Blog # 11 Media Mid-term.

Brandon Millers
ENG 101
10/31/10
Blog # 11
mid term

To call the Halo franchise a game is doing it a grave injustice. It is not just a game, it is a phenomena. One that has reached out to every corner of the world. Even if you hate the game, there is just no denying the fact it has had a huge impact on games, the gaming industry, and gamers all over the world. It has spawned six games, an anime series, several books, live action commercials, machinama, comics and graphic novels, tournaments, and a number of other merchandise. It has clearly evolved above the title of a game.
Bungie game studios started out with one guy making games in his basement in collage. That guy___ started out by creating games for the MAC. His first game was a Pong clone he called Gnop. (Pong spelled backwards.) Soon other students heard and played his game and wanted to join in, and with that Bungie slowly picked up steam. As time went on, the team picked up more members and got started on their next project. Pathways, a game also for the MAC, was also a first person shooter/RPG (Role playing game.) It was the first serious title the team worked on and the first time doing a first person shooter. The game was meet with great reviews and was a hit. It received a few awards such as MAC world game of the year. People loved it for the game play and plot. With the money earned from the game, the team was finally able to get out of the basement and into buying their first real office for business.
Not letting the money, success, or fame get to their heads the team got started on their next big projects, and probably the biggest step foreword to making Halo. The next game they created, was also for the MAC. The game was a massive hit getting many awards and lots of money. It still has a large fan base even to this day. The game was a hit for its graphics and game play, but what really made it huge was two major factors.
One was that it a a very good plot and story. Unlike many first person shooters that came before it, Marathon didn't just feature some random nobody the player had no attachment to, nor did it just give a gun and a wave and tell you “Have fun killing these guys for whatever reason.” Marathon had a nice plot and story with some interesting twists. It showed that games could be more than just mindless fun, or have violence for violence's sake. It really draw the player in. And even though some argue that the plot may not be the best, it did lay the foundation for other games soon to come such as Half-Life, and Dues Ex, two other wildly popular first person shooter titles that are will known for their plot and game play.
The other major turning point was the games online play, or network play. Online play is basically just like the internet. Instead of having to be right next two your friend in order to play with them, you connected with them by opening a 'room' and having them join you and play form across the street, the state or the country. While Marathon was not the first game to feature online play to the people, it was one of the first, FPS (First person shooter) to do so. But it was not famous for being the first, it was famous for being really fun and addictive. It was a very fun and easy game to pick up and play, and with the ability to play with any one in the country, ( World wide play had not yet been introduced.) It guaranteed that some one some where would be playing, even in the wee hours of the morning.
Finally in 2001, Bungie released their master piece to the world. Halo combat evolved was released for the original Xbox to a crowed of eager fans. With so much hype built up on it everyone was wondering if it would deliver. It did. The game had it all, vehicles cool weapons, aliens, both fully functional indoor and outdoor combat, stunning graphics, great characters and voice overs, and a huge and compelling, griping story that continues to this day. Fans and critics ate it up and Halo soon received many awards including the game of the year award from the official Xbox magazine. It got to the point where people where buying an Xbox, just so they could get and play Halo. One common thing to do was that people would pack up their Xboxs drive down to their friends houses and and play there with up to 16 other people.
The game helped to change gears in the gaming world. For a long time, computer games where looked to as being the dominant gaming device. Many did not believe that a counsel game could ever preform on the same level of the PC or Mac, especially when it came to first person shooters. . But when Halo came out it really changed peoples opinions. It preformed great with very few load times between game play which some games on the computer could not boast. It also inspired games that came after it, to have many different types of both land and air.
But these changes were not the only things that helped change the video game market. Halo changed a lot for the games not only first person shooters but really all games. For example, before Halo, first person shooters would allow the player to carry all the weapons of the game all at the same time. Halo limited the amount to any two weapons, by doing this, it increased difficulty and forced the player to come up with new strategies and ways to defeat the enemy. Many games started to do this such as Resistance 2, the Call of duty series, The Gears of War series and many others. One very famous thing they changed was the addition of regenerating shields. When the character took to much damage before, they would have to find a health pack to stay in the game. What Halo did to change this now when the player took to much damage they could seek cover away from the enemy and then their shields would charge on their own. Many, many games have since followed this example in not only first person shooters but other ganeras as well. Such examples included all the games previously mentioned as well games like Mirror's edge, Just Cause, Infamous, Uncharted, and a whole slew of over games. Halo helped change a lot in the gaming community.
But it did not stop there. With the rise of its popularity, many people would become so good that they started barging about it. Rather than let this go unchallenged, a man named Sundance DiGovanni decided to take it to the next level. He created MLG or Major League Gaming. It was to be a tournament for people around the country and even the world to show the world they could walk the walk and talk the talk. There had been a few gaming tournaments in the past but they were only for PC and MAC gaming, MLG was the first gaming tournament for the console and only console games. At first the only game for awhile was Halo but as the tournament grew so did the number of games, but even after eight years since its creation, Halo still remains to be the main game of choice and a good thing to. At first when the tournament was looked at then and many thought it was a joke, some thought it would only last one tournament. But as they kept going and using Halo as their main game, it grew in size and followers. Soon they where given sponsors and able to give out prizes such as up two $250,000 in cold hard cash. (And here you taught that gaming would get you nowhere in life.)
But probably one of Halos greatest achievements, was one that the creators never planed for or had any thing to do with. Halo created machinama. Machinama is a compound word of machine and cinema. That is to say a movie or film that is created inside of a video game. It is done by using special capture cards in a computer that hook up to a video game console (assuming it has output capability's.) Then taking a cord and plugging it up to the T.V. By doing this, you are able to record what is being done on the T.V. And then put it on your computer. Then, using various software on the computer, you can edit it to your liking, add music and sound. Write your own story's and characters, or change something in the original game, and then upload it to the internet for all to see.
The first machinama was created using Halo. It's called Red vs Blue the blood Gulch Chronicles and was created by Rooster teeth. The team again started out with two guys in a small room with an idea. What would video games be like if you played them... while drunk! It was, of course, a strange idea, but one that led on to something bigger. The site surprisingly was a bigger hit then they thought. It featured comical videos of guys playing games while drunk laughing and having a good time. But eventually the site came under fire with lawsuits and was eventually shutdown. Then a representative from Computer Gaming World, came up to the team and asked them if they could use one of the their videos for a demo CD showcasing some of their games. The rooster teeth team agreed to this, but decided instead of showing them one of their old videos they would come up with something new while using Halo. They rolled a couple of ideas around in their heads, first coming up with a cop based theam but decided against it. Then they came up with a hunting show and soup opera but those two where scraped. Finally after much thought, they decided on a war based comedy.
And thus Red VS. Blue was born. The team at first thought it would not catch on but it did. Red vs. Blue is one the longest running and well known machinama. Spawning over nine seasons and continues on to this day after seven years and over nine seasons. It is also one of the only other machinama that was given permission from the owners of the game to make and sale DVD's, T-shirts, comics and other merchandise, So far there is no other machinama series that is allowed to do this due to licensing issues.
Although it was the first, Red vs. Blue was not the last machinama series. Many more inspiring art and film directors wanting to get a start turned to making machinama. Because it was easy and cheap to do, many people started to turn to it to show others their talent. It soon grew to a point to were a web site was soon created, simply known as Machinama.com. There, just about anyone could upload their videos and clips of any kind of machinama from any game for all to see all under one roof.
With the creation of Youtube.com, it was a no brainier for the the website to move into a new more popular home. It proved to be a very smart decision as the machinama youtube page turned in to a massive hit. It is the third most popular channel on youtube with over, 61,000,000 channel views, 1.400,000 subscribers, 11,800 videos, and over 1,500,000,000 video views. Yes that is over one billion views billion with a B.
With its incredible successes they decided to make a few spin off channels on youtube including machinama re-spawn an area where anyone can upload their game play moves and strategy, and also machinama realm, machinama trailer vault, and machinama sports. It was clear that machinama was growing in popularity and showed no real signs of slowing down. So much so that Gamestop, the largest game selling company in America, stared using it to promote games they were selling and special deals. It just keeps growing.
Bungie saw what was happening the machinama scene and noticed an interesting trend, most of the time a machinama was made, it was ether using Halo one or Halo two, They figured that this was because it was easy do due this with and the fact that since you never saw the character it was easy to pretend it was someone else. So for the next game they did something that would change both the video game world and machinama world all in one go. For Halo three, decided to do two things never fully realized in a console game, but would continue to be done even to this day. The first was a theater mode. It was a chance view and save a game a player did and watch it again when ever they felt like it. The player could also make small clips of a certain part of the game, take a picture of a epic moment, see what others were doing in the game, and even upload it for other people in the game. While this was essentially nothing new for the computer gamer, it was huge and never before done on a weaker console game. But not only was it on a console it did it even better than most computer games. The seconded big thing they did was introduce forge. A mode where a player could change rearrange and edit an already existing map and level on te game to his or her liking. Againe this was nothing new to the computer gamers but it was something huge for the console because no one thought it could be done.
Soon many games started to add these features to their games. Game such as Street fighter four allowed a player to safe a fight they had only and upload it. Little big Planet's whole game revolved around giving the player the complete control and freedom to create any kind of level they wanted and share them with any one.
Another change was the huge was that not only did they make games but all sorts of other mediums. They created nine books a small comic collection and graphic novel and even had a short anime movie. While Halo was certainly not the first to do this, for awhile, many games had stop doing this. For there had been a few others to do this, for awhile it stopped and when a game did make it to other medias, it was usually in a movie such as Tomb Raider. When Halo picked up this trait again it went all out, with now a few games doing this such as Dead Space having a comic and mini movie, Gears of War, having several comics and a short novel.
To deny Halo of it's fame is wrong, it has evolved into a major media and cultural event. It is hard to go up to a person or gamer ask them if they have heard of Halo, and have the answer be no. With what it has done to the gaming industry and with the creation of machinama, it has been a great influence to the media and the industry. Even to this day Halo continues to inspire and create new things for the industry. Truly it is the most influential game of all time.





http://www.bungie.net/

Machinima web http://www.youtube.com/user/machinima

“Red vs Blue” web http://roosterteeth.com/home.php

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

"Reach (Halo Rap Video)." http://www.youtube.com. Web. 17 Oct 2010. .

“Halo's reach.” Official Xbox Magazine. Fall 2010: ½. Print

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/default.htm

"Halo Ep. 1: All Your History S1E1 (Game Development History) ." Youtube.com. Web. 17 Oct 2010.