IGN has a nice five-page piece about the interplay between science fiction and fantasy literature and video games. Halo gets a couple of mentions, not surprisingly, most of which fall on page five:
Bungie's Halo series has become one of the most broadly known sci-fi games across the globe, but it's a significantly different take on the first-person genre than the Half-Life series. It draws from different sources as well. Halo's influences have been exhaustedly discussed, and Bungie has done little, until recently, to quell the debates. Halo's literary influences abound, ranging from Larry Niven's "Ringworld" and Ian M. Banks' "The Culture," both of which may have influenced the ring-like worlds called Halos. The drones in Halo are similar to the Buggers in Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game," as is Halo's SPARTAN program, reflective of the super soldiers from the same book. Even Halo's viral Flood species rings familiar to similarly destructive creatures from "Ender's Game." It's also been suggested that Master Chief, aka "John 117," was formed from ideas found in Christopher Rowley's Starhammer, which featured a genetically altered man by the name of Jon 6725416.
The entire article, though, is well worth a read.
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Anonymous (not verified)
Super soldiers in Ender's Game
Um . . . What? There were no super soldiers in Ender's Game. At least no cybernetically enhanced ones with powered armor. The only similarity with the "soldier" program in Ender's Game is the recruitment of SPARTAN candidates as children. And even then, there are real differences to be found.
If there's that much misinformation in one sentence, I'm not gonna bother reading the rest, lest I come away as misinformed as the writer.
narcogen
Re: Super soldiers in Ender's Game
In reply to: Super soldiers in Ender's Game[quote=]Um . . . What? There were no super soldiers in Ender's Game. At least no cybernetically enhanced ones with powered armor. The only similarity with the "soldier" program in Ender's Game is the recruitment of SPARTAN candidates as children. And even then, there are real differences to be found.
If there's that much misinformation in one sentence, I'm not gonna bother reading the rest, lest I come away as misinformed as the writer. [/quote]
You're taking that way too literally. The article doesn't say or even suggest that the children in Ender's Game are cyborgs or have armor. It's solely meant to refer to the training program the children went through, just as the children went through the SPARTAN program. They didn't get their armor until they were adults, anyway.
There's no misinformation in that sentence; you're interpreting it to mean more than it says. The author of the article has, in my opinion, not read all the source material the article refers to, and many of the comparisons are broad rather than detailed, but there's a big gap between being vague and being misinformative.