The Big Picture: Combat Evolved?

[PhiMed]

Yeah... normally I like MovieBob's stuff, I enjoy his columns, but I think this was stretching for symbolism that wasn't there. I mean, the Covenant design and backstory could have been as simple as "this is an inversion of the normal roles in aliens vs humans stories, which usually have disparate humans band against one homogeneous alien force."

His analysis can be interesting, but this felt more like simply prodding the Halo community for a reaction, and reaching for connections that are not in evidence. MovieBob is better than that. Here's hoping the next video improves.

You hit the nail on the head. He's trolling Halo fans. He's not better than that, and never has been. He has always taken a lot of pleasure in trolling the fanbases of franchises he dislikes.

Whether those franchises are Halo, Twilight, or Christianity, he pokes and prods while laughing maniacally. The popularity of the franchise and the seriousness of the fanbase are both directly proportional to the maliciousness of his tweaking. He is a part-time critic, but a full-time troll. Don't ever assume he's better than that, and you'll never be disappointed.

 

[mythil]

A lot of people here are overlooking the fact that this is entertainment, and decent entertainment at least (Don't worry Bob, I like you, I'm just hard to please

I don't think Bob will be protesting outside Halo HQ with a "Ban the Nazi Game" placard, it's just poking a little fun at coincidences that are.. well.. funny.

IMO, Halo users have too much butt hurt to have a laugh about it

 

[GamerRelic]

As a halo fan I was all like wow for a second. then I was like oh wait a second.I then realized he was just fucking with us and trying to get halo fanboys angry.

 

[Kwatsu]

Yeah... normally I like MovieBob's stuff, I enjoy his columns, but I think this was stretching for symbolism that wasn't there. I mean, the Covenant design and backstory could have been as simple as "this is an inversion of the normal roles in aliens vs humans stories, which usually have disparate humans band against one homogeneous alien force."

His analysis can be interesting, but this felt more like simply prodding the Halo community for a reaction, and reaching for connections that are not in evidence. MovieBob is better than that. Here's hoping the next video improves.

You hit the nail on the head. He's trolling Halo fans. He's not better than that, and never has been. He has always taken a lot of pleasure in trolling the fanbases of franchises he dislikes.

Whether those franchises are Halo, Twilight, or Christianity, he pokes and prods while laughing maniacally. The popularity of the franchise and the seriousness of the fanbase are both directly proportional to the maliciousness of his tweaking. He is a part-time critic, but a full-time troll. Don't ever assume he's better than that, and you'll never be disappointed.

Okay. Though to be fair, I find his movie analysis -- when he's not talking about a franchise -- tends to be quite well-informed. The problems start when he gets away from talking about movies, which is one reason why these videos concern me a bit. I'm not really a fan of the franchises he generally goes after, so his trolling doesn't register with me, though I can see how it would be annoying.

The other issue is that film makers and reviewers on this site have to try and compete with Yahtzee, who's got a strong persona going on already. They need their own shtick, and in some cases they're still finding it.

Regardless, MovieBob was starting to sound like Glenn Beck for a minute there. That's something the Escapist, and the gaming community, REALLY doesn't need.

 

[The Long Road]

This video made me lose a lot of respect for MovieBob. Usually he confines his trolling to simple glib remarks during his movie reviews, but now he has gone into full paranoid rant mode. All of his major "points" are crazed overexaminations of simple tropes that exist only to enrich the experience.

The Covenant has many diverse races for reasons of gameplay. The Grunts are small and squat, indicating that they are not a big threat. The Elites are tall, lanky, and angular, which makes them stand out more as the legitimate threat that they are. Hunters are massive and hulking like slow but heavily armed and armored creatures. Such things apply to every race of the Covenant. They are specifically designed to stand out at a distance instead of blending together and making long-range identification a clusterf*ck. Humans, however, don't need to be identified at range very often, and don't show up much in general, so their design does not need to be as unique. Also, let's remember that they are based on the United States Marine Corps., which prides itself on uniformity of their troops. If you don't stick out, you aren't a target.

Carter's eyes turn blue to indicate that the surgery worked. It's not that they turned blue, MovieBob, it's that they turned so vibrantly blue. You can't show eyes turning vibrantly brown. Considering that those are the only two common eye colors, they were kinda limited by human biology. If his eyes had turned, say, bright red, it would look like he had been turned evil or something. Blue is the perfect middle ground between showing the surgery success and making him a superhuman freak.

There are more, but those are the two biggest ones that stood out to me. The Escapist has always been fairly anti-Halo, but this latest video shows that they are going out of their way to troll it and its fans. Halo is a fascist fantasy of a "master race" defeating the "mixed races"? Did you even play Halo, MovieBob? Did you see how underpowered the "master race" humans are portrayed? I'm pretty sure the Nazi propaganda never showed a desperate and impassioned defense of the Berlin proper against the Allies. Nobody shows the superiority of their "race" by showing them desperately fighting for their final stronghold.

At least when Yahtzee trolls, he does it in a hilarious video that is a good barometer of the actual worth of a game. This was just one giant lump of troll sh*t. The Escapist should be ashamed of letting this tripe out under their name.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Rant all you want about Halo its basic story and characters are still better than the SW eps.

Back to the rant, subtle rant is subtle. The trouble I have with it is you miss the rest of humanity when you target the Spartans, not to mention the multi gender/racial army backing up the Spartans.

The Convenient a muti racial army that runs on arcane ideals that are no longer needed(since the flood was mostly contained and all) vrs humanity and its multi racial army with quassi nazisitic super soldiers only the only thing nazisitic is their look.... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The subtle context you are trying to paint just fails you'd be better off picking on the story in halo (a shooter series meaning it has less story than most action films) but whatever, good show man have fun with it!

 

[mythil]

Perhaps people should stop moaning about how one person who's not really going to effect the game is making a little fun about Halo. Comedy, criticism and entertainment are all subjective, it's the usual story that if someone says something you don't like there will always be people will always believe that it's somehow a personal attack on them.

 

[Meggiepants]

Late to the party but Woo! More Bob!

I must have seen that Halo commercial a hundred times, and I never noticed the eye thing. That is odd. Mostly because, well, why?

 

[havass]

Mmm. Another show to look forward to on this site.
I kinda understand why Bob's the one that gets a second show. His other job only needs 2 hours for him to sit through, then the rest of the week to sit down and edit stuff.

 

[SuperNashwan]

An interesting missive, bit deeper than usual. Next time I think I'll click on it when Im feeling a little happier because right now I can feel myself going off to a dark place.

Where is my tinfoil hat?

 

[Nokterne]

He obviously has no idea what he is talking about, I could literally breakdown the flaws in every single criticism he had of the games if I had the time/cared enough.

I mean, it's almost cringe-worthy how narrow-minded he is. Do you think maybe there were OTHER reasons the Covenant were made diverse group of aliens? Like, oh I don't know, to add some variety to the fucking gameplay? So the game wouldn't become like every other shooter where you just shoot the same copy/pasted soldiers over and over again?

 

[i7omahawki]

If you truly believed in what you were saying 'variety of enemies + similarity with allies = wrong/fascist/hitler' then why not bring up Mario (a game you purport to love) up to the same critique?

Mostly because that actually wasn't the point.

As for applying this to the Mario franchise... I'm not sure what the point of that is supposed to be, but okay:

2 Italian-Americans, 2 human-looking Princesses of indeterminate nationality, a race of upright-walking humanoid mushrooms (and later humanoid beans) an island's worth of sentient Dinosaurs, whatever the Piantas are supposed to be, living stars, living clouds, a variety of talking animals, plants and fish plus a spacefaring metaphysical woman in a comet and "good" versions of almost every creature-type usually seen fighting for the other side versus... an even more varied enemy army. That seems pretty well-balanced, to me.

I thought that was the entire crux of the argument? Otherwise I'm not sure what the point of it was. It seemed mostly to be about kicking a game you don't like, for reasons that aren't particularly sound, when there are plenty of other valid points that could have been put forward that would actually address what is wrong with Halo games.

In the Halo franchise, you have Spartans, Marines, ODSTs, pilots, engineers, commanders, generals, from all over the place (a variety of different accents, skin colours, beliefs, from all sorts of different human planets.) In Halo 2, as many people have pointed out, you not only play an Elite, but the Covenant splits up, one half siding with the humans. So Elites, Hunters and Grunts join the ranks of the humans, as well as the temporary alliance with the Forerunners, brings the diversity of the UNSC to be pretty much equal to the Covenant, only they don't enslave those races.

While you have demonstrated that plenty of diverse allies/supporting characters feature in Mario, how many do you actually play? As far as I'm aware Mario and Luigi are the only central playable characters, sometimes you can play as Yoshi, Peach or maybe a mushroom. To me that seems on par with playing as Spartans, ODSTs, and Elites. Despite the difference in 'races' in Mario, there is a still a monoculture, the Mushroom Kingdom, anyone who dissents gets a firm foot on the head.

 

[constantcompile]

I thought Movie Bob's pointing out of the somewhat creepy fascist undertones in popular videogames was just that; his pointing out of the somewhat creepy fascist undertones in popular videogames?

I'm a Halo fan myself, and it's not difficult to see the connections now that they have been pointed out to me, especially since I've also dabbled with Warhammer 40k; specifically Space Marine fluff. Movie Bob made legitimate points, even if it is far easier to find flaws in something you already dislike - look at politics.

What I took away from this is simply that it's good food for thought. Take any alliance that has been brainwashed/misled/indoctrinated/enslaved by its leader into destroying you. Now consider - just consider! - that the brainwashing/misleading/indoctrinating/enslaving is actually a figment of your imagination, that in reality this was a diverse group of individuals fighting together for a common goal, and that *you*, the focus of their efforts, are actually the one who's in the wrong.

I know that isn't the story of the Halo Universe, but if you read through the Terminal Archives of Halo 3 (link: http://haloterms.bungie.org/ ), it's clear that even Bungie's own writers have dabbled with the idea that maybe, just maybe, humanity, like the Forerunners before them, are actually preventing the advent of a golden age of peace and prosperity.

Whatever your stance on Movie Bob's opinions, anyone who has read the novels should agree that humanity, in the Halo series, borrows HEAVILY from fascism, especially considering that John 117 himself was outright conscripted and placed into the military as a child.

 

[Mycreativename]

holy crap. an escapist video with 890 comments? that's nuts. Movie bob made a big splash in the pool.

 

[Mosstromo]

Great that you have more ranting grounds Mr. Movie Bob. I like your rants, and now with multi-personalities!
Super cool. And as usual with your film diatribes, I find myself agreeing with your arguments here too.

Regarding Bungie's attempts, well, from that truly clear dichotomy on feelings for Halo that exist in the world, being completely binary where you are either a 0=have no love for it, or a 1=you are its sex-servant, I do belong to the zero persuasion. I have nothing to say to defend or justify its existence. Nevertheless, I want to believe ("want" is the important word) that maybe Bungie could be doing as Paul Verhoeven did with precisely Starship Troopers, were he criticised mankind's many flaws without removing us from the protagonist's role. Unlike District 9, were we eventually move outside of our race to experience life from the "outsiders" side to fully understand it, in Starship Troopers we remain the humans all along thus providing the moral conundrums at our elation when much Bug ass is kicked while still knowing that we are the ones to blame for we are the first aggressors and invaders (or the ones on the weaker side of our own hypocritical moral spectrum). I hope, that this is Bungie's idea.

Mmmmmm... I couldn't even kid myself with what I wrote... It's probably just as you said. In the end what do I care? Halo is garbage, and is congruent that all about it is too.

 

[Faerillis]

Woot new MovieBob show!

However a note upon the concept of Halo. We all know the flaws with Reach's story, in that it is the setup for a bigger story that they all seem to be presciently aware of... But of the Halo story in general I have found a massive, fatal flaw with your argument.

The Spartans and The UNSC in their homogeneity was not powerful enough to over-throw the arcane belief systems on their own. They allied with a group of all but two Covenant races before they could do.

 

[fundayz]

ugh more moviebob? AND he starts it off by comparing Halo to Nazis? Talk about grasping at straws.

 

[TornadoADV]

I lul'd. It was a decent troll attempt by somebody who knows nothing of the HALO mythos. Like people who think that the first Starship Troopers movie (awesome parody as it was) was exactly like the novel, which is was not even remotely like.

 

[Semi-Human]

I'm sorry but this is just sad. Looks more like trolling then anything else. If you know your looking to much in to this then what are you doing making the point anyway? Maybe you should look in to that before you start projecting what ever personal dislikes and issues you have.

Yeah halo isn't perfect, its not even that great. But its certainly not as horrible as some people here think it is.

The difference if variety is simple to explain. Killing the same kind of opponent gets dull. And adding different kinds of guys on your team is pointless unless it adds to game play. In Halo the Humans vs every one else is also done to create the feeling of a underdog.

Also, like people have already pointed out, you spend part of the 2e game playing as part of the covenant. Bye the 3rd game part of the covenant and humans have teamed up. Al Bob really did here is flaunt his ignorance and take a position popular with the crowd so they could vent some nerdrage

 

[TheWwwizard]

That blue eyes bit is creepy.

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?

That's how I always thought of it, I mean if you send a game out with one enemy throughout the entire thing people complain there's only one enemy and say the game sucks. But he did say he's probably looking into it too much.