WEBVTT - The Bungie Story Part Two 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.200 Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:14.400 Stuff Works dot com either and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.480 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren foc Obam and we 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.120 are covering the Bungee story. This is part two. And 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.040 when last we left you, it was and I had 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.600 left it on the cliffhanger, or as much of a 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:29.880 cliffhanger as you can make anything that happened in the past. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.360 Anyone with an access to the Internet could look up 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:36.440 and find out the answer, but still thrilling. Yeah. Bungee 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:41.120 itself was in a little bit of a financial pickle 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.360 that they had taken a break from FPS first person 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.440 shooter games, that is, in order to develop this this 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:53.000 tactics series called Myth And they had a tiny little bug, yeah, 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.520 a little bug and Myth two that that could have 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.400 deleted people's entire computers. Well, I mean, I guess not 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:05.240 deleted their entire computers. That's terrible, Yeah, no, big yeah, 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.600 I mean who needs an operating system? And and fixing 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.360 this manually by replacing all of the discs and all 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.760 of the boxes basically cost them what they made on 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:19.200 the game. So they were in some issues. Uh, they 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:23.440 began to work on a project that in it internally 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.160 was being called Blam uh and it was another tactical 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:29.480 game that was like Myth, but it had a science 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:33.800 fiction setting rather than Myths dark fantasy setting. Uh. As 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.759 they were developing it, they decided that the tactical base 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:40.320 where you were controlling multiple units was probably less interesting. 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.920 They wanted to go with a third person approach, so 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:47.120 you're controlling a single character, but from the third person perspective, 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:52.240 and then it would eventually develop into a first person shooter. Yeah, 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:54.360 but that game by then would end up with a 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:58.160 different name. But that's we're getting ahead of ourselves, just barely, 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.480 not too much ahead of ourselves. Because in at the 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:04.640 Macworld conference and ex about a Bungee would show off 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.240 a demo of this game for the Mac that they 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:12.120 had in development called Halo. Yes, so Halo was originally 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.440 a title for the Mac. It was going to be 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.560 a Mac exclusive and perhaps eventually poured over to the 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.799 PC if it were successful enough. If you remember, Marathon 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:26.000 Too had ported over to the PC eventually. Um so 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:29.720 this was a really big opportunity for Bungee. In fact, 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:34.320 a pretty notable persona in the field of technology was 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.120 the one to introduce Jason Jones to come out on 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:39.840 the mac World stage and talk about Halo. Yeah, just 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:43.280 Steve Jobs. Yeah. So this is a video, by the way, 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.919 that is available online. You can go to YouTube and 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:51.400 watch this mac World presentation where Steve Jobs introduces Jason 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:53.240 Jones and he talks about the game Halo for the 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.720 first time. And if you watch the video, you've got 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.560 to see a lot of stuff that was in fact 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.280 included in the games. Oh yeah, yeah, the demo is 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:04.760 was rich with it. It was you get that that 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:12.800 trademark Halo soundtrack that uh and and master Chief and 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:14.960 a few vehicles that we that we all know and 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.000 love or yes, all of us, even those of you 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.359 who have never played the series, Lauren and I, no 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:24.079 one loved them. Yeah, the the ward Hog. I think 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:28.280 there's a phantom in their ghosts and guests. Yeah, some 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.560 of the some of the alien elites yep, yep. So 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.120 these were characters or creatures or vehicles or whatever that 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.560 would end up actually being featured in the the final game. 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:40.880 And as a result of this, Steve Jobs actually he 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.880 comes out and confidently says, you know, there was a 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.240 time when it was hard to find good games for 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.920 the Mac and that time is over because of companies 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:58.160 like Bungee, which was unfortunate as it turned out eventually. 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.160 But anyway, at that same time, around that same time 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:05.120 in Bungee would partner with another company called Take two. 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:09.520 Video gamers have I'm sure recognized that name as well. 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.760 So in exchange for nineteen point nine percent of Bungee, 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.920 so Take two to just under ownership of Bungee, Take 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.520 two would distribute Ony and Halo. Now, the reason for 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.880 that partnership was partly due to this kind of financial 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.720 difficulty Bungee had found itself in in the wake of 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.760 the myth To disaster. Uh So Bungee West was working 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.159 on on, which we mentioned at the end of the 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:39.920 last podcast. Ony was that third person anime inspired sci 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:44.440 fi adventure um and then they also had to figure 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.280 out how to recover from this this bug we had 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.640 talked about so so so partnering with Take two made 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.599 perfect sense. Yeah, it was not quite enough. Bungee was 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:59.120 still sort of in this this bleak well maybe bleak 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.960 is the wrong word, but dangerous situation, and so they 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.359 continued to look for opportunities, actually looking at possibly getting 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.960 acquired by another company. Well, they had supposedly been been 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:13.280 approached many times over the years by many different companies. 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.560 On I'm becoming absorbed, I think Activision was one that 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.760 they said had pursued them particularly a lot. They would 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:22.920 really great English guys. They would have to have a 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.279 deep relationship with Activision later on as well. Um. But 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:30.040 then on on June nineteenth of the year two thousand, 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:34.480 Microsoft announced that it was going to acquire Bungee. This, 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.159 as you can imagine, was a huge shake up in 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:41.360 the video game world. I mean, you had this, this 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.080 developer known for creating games for the Macintosh platform, a 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:50.040 platform that really did the lag behind PCs. I mean, 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.360 if you look at the market share of Max, if 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.480 you had a runaway hit on a Macintosh platform, you 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.640 might be talking two thousand copies of the game, because 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:02.880 they're just weren't as many Max out there at the 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.640 time as there were PCs. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:07.880 by a huge margin. Um. For for a little bit 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.960 of perspective here, that the release of Windows and nine 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:15.479 eight in those years respectively, had catapulted PC sales from 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.440 PC sales went from being a relatively near eight times 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.320 the number of MAX sales to being about thirty two 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.839 times the number of MAX sales in three years, and 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.080 they were in the midst of a second jump when 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.920 when Bungee was acquired by Microsoft that they had climbed 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.440 up to about fifty six times the number of MAX 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.960 sales by two thousand four. Now these days, Apple has 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:45.159 had another renaissance, but in the mid in the early 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.279 to mid two thousand's, that was just not the case. 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.360 And so while Steve Jobs was really doing his best 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.120 to turn Apple around, uh PC was really dominating in 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:58.240 the home market. So as part of this deal of 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.960 Bungee going over to Microsoft, some things had to change 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.800 because not all the development stuff could go the way 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.719 they had originally planned. One of those was that Bungee 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:12.160 transferred the rights to one and to the Myth franchise 0:07:12.240 --> 0:07:15.280 to Take two Interactive Software. So when I mentioned at 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:17.360 the end of the last episode that there was a 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.280 Myth three game but not published under Bungee, it was 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:25.000 published Undertake two. H on E was still pretty much 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.040 considered a Bungee game because it was it was more 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.400 or less complete when it went to Take two to 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:34.480 be published on under their label, So Bungee would become 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.600 essentially an independent game studio under the Microsoft corporate umbrella. 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.880 They had their own culture that was very different from Microsoft. 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.840 Oh yeah, yeah, even though they did relocate from Chicago 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.520 to Redwood, Washington. Yeah. They they went into the offices 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.080 and this is on that that. Uh. In the last 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:56.640 episode I mentioned the twentieth anniversary documentary for the Bungee 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.240 twenty anniversary. They they went into the offices, and the 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.640 offices at Microsoft are laid out very much the way 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:07.800 you would imagine the stereotypical office with cubicles. They took 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.960 one look at and said, uh no, this isn't us. 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.080 They tore out all the cubicles to create a big, 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.880 open floor planned space that that was what they were 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.120 used to. And they said that eventually get to the 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.080 point where the people at Microsoft didn't even have a 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.640 key to get into the Bungee Studios area because it 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.480 was it was like a different world, so very interesting 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.800 that the culture was there. So and uh. And also 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:36.640 part of the deal, Take two sold their nineteen point 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:41.160 whatever it was percent shares in in Bungee too Microsoft's 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.040 and also Microsoft would gain exclusive rights to produce and 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:48.920 distribute Halo, mostly intending it to be part of their 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.959 upcoming Xbox console. That's right. They were getting to a 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.400 point where they were getting ready to release this console, 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.920 but they also needed to have developers to create content 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.160 for the console. They were real knew it this right. 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.240 This was before Microsoft had any entry into the console 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.880 gaming world at all, and they were going to take 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:10.720 on Sony and the PlayStation and Nintendo as well. But 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.400 Sony was really the big one that they raiming. Oh yeah, yeah. 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:17.240 The PS two, I believe, was also released in March 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:19.599 of the year two thou over in Japan. I I 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:21.000 don't have in front of me the day that I 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.040 released in the US, But you know, the stuff that 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.000 Sony had been doing with the PlayStation, that the PSX, 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.560 the PlayStation one, and also the PS two and and 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.040 Sega with the Dreamcast as well, was just blowing the 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.520 minds of everyone in the gaming industry. And so, you know, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.080 even I mean, you know, I I understand that a 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.640 lot of Mac users felt very betrayed by this decision 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.560 of Bungee and felt like they had sold out, But honestly, y'all, 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.720 it was so savvy of them to get into the 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.719 console market at that point. You know, exactly. Yeah, I 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.360 mean it was it was a move that preserved Bungee, 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.440 because otherwise it may not have been able to stay 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.040 a unit. It would have would have broken apart from 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.480 all the problems that they had faced in the wake 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:05.960 of of Myth two and the other issues, and and 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:07.840 beyond that, it allowed them to get in on the 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:12.240 ground floor of this round of amazing consoles, right, and 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.360 so it was a beneficial relationship for both parties, both 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:21.360 for Microsoft really for Microsoft considering the phenomenal eventually certainly, um, 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:23.480 but you know, it's I'm not sure if it was 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:27.719 such an assured success for them at that point. They 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.760 said specifically, it was interesting in that documentary they said, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.920 you know, there was nothing preordained about Halo becoming a big, 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:38.320 big success. In fact, originally when the Microsoft Xbox console 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:42.400 was coming out, it wasn't going to be uh heralded 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.440 as the main attraction. It was only there wasn't the 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.480 flagship at first. Yeah, it was that people began to 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.240 react to it, and particularly once they got to play 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:53.400 the multiplayer part, which we'll talk about in a second, 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:59.080 they reacted to it so enthusiastically that they quickly said, oh, well, 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.960 this is this is our our console killer. This is 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.760 what is going to sell units. But they didn't know 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:09.400 that at the beginning. So two thousand one would take 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.520 two releases only, right. Meanwhile, that would come out for 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:16.240 for Windows, Mac and the PlayStation two. And it was 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.360 originally supposed to come out, but there were so many 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.600 development problems that slowed things. Oh and the complication of 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:27.560 the Microsoft acquisition. Yeah. Absolutely, So here's the unfortunate thing 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:29.960 about this one. Take two had banked on only being 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.240 a huge hits. This is kind of like the opposite 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.640 side of the whole Halo thing where Microsoft was hedging 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.280 its beds. Take two said no, only because Bungee has 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.520 got this name and game, it's going to explode. And 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.679 then it didn't really at all. I mean, I mean, 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:46.520 there was certainly a hardcore group of of Bungee fans 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:48.760 that picked up on it very much, and and some 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.559 and some new converts as well. I remember a few 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.479 of my friends were very fond of the game. I 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.800 had never really looked into it until we started researching 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.280 this podcast, and when I watched the gameplay, I saw 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:02.959 that this game was ahead of its time, ahead of 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:04.880 its time, and and in terms of the gameplay, you 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.160 could you could do these combo moves that that were 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:10.040 very beautiful. Yeah, there was something like a thousand different 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.800 animations for hand to hand combat, which is crazy. Also, 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.400 you saw some Bungee favorites showing up things like learning 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:21.640 more about the world through terminals. So yeah, there's certain 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.040 certain tropes, like like you were saying Lauren at the 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:26.560 beginning of the last episode, that Bungee had established that 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:31.280 they continued to really rely upon. Another big change happened 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:33.560 for Bungee in two thousand and one. They had already 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:38.160 moved over to Microsoft, Only had come out, and then 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:43.280 they experienced a pretty significant change in their structure. Yeah, 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:47.280 after only had published, their founder or co founder depending 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:49.760 on who you ask, Alex Syropian would leave the company 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:54.280 to found a new Chicago based game developing company called 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:58.080 Wideload Games. Yeah, so Seropian, of course, it was his 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.800 brain child. He and Jones together had really created Bungee. 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.199 Seropian was ready to leave by the time and had 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.440 moved over to Microsoft. He felt that I suppose that 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.040 it was really you know, this Bungee had transformed, had 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.280 evolved into something new, and he was interested in moving 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:17.400 on Whitelad Games would eventually get acquired by a little 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.960 company called Disney and become part of Disney Interactive. Seropian 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.320 would actually become a pretty important executive at Disney Interactive, 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.840 but then would leave in to found another company called 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:35.360 Industrial Toys. Yep, they're creating games for mobile devices like iOS. 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.920 So also in two thousand one, if that's not enough, 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:42.120 we've got Seropean leaving. Something else happened. Uh. Yeah, around 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.360 the same time, after Tony had published Bungee West, being 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.559 the subset of Bungee which had which had really developed 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:53.200 the game, would fold. Yeah. They just didn't make sense 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.400 to have two different office presences, especially now that they 0:13:56.400 --> 0:14:01.760 had been folded into Microsoft officially. Soh so Bungee West 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:05.880 goes away. Uh. And in November two thousand one, this 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.160 is a big year for Bungee, they actually would release 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.640 Halo Combat Evault for the Xbox So it was a 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.559 launch title for the console system, huge deal for Microsoft, 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.720 and it was an enormous hit. Uh. It didn't feature 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:25.520 online multiplayer because Xbox five wasn't yet ready, so right, 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.120 this was one of those instances where Microsoft had been 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:31.720 trumpeting the fact, you know that they included an Ethernet 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:36.600 port in the Xbox at launch, but the live component 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.440 of it that the software was not prepared, so there 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.880 was no platform to support it. However, what you could do, 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.920 right was it was land your xboxes together and the 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.560 it was a lot less complicated than the process of 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.840 landing computer systems together. It's a plug in play type thing, 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.320 right right, And that was I remember the first time 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.840 that I saw this and it was so revolutionary to 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.000 the idea that you wouldn't have to go into all 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.680 of your settings and mess around with everything and go 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.400 through that frustration level. Uh that that yeah, that you 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.520 you really would just tuck them up together and they 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.880 would basically do it for you. Yeah. So uh, for 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.280 those of you who have never participated in the joy 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:20.800 of a land party, land is local area network, if 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.600 we have not mentioned that yet in this particular episode, Yeah, 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.040 it's um. So. The way Halo multiplayer would work is 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.000 that you would get multiple people on a single console 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.040 and that would create a split screen environment and that 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.080 would depend upon how many people were playing, right, Yeah, 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.600 cooperatively you could play a two player game and in 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.920 a versus kind of universe, he could you could play 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:43.480 for four on a single console, but you could you 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:47.480 could network multiple consoles together for a maximum of sixteen players. 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.200 So imagine that you've got these multiple television side by side, 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.360 all of them in split screen view, all of you 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:57.200 are playing a specific one. Uh there was This was 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.960 a time where multiplayer meant that you could engage in 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.440 some underhanded tactics. I'm talking screen lookers. I know you're 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.600 out there. Okay, it's part of the game. It is 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.080 not part of the game. It's not a legitimate strategy. 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:11.960 You should be looking at your own screen. Don't look 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.280 at my screen. It's like checking your rear view mirror. 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.840 There's nothing at all if you can't avoid it. Look, 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.200 you know it's it's a common thing on in in 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.280 games of war for you to be able to look 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.720 through the eyes of your enemy and see exactly where 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.520 they are. Look. This is why we always wound up 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:31.600 having having two rooms of of xboxes with Red team 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.040 on one side and Blue team on which the fantastic 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:38.600 because you only saw your fellow players screens, and you 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.960 could cooperate and you wouldn't get people shouting at you 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.920 about screen looking only about everything else. Camping. Yeah, now 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.640 that's a legitimate strategy that is not a legitimate strategy. Hey, 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.520 I'm sorry Red versus Blue taught it to me. But yeah, 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.960 so it was interesting because the whole first person shooter. 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.440 If you've never played Halo, if you don't know anything 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.800 about Halo, we can tell you everything about Halo. Well 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.280 we'll give you We'll give you the high level look. Um. 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.400 It was revisiting a lot of the ideas that Bungee 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.000 had explored in the Marathon series, but the two games 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:15.000 are not set in the same universe. The general plot 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.800 is that it's in the future where humanity has expanded 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:24.480 and colonized far distant worlds, and through this colonization process, 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.960 several things have happened. Some of this gets explored in 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:33.320 expanded universe material like novels or mini series, but the games, 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.840 as they unfold, you learned things like there were periods 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.639 of civil unrest where people on far reaching planets were 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:48.000 upset at Earth's kind of totalitarian approach to colonization other humans, 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.520 not alien exactly. Yeah, so this is there were there 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.400 were the civil wars, and at any rate, also during colonization, 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.880 we happen to come into contact, we humans with some 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:02.440 aliens um called the Covenant. Yeah, called the Covenant specifically 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:06.680 because it's a confederacy of different alien species who all 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.280 share the same religion, and part of that religion involves 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:14.040 this idea of a great journey where the entire alien 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.480 confederation will move on to an enlightened level of existence. 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:23.520 But they're also heretics, and humans are heretics because we 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.960 take advantage of ancient technologies that we come across that 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.080 we're not supposed to touch because they're very important to 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.399 the alien religion. All of that is the backstory, like 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.639 the background of what's going on in the game. The game, 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.040 you have a very very much more immediate problem than 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:44.760 this complex religious and political kind of turmoil is going on. 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:46.520 Although yeah, like like I don't think that the game 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:48.280 would have taken off the way that it did if 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.479 it hadn't had this background. Yeah. So, but you know, 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:56.040 it's it's it's important, but not critical to the right. Again, 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:58.320 just like just like the earlier games, you could play 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.000 this just running guns straight through, or just play the 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.200 multiplayer and never even touched the single player and still 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.000 find it a very satisfying experience. But it was the 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.680 story that got a lot of people interested in saying, wow, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.639 this is this is really complex. Yeah, there's there's like 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.240 a whole mythology. There's there's stuff going on besides what 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.320 your character is doing. A lot of computer games and 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.439 video games, I think give you the impression that whatever 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.879 you are doing is the only thing that's really of 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:28.959 consequence that's happening within that game world, and that's not 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.240 the case with the Halo games necessarily. So the game 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.280 opens where you are playing a character called the Master Chief. 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.840 Master Chief is is his rank uh in A. He's 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:47.200 a space marine essentially wearing superpowered armor. He's genetically enhanced. Um, 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.600 he's kind of the elite of the elite. And there's 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:52.240 a whole backstory to them that we're not going to 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.320 go into because that could be like a series of 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.800 podcasts at any rate. You're on a ship that gets 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.800 attacked by Covenant horses, and in the process you're trying 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.800 to kind of escape the Covenant. You're you're really your 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.800 goal is to make sure the Covenant don't figure out 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.919 where Earth is because they want to kill us. That 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:14.480 would be bad. So you try your your ship tries 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:16.200 to escape and slip space, which is kind of a 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:18.800 hyperspace sort of thing, and you just happened to come 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:25.479 out right at a gigantic ring shaped planet size space station. 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:27.800 Planet size in the sense that if you look at 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.880 the square footage of the surface area, it's like a planet, 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.480 although it is a it is an artificial construct built 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.639 by a mysterious race of aliens called the Forerunners, who 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.000 are no longer around. Huh. And but this thing is 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.760 called a halo. Yeah, Halo installation. I think it's installation. Oh, 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.639 for in the lore of the game. Um so in 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.760 the game, you the Covenant show up to they follow 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.320 right behind you, and they they see this thing and 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:58.080 they think, oh wow, this is interesting. We want to 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.520 check this out too, So it becomes of a race 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:06.720 to try and find out what's the purpose of this installation? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:08.879 But along the way you run into these aliens called 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.040 the Flood, which are these parasitic things that turn both 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.720 humans and aliens alike into sort of zombie things. Yeah, 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.439 And you find out eventually that the purpose of the 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.080 installation was twofold one, to contain the Flood for study 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.520 and to to act as defense mechanism if the Flood 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.119 were ever released into the galaxy. Because the flood can 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.720 essentially infect any sentient life form. So eventually what you 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.399 learn is that this installation, if turned on, will wipe 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.119 out all sentient life within a huge radius, like a 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.159 significant portion of the galaxy and um. And so you 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:45.600 come to the conclusion that that would be a bad thing. 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:48.680 Whereas the Covenant think this is the key to the 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.000 great journey, this is worthwhile. Yeah, if we push this button, 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.440 then we will totally move on to an enlightened form 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:58.880 of existence. So that's where the whole whole um conflict 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:02.280 comes in. By the end of it, you spoiler alert, 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:07.639 successfully destroy the installation and then, uh, you know, Cortana, 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:11.200 this AI, which again very important in the in the 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.879 lore of Bungee, is the artificial intelligence. Cortana, the AI 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.280 who's been looking after you and helping you along the way, says, uh, 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:23.600 it's over, and of course it's just getting started. That's 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.840 a that's a good master Chief repression. It wasn't. I 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:28.880 was being kind. I don't have a deep I don't 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:34.239 have a basso profundo type voice. Uh so. Also, I've 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:36.679 been coughing a lot, so this is this is as 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.080 gruff as I can get. But yeah, it was. It 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:43.840 was pretty It was it was for for a console 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:48.080 based first person shooter. It was really complex and rich 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:51.280 and had satisfying gameplay for a lot of players, so 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.840 sure well. And and also the combat evolved part of 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:58.920 the title meant that the the AI in the game, 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.679 and I'm not talking about the articial intelligence characters. I'm 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.880