching because Movie Bob is one of the only sources I trust for reviews on movies, and now social commentary.
Also, I think it needs a new catch phrase. Just saying.
First episode, I'm not expecting the holy grail of all web videos, and it was pretty good, but i found it a little boring.
That being said, I will tune in for all the other episodes and even if it falls apart and gets to the intellectual level of the annoying orange, I will still keep watching because Movie Bob is one of the only sources I trust for reviews on movies, and now social commentary.
Also, I think it needs a new catch phrase. Just saying.
Okay I'll go into more detail in a second but before I do I feel I must show you something to demonstrate the huge hole in your logic in regards to this whole 'conformity VS diversity' thing:
In Halo 2, you take on the role of the Arbiter. During which time after so much time fighting against the Covenant, you find yourself fighting alongside them. When this happens you learn a lot, that the Covenant are not by definition evil.
True the brutes are savage and there is a war to eradicate humanity going on, but from their perspective humanity is the bad guy who threatens their religion. As far as the Elites are concerned, they are fighting for the right cause.
But of course they were tragically deluded, lied to by the Prophets and their religion was actually something that would bring about doom. They thought activating the Halo rings would take them on a Great Journey to transcendance, in reality the rings were weapons that would kill them.
So while their intensions weren't evil, they were putting the galaxy at risk. They were working towards a common goal but that goal was based on huge scale misunderstanding and they founded it on genocide.
Eventually the Elites learn the truth about the Forerunners and are ordered genocide by the Prophets, causing them to leave the Covenant and join humanity. Humanity accept their help (in fact by this point if they had turned the Elites down as allies they wouldn't have had a chance) and in two notable scenes we see the Masterchief and the Arbiter share a nod of respect, and see the Arbiter at the memorial to heros fallen at the end, shaking hands with the human general.
This kind of throws away the idea that the franchise in any way thinks that diversity is 'wrong' because literally if it hadn't been for diversity and putting aside past differences in particular, both sides would be dead.
Two sides that were once enemies, unite against a common enemy for a common goal.
And hell this is coming from a known Covenant sympathizer here....
Someone else already pointed this out but I will repeat it, the logic that Halo is racist for having a diverse group of enemy types can be applied to any number of other games out there. Hell using that logic one can argue that Mario is racist for killing all the goombas and koopa troopas and ghosts and ba-bombs who clearly must be a diverse fuctioning society whereas Mario only promotes Mushroom Person dominance.
That said, it's still nice to know that he agrees that the Covenant are far more interesting then the Spartans. Seriously, I've only been saying that for like, EVER!!
EDIT: Also there is this to be said:
In Halo 2, you take on the role of the Arbiter. During which time after so much time fighting against the Covenant, you find yourself fighting alongside them. When this happens you learn a lot, that the Covenant are not by definition evil.
True the brutes are savage and there is a war to eradicate humanity going on, but from their perspective humanity is the bad guy who threatens their religion. As far as the Elites are concerned, they are fighting for the right cause.
But of course they were tragically deluded, lied to by the Prophets and their religion was actually something that would bring about doom. They thought activating the Halo rings would take them on a Great Journey to transcendance, in reality the rings were weapons that would kill them.
So while their intensions weren't evil, they were putting the galaxy at risk. They were working towards a common goal but that goal was based on huge scale misunderstanding and they founded it on genocide.
Eventually the Elites learn the truth about the Forerunners and are ordered genocide by the Prophets, causing them to leave the Covenant and join humanity. Humanity accept their help (in fact by this point if they had turned the Elites down as allies they wouldn't have had a chance) and in two notable scenes we see the Masterchief and the Arbiter share a nod of respect, and see the Arbiter at the memorial to heros fallen at the end, shaking hands with the human general.
This kind of throws away the idea that the franchise in any way thinks that diversity is 'wrong' because literally if it hadn't been for diversity and putting aside past differences in particular, both sides would be dead.
Two sides that were once enemies, unite against a common enemy for a common goal.
Yes, what he said as well. They aren't bad guys for being diverse, they are bad guys for committing genocide. And even then with the Elite's honor code and their succession from the Covenant, it's hard to really even declare them as fully 'evil' but it's really a no brainer about why the army that has been travelling the galaxy burning entire planets with the intent to wipe out an entire race, is considered the 'enemy'.Withard said:
And hell this is coming from a known Covenant sympathizer here....
Exactly this as well, there were diverse enemy types running around because it made gameplay more interesting. If it was just one enemy type over and over again there would be no statergy or even fun, diversity in terms of enemy types is what makes a game fun.GuerrillaClock said:
Someone else already pointed this out but I will repeat it, the logic that Halo is racist for having a diverse group of enemy types can be applied to any number of other games out there. Hell using that logic one can argue that Mario is racist for killing all the goombas and koopa troopas and ghosts and ba-bombs who clearly must be a diverse fuctioning society whereas Mario only promotes Mushroom Person dominance.
That said, it's still nice to know that he agrees that the Covenant are far more interesting then the Spartans. Seriously, I've only been saying that for like, EVER!!
EDIT: Also there is this to be said:
Actually, I sincerely apologize for that. I was in a horrible mood. I shouldn't post when I'm like that... but either way, fair warning, that comic is kind of... secondary to the book. I wouldn't trust it as much for an accurate telling or image.maddawg IAJI said:I never read the books. In fact, most information I have on the matters have been through bored weekends browsing the Halopedia place, of which they have 2 pictures where John is pictured as a very tan kid, often with a shadow covering a portion or his whole face.ZeroMachine said:
He doesn't look that pale to me, nor do I notice any freckles on him. The only notable mark I see on his face is a birthmark under his right eye and that just may be dirt. I apologize if I got confused, but there is no reason to jump down my throat.
I could just as easily point out other Spartans of different heritages, such as Solomon [http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Solomon-069].
Fhajad [http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Fhajad-084] who, and forgive me for stereotyping here, sounds like he comes from middle eastern descent.
Soren [http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Soren-066] who may be Indian, due to the fact that Bungie likes to choose the major nationality of a planet (In this case, Dwarka) after a real city or word from that country. Like but like they did with the cities in Reach. Once again, that one is just a guess.
Again, I'm sorry that I got the information wrong, but next time, please try not to just scream "TROLL!" when someone doesn't get it right.
Also, excellent points on Solomon, Fhajad, and Soren.
Dude, come on. They're the enemy because they're trying to assimilate the human race. Violently! They're not bad because they're diverse. That it's many races against one race is irrelevant. They're the bad guys because they're trying to subjugate the humans- "us", while missing the actual threat to the known galaxy. It has nothing to do with skinheads; the defense of the world is composed of people from all nations. How could Halo have racist undertones when the entire world gets together to defend itself against the Covenant, and the flood?
At least try to get your opinions right. This was bad.
At least try to get your opinions right. This was bad.