Since the Doom series, First Person Shooter (FPS) videogames have
ricocheted through the gaming community, often reaching outside
that community to the wider public. While critics primarily lampoon
FPSs for their aggressiveness and on-screen violence, gamers see
something else. Halo is one of the greatest, most successful FPSs
ever to grace the world of gaming. Although Halo is a FPS, it has a
science-fiction storyline that draws from previous award-winning
science fiction literature. It employs a game mechanic that limits
the amount of weapons a player can carry to two, and a multiplayer
element that has spawned websites like Red vs. Blue and games
within the game created by players themselves. Halo's unique and
extraordinary features raise serious questions. Are campers really
doing anything wrong? Does Halo's music match the experience of the
gamer? Would Plato have used Halo to train citizens to live an
ethical life? What sort of Artificial Intelligence exists in Halo
and how is it used? Can the player's experience of war tell us
anything about actual war? Is there meaning to Master Chief's rough
existence? How does it affect the player's ego if she identifies
too strongly with an aggressive character like Master Chief? Is
Halo really science fiction? Can Halo be used for
enlightenment-oriented thinking in the Buddhist sense? Does Halo's
weapon limitation actually contribute to the depth of the gameplay?
When we willingly play Halo only to die again and again, are we
engaging in some sort of self-injurious behavior? What is expansive
gameplay and how can it be informed by the philosophy of Michel
Foucault? In what way does Halo's post-apocalyptic paradigm force
gamers to see themselves as agents of divine deliverance? What can
Red vs. Blue teach us about personal identity? These questions are
tackled by writers who are both Halo cognoscenti and active
philosophers, with a foreword by renowned Halo fiction author Fred
Van Lente and an afterword by leading games scholar and artist
Roger Ngim.
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