Post by Witcher Wolf on Sept 15, 2007 14:18:46 GMT -5
So yeah, some of us here like Halo...Nate being one of them as well as myself. I've always been impressed when a company goes the extra ten-thousand feet to put background/story/history into their products and take them to the next level.
Halo 3's marketing campaign has been one of those things that actually caught my eye.
I don't expect many people to read this but the last few ads and trailers have inspired me, not because they're CGI WOWIE fests...because they're part of a story.
They showcase a monument to Spartan John 117 and the Battle of New Mombasa.
Museum: www.gametrailers.com/player/24819.html
Believe: www.gametrailers.com/player/24927.html
Making of the John 117 Monument: www.gametrailers.com/player/24952.html
These are exceptionally clever designs as they showcase a fake but very well done period of a fictional history.
So well done, I did my own tribute.
John 117
Things were going bad for us. We'd lost ten men of the twelve that tried to hold the breach and Covenant forces poured into the gap. It was like a retelling of that old Earth history tale: the battle of Thermopylae and we all know how that one ended. Our own personal Hot Gates.
Banshees flew overhead, their gunfire ripping the trench apart with the sound of concussive explosions. Debris rained like Persian arrows and men I'd lived with, fought with and laughed with were thrown about like rag dolls in a child's tantrum. It looked like I was going to die with them too.
Helljumpers and Marines every man-jack of us were pushed harder than we had even been pushed before. This was one hell of a fight and it just kept on getting worse. I couldn't even hear the order to pull back as the plasma grenade went off to my right killing Johns and Mitchell. They were lost to a bright white light that threw dirt up into the air and nearly blinded me.
I stumbled from side to side in a ragged mess, my helmet rattled against my skull as I tried to clear my head. The battle rifle in my hand dragged against the ground as I fought against nausea and waves of sickness. I hit something; it was like a big wall. I pulled the rifle up and tried to focus on it. My vision blurred and I swear it was like a ghost.
John 117, Spartan, Master Chief, our Leonidas held me up and put me down against the wall.
"Easy soldier," I'd never expected to hear his voice let alone meet the hero that we'd all come to know throughout this long and vicious campaign. "I'll take it from here."
Then he was gone, just like that. I watched him; he walked right out into the middle of those damn bugs and just kept on going. He was heading right towards one of those big fuckers and they stood there, calling in a sudden charge as the waves of Covenant threatened to swarm the Spartan. Elites, Brutes, Grunts, they must have thought it was some kind of gift wrapped vision.
John 117 said nothing and kept on going, any Covenant that dared get too close met death at the hands of the Chief's rifle. He wasn't going to give up without a fight it seemed. I imagined the Greek King Leonidas just marching towards Xerses wading through, seemingly unstoppable.
It was a sight that gave everyone of us some kind of hope that if one man, one Spartan still lived we might just see daylight once again and not the floor stained with our own blood.
Then it happened, one of those bastards caught the Chief and he went down onto one knee. The Spartan armour shattered where it had been struck by some kind of weapon we'd never seen used before, until now. Blood ran down the broken green of the Spartan's armour and he pulled himself up, he hammered the face of one of the nearby Elites with a metal-clad fist and pushed himself to his feet.
The big Covenant, one of the leaders raged through the midst of his troops and sent Grunts flying until he faced off with our wounded saviour. The helmet turned and I swear that the Chief nodded in my direction before he turned back and faced a sudden massive blow from his enemy. That must have struck the Spartan like a freight train.
He rocked back but didn't fall. Spartan's don't retreat and they don't surrender, just like the Greek history says. They're never listed as dead; they're always listed as missing. Some of us tried to rally towards that hero. We tried to support him but were cut off by the surrounding enemy.
I remember what happened next as the Chief's golden visor lifted up, it burnt like the sun for a moment as the light caught across it. The massive Covenant leader hefted the battered Spartan up and bellowed a cry of triumph.
My heart stopped as I saw the Chief's right hand. There was a slight gleam, a single glow and then the world went from grey to white hot in an instant. It was a wave of force so severe that the shockwave decimated everything in its radius. Stone was sundered and the ground blackened where the plasma grenade went off.
And that's how we saw the Master Chief face his final battle.
Is he alive or dead? All I can say to honour the memory of John 117 as I walk past the monument with my wife and son is: He was more alive than any of us and he was a damn hero.
Halo 3's marketing campaign has been one of those things that actually caught my eye.
I don't expect many people to read this but the last few ads and trailers have inspired me, not because they're CGI WOWIE fests...because they're part of a story.
They showcase a monument to Spartan John 117 and the Battle of New Mombasa.
Museum: www.gametrailers.com/player/24819.html
Believe: www.gametrailers.com/player/24927.html
Making of the John 117 Monument: www.gametrailers.com/player/24952.html
These are exceptionally clever designs as they showcase a fake but very well done period of a fictional history.
So well done, I did my own tribute.
John 117
Things were going bad for us. We'd lost ten men of the twelve that tried to hold the breach and Covenant forces poured into the gap. It was like a retelling of that old Earth history tale: the battle of Thermopylae and we all know how that one ended. Our own personal Hot Gates.
Banshees flew overhead, their gunfire ripping the trench apart with the sound of concussive explosions. Debris rained like Persian arrows and men I'd lived with, fought with and laughed with were thrown about like rag dolls in a child's tantrum. It looked like I was going to die with them too.
Helljumpers and Marines every man-jack of us were pushed harder than we had even been pushed before. This was one hell of a fight and it just kept on getting worse. I couldn't even hear the order to pull back as the plasma grenade went off to my right killing Johns and Mitchell. They were lost to a bright white light that threw dirt up into the air and nearly blinded me.
I stumbled from side to side in a ragged mess, my helmet rattled against my skull as I tried to clear my head. The battle rifle in my hand dragged against the ground as I fought against nausea and waves of sickness. I hit something; it was like a big wall. I pulled the rifle up and tried to focus on it. My vision blurred and I swear it was like a ghost.
John 117, Spartan, Master Chief, our Leonidas held me up and put me down against the wall.
"Easy soldier," I'd never expected to hear his voice let alone meet the hero that we'd all come to know throughout this long and vicious campaign. "I'll take it from here."
Then he was gone, just like that. I watched him; he walked right out into the middle of those damn bugs and just kept on going. He was heading right towards one of those big fuckers and they stood there, calling in a sudden charge as the waves of Covenant threatened to swarm the Spartan. Elites, Brutes, Grunts, they must have thought it was some kind of gift wrapped vision.
John 117 said nothing and kept on going, any Covenant that dared get too close met death at the hands of the Chief's rifle. He wasn't going to give up without a fight it seemed. I imagined the Greek King Leonidas just marching towards Xerses wading through, seemingly unstoppable.
It was a sight that gave everyone of us some kind of hope that if one man, one Spartan still lived we might just see daylight once again and not the floor stained with our own blood.
Then it happened, one of those bastards caught the Chief and he went down onto one knee. The Spartan armour shattered where it had been struck by some kind of weapon we'd never seen used before, until now. Blood ran down the broken green of the Spartan's armour and he pulled himself up, he hammered the face of one of the nearby Elites with a metal-clad fist and pushed himself to his feet.
The big Covenant, one of the leaders raged through the midst of his troops and sent Grunts flying until he faced off with our wounded saviour. The helmet turned and I swear that the Chief nodded in my direction before he turned back and faced a sudden massive blow from his enemy. That must have struck the Spartan like a freight train.
He rocked back but didn't fall. Spartan's don't retreat and they don't surrender, just like the Greek history says. They're never listed as dead; they're always listed as missing. Some of us tried to rally towards that hero. We tried to support him but were cut off by the surrounding enemy.
I remember what happened next as the Chief's golden visor lifted up, it burnt like the sun for a moment as the light caught across it. The massive Covenant leader hefted the battered Spartan up and bellowed a cry of triumph.
My heart stopped as I saw the Chief's right hand. There was a slight gleam, a single glow and then the world went from grey to white hot in an instant. It was a wave of force so severe that the shockwave decimated everything in its radius. Stone was sundered and the ground blackened where the plasma grenade went off.
And that's how we saw the Master Chief face his final battle.
Is he alive or dead? All I can say to honour the memory of John 117 as I walk past the monument with my wife and son is: He was more alive than any of us and he was a damn hero.
