The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

[Ampersand]

I know it's kind of your job to over think things but would you not think that maybe the reason that the enemies in halo are alot more diverse then the player characters is because......they're the ones we're looking at all the time. It's a first person game remeber?

Also there are no good guys in halo. The spartans kill just as many humans as they do covenant, and in all of the stories surrounding the series, just as much sympathy is conveyed for the races of the covenant as for the humans, including halo 2 where you actually play as an elite.
In fact the only thing that comes close to a villain in the entire series is the flood......you know the homogenous consumption driven mass, the only aim of which is to propagate itself by means of wiping all individualism from the face the universe.

Exactly. He is reading waaay to much into this, and he's coming at it from the wrong angle. By the end of Halo 3 you're practically working with the Covenant against the Flood, whose STATED GOAL in the ark terminals is the utter homogenizing of the entire galaxy/universe.
Oh, and also: We were fighting the Covenant because their "arcane belief system" led them to try and wipe us out. I guess because they looked more diverse we should have just let them kill all the humans, right? Oh, and they were going to extinguish all life from the galaxy because their crazy prophets wanted to become gods. THAT is why we were fighting them, not because they were "the other". And honestly, DIVERSITY IN YOUR ENEMIES IS NECESSARY FOR INTERESTING GAMEPLAY. Oh, and one last point: you might want to note that for Halo 3, your team is comprised primarily of an alien, a black guy, a robot, and the love interest is an AI. If that isn't a diverse cast, I don't know what is.

Ha, That's a good point. ^_^

 

[Twilight_guy]

I'm not a big face of the emotional face stills. Still, I think the show has promise and could be quiet interesting. Being blind to sub-text, its always interesting to see what other people gleamed.

 

[Orthon]

Sweet, something to watch on tuesdays.

By the way, I like the fact that you choose Halo for the first ep. Considering that this show will piss people off, talking about Halo, a subject that WILL piss some people off is a good way of alerting people of what they're getting themselves into by watching it.

EDIT:Oh, and yeah, I forgot. Somebody might've mentioned this, but I think I can hear a fan of some description going on in the background. Or something, it's kind of annoying.

 

[Dangerbean]

Quasi-intellectual bullshit from start to finish. Stick to Movies please.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Yeah I have issues with this because I am one of the people who played Halo for the story. And read the books etc, which I actually found quite fun.

So here's my issue, I literally just came from an hour where I was arguing that a roomful of people were reading far too much into Shakespeare, and in reality he was just pleasing the masses, and the real intellectual writing of the day was done by others like Marlowe, and how it was probably this over-analysis of Shakespeare which led to him now being idolised like some sort of God of literature.

I think you see where I'm going with this but I'll spell it out for those who can't recognise patterns.

Halo is being built up by all these people as a treatise on things, or a reflection of current society, or used to make whatever point you want but the problem is that you're using it to make the point. I couldn't be happier because I like Halo, but to all these people who don't and are trying to put it down consistently? Yeah, you are the reason it's going to be remembered as a seminal turning point in human culture four hundred years from now, not me.

This is also the reason I don't comment on Twilight anymore, every time someone stirs the flames, it's going to get more popular.

You want Halo to go away? Shut the fuck up about it.

Nice to see Bob getting a little more recognition though.

 

[WaderiAAA]

Has it crossed bobs mind that maybe their isn't some big ugly subtext and maybe the reason for all the different creeds and colours of the enemies is to give you more variation in the things you shoot at?

Yeah... I was thinking that.

All of the 'racism' you saw in the Halo franchise was you being slightly paranoid.

Sorry Bob, I love you, but I gotta say no to this one.

I think you're both missing the point. He isn't saying that Bungie is in racist, but that they have without even thinking about it made something that has many aspects that can be seen as racist and that they really ought to think it through before they make it. I mean, take the eye-changing thing, isn't there any other way they could show that the tranformation was complete rather than give the soldiers the eye-colour of the aric race? Even in context, I don't see any scientific reason why the eyes would change to blue.

 

[Bobic]

Has it crossed bobs mind that maybe their isn't some big ugly subtext and maybe the reason for all the different creeds and colours of the enemies is to give you more variation in the things you shoot at?

Then how hard would it have been to give more variation in the things you shoot WITH?

There are a similar amount of guns to enemies, maybe.

 

[Warachia]

Hmmm... The BIG PICTURE has a really NARROW VIEW.

I can't fathom why a show would be called the big picture without looking at broader implications, but bob has always loved taking things completely out of their original context and demonizing them anyway.

 

[Gigaguy64]

I know it's kind of your job to over think things but would you not think that maybe the reason that the enemies in halo are alot more diverse then the player characters is because......they're the ones we're looking at all the time. It's a first person game remeber?

Also there are no good guys in halo. The spartans kill just as many humans as they do covenant, and in all of the stories surrounding the series, just as much sympathy is conveyed for the races of the covenant as for the humans, including halo 2 where you actually play as an elite.
In fact the only thing that comes close to a villain in the entire series is the flood......you know the homogenous consumption driven mass, the only aim of which is to propagate itself by means of wiping all individualism from the face the universe.

Exactly. He is reading waaay to much into this, and he's coming at it from the wrong angle. By the end of Halo 3 you're practically working with the Covenant against the Flood, whose STATED GOAL in the ark terminals is the utter homogenizing of the entire galaxy/universe.
Oh, and also: We were fighting the Covenant because their "arcane belief system" led them to try and wipe us out. I guess because they looked more diverse we should have just let them kill all the humans, right? Oh, and they were going to extinguish all life from the galaxy because their crazy prophets wanted to become gods. THAT is why we were fighting them, not because they were "the other". And honestly, DIVERSITY IN YOUR ENEMIES IS NECESSARY FOR INTERESTING GAMEPLAY. Oh, and one last point: you might want to note that for Halo 3, your team is comprised primarily of an alien, a black guy, a robot, and the love interest is an AI. If that isn't a diverse cast, I don't know what is.

but does that mean your ALLIES have to look the same? hell no.

I remember in Halo 2 i had a Hispanic man, a Woman, and SGT.Johnson on my team during several missions.
And hell you got to work with Elites in H3.

You played as a Human, generally Humans look the same in certain ways.
And they were apart of the military.
The Military uses uniforms.

 

[harv3034]

Well. I was far too sober for that conversation just now...

the scary thing is, even if you were as drunk as humanly possible PLUS high as the International Space Station, this would still kind of make sense.

NOW, I'm not sayin Bungie are racists, only that the points Bob brings up about "unindended symbolism" have some weight to them.

*hopeing to God is is unintended*


In retro-spect, it seems to me that Bob may be riding the Sparta V. Persia angle a bit too hard, but it WAS a great metaphore for the organization for the Covenant.

In further retro-spect, the point Bob made about blindly following beliefe (or whatever it was) reminded my of the Midievle (yes I know I botched the spelling) Christian knights.
Think about it; the Profits would represent the Church (with Truth as the Pope), the Arbiter would be the chosen leader, the Elites would be the actual Knights, the Grunts would be infantry/auxiliaries, the Jackles would be the archers, and the Burtes... well, they're harder to place but if I had to, I'd say they would be the Armoured Cavelry.

In fact, this idea can be continued to the Halos and the Arc. The Arc could be a reimagining of the Holy Land while the Halos could be various artifacts (the Original Cross, the Holy Grail, that cloth with Jesus's face on it...).

In a way, the entirety of Halo's (as Yahtzee called it) "impenetrable" plot can actually be explained (to a person who's never played the Halo games) by assuming that Bungie used the Crusades as insperation and as a general template for Halo.

This also leads back (somewhat tangentaly) to Bob's Nazi idea in the way that during WWII Hitler and Himler (head of the SS) financed and ordered numerous expaditions to find the Holy Grail and other occult items (I'm srs, go look it up).

(WOW that was a long rant, and one hell of a tangent.)


All in all, I thought it was pretty damn good (especially the opening about his bosses and the subject matter) and I personaly can't wait to hear more.

 

[team star pug]

halo is a game, not a movie. Im sure bungie thought "lets make the covenant include many different races to let the player shoot at something that isn't bland and brown" and most definatly not "lets make the covenant include lots of races to show that we are neo nazis"

That "there's a campaign" cat picture is a HUGE insult to many of the people who play halo. That one picture basicly sums up your opinion. "Lol, halo attracts ALL of gamings retards. I is smart for finding this." for someone who usually talks about video games and refers to himself as the "game overthinker" you really hurt me with that discriminating picture.

"His eyes turned blue, HE ARE NAZI"... (sign) I exspected better Bob.

Saying that noble six contains unoriginal characters is like saying avatar rips of dancing with wolves. Saying it in a smug voice makes you look dick, not slick.

Not the best first episode, but it does angry up the blood.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Well that was a big overthinking. In interesting one though. It's hardly an 'attack' on Halo though.

 

[Red Pawn]

Eugh. This guy is the Escapist's Glenn Beck.

 

[Gigaguy64]

Has it crossed bobs mind that maybe their isn't some big ugly subtext and maybe the reason for all the different creeds and colours of the enemies is to give you more variation in the things you shoot at?

Then how hard would it have been to give more variation in the things you shoot WITH?

What?
Aside from the main humean wepons like the Rocket Launcher, Assult Rifel, and Shot Gun, you also got to use alien weapons like the Needler, Plasma Rifel, Fuel Rod Cannon, Plasma Gernades, and Covant Combine.
Even though some of the Alien weapons are the Equivalent of a Human weapon, it just fires energy, id say that was a good variety.

 

[team star pug]

That was awesome Bob! Now to play Halo Reach... WAIT, THERES A CAMPAIGN?!

there has always been a campaign.

 

[ZephrC]

You're making a dangerous and sadly common mistake here. You assume that fascism equals racial purity. That's simply not true, however. Fascism only requires a clearly delineated "Us" and "Them" to provide an artificial conflict between.

Certainly racism is a possible source of that delineation. On the other hand, there are other options as well. Which side of an imaginary line you were born on is a pretty common one. Also your deity of choice, or even simply how you choose to worship said deity can be used as a tool by fascists. Even within a group it can come down to something as vague as actions. How you dress, what music you like, who you like to fuck, all these things can be used to group people into "Us" and "Them".

When you're looking for signs of fascism, don't look for similarities to Hitler. Those are easy to pick out and will never gain any kind of foothold again at this point. Look for someone saying that we have to stop "Them". We need to make sacrifices to stop "Them". It's okay to do bad things to "Them". That's when you really need to start worrying.

 

[Nouw]

Right on Bob! Referring to Starship Troopers!
I'm sold.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

*Snip*

Sorry, but in your original comment to Bob, you came off as abrasive, and acted like there is an actual "need", as you said, to hate Halo.

But no, there isn't a need to hate Halo, that is a fact, because when people hate Halo, it is an opinion. If people don't like it they don't like it.

There are multiple camps. The Fanboys. The people who think it is good or alright. And finally the people that don't like or hate it.

It is common sense; there isn't some big conspiracy set against Halo to make people hate it.

 

[Zakarath]

One other thing: so what if some guy's eyes turned blue? It takes a lot more then one guy's eyes turning blue to have nazi/aryan undertones in something. From what I've seen, hardly anyone fits into the blond-hair-blue-eyes type, and I'd say you would at least need around 33% or more to fit that type before you can legitimately call Nazism. I swear, you're grasping at as many straws as Glenn Beck usually does. Oh well, that's Godwin's Law for ya.

 

[Jandau]

1. I'm happy Bob got another show. Many here seem to know him only as the "movie guy", but he's been doing gaming commentary much longer (look up Game Overthinker). So no, the "movie guy" didn't get a new show, the guy who just happens to also do the "movie show" got a new show. In addition to the two other shows he's already doing.

2. I like the overall format of the show, and I like Bob's style overall. This applies to Game Overthinker and Escape to the Movies as well. Though I do admit, I'm starting to wonder at which point the whole "slides of funny and somewhat relevant pictures with audio commentary" thing will get stale. Not yet, but not that far into the future either...

3. However, I disagree with the choice of theme for a first episode. It will piss off a lot of people who like Halo and it will not really sit well with a bunch of people who don't really like Halo but find this to be overthinking and nitpicking. I do admit, the whole "eyes turning blue" thing was creepy...

4. I always liked the Covenant better. The only Halo game I really liked was the second one, and that was mostly for the parts where I got to play the Arbiter. Whenever I had to play as Master Chief, I couldn't wait to get through those levels and get to the real star of the show.