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| Virtual Morality |
| Tuesday, 9 December 2008 |
 As technology advances and drags us into different spheres of reality we must re-examine the choices we make as virtual actors. Where does morality stand in these brave new worlds?
Games like Second Life and Grand Theft Auto allow players to experience virtual life with no lasting consequence. Anything goes. In Grand Theft Auto morally dubious things you can do include sex with prostitutes, killing civilians, killing cops, stealing cars and generally spreading fear and destruction. But why stop there - what is the difference between virtual murder and virtual rape? What makes one right and another so taboo? Of course if this was included in the game there would likely be mass public outrage but explaining exactly why virtual sex and murder are acceptable, and virtual rape isn't, is not easy.
There is the usual concern that violent games lead to violent actions - we've seen this most recently with the media's reaction to both the Columbine and Virginia Tech. massacres. Personally I think this argument is dull as it seems much more likely that instead of violent games inspiring violence in people that in fact violent people are drawn to violent games. Much more interesting, with games becoming more detailed and allowing for greater immersion, is the question: am I free to do anything, or are some things inherently wrong?
In the 2002 film Minority Report we are shown a virtual brothel of sorts where customers purchase fantasies ranging from murdering your boss to infidelity. The latter of which must require clarification by individuals and religious groups. When does infidelity become infidelity? Another more difficult question to answer is: what kinds of fantasies should be condoned?
Recently this question has been debated in relation to Second Life. It was found that certain members created child avatars and proceeded to engage in sexual acts with adult characters. This might have been allowed to carry on if it were not for actually child pornographic material being uploaded. When Linden Labs issued a warning that such actions would not be tolerated they came to loggerheads with some of the participants who argued that Linden Labs had no business in the activities that consenting adults participate in. This is a key challenge between people who see no moral boundaries in virtual worlds and those that do.
Religion takes a different view on morality from the model which governs society. As part of society we are part of a social contract. Simply put, this contract is there to prevent harm. Where state morality condemns harm against others, religious morality is mostly concerned with what offends God. You are not to wrong your neighbour because not only does it harm your neighbour, but because you anger God. This is clearly shown in that the first five commandments of the Decalogue are concerned not with the mistreatment of one's neighbour (e.g. lying, stealing, committing adultery), but with man's approach to God (e.g. creating idols, taking the Lord's name in vain, keeping the Sabbath holy). With Jesus there is a radical shift in interpreting moral codes, most easily shown through adultery. The sin is transferred from the physical realm to the virtual realm of the mind. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus says, "You have heard the commandment that says, 'You must not commit adultery.' But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Where as the humanist or secular view is concerned with the act, religious morality is concerned not only with what we do but what we think.
The question of morality in virtual worlds has been largely ignored due to only recent advances in technology allowing such choices to be made. As use of virtual worlds grow the issue of morality, right and wrong, will become more and more important. How we act in these worlds will ultimately stem from our understanding of the source of morality. Either we will have to concede that as long as no one is harmed people are free to do as they please, or we will conclude that morality does have a place in virtual worlds.
Adapted from 'Virtual Morality', Adbusters #80. Labels: Daft, Through the Looking Glass
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posted by Daft @ 12:10  |
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| Feature - 10 Working Days |
| Monday, 24 November 2008 |
It's happened again. I must be the unluckiest person in the world... Okay, I have clean water, fresh food and a roof over my head... Lets just say I'm just really sodding annoyed. My PlayStation 3 has decided to stop reading Blu-rays. This is the second time this has happened. This PlayStation is only two months old.
So I go through the routine. I call up Sony, more annoyed this time, and they arrange to pick up my PS3. Instead of swapping my PS3 on my doorstep like last time, I had a working PS3 four days after my contact with Sony which I was impressed with, they are going to take it away to check what went wrong. Only because this PlayStation 3 is just two months old. Only because Sony sent me a replacement console that lasted just over a quarter of the time as the one I bought seven months ago from Piccadilly Circus. Only because of Sony's denseness, I now have to wait up to 10 working days after they pick it up for them to return it. Obviously before this I'm going to have to back up my HDD, then swap out my 320Gb HDD and go find the original HDD that came with the console - God knows where that is. I then look forward to the prospect of re-downloading all the PSN games I've bought, let me just remind you I already did this once when it broke two months ago, and I've bought a lot of games. Then I'm going to have to call Sony up a one final time, I pray, to get the rights transferred from the old console to the new one so then I can then re-download all my SingStar songs...again.
I'm not really sure what to think. Currently my Xbox 360 is leading the battle for build quality; the PS3 is leading with 2 deaths to my 360's paltry 1. I'm not really sure what to think because every time one of Sony's or Microsoft's machines break I'm left with the arduous task of transferring and reorganising everything which is so frustrating I want to scream at the closest small animal or child. Was this part of the deal when I bought my consoles? It seems like a lot of work that I've paid for. I've fulfilled my part of the deal, handing over precious money for my material goods. I've been a faithful customer, buying a lot of games both disk based and downloadable. I want to have some kind of reward for going through this and remaining a loyal customer. Is it too much to ask for a free PSN game or something? In short, yes; because Sony don't have to. They know now I've bought their bastard console I'm in it for the long run. This is capitalism at its most efficient, I'm not going to be able to put up much resistance.
Of course this is aimed more at the PlayStation since, for once, the 360's detachable drive is a blessing. By the time Microsoft had the console back with me they'd transferred all the rights and registered the new console. All I had to do was slot the HDD back on, put some ear plugs in and I was merrily on my way again. By contrast replacing a PS3 is a nightmare - one I'm going to have to go through again.
By Daft
Labels: Daft, Features
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| posted by flameboy @ 15:00 |
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| Fight the Hype - Resistance: Fall of Man |
| Tuesday, 26 August 2008 |
In this feature we will take another look at the games of yesteryear as we attempt to smash those rose tinted glasses and cast off the shackles of hype. For our first feature, Resistance: Fall of Man will be under the spotlight.
With Resistance 2 racing towards us I decided to dip back into the first iteration of the series. First off, I’ll give you a bit of background. Not about the game but how the game and I crossed paths.
The Playstation 3 launched and with it came Resistance. I can’t really remember what I thought of it, needless to say, that fact alone shows just how much an impression it had on me. However fate insisted I get to grips with the game.
And so it was, 3402 miles and a couple of awful in-flight movies later, I find myself more than slightly bored in Dubai airport. I hadn’t slept for a good 20 hours by this point so I did what any sane person would do - I looked for a Starbucks. Having struck insomniac gold I wondered through duty free half dazed, definitely confused and more than a little jacked up on caffeine. I stumble across a PS3 demo booth with none other than Resistance: Fall of Man on show. As my hyperactive twitching abates, I proceed to play.
Now, my first impression of the game has stuck with me. It is brown. Very brown. I can’t escape this fact. Even now I keep expecting a honky-tonk piano to start playing with the occasional intertitle displaying a boot-eating objective to stave off starvation.
The next impression that I remember was that the enemy design was pretty bland, pretty generic. Having played it again recently, I’ve come to appreciate the Chimera a bit more. Okay, they're thick and predictable and if you just add a bit more muscle to their spindly legs, put the forgotten love child of an assault rifle and a chainsaw in their hands, they would look like them lot from Gears of War… except with more eyes... and traffic cones on their backs. That is a bit unfair though as there are other enemies that spice up the mix, my personal favorite being the little worker aliens that shuffle towards with a view to a chunk of your neck. They make crazy grumbling noises when you hit them for that added incentive.
 Brown. Very Brown.
Another thing that sticks out is the ability to strafe faster than a speeding bullet. It’s almost like playing Space Invaders at times. It’s bizarre.
It sounds like I have major problems with this game but really these are quite minor when it comes down to it. I know it should all bug me but it doesn’t because at its core the game is solid fun. I even found that posh woman who narrates the pretty involving, yet uneventful and obvious, story perfect in keeping with the whole “chosen one” complex.
The level design is varied but the outdoor environments are definitely more enjoyable than the indoor corridor-fests. The graphics, although brown, are clean but they lack detail in some parts and so the game feels dated. The controls… well you can reassign them like I did, more games should do this. Finally the inclusion of co-op is great, I’ve always felt it can make any game a lot more enjoyable and Resistance is no exception.
Resistance, as a whole, has aged pretty well but maybe that’s because there is nothing new about it, it is the most vanilla sci-fi shooter around. A solid and fun game, but stuck in the past.
6/10
Labels: Daft, Features, Fight the Hype, Playstation 3, Resistance: Fall of Man
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| posted by Daft @ 12:30 |
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| Playstation Home Is Where The Heart Is |
| Monday, 25 August 2008 |
I'll be stepping in this week while Fanning the Flames takes a week off. I’m going to talk about something Sony love reminding us of in regards to the Playstation 3, potential. Home’s potential is massive. Some wonder what benefit it might hold for gaming, others might think it is a novelty. We’ll only really find out what Home will do when it is finally released but for the moment, we can speculate.
What Home does provide is a platform for games to seamlessly integrate themselves into the Playstation experience. We’ve already seen early indications of how Motorstorm: Pacific Rift will work in tandem with Home and it’s nothing mind blowing. It is basically used as a virtual lobby. More potential was seen with Warhawk, with the use of pre-match war rooms for discussing stratagem. Yet again, not amazing but it does appear to at least compliment the game. Overall it lacks imagination on Sony’s part but I doubt that is really the limit of their vision when it comes to Home. I would be surprised if Sony weren't keeping more functionality under wraps, but again, only time will tell.
Another way games work with Home is through offering extra content, from turning Resistance’s levels into 'The Alternate Imperial War Museum' to being able to play a specially made arcade game, for example in the Uncharted hub. We can see the ability to effortlessly offer extra content through this platform. Considering how interactive the medium of games is it is a shame to see bonus content relegated to promotional 'limited edition' packs and the like, which is something Home could rectify.
I’ve mentioned a few known examples so lets casts our minds over to more mainstream casual games. What might we expect from Sony’s fairly diverse and undeniably popular casual titles? These could provide an opportunity to hook the less avid gamers and tune them into Home. Imagine it…
Deep breath,
Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real good time…
As the song kicks off the crowd start cheering. With their applause, a real time ratings system, the player grows in confidence. No longer is the faithful SingStar community restricted to 30-second highlights, live performances, live open mic nights become a reality. If you don’t like the idea of singing in front of a bunch of strangers just book a private room and invite your friends. You could be standing at the front of a crowded room, maybe with the Playstation Eye streaming a live feed of you onto a wall behind your avatar, belting Queen out – Maybe this is what Sony want Home to be.
Don't stop me now I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball.
Another potentially very exciting area is the part smaller applications could play in Home. Take the newly shown EyePet. Personally I think its implementation of the Playstation Eye is very impressive, but when it comes down to it, EyePet is just a virtual pet and not even a portable one at that. This is where a problem arises, when exactly are you going to decide to play with your EyePet over a PSN game or what ever game you have in the machine? Home integration with the EyePet could help with this problem. You load up Home, preparing to cause some online carnage in Burnout, but just before you leave the house your EyePet, yes wearing a fez and a little red waistcoat, runs up to you begging for attention. Suddenly your interaction through the Playstation Eye with the tiny creature takes on another level; there is now more incentive to play EyePet. Through EyePet the player enters the monkey-cat-thing’s space, Home allows the pet to interact with you on an equal spacing. How far this level of integration goes is up to Sony to decide. Could I take my pet for a walk or have him perch on my shoulder like I captain my own pirate ship? Would it interact with other pets it came across, maybe even having its own pet friends list? If not, why not?
The key for Home is its integration. If games become an invisible gateway to this central hub, so that players simply find themselves flying between Home and a game without hesitation, then Sony will be onto something. If it becomes that easy then what is not to say that the SingStar and Buzz players of the world won't get pulled into Home? It is inevitable that comparisons are going to be made with Second Life but Home already has a massive advantage over it. First of all, as Home comes as a free download for the PS3 the user base will easily outstrip that of Second Life which, as of March 2008, has approximately 13 million accounts – as to how many are active accounts is anyone’s guess, but I doubt it is anything close to that number. Second, Home has a fairly defined infrastructure. There is no need to build a house or get a virtual job of any kind but the customisation is there for those who want it, from what your avatar looks like to the interior to your house. Finally, Home has a purpose; it is there predominantly for games but also for other media. Depending on how far Sony pushes the integration of Home everyone could be using it to varying degrees, either dipping in to pre-game lobbies, or exploring the different game hubs to swinging by the theater with friends to catch the latest movie.
The ball is on Sony’s side of the court. Home could become essential or it could fade away into some kind of sideshow. There is a lot of potential, not to mention a myriad of 'if's, and although we don't have long to wait, Home will take time to develop. This could be living.
Labels: Daft, Features, Home, Playstation 3, PS3, PSN
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| posted by Daft @ 11:30 |
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| Top 10 - Games to keep you sane... |
| Wednesday, 20 August 2008 |
I've taken the liberty of kicking off the 'Top 10' feature with games to take your frustration out on, and generally keep you sane after being stamped on by the boot of life every day. Please feel free to add in the comments any game think deserves to be added to the list.
1. Crackdown
We've all got to the point where we just want to go all Incredible Hulk after being pushed a bit too far. You just want to pick up the desk you're at, hurl it through the wall. Let rip an epic roar, dousing the offending antagonist with saliva, and jump through the ceiling landing a mile or so away on an unsuspecting car with the intention of throwing the closest pedestrian into the rapidly approaching police vehicles.
Okay, that might just be me but Crackdown allows you to do things to this effect – while, I might add, allowing the player to keep the moral high ground. Crackdown is the ultimate in stress relief. None of this 'story' rubbish, no invisible walls or need to reserve ammo.You do what you want and your reward is that you get better at... whatever it is you were doing. If along the way you want to takeout a few mobsters, that's your choice. As long as things are burning, or are about to burn, you're playing the game right. It's more fun than working in a trampoline factory, getting paid by the bounce.
2. Project Gotham Racing
I've been with the PGR series ever since Metropolis Street Racer. "It's not how fast you drive, it's how you drive fast." That's one of the joys of the game; the controls are tight letting you swing your fantastically expensive cars round the narrowest bends with the perfect balance of ease and necessary technique. Also, in the same way X-Box 360 gamers have a Pavlovian response to the sound of an achievement popping up, the sound of 'Kudos' racking up is a heavenly sound, especially when accompanied by tire squealing. If you're lucky enough, or unlucky depending on whether you like these places, to live in one of the in-game cities you'll appreciate the deserted roads...something you'll never see in London. For the ultimate in stress relief, I recommend playing Cat'n'Mouse online. As a racing game, you're meant to race, not collide or put you opponent off in any way. Cat'n'Mouse, however, is about crashing into the other team, and not just that, you are actually meant to bully their weakest car. It sounds brutal... and it is.
3. Burnout: Paradise
You've had a long day at work, you're stuck in traffic on the bus or in your car, you're probably going to get angry, rattled, frustrated - not too unlike a caged animal. It isn't how anyone should end his or her day really, step forward Burnout: Paradise. If PGR was about how you drive fast Burnout:Paradise is basically about how much rampant destruction you can cause while driving fast.
Opponent getting on your nerves? Introduce them to a wall. It's the kind of instantly satisfying justice that you wish you could deal out in real life when say, babies are crying on public transport, or when someone sends you grammatically incorrect texts to save time. Burning rubber, high speeds, twisted metal, solid walls; it's the ingredients for one hell of a time. Remember kids, speed doesn't kill you, it's the sudden lack of it, that's the real killer.
4. Eledees
No one likes living in a messy house but it is undeniably fun making a mess. Eledees gives you a gravity gun and doesn't care much for the whole cleaning up thing. With the use of the WiiMote your job is to smash things around the place looking for little critters to trap and enslave, giving you more power to throw around bigger things. It's a wonderful cycle of destruction and mayhem. Combine that with the little screams of fear that the Eledees emit while you hunt them down, and you can be your own little family friendly dictator.
5. SingStar
Not much to point out here. Scream as loud as you can and pretend you can actually sing, don't worry, you can't. Then get rated on how you did by the most generous and easy to trick scoring ever conceived. Might not sound like much fun but it is. If that still doesn't sound appealing, something you can apply to life as a whole to vastly improve it, just as alcohol.
6. Earth Defence Force 2017
"EDF!! EDF!!", music to my ears. Earth Defence Force is a thing of beauty. It knows it is rubbish, you know it is rubbish - I know it is absolute rubbish. However unlike most games, that is half of the fun. In the same kind of way as Crackdown, mass killing equals bigger mass killing. The more you play, the more health you get, the bigger weapons you are rewarded with. You'll be pretty pleased when you get the Tortoise, a slow moving, homing tactical nuke. You'll be even more pleased when you find out that later on you'll get weapons that make the Tortoise look like a pea-shooter.
There really is nothing like seeing the horizon of a ruined Tokyo city at sun down fill up with giant ants as you fire off your Prominence MA. As you turn to face the next wave, and your missile crashes into the alien hordes, you won't fail to smile at the ants' death screams and their lifeless corpses as they blot out the sun. Play this in co-op and prepare to lose hours to it. I dare you not to smile.
7. Tori-Emaki
Okay, so a theme that might be emerging here is that violence means stress relief (Yes, I'm including the abuse of music in SingStar) so I thought I would have a bit of variation and that comes in the form of Tori-Emaki. Tori-Emaki isn't really a game though. It's more of a Playstation Eye based flash game. By imitating a Thunderbird puppet on an LSD induced trip you can manoeuvre a flock of crows around a traditional Japanese wood block print style landscape, accompanied with suitably breezy and relaxing music. It sounds stupid but don't underestimate the power of acting like at total inbred moron.
8. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
A game where you can suplex a zombie, making it's head explode. Where you can cap someone in the knees and then round-house kick them in the face. A game where one of the bad guys is an evil midget. It has everything.
9. Assassin's Creed
Love it or hate it - I don't care. There's no better way to utilise your pent up frustration than becoming a 12th century parkour enabled assassin stalking the holy land. One of the key reasons there is so much enjoyment to get out of the game is because Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, or Altaïr for short, has a real physical presence within the game world. If a beggar woman is annoying you, "Please sir, can I have some money?", don't settle for what you'd do in most other games and just kill her, do the humane thing, chuck her down some stairs and watch her roll. If that sound bite, "No you don't understand, I have nothing!", is really getting on your nerves and you have a brick wall at hand, smack her into it before she can shriek her last syllable. Just before people get up in arms about me being sexist, you can apply exactly the same method to the lepers - it's just they don't annoy me as much by repeating the same ear shattering sound bite at me for the nth time.
Swords and hordes are also on the menu as the enemy guards will actively stand by as you slaughter them one by one. It's a pretty rhythmic fighting system which I think suits the game. You can't beat the feeling when your sword connects perfectly and are rewarded with a bloody neck exploding execution.
Now picking the final game has caused me a few problems. Do I go with Portal and the energy contained within its gameplay, Mario Galaxy where I can bound planets or a thousand other different games that should really get a mention? Like I said earlier, feel free to tell me in the comments of games you would add to the list.
Finally, my number 10 goes to...
10. Super Stardust HD
I love this game. I loved it when it first came up and I loved it even more when trophy support was added. A game that fits in that wonderful bracket of easy to learn, difficult to master. I'll try and get my lyrical waxing out of the way quickly. The game looks phenomenal in all its 1080p glory. There is so much going on that certain tasks, like surviving for 7 minutes without dying in Endless Mode, are incredibly daunting but the game is so easy to get into, and so inviting to learn, that most will find it a joy to attempt such challenges.
There were two things that convinced me to put SSHD in my list. First, setting off nukes, sending a shock wave around the planet ripping to pieces anything in it comes into contact with, is awesome. Second, my experience of trying to get the 'Late Boomer' trophy. For this trophy you try and recoup 15 bombs on a rapidly busier planet where your only form of defense is swift dodging and bombs, the latter of which you really need to hold onto if you want the trophy. I managed to get 14 bombs and then those masochistic red triangles of death started to land and I though I was about to be annihilated again. I manage to swerve out the way for about 10 seconds missing rocks by only a pixel's width. Desperation sets in, my heart is pumping. Suddenly I see the supply ship carrying two bombs halfway across the planet. I boost. I detonate. As two magic bomb tokens hover in infinity, so close yet so far, the universe is coming for me. The massive gold asteroids want me, the myriad of rocky debris want me and the red triangles of death are coming for me, building in number. In blind hope I swoop. 13. 14. 15.
I've done it.
Shock, joy, relief. I've f*cking done it.
As the Trophy message acknowledges my achievement, I am blinked out of existence by the force of the universe. And that, dear readers, is the last time I will ever play the 'Bomber' mode on SSHD.
There we have it, 10 games to keep you sane.Labels: Console, Daft, Playstation 3, Top 10, Wii, Xbox 360
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| posted by Daft @ 09:30 |
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| Lowdown on the Download - PSN Update - 14/8/08 |
| Thursday, 14 August 2008 |
Time for this weeks PSN update.
PS3 store
Game
Sheep (PS1 Classic) - £3.49
Driver (PS1 Classic) - £3.49
Demo
Facebreaker - FREE
Monster Madness - FREE
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 - FREE
Packs
Nascar 09 - Car Skin Pack 1 - £1.99
Nascar 09 - Car Skin Pack 2 - £1.99
Nascar 09 - Car Skin Pack 3 - £1.99
Nascar 09 - Montreal - £2.99
Videos
E3 - In conversation with Shuhei Yoshida - FREE
Fatal Inertia Ex Trailer 1 - FREE
PC store
Game
Sheep (PS one Classic) - £3.49
Driver (PS one Classic) - £3.49
Videos
Buzz!™: Master Quiz Trailer - FREE
In Game
Nucleus Updated Full Game file - £4.99
Nucleus Updated In-game upgrade file - £4.99
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We get a couple of solid demos, I'll be trying out Monster Madness, but as usual there is nothing to write home about. Sony have promised us The Last Guy and Ratchet and Clank for this month so I'm not going to show my rage.
There is an interview with Shuhei Yoshida from E3. If you don't know who Shuhei Yoshida is, thank you google, he is Phil Harrison's successor (No, I didn't have to google him). It might be interesting, but somehow I doubt it.
Actually I lied before, I am going to show my rage. Lets just log into the American PSN for a second. After my eyes adjust to the divine light of PSN nirvana where there is new content aplenty and the store is organised, nay, easy to navigate, I stumble across Bionic Commando: Rearmed ($9.99) and Street Fighter Alpha ($4.99). So Europe isn't deemed good enough for either of these titles... or 1942: Joint Strike from last week... or any kind of a hint at a Resistance 2 Beta... fantastic. I normally have a go at SCEE, because it's more fun to think that they are bumbling morons who entertain themselves by rolling corks across the floor while singing the lyrics to 'Hit me Baby One More Time' backwards in a ritualistic bid to keep the flying monkeys away, but in actual fact it is Sony Computer Entertainment, Incorporated's fault for not forcing studios to submit global submissions like Microsoft does. Bad Sony!!
Also this week sees the introduction, by SCEE, of a brand new feature that will revolutionise gaming as we know it and bring an end to world hunger, yes people, items will now be viewable in an A-Z order.
Mr Trill, Sony's European Community Manager writes:
In support of our continued improvements to the PlayStation ® Store we will be implementing a Search By A-Z category within the Store. Featuring within our store update this Thursday the 14th August, the All Games section will now include sections sorting our game content into A-Z listings by letter. Therefore, if you’re looking for a specific game, demo or game add-on content by name, you can use this handy new feature to speed up your search.
Still no demo section I see...
Labels: Daft, Features, Lowdown on the Download, Playstation 3, PSN, SCEE
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| posted by Daft @ 13:40 |
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| Through the Looking Glass - Halo: Emotion Evolved |
| Sunday, 27 July 2008 |
Before I start, I would just like to point out that this article isn't a comment on what I think of Halo as a game. To be completely honest, I like Halo but I'm not fanatical about it. This feature is for examining subtexts or looking at alternate readings of games and I hope you enjoy reading it.
In the cold hard depths of space, suspended forever in a moment, a halo floats at the centre of a war. We are on the Pillar of Autumn and a recently awakened Master Chief arrives on the bridge, humanity’s last hope, it’s captain and hero. With the ship’s main cannon offline Cortana is vulnerable and her capture is unacceptable. This is where the Chief comes in, time for a hard transfer. If they capture her they'll learn everything: force deployment, weapons research…Earth. With the transfer complete, Cortana and Master Chief are now one. “Your architecture isn't much different from the Autumn's.” and so this is how they begin, a whisper in a bang.
“We're gonna make it aren't we, sir? I don't wanna die out here.” One of the marines on the lifepod asks. He doesn’t get an answer and he never will as only moments later, Master Chief emerges, a lone figure, from the flaming wreckage that had rescued them from the Autumn. This isn’t the last time the Chief and Cortana will survive in the face of spine shattering odds, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Cortana is Master Chief’s voice. She is as commanding as the Chief is brutal. Ripping through the enemy lines, united they claw together more fortunate marines from other crash sites. The Chief is on a combat high, Cortana is working, thinking, plotting. Things are close to desperate but looking up. Time to save Keyes. The Chief and Cortana complete each other. She thinks, he does. She has power over this blunt weapon, this “demon” and as they travel on the gravity lift into the heart of a Covenant ship, they are becoming closer, anticipating each other, beating as one. The momentum is with them.
Later on, Keyes is safe, they find themselves in Halo’s central control room. “You all right?” the Chief asks. “Never been better! You can't imagine the wealth of information; the knowledge! So much so fast. Its glorious!” comes the response. Unlike Master Chief’s control on the battlefield, Cortana’s dark desire for information and power shows who is the real demon. The Chief feels this bubbling malice, Cortana snaps, “This ring isn't a cudgel, you barbarian.” However, Cortana becomes aware of a new threat, something beyond her conception and control.
Cortana: The Covenant found something buried in this ring; something horrible. And now they're afraid.
Master Chief: Something buried? Where?
Cortana: The captain! We've got to stop the captain!
Master Chief: Keyes? What do we...?
Cortana: The weapons cache he's looking for is not really... We can't let him get inside!
Master Chief: I don't understa...?
Cortana: There's no time! Get out of here, find Keyes stop him before it's too late!
The Flood are coming, remaining hooked to the halo’s computers she sends Master Chief off, alone, to stop Keyes. She has abandoned the Chief.
We now find ourselves in Installation 04 and 343 Guilty Spark, an A.I. construct of Forerunner origin, shows Master Chief the way, “We must collect the index before we can activate the installation.” They only find death and destruction in this place - and the precious ‘index’. Keyes and his squad are dead and the Flood have been unleashed. Time to escape back to the control room.
Cortana, absorbed in Halo’s fountain of knowledge, has lost focus and with it command of the Chief and the situation in general. She has let Guilty Spark use Master Chief to achieve its own calculated ends and, as hers was before, his loss is now unacceptable.
Cortana: I've spent the last twelve hours cooped up in here watching you toady about helping that thing get set to slit our throats.
Master Chief: Hold on now. He's a friend.
Cortana: Oh! I didn't realise. He's your pal, is he? Your chum? Do you have any idea what that bastard almost made you do?
“Sod off!” Cortana barks in a rage as Guilty Spark notices in disgust this new alien A.I.. Master Chief is wavering, “The Flood is spreading. If we activate Halo's defenses we can wipe them out.” Guilty Spark reminds him. The Chief is an unknown, a volatile weapon, a blunt tool vulnerable, needing instruction and now at the mercy of the universe’s most powerful artificial intelligences. However, Cortana is more than just a calculating construct. She has grown to know the Chief, as he has her. She returns, humbled, to her familiar self, a creation of logic growing beyond her preconceived parameters. She tries to regain control of the spiraling situation “You have no idea how this ring works, do you? Why the Forerunners built it? Halo doesn't kill Flood - it kills their food. Humans, Covenant, whatever; we're all equally edible. The only way to stop the Flood is to starve them to death and that's exactly what Halo is designed to do - wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life. You don't believe me? Ask him!” And so she sparks doubt in Master Chief’s mind, “Is it true?” he asks Guilty Spark. “More or less.” comes the response.
Cortana has wandered through the horrors of the shade but has finally emerged bloody, but unbowed. Ignoring Guilty Spark’s blathering Cortana and the Chief are working as one again, “Get us out of here.” With everything to lose, the halo must be destroyed; the only way is to detonate the crashed Pillar of Autumn.
The Maw - the Autumn is enveloped in rot. Just like the previous two chapters Master Chief and Cortana are alone. They have evolved together and we can see the culmination of their interaction almost explicitly expressed as they approach the Autumn:
Cortana: This thing is falling apart!
Master Chief: It'll hold.
Cortana: We're not going to make it!
Master Chief: We'll make it.
Computers, A.I.s, machines are definably inhuman through their inability to look beyond reason. To borrow from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which captures this idea perfectly, “There are things that machines will never do. They cannot possess faith - they cannot commune with God... They cannot appreciate beauty - they cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us. They'll be us.” The Chief has led Cortana to this epiphany and she presents us with the most human of characteristics - faith. It isn’t an illusion or an attempt at replicating an idea; it is genuine faith. Neither solely logical nor abandoned to emotion she now places her trust, not to mention her life, in Master Chief’s hands against her own judgment (and considering her intelligence, her judgment might as well be law). As Master Chief put his trust in her before, it is time for her to return the favor.
 Together, not only do they complete each other, they are holistic. With the job done, the halo destroyed, they escape into the dust and echoes. “We're all that's left. We did what we had to do - for Earth.” Together, adrift in space, the threat to humanity is extinguished; there is nothing more for them to do. “Halo - it's finished.” remarks Cortana. Master Chief: No. I think we're just getting started. And there we have it, Halo: Combat Evolved, at least, is over – job done, boy meets girl, boy and girl blow up universe destroying alien artifact. In part two we’ll see what happens when their bond is put to the ultimate test – the ride is definitely just getting started. Labels: Daft, Features, Halo, Through the Looking Glass, Xbox 360
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| posted by Daft @ 00:31 |
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