Get Back On The Track, Jack
HBO today points to an interesting blog entry by an English teacher in Korea, playing Halo 3 (apparently for the first time or nearly so) in Korean without English subtitles, and so without much insight into the story or what the player is supposed to do:
Gears of War was subtitled, but Halo 3 had full Korean menus and voice acting. This meant we had NO idea what the story was the entire time we were playing. If we were required to do something, we had to figure it out, usually by destroying things or pushing buttons. This lead to a lot of backtracking, guessing, and traveling to corners of the map "just to see" if this way where to go.
Diehard Halo fans, of course, probably can tell just from the visuals, combined with knowledge of the previous two games, what is going on a lot of the time. Here Halo 3 is a victim of its success: it is played by many, many people who are not hardcore gamers or hardcore Halo players.So for every Halo fan like me, who liked the idea of the highway tunnel chase in Outskirts but disliked its cramped spaces and linearity, there are probably more than a few like this player-- who doesn't know where to go in a level without verbal cues, and dislikes exploration.In some of the pre-release weekly updates about Halo 3 Bungie talked about doing some playtesting and putting in some ledges to clearly indicate which way the player should go. I admit that in some levels it is easy to get lost-- some of the jungle areas in Sierra 117, just about anywhere in Cortana-- but I view exploration as a privilege, not a punishment. I'm going to go to all corners of the map eventually just to see what's there, because I think the Halo series, like Bioshock, for instance, is a game that understands one of the first and foremost tasks is establishing a sense of place. 04, Delta Halo, the Ark: these are real places to me. I feel like I've been there. I want to go back there. I keep looking around the corners hoping to find something new, even where I know there won't be anything. I just keep hoping.Meanwhile other gamers know that they're supposed to follow the signposts, and consider time spent looking for one to be wasted, and time spent returning to a location you've already seen to also be wasted. I look at it this way: if the player objects that strenuously to returning to a place, then perhaps the place isn't fleshed out enough. Then again, some people don't want to explore real spaces and just want to get on to the next bit of shooting. Oh well.
