Jaffe Not “Getting” Halo Craze

God of War‘s creator enjoys the Halo series, but doesn’t follow the hype.

David Jaffe, the mind behind the original God of War and founder of the new Eat Sleep Play studio, has updated his blog with a conversation he had with Adam Orth, a friend of his who worked on Calling All Cars. During their instant messaging, Jaffe and Orth discuss the fervor surrounding the Halo series and whether the new advertising video is disrespectful to real war veterans.

David Jaffe: It’s a decent add I think. I just don’t get HALO. I don’t think the story is all that special, don’t think the world or characters matter much. I don’t know if I am simply not ‘getting it’ and it really is all that…or Microsoft has simply purchased rabid fan reactions for what is a great game but nothing more.

Adam Orth: that ad is insulting
“belive”?
come on

Orth: well, for 1, i think it’s disrespectcful to actual veterans of real wars and 2, they really expect people to become that invested in the halo story? i guess i just really dislike halo and that ad aint helping

Jaffe: well that’s what I mean about buying the hype. I don’t dislike Halo at all and really liked parts of Halo 2 alot…I am in minority who felt single player halo 2 was better than halo 1 single player. I mean, I hear people talk about the flood and shit and I’m like: what? Who gives a shit.

Jaffe: As for disrespect, come on…like Medal of Honor has not been doing he same for a long time. They talk about how important the games are and they are so earnest about it but come on, they are shooters. If they really cared about doing it right, they would give the MOH teams 3 years schedules and make Bioshock meets MOH…in terms of story and character and production value. And they would make THAT the game Spielberg was directing for them.

Orth: respectfully, i’ll totally dosagree with you there. MOH games take alot of care to not be disrespectful it’s one of the things they do right

well, i guess i have a different insight than you do having sat with veterans and taklked about their experience and how it relates to the games…

Jaffe: It’s not an issue of disrespect to the troops. It’s an issue of them riding on the sentimentality of people when they talk about how much they care and understand the sacrifice of the soldiers and then put out a sub par shooter that has nothing to do in the play mechanics or design with the sacrifice the soldiers went thru. It’s all window dressing that shows either the team doesn’t understand how to apply the history ‘under the hood’ and apply it to the play itself OR it shows that EA does not care about the message at all, and it’s all a way to market the game.

Orth: i agree that most of the finished products veer off from the original intent. it’s big problem at EA for MOH

Jaffe: They can cram all the sappy music and interviews with vets on the disc they want…but the game, the product they are actually selling, does not make me feel any closer to the vets sacrifice than any other shooter.