As a typical American teenager who finds shooting English-speaking alien species more fun than completing a homework assignment, I fired up the game on a bright sunny day in late September, desperately hoping to discover the meaning of life behind the colorful graphics and booming soundtrack.
Believe me, I take my games seriously. When I pay sixty bucks for something that might or might not be related to my inevitable blindness, I damn well better have my "meaning of life" questions answered and my feet rubbed at the same time.
Instead, I found that I might or might not have a thing for holographic naked purple women. Not exactly life-changing material.
I've always argued that popular pieces of media, whether it be a controversial novel or movie, always have some sort of depth behind them; otherwise, they wouldn't be well-known among the population. I'm not talking about gameplay depth here -- more, I'm referring to what exactly Halo 3 says, and why the hell I cried at the end of the game in the first place.
Halo, it can be argued, is a lifeless (yet enjoyable) shooting simulation that has the player become a faceless superhuman in green armor that fights the thousands of grunting, similar-looking aliens in the galaxy. But that's beside the point. There's something about this concept that's so appealing to American audiences and not-so-appealing to the Japanese.
Do you want to be a hero? Sure you do. Who doesn't? If you got the chance to save a woman and her child from a burning building, you probably do it. When asked why you did it, you'd most likely state that it was the morally right thing to do, and that you just acted on instinct.
Good. The papers love that sort of thing, and you love it because you get your fifteen minutes of fame and are deemed a "hero". Eventually, the world turns, time passes, and the events are forgotten. You aren't a hero anymore, and you won't ever get that feeling of elation ever again (unless you constantly look for women in burning buildings...perv).
This is Halo 3: a hero simulator. Yes, you fight aliens and shoot stuff and it's tons of fun, but more importantly, you feel like a hero. You're living a virtual American dream.
That's what so saddening -- in essence, you aren't doing anything. You're sitting in front of a television screen, twiddling your thumbs, constantly cursing yourself for dying for the fortieth time, and not accomplishing anything.
When Master Chief states at the end of Halo 3, "Wake me...when you need me," he's directly speaking to the player; he's saying, "Whenever you feel like a jerkwad and don't want to do your history homework or don't want to go to work, I'm here for you...so you can feel like a hero. Just like you don't in real life."
And then it ends. As quickly as it began, our hunger kicks in and we want another Halo, and another and another. Microsoft will continue to spew them out, and we will continue to drool over our hero simulations.
And that's why I cried. Not because I'd never see the Chief again or because the [arguably] greatest shooter series ever was ending, but because I knew sitting in front of my TV wasn't doing anything. Thank goodness for Master Chief, a TRUE hero and also the creation of people who most likely aren't heroes, for informing me of this unpleasant information.
Oh well. It was good while it lasted.
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