Microsoft video game "a damning condemnation of the Bush Administration"

Republican Radio ^ | November 8, 2004 | Republican Radio™

[longtermmemmory]

there should be an intergalactic test before violence can be allowed.(/s)

[billakay]

$2000.00 is probably the maximum contribution directly to GWB.

Anything else would have to go through PACs or 527s.

[longtermmemmory]

lazy americans.

drive through banks.
drive through pharmacy
drive through food
drive by shooting.

too lazy to stand up.

(/s)

[Republican Radio™]

Ask your teenage son if, based on what he knows from his friends, the movies and TV shows he watches, and the games he plays if the following is true (NOT BASED ON WHAT YOUR TEENAGER KNOWS FROM YOU THE PARENT--FROM WHAT YOUR TEENAGER DOES WHEN HE IS WITH THE PEOPLE HE SPENDS MOST OF HIS TIME WITH ON A DAILY BASIS):

1) Corporations care nothing about people and only about profit

2) No matter what, people cannot be "evil"--it's just a matter of perspective

3) Violence is never the solution

Answer these questions truthfully and you'll find the importance of this post. Please don't fool yourself by saying your kid spends more time with you than with his friends or alone... I was a teenager once and know that's a lie.

[Parthalan]

And the Sheeple said,

Baaaaaahhhh, Shame on Microsoft for their bad behavior. Baaaaahhhh, I don't want to check out the facts and see if what is being said is true or not. Baaaahhhh, I just want to believe the negative and cry Shame, Shame."

[Melas]

It's been done before. Countless RTS games had the player play both sides before completing the game. Some, like Starcraft had the player play 3 or more sides, each one with a different perspective of a conflict.

[Ichneumon]

or would one have to be a member of the looney left to possibly arrive this interpretation?

That's the impression I get. It sounds as if the author expects players to reject the War on Terror just because they play a game that has as part of the plot, "not all foreigners are bad and should be killed, m'kay?".

It doesn't sound as if there's some sort of explicit anti-Bush mesage in the game.

[Starter]

Minor problem. He's not the creator of Halo. He's just one of the grunts on the project. It's like saying that you won't shop at a store because the accountant is a jerk.

[CyberCowboy777]

Halo is a superweapon designed both to study the Flood and to destroy any 'food' in the Galaxy, to prevent it from spreading.

Guilty Spark: "This installation's blast has a maximum radius of 25,000 lightyears. But once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of sentient life. Or at least any of sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood."

[Republican Radio™]

Wanted to follow up and say whom ever[sic] wrote the article is plain wrong about the HALO story line.

To reiterate the facts:

• Joe Staten, a Microsoft employee and writer of Halo and Halo 2, told interviewer Geoff Keighley in the November 5, 2004 issue of Entertainment Weekly that "You could look at [the Halo 2 storyline] as a damning condemnation of the Bush Administration’s adventure in the Middle East"
• Unlike in the first game where Halo was a galaxy-destroying superweapon, in Halo 2 we are now told that Halos (yes, there are now multiple Halos in the galaxy) are supposed to be (according to Staten in the same Entertainment Weekly article) "utopias, safe havens in a universe filled with terror"

If you are a fan of the original game, the writer of the sequel (who also wrote the original) is saying: "Forget what you know in Halo, the real story is my thinly veiled slap at Republicans."

[agere_contra]

In Halo 2 Barbara Streisand turns up as the end-of-level baddie.

[lsee]

Minor problem. He's not the creator of Halo. He's just one of the grunts on the project. .

If that's the case, do you think if the company doesn't respond to his declarations about this game that they will have essentially endorsed this grunt's views?

[Dont Mention the War]

For some ridiculous reason, I think the political undertones may be missed by the players.

Joe Staten: "[Kids] could look at it as a damning condemnation of the Bush Administration’s adventure in the Middle East."

Kids: "Wow, that blowed up REAL good!"

[sevry]

"You could look at it," Staten says of his Halo 2 storyline "as a damning condemnation of the Bush Administration’s adventure in the Middle East." Microsoft has taken a straightforward action game classic in the original Halo and decided to make a political statement with Halo 2.

It begs the question: Why would a gamer or the parent of a gamer pay $50 to play a game that will force the player to shoot hundreds of "bad aliens" for hours to advance in the game and then at the end of it admonish the player for shooting the bad aliens? "These aliens weren’t really ‘bad’—they were just misunderstood and we awful human beings had no business ever leaving our little corner of the universe.

It still sounds as if Micro$oft has to provide the narrative for this, to bring out the Kerry/Moore/bin Laden complaint about enforcing the UN resolutions.

It is surprising that guy who made billions in the US would support this. One could expect this of guilty trust-fund babies or actors looking to 'be relevant'. But Gates really did make the money by selling product. Maybe he made way too much, too easily. Or may he doesn't know about this game, and how it's being promoted.

[CyberCowboy777]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/halo_pr.html

Joe Staten
Cinematics Director

"This is bull****!" barks Staten as he twitches in his chair. He isn't complaining about a bug in the code, he's reciting one of the 17,000 lines of dialog he wrote for Halo 2. (The script is 10 times longer than the first game's.) This particular outburst comes when a player's rocket launcher gets stolen by another player, who swaps it for a far wimpier weapon - a stunt you couldn't pull off in the original game.

Staten has a flair for the dramatic. He majored in theater and briefly did improv after college. But he also knows a thing or two about commando behavior. He got a master's in military history at the University of Chicago and signed on for a two-year recruitment program with the CIA. Staten mined this experience to add secret-agent-ese and authentic spook tactics to the game. As for his flirtation with the government underworld, it didn't last. "The CIA didn't think I was enough of a son of a *****," he says.

[mommadooo3]

Halo 2, according to Staten, will show the story from "both the humans and aliens" and makes militant Earthlings into the imperialist bad guys against the religious Covenant aliens who consider Halo as a religous relic. "You could look at it," Staten says of his Halo 2 storyline "as a damning condemnation of the Bush Administration’s adventure in the Middle East."

Sure...yeah... uh huh.
Listen, the reporter who has an OBVIOUS bias, found someone connected to the game, who ALSO has an obvious bias.

Now, if this reporter was to be a fair and UN-biased reporter, then WHY did he NOT have an opposing view regarding this game??? WHY did he present one 'game developer's' opinion. Is he insinuating that there is only ONE 'game developer'? Or MAYBE he is trying to act like there is only ONE developer who was 'important'?

A person can take ANY video game and put an 'anti-Bush/anti-American' theory on it. And the reverse is also true. It all depends on what the mindset is.

I think the MOST interesting question about this guy/Halo2/ and 'the message' is....how LONG will he continue to be employed by Microsoft, now that he has taken this slam stand?

[papertyger]

If your kid is going to a Halo 2 release party tonight at midnight, be aware that your kid is going to a left-wing political rally...

Give me a frickin' break. Didn't you learn anything from backward masking, smurf and Harry Potter witchcraft, masters of the universe apostasy, what "kiss" stands for, and the hundred other urban legends propagated through pop culture?

The people you are trying to "expose" are laughing at you.

[Republican Radio™]

"The people you are trying to 'expose' are laughing at you." Don't you know it's only a movie/song/game--kids aren't influenced by entertainment at all!

Gee, you're right! I'm all better now. Hey, by the way; there's a guy named Michael Moore that agrees with you and has an enteraining movie he'd like you to buy on DVD for $15. He's also got a movie coming out soon he'd like you to pay $10 to see in the movie theater.

[CyberCowboy777]

There is a huge difference between a game that the script writer says can be manipulated to look anti-Bush and Moores blatant and sole purpose in F/911.