Hazed and confused: Haze writer disses Halo
If you want to grab some attention for your game (or just in general) one of the easiest things to do is publicly mock something that's successful. In the case of videogames, a sure way to get your game noticed is to mock Halo. Speaking to Edge, Rob Yescombe, scriptwriter for Free Radical's upcoming shooter Haze, has some choice words about the king of console shooters. According to Yescombe, new-gen games are about more mature, compelling content: "Halo is brilliant, you're a teenager - the next-gen is about becoming more mature ... in Haze you become an adult." Yescombe adds that games should take a page from world events as inspiration, saying, "It's about what's happening in the world today - it's ludicrous, and how can you make something that doesn't reflect that? Well, you could bury your head in the sand and make Halo 3, but the fact of the matter is there are more important things at stake." Haze, it seems, is a satirical work aimed at modern warfare, though Yescombe admits that some may not see the satire.
Naturally, we here at X3F are card-carrying Halo 3 fanboys, so Yescombe's comments sting a little. However, regardless of Haze's merits, for Yescombe to imply that Bungie is socially irresponsible for creating Halo is asinine. Escapist fiction has always been a part of human culture and is just as important as any piece of satire or non-fiction. We need our action movies just as much as we need our documentaries. We need Stephen King just as much as we need Johnathan Swift. Without some escape from the world's problems, we'd all be nothing but bubbling piles of depression. To quote Sergeant Johnson, "People need heroes, Chief. To give 'em hope."
[Via Joystiq]
