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

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

[Tempest]

Bootlegging it is for low-lives pay for the game it's good so is the story line. This whole posturing on some terrestrial political definition of Halo2 sounds like pure BS.

[Ironfocus]

So should we surrender immediately when the aliens land, and smoke the peace pipe or are we allowed to shoot back?

[RtWngr]

Those who play this game and are young enough to be influenced don't vote.
The rest are smart enough to know what's what.

[macbee]

"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."

Or I could look at it as a video game ("or a hat, or a brooch, a pterodactyl..." - Johnny in Airplane) and leave it at that. Given what's happened over the past few weeks and what's going down even as we discuss this, real events on the ground carry far more weight and meaning than the storyline in some FPS from Mr. Softee.

[martin_fierro]

Gamer PING

[Felis_irritable]

And I thought it meant high altitude low opening...boy am I lost.

[Omedalus]

"If we boycotterd every last little thing that was anti-Bush or anti-GOP, we'd have virtually nothing to do but spend all day on FR."

Isn't that sort of the point...? :)

[CT CONSERVATIVE]

Good point..I just think its a poor biz decision

[CyberCowboy777]

As a Halo player looking forward to Halo 2 I think this guy is nuts.

Not sure how they are going to change the story around so as the Halo is good (maybe we should try to understand the Flood, they are just not understood).

But whatever the story.... it is the game play any of us care about.

[whoozit]

LOL.. no kid is going to get anything more from this game and shooting stuff. So what if the programmers have a different intent? Bruce Springsteen, Michael Moore, etc had different intent as well. It backfired.

Give it up and play the freakin' game.

[silent_jonny]

Off topic, but same vein: I rented Ace Combat 5 over the weekend and LOVED it! But there's an anti-war theme that runs through the game that threatened to spoil my fun. Why include all this Alan Alda hand-wringing when the point of the game is to kill the enemy blow sh#t up?

[Ain Soph Aur]

As a hardcore Halo fan, I feel that I have to defend it somewhat. For one thing, Joe Staten wasn't necessarily saying it is a condemnation of the Bush administration, but instead could have been saying that it will be interpreted that way. Halo was always a story of humanity being attacked by a conglomerate of religiously zealous races, who have slaughtered humankind from the first encounter. The reason that Bungie expanded the story to include the Covenant side was because they want to tell an epic story, not make a political statement, which from everything I've read about them would be completely out of character. They just make games, and Halo was in development for years before Microsoft bought Bungie, which they only did so that they could have Halo for the Xbox. Halo 2 was planned all along, and the story was laid out long before we went to Iraq. The game wasn't written specifically as a condemnation, it's just that Staten admitted that it could be construed as such.

[Se7eN]

Halo sucks. I get my CTF on in Tribes 2, a real mans game where shooting punks moving at 300kph is the leetness.

[RogueIsland]

Halo was supposed to be an extension of the Marathon franchise with the same amount of depth in it's storyline. But when Bungie was MSed that all was terminated. Everyone knew that Halo, Myth, Oni, and Marathon would all become cr@pt@stic.

If you listen carefully to Guilty Spark's dialogue, you'll find there are some interesting mysteries under the surface.

[Omedalus]

"But the covenant were already seeking to destroy human existance long before Halo the ring planet was destroyed."

Exactly! And the threat presented by The Flood in Halo 1 was clear, imminent, and direct.

Perhaps it IS allegorical to Islam. After all, Bin Laden was screaming about our humiliation of Hussein as one justification for the attack on the WTC. It was only AFTER that attack that we REALLY humiliated him. :)

[Chad Fairbanks]

I tend to be one of the ones here that is pretty outspoken. That, and my "Get Out The Gloat" campaign of the last week has been fun ;0)

[humblegunner]

Heinlein meets Ringworld as told by Michael Moore???

[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

Like any kid is going to pause for a few seconds and consider the 'human' nature of the Alien pounding away at him.

As a side note, have any of you guys watched the Halo: Red vs. Blue series???

If you spent any time playing in Halo's Blood Gulch you will think this is damn funny stuff.

I always thought it was ironic considering the red versus blue states election rhetoric we just went through

www.redvsblue.com

[Chad Fairbanks]

No kidding. Beside, Joe Staten is just a "Cinematics Director" anyways. Who cares what he has to say?