Halo - where can I get some of that Kool-aid

So, my friend Paco and I have been talking alot lately. One of our favorite topics has been Halo, and more specifically Halo 3. We both ordered the legendarty edition of the game, and as we stair in to the scaled down visor of the Master Chief, only one thing comes to mind... what is the big deal? Why is Halo so popular? I mean really, what is it about the game that make people go nutz. No, I'm not asking one of those philosophical questions, like "why are we here?" and then we go into some tome-like diatribe about the aspects of existence and purpose. What I'm asking is what is the big deal with Halo? From what I can tell it isn't that good, its not amazing and its certainly not game of the year. As it stands, now, poised to gain accolades upon accolades, Halo reminds me of Titanic. Its this big epic creation filled with hot air and false sentiment, amounting to a whole lot of canned nothing.

Why do I bring this up 2 months after the launch of Halo3. Well, while browsing the interweb during some lengthy file transfers I found the "Journey's End" vidocs for H3. These two mini documentary are brimming with the game's developers expounding on the awesomeness of the Halo universe and the "epic" story found with the 3 games. They go on and on about how the third game wraps up the story (which it blatantly doesn't not). They drone on about all this deep internal/behind the veil story that is so primal and amazing... After playing, and defeating all three titles I find myself compelled to CALL BULLSHIT! on Bungie. They remind me of the Wachowski brothers, (post Matrix pre-sequels) high on the smell of their own methane.

While the gameplay in Multiplayer offers some great console action, the single player games are bit repetive and boring. I for one don't play multiplayer, I find it a crutch that a lot developers lean on (far to much) to make a game "a game" when they aren't able to really flesh out a good single player experience. I find it disheartening to see that in Halo 3, the single player game is shallow and pretty much a retelling of the first Halo. Also, for the record whoever thought the Brutes could replace the Elites as competent opponents should be shot. All I hear is how awesome the Brute AI is in the game, (cocks head) REALLY. I'm not quite sure where they spent their time on this game but it wasn't in AI. Hats off to the testing team, they've managed to make the game playable by any and all, to bad the same effort wasn't put toward single player AI. AI is after all where this gen should be staking it claim. A claim shared in AI and character interaction, not in graphics, the apparent focus of all this new found processing power (but thats a conversation best left for another time.

In short Halo and its 2 sequels are not original, they're not ground breaking and the story's contrived and done at best. Given so many opportunities to really expand go in interesting directions, game's designers continually take the us down a tried, true, and ultimately mediocre path. FUCK THIS WHOLE HYPE THING... that is all.