Wednesday, September 26, 2007

In Which Rickey Explains Why You Should Be Playing Halo

Let’s talk about this newfangled Halo thing that has consumed Rickey’s life. We’ll skip over the single player campaign portion of the game because that’s really just your run of the mill space opera, complete with bombastic music, cheesy dialogue, and an unnecessarily convoluted plot. Like a Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay production, it’s a guilty pleasure for those willing to check their intelligence at the door. But let us skip ahead to the meat of the game: the sublime multiplayer experience. Perhaps sublime isn’t the best word to describe it, but it’s better than Rickey’s original choice, “awesomely awesome.”

Rickey will explain the basic premise of the online experience in layman’s terms: You are in the future. You are provided with a variety of weapons and vehicles. Shit gets blown the fuck up. You get blown the fuck up. Things that get blown the fuck up are once again blown the fuck up. Wash, rinse, repeat. Granted, it’s not the most original game on the market, but we guarantee that playing it will make you grin. It executes everything with such a level of pizzazz that you’ll find yourself totally willing to forgive it’s derivativeness.

How much pizzazz you ask? Well the physics that govern the world you roam around are fantastic and the graphics are also top notch, but it’s the freedom you’re given that is the game’s best attribute.


Look at the picture above—it looks like a promotional poster, right? Wrong. That’s Rickey (the gigantic cod piece is a dead giveaway) two nights ago flying through the air thanks to the fiery mayhem transpiring behind him. The explosion in the background is thanks to some misbegotten madman who thought it would be cute to toss a grenade in the general direction of a warthog (Bungie, the game’s creator, likes to name their vehicles after surly animals for some reason). Add some doves to that picture and you’ve got yourself a John Woo movie. With angry robots.

How is this possible? Well, in one of the best gimmicks ever dreamed up, the game’s designers allow the user to watch videos of their previous matches from a free floating third person perspective and take high resolution screen grabs of all the action. Because really, the only thing better than bragging to your significant other what you just did to some poor fool online is actually showing them what you just did to some poor fool online. In super slow motion if you so desire. Besides, your girlfriend really didn’t want to watch “So You Think You Can Dance” last night anyway. That’s what Halo and/or your television’s parental controls are for.



And if the standard multiplayer fare of team deathmatch, capture the flag, and so on don’t catch your interest, other possibilities await. Let’s say you’re like Rickey and are feeling creative. So what do you do? You sculpt a map that allows you to drive a mongoose (that’s an ATV in the Halo universe) over a huge chasm while exploding barrels rain down from the heavens. Refer to the picture above for a glimpse of what Rickey was busy doing last night. Damn Rickey looks good in green. Suddenly, that annoying techie buzz phrase “user created content” sounds like an awful lot of fun, right? Given proper time and determination, Rickey could stage a production of “Madame Bovary” set in the Halo universe. Starring angry robots.

Just in case all those five word declarative sentences we used were unclear to you: this game is worth your money. Rickey plans on posting pictures of his online exploits (complete with fireballs!) until each and every one of his readers breaks down and buys an Xbox and a copy of Halo 3. And for those wondering, Rickey trimmed back his beard a little and has been smoke-free for a week now. So we’ve got that going for us too.

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4 comments:

Ryan said...

Bill Gates slow claps this post.

But yeah, no way I don't own a 360 by year's end.

Rickey said...

Bill gates claps for no man damnit.

AmyV said...

Bill Gates has the clap?

Oh, you know this is exactly how Internet rumors get started.

TheJackSack said...

I was in Best Buy last night and I saw the Halo 3 X-Box combo and I do admit, my trigger-finger itched. But I held back...