I get a feeling playing Halo that I cannot shake off - could not formulate into words as a kid. I just want to get out of the map and wander the fields, wander forever and ever, a stoic green titan treading quietly through foggy forests and savannahs and mountains smattered in cloud-filtered lighting. Through ruin-littered deserts and past dulcet seas. I just wanted to walk and see. To listen. To explore a dream that never ends.
I don't know why I feel that way. I don't even know what I would do if I wandered. What I would want to see, or not see. But the fringes of Halo's environments evoke that - that you are somewhere arbitrarily lonely, illuminated only briefly by the dazzling adrenaline of combat before the warring parties move elsewhere and leave the wind to slowly erode what they left.
I felt that way as a child, when Halo 3 was my favorite thing. I spent years reading the stupid books and pining for the expensive action figures I couldn't afford and exploring or escaping the boundaries of multiplayer maps and playing make-believe halo with my friends in forests and creeks of rural kansas. I did this all to chase that feeling to varying degrees of success.
Playing the game now, I still feel that way. The empty multiplayer maps speak volumes, the combat bowls after encounters feel... full of mysterious potential.
So, well, I do love the shooting in Halo 3. The god-awful plot is sold 300% by Bungie's insane in-the-moment line deliveries, by sandboxy but focused missions that change shape and tone frequently and expertly. The stupid drama still works. But how can I think of this game straight?
Halo 3 in my hands? Like an 8 out of ten, one of the better shooters ever made, aged but charismatic. Halo 3 in my imagination? Well, it's boundless, driving, entirely unlike the game, and impossible to attain. Replaying it has reawakened it, and made me really reconsider the person I am.
I don't know why I feel that way. I don't even know what I would do if I wandered. What I would want to see, or not see. But the fringes of Halo's environments evoke that - that you are somewhere arbitrarily lonely, illuminated only briefly by the dazzling adrenaline of combat before the warring parties move elsewhere and leave the wind to slowly erode what they left.
I felt that way as a child, when Halo 3 was my favorite thing. I spent years reading the stupid books and pining for the expensive action figures I couldn't afford and exploring or escaping the boundaries of multiplayer maps and playing make-believe halo with my friends in forests and creeks of rural kansas. I did this all to chase that feeling to varying degrees of success.
Playing the game now, I still feel that way. The empty multiplayer maps speak volumes, the combat bowls after encounters feel... full of mysterious potential.
So, well, I do love the shooting in Halo 3. The god-awful plot is sold 300% by Bungie's insane in-the-moment line deliveries, by sandboxy but focused missions that change shape and tone frequently and expertly. The stupid drama still works. But how can I think of this game straight?
Halo 3 in my hands? Like an 8 out of ten, one of the better shooters ever made, aged but charismatic. Halo 3 in my imagination? Well, it's boundless, driving, entirely unlike the game, and impossible to attain. Replaying it has reawakened it, and made me really reconsider the person I am.