Ok, I'll admit it. I love Halo. Bungie's Halo: Combat Evolved was the first FPS I really ever sank my teeth into (yes, I know, "babby's first FPS," etc.; blame my parents and their rules on video game violence). To this day, I still claim that my life simple would not have been the same without Halo. The friends I've made, the rivals I've gained, and the experiences I had in my teenage years often could be traced back to me sitting slack-jawed in awe during the summer of 2002 as I fought my way through the game's titular ring world.
While the gameplay was nothing short of superb - Goldeneye 64 had created a working formula for console FPS games that Halo: CE perfected - my favorite part of the series was its thoroughly well-defined lore, especially in the novels such as Eric Nylund's superb Halo: The Fall of Reach (said novel was passed around so often in my circle of middle school friends that the binding was nearly destroyed). The Covenant seemed vast and truly alien, the Forerunners were shrouded in mystery, the Flood seemed unbeatable and terrifying, and the UNSC, the military arm of humanity, was written as a capable and strategically sound fighting force that was only being pushed back through attrition and due to a technological gap with the Covenant that was bordering on the extreme. Of the major players in the universe, the UNSC was always my favorite.
Oddly enough, it was never the SPARTANs that made me like the UNSC. Rather, it was their portrayal as a whole - the UNSC was structured like a modern military (Marines, Army, Navy), had plausible future technology at its disposal (helloooooo railguns!), and perhaps best of all, was imperfect but still highly competent. Internal conflicts would often pit parts of the UNSC against one another such as Dr. Catherine Halsey and Col. James Ackerson, and the UNSC would often find itself fighting human insurrectionists on their own colonies over political differences. Nonetheless, humanity was shown to be a tenacious and capable opponent. To me, this alone was worth nothing in comparison to what little sci-fi games I had played at the time, where humanity was often seen as hopelessly outclassed by alien invaders. Halo's UNSC represented a plausible, logical evolution for humanity's military in an age of space exploration. It was by no means perfect, but still effective and highly professional.
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| Look at these badasses. State of the badass art. |
