I've been living in Gangneung for a bit over 2 weeks now. My apartment is furnished and I'm getting used to live here, and so far it's quite good^^.
Warning: Geeky post ahead, and spoilers for Halo 5.
When I came here, I brought with me a new xbox one that I bought. Since I'm alone, I thought I may have a chance to play a bit, and indeed I have played. Since games are expensive, I currently only have 2 games, one that came with the console and another one. I will bring some of my old xbox 360 games with me soon, and I will be able to play those as well, but for the moment it's quite enough.
The two games are Battlefield 1 (it came with the console) and Halo 5.
I've been a fan of Halo since I discovered it, and I made other posts about it. I think it's a game that combines fun gameplay with story and ambientation (music, scenery) that makes you want to continue playing and advance. It is impressive, epic, dramatic, and also fun. When Bungie stopped developing them it was a big drama, but after playing Halo 4, I saw that the new dedicated department that has the task of continuing with the games was dedicated and similar enough to continue with the original feeling and making an interesting plot.
Halo 4 had some confusing plot elements, but I continued to like it. So, I started Halo 5 with the expectation to be similarly good. And I was not disappointed, I'm enjoying it greatly. After such a long time without playing a Halo, it was like riding a bike or driving a car...all these gestures, movements, actions and possibilities that were new but familiar, that my reflexes learned again by just remembering them. That was pretty awesome...and the music and atmosphere were still great, epic and strange, maintaining the sci-fi feeling some stories do not manage to achieve.. .
However, there were 2 tings that annoyed me a bit. First one was one new playable character, called Locke. The game changes perspective between him and Master Chief.
In a world full of bland space marines, this character manages to outbland most of them. He's not interesting, he's not dramatic, he does not transmit empathy nor makes me care for him at all. Master Chief, even being pretty bland, has a huge amount of very subtle registers, and a clear inner world that seems interesting. I did not detect any such thing in Locke. He's like your typical "I follow orders" type of military main character,
Also, you're playing in a team with another character voiced by Nathan Fillion, with his looks and part of his tone and characteristic humour. I would much rather play as him, really...no comparison whatsoever....his character is interesting. The one you play, not really.
The second thing is that in this game Cortana is labelled and acts as the bad guy (or girl, or AI). First of all, the most interesting thing in all Halos is Cortana, period. Other characters just do not reach her level at all. Her sarcasm, funny comments, usefulness, depth, etc....cannot really compare with the others. Second, her turning evil is just managing to get to immortality (she was created with an arbitrarily short expiration date) and trying to establish some system to stop people form killing each other constantly. In a world where 2 games ago several species where about to be wiped out because of conflict and war, that seems quite a sensible move, really. I don't see why this is supposed to be bad...Sure, there's the eternal discussion about dictatorships and liberties and all that....but, again, we're taking about a world setting where intergalactic wars are glassing planets and entire colonies get exterminated....and where the guys that are saying "this is bad, she cannot have this control" are the ones that are sent by their bosses and superiors to kill and conquer without much question...hell, the "main character" seems to be a guy that was sent in purely assassination missions ....I mean, the feeling I get is that if it was the human species achieving this power, the game would paint it positively (take Mass Effect's example).
This made me think that I'm a little tired about stories where the omniscient creature is labelled evil when they try to tell humans to stop killing each other or else...plenty of times we get situations where the humans are being forced to be pacific, and this is presented as reducing our liberties....I believe here there's heavy influence from USA's second amendment craziness and the fact that plenty of these stories are made by people in the USA or based in USA's movies and so on... in general, I have repeated this before, but we need to stop focusing on humans when telling sci-fi or fantasy stories....we tend to put the humans as the main characters, and this is the same as putting male bland military protagonists...I don't know at which point someone decided that male guys are the main market for all this fiction and they cannot relate to people unless they're also male and manly....and human, when we add fantasy to the plot...and we need to get rid of this preconceptions.
Stories need to be weirder, more open, more diverse, and take risks, take new stances and original paths. For example, whatever happens in Halo 6, I would love for Cortana to win, and to see that the new results was actually pretty nice. This would be a nice plot twist, something out of the norm, and something to remove humans from the protagonist and ruler point of a sci-fi story with so much more potential than what stupid military space marines offer...
Warning: Geeky post ahead, and spoilers for Halo 5.
When I came here, I brought with me a new xbox one that I bought. Since I'm alone, I thought I may have a chance to play a bit, and indeed I have played. Since games are expensive, I currently only have 2 games, one that came with the console and another one. I will bring some of my old xbox 360 games with me soon, and I will be able to play those as well, but for the moment it's quite enough.
The two games are Battlefield 1 (it came with the console) and Halo 5.
I've been a fan of Halo since I discovered it, and I made other posts about it. I think it's a game that combines fun gameplay with story and ambientation (music, scenery) that makes you want to continue playing and advance. It is impressive, epic, dramatic, and also fun. When Bungie stopped developing them it was a big drama, but after playing Halo 4, I saw that the new dedicated department that has the task of continuing with the games was dedicated and similar enough to continue with the original feeling and making an interesting plot.
Halo 4 had some confusing plot elements, but I continued to like it. So, I started Halo 5 with the expectation to be similarly good. And I was not disappointed, I'm enjoying it greatly. After such a long time without playing a Halo, it was like riding a bike or driving a car...all these gestures, movements, actions and possibilities that were new but familiar, that my reflexes learned again by just remembering them. That was pretty awesome...and the music and atmosphere were still great, epic and strange, maintaining the sci-fi feeling some stories do not manage to achieve.. .
However, there were 2 tings that annoyed me a bit. First one was one new playable character, called Locke. The game changes perspective between him and Master Chief.
In a world full of bland space marines, this character manages to outbland most of them. He's not interesting, he's not dramatic, he does not transmit empathy nor makes me care for him at all. Master Chief, even being pretty bland, has a huge amount of very subtle registers, and a clear inner world that seems interesting. I did not detect any such thing in Locke. He's like your typical "I follow orders" type of military main character,
Also, you're playing in a team with another character voiced by Nathan Fillion, with his looks and part of his tone and characteristic humour. I would much rather play as him, really...no comparison whatsoever....his character is interesting. The one you play, not really.
The second thing is that in this game Cortana is labelled and acts as the bad guy (or girl, or AI). First of all, the most interesting thing in all Halos is Cortana, period. Other characters just do not reach her level at all. Her sarcasm, funny comments, usefulness, depth, etc....cannot really compare with the others. Second, her turning evil is just managing to get to immortality (she was created with an arbitrarily short expiration date) and trying to establish some system to stop people form killing each other constantly. In a world where 2 games ago several species where about to be wiped out because of conflict and war, that seems quite a sensible move, really. I don't see why this is supposed to be bad...Sure, there's the eternal discussion about dictatorships and liberties and all that....but, again, we're taking about a world setting where intergalactic wars are glassing planets and entire colonies get exterminated....and where the guys that are saying "this is bad, she cannot have this control" are the ones that are sent by their bosses and superiors to kill and conquer without much question...hell, the "main character" seems to be a guy that was sent in purely assassination missions ....I mean, the feeling I get is that if it was the human species achieving this power, the game would paint it positively (take Mass Effect's example).
This made me think that I'm a little tired about stories where the omniscient creature is labelled evil when they try to tell humans to stop killing each other or else...plenty of times we get situations where the humans are being forced to be pacific, and this is presented as reducing our liberties....I believe here there's heavy influence from USA's second amendment craziness and the fact that plenty of these stories are made by people in the USA or based in USA's movies and so on... in general, I have repeated this before, but we need to stop focusing on humans when telling sci-fi or fantasy stories....we tend to put the humans as the main characters, and this is the same as putting male bland military protagonists...I don't know at which point someone decided that male guys are the main market for all this fiction and they cannot relate to people unless they're also male and manly....and human, when we add fantasy to the plot...and we need to get rid of this preconceptions.
Stories need to be weirder, more open, more diverse, and take risks, take new stances and original paths. For example, whatever happens in Halo 6, I would love for Cortana to win, and to see that the new results was actually pretty nice. This would be a nice plot twist, something out of the norm, and something to remove humans from the protagonist and ruler point of a sci-fi story with so much more potential than what stupid military space marines offer...
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