Tuesday, April 10, 2007
36 more days
The worst part is, I have been lying to myself. For all my posturing, for all my forced separation from the drooling masses, I am still just another weak man. Try as I might, I cannot run away from this ever stalking presence. I have been flooding the internet with my slanted view of gaming's undeniable truth for far too long. As I stand on my tiptoes, listening for a whisper about the next Banjo and Mario games, or another peak at the Fable'd dog, I am clearly avoiding the Blue Whale of Happiness right in front of my face. Try as I might to avoid certain realities, it has come to my attention earlier today, in brutal terms even I could not avoid, that Halo 3 is unquestionably the one game I want to play right now more than any other title. The countdown has begun. Only 864 more hours until my first real taste of Halo 3 is served.
In some ridiculous circles, I have been treated as a lightweight, pencil pushing, dine with the fishies member of the Halo Brigade. I have not been invited to stay in the Grand Fandom nor has my love of the franchise ever reached fanatical levels. I was considered a guy who may have owned and played through the first two Halo games, but was not involved enough to speak about the Battle Rifle in polite company. I will admit to a few of these claims. My nose was buried in the likes of Perfect Dark Initial Vector instead of Halo: The Fall of Reach. I do not know a thing about the Halo mythology, who Cortana is and why the Flood seems to be made of something other than water. And I still don't understand why anyone would willingly choose to sit in the passenger seat of the Warthog. While my lack of certain aspects of Halo may prevent me from working for Bungie or composing a Halo Opera, I think my insatiable appetite for the game itself is strong enough to convince anyone but the blindest loyalist that I am a Halo Fan. I belong on the front lines, driving my own Warthog, with everyone else who chooses this path.
The Halo Beta is coming out on May 16th and will dominate the video game landscape until it is unceremoniously pulled on June 6th. With two fell swoops, Bungie has grabbed the retinas of every blue blooded gamer today and forced them to pay attention to their future. The release date for the Halo 3 Beta is already strong enough to warrant a news story from every video game website on the internet. It is on that day that developers the world over will see how flawed their own projects are. It is on that day that people will remember why they bought their X360 in the first place. It is on that day that Resistance and Gears of War will be forgotten. Every other FPS will seem stale and lifeless after tasting a pre-release version of Halo 3. They will seem inadequate and lacking. What tasted like sweet Lemon Meringue mere hours before will turn into a bucket of bum urine. Worthless and disgusting. Possibly containing diseases. The aura of Halo is so powerful it automatically takes two points off the score of every game within ten feet of it.
The news of the Beta was certainly important. It gave the timeline other developers have to live by now and a calender gamers should strictly follow. But what is even more exciting, what forced me to face the reality of my ridiculous Halo obsession, was the Video Documentary. Their third entry in this epic series, today's VidDoc documented the biggest time waster in the history of mankind: Halo 3's multiplayer mode. Not even World of Warcraft will be able to rival this masterpiece. Even with extremely early graphics, the VidDoc reaffirmed why Halo is the best shooter franchise of all time. I couldn't help but smile when brief flashes of new footage from the screen. I'm not good enough to start plotting strategies through these new levels, but I did imagine how much fun it would be to ride a Warthog recklessly over hills and through gates. I laughed during their demonstration of the in game video recorder. I imagined for a brief moment how fun it would be to send Nick a flood of videos of his death at my hands... only to remember that Nick is my superior in all things Halo. So I imagined making friends with a small child so I could spam his inbox with lasting mementos of his embarrassingly inept play.
I am literally shaking with anticipation for this game. I am ready to download those new Halo 2 maps one week from today. I am ready to once again lose myself in Ghosts and SMGs. I'll never admit that Halo is my favorite franchise, but I can unequivocally say it it my most wanted game right now. This wait will be painful.
In some ridiculous circles, I have been treated as a lightweight, pencil pushing, dine with the fishies member of the Halo Brigade. I have not been invited to stay in the Grand Fandom nor has my love of the franchise ever reached fanatical levels. I was considered a guy who may have owned and played through the first two Halo games, but was not involved enough to speak about the Battle Rifle in polite company. I will admit to a few of these claims. My nose was buried in the likes of Perfect Dark Initial Vector instead of Halo: The Fall of Reach. I do not know a thing about the Halo mythology, who Cortana is and why the Flood seems to be made of something other than water. And I still don't understand why anyone would willingly choose to sit in the passenger seat of the Warthog. While my lack of certain aspects of Halo may prevent me from working for Bungie or composing a Halo Opera, I think my insatiable appetite for the game itself is strong enough to convince anyone but the blindest loyalist that I am a Halo Fan. I belong on the front lines, driving my own Warthog, with everyone else who chooses this path.
The Halo Beta is coming out on May 16th and will dominate the video game landscape until it is unceremoniously pulled on June 6th. With two fell swoops, Bungie has grabbed the retinas of every blue blooded gamer today and forced them to pay attention to their future. The release date for the Halo 3 Beta is already strong enough to warrant a news story from every video game website on the internet. It is on that day that developers the world over will see how flawed their own projects are. It is on that day that people will remember why they bought their X360 in the first place. It is on that day that Resistance and Gears of War will be forgotten. Every other FPS will seem stale and lifeless after tasting a pre-release version of Halo 3. They will seem inadequate and lacking. What tasted like sweet Lemon Meringue mere hours before will turn into a bucket of bum urine. Worthless and disgusting. Possibly containing diseases. The aura of Halo is so powerful it automatically takes two points off the score of every game within ten feet of it.
The news of the Beta was certainly important. It gave the timeline other developers have to live by now and a calender gamers should strictly follow. But what is even more exciting, what forced me to face the reality of my ridiculous Halo obsession, was the Video Documentary. Their third entry in this epic series, today's VidDoc documented the biggest time waster in the history of mankind: Halo 3's multiplayer mode. Not even World of Warcraft will be able to rival this masterpiece. Even with extremely early graphics, the VidDoc reaffirmed why Halo is the best shooter franchise of all time. I couldn't help but smile when brief flashes of new footage from the screen. I'm not good enough to start plotting strategies through these new levels, but I did imagine how much fun it would be to ride a Warthog recklessly over hills and through gates. I laughed during their demonstration of the in game video recorder. I imagined for a brief moment how fun it would be to send Nick a flood of videos of his death at my hands... only to remember that Nick is my superior in all things Halo. So I imagined making friends with a small child so I could spam his inbox with lasting mementos of his embarrassingly inept play.
I am literally shaking with anticipation for this game. I am ready to download those new Halo 2 maps one week from today. I am ready to once again lose myself in Ghosts and SMGs. I'll never admit that Halo is my favorite franchise, but I can unequivocally say it it my most wanted game right now. This wait will be painful.
// posted by Tom @ 10:54 AM 
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