Videogames had better be art. For Marty's sake.

Although I hate to keep pointing out the work of one individual at Bungie among many that are obviously so talented, simple candor requires me to. The music in the recent E3 Halo 2 demo, like the soundtracks on the earlier Halo 2 announcement video, going back all the way to the original Halo demo at MWNY in 1999- simply blew me away. The adjective cinematic begins to seem like damning with faint praise.

Marty O'Donnell's scores, combined with the audio work of Mike Salvatori of Total Audio and Joe Staten and the other mebers of the CinematiXXXteam, have perhaps changed Halo into something that is beginning to be more than a video game, more than a SF fantasy film, and more than just some kind of mongoloid fusion of the two. Historically, these two entertainment forms have not played well together. Some decent games have spawned films that might kindly be called pablum (Tomb Raider, Wing Commander, Mario Brothers, Mortal Kombat) and are quite likely to receive harsher criticism.

At the same time, famous movie franchises have given rise to series of games which sometimes vary in quality (Star Wars, Star Trek, et al).

Some fans have clamored for Halo to be made into a film. I think to some extent, they are missing the point. Halo is already more than a feature film. It is an immersive kind of entertainment that is beginning to deliver on the promise of buzzwords like interactive storytelling.

That interactivity is still rather rudimentary. As Tyson Ferrex Green pointed out in a recent interview at Bungie.net, Halo's gameplay is largely defined by sequences in which the main character, the Master Chief, interacts with the environment through the barrel of a gun. Other than opening doors and using elevators, there is little else to be done to interact with the environment. And unlike other, earlier Bungie attemps at interactive storytelling, such as the latter two games of the Marathon series, the actions of the player do not affect the outcome of the story. As in a traditional game, you advance on a linear path from mission to mission (unless you die).

However, once the technical framework is in place-- once the difference between experiencing the sights and sounds of a major motion picture and playing a videogame are so small as to be almost imperceptible, the potential for the future of new interactive art forms seems to open up. Because while computer games have, thus far, explored very little of their interactive storytelling capabilities, this is an avenue that is forever closed to film.

I hope this kind of advancement happens, and that Halo is duly recognized as a major milestone in this progression. Marty O'Donnell-- and everyone else at Bungie-- deserve it, as they most clearly deserve the industry-wide recognition they would most certainly get if they were laboring in the more traditional entertainment genres of popular music, television or films.