2. John Spartan-117
(Master Chief)
Colony Wars: Vengeance
might be my favorite video game of all time but the Halo series is by far my favorite video game franchise and series
of all. Yeah, I know it seems very mainstream, but I continue to play Halo games in the face of such
uber-popular fare as Call of Duty (No Russian mission with an evil American
payoff, give me a break). Halo just
continues to define console first person shooters (FPS) for me and will
probably never be unseated as the king. Thus, while Halo is the king of video game franchises, the series’ protagonist,
Master Chief, will remain the king of video game characters.
Ever since Star Trek and
Star Wars came out in the sixties and
seventies, geeks have been looking for the next blockbuster sci-fi franchises.
The truth is that it’s very hard to create a property that can be so universally
loved by both the mainstream and nerdy alike. Enter Halo, which I totally believe should be considered this generation’s
Star Wars because the game not only
made LAN and online console gaming a very popular thing to do, but it showed
that a video game could be so much more than just a disc you put into a console.
I don’t remember a video game before Halo
having a book come out alongside the game as The Fall of Reach did. I am sure it happened before with a random
game here and there; but, now, it seems par for the course. Added to the Halo canon are many books, comic books, movies,
and a soon to be released TV show.
In addition, much
like Star Wars, the story of Halo placed you right in the middle of
an ongoing saga and the main character of the saga is the genetic engineered
soldier Master Chief. Critics have said that the character is too much of
silent protagonist to be considered among the best genre characters; however, I
totally disagree. Go back and play the original game again and you will hear
quite a bit of dialogue spoken by Spartan-117. With each subsequent game, his
personality is fleshed out even more through story elements and dialogue
culminating in his best portrayal to date, Halo
4.The last game of the series really did a lot to humanize the character
and let you realize his relationship to Cortana, the AI construct he’s carried
in his armor for years.
Master Chief, in my
opinion, acts just like someone in his position would. He is driven by duty to
the UNSC and was taught from a young age to be a perfect soldier. A guy like
that is not going to be a blabbermouth and he is not going to be a one-liner
machine. I don’t care what action movies in the eighties have told us. I think
this has really endured me to the character because I like stories of soldiers
who are driven by duty and honor. Too many stories in the liberal zeitgeist
feature sagas of soldiers who question their purpose, are driven crazy with
PTSD, or outright rebel against their government. Master Chief is the opposite
of those characters.
Best portrayal: Halo 4
I will never understand the love shown for Master Chief. However, that being said, I cannot deny the impact Halo had on later video games, the series defined so many things and created a way for those who played video games to take center stage in a world that, up til then, was still relegating the video gamer to an image of grease covered weirdos who lived with mom.
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