Halo 2

If you're not into video games, the Halo 2 'phenomenon' may well take you by surprise. I mean, Halo was just an excellent shoot-em-up game. Why is the hype for the sequel so huge? I will attempt to explain. First, however, full geek disclosure: I waited at the video game store last night with hundreds of other geeks to get my hands on my pre-ordered copy.

Ok, to understand this phenomenon, we have to buy into the concept known as Sturgeon's Law. Theodore Sturgeon was a Science Fiction writer in the 50's and 60's who wrote dense, clever, intelligent stories which contrasted with the shallow, giant-robot fighting science fiction that dominated the genre back then. He was once asked, 'Why is so much science fiction crap?" He answered, " Of course 90 percent of science fiction is crap....but 90 percent of everything is crap." Want evidence of the accuracy of this law? Go to your movie listing page in the nearest newspaper. Look down the list of movies. See what I mean? Now go to your TV Guide. Yep, 90% crap. For the final proof, turn on your radio. So, if 90% of everything is crap, then 90% of all video games are crap. And boy, are they crap. One has to sift through a lot of crap just to find some mediocre titles, let alone something good. Something excellent - if you get one example of videogame excellence a year, you're doing well.

The original Halo was such a game. Smart story, incredible environments, amazing gameplay, and the ability to do it all with friends with an amazing multiplayer element. People played it pretty constantly for 3 years. And in the gamer world, years are like dog years - a 3 year old game may as well be 21. When I hosted the inaugral Moondog's Gamefest earlier this year, (more on the Glory that is Gamefest later), it was Halo that had everyone staying up late and wondering where the time went. So the sequel - well, everyone that loved the original knew they wouldn't screw it up. Such quality is rare in life. It makes grown men stand out in the cold outside Electronics Boutiques accross the country.

And Halo 2 delivers. It's freakishly good. It's so good non video game people look at it and say "Holy shit!" It contains moments where you forget you're playing a game. That is something that only good art can do - it transports you. The crazy thing is, Halo 2 will probably not even be the best game of the year - that will probably be Half Life 2, due out in 2 weeks time. My theory of video games is that, like motion pictures 100 years ago, they're the Rodney Dangerfield of art - they don't get no respect. It took a few legitimate movie masterpieces - Birth of Nation, Citizen Kane - for movies to be accepted by mainstream culture as legitimate art. Until the masterpieces, theatre snobs just turned up their noses at the movies. The advance word is that Half-life 2 is the game that will do that for this new medium. I'll let you know, because guess what? I have it pre-ordered.