"Halo," according to its developer's Web site (www.bungie.net), is the "definitive first person shooter for Xbox," and was first released in November of 2001. The game centers around a story concerning a "powerful fellowship of alien races bent on humankind's extermination." This race, known as the Covenant, seeks to destroy all remaining humans in a guerrilla war taking place in the ancient ring-world of Halo. While the story leans heavily on a science fiction aspect, the game's virtues lie not in its plot but in the action, which includes a huge variety of weapons ranging from alien plasma swords to flame throwers, vehicle or foot-based fighting and indoor and outdoor combat in a variety of environments. The game can be played in single player mode, in which the player is given missions that relate to the story created in the game.
However, the game has gained its tremendous momentum on campus through the fact that it can be plugged into the campus network and played by essentially a giant party of players across the school. With one console, the maximum number of players in the multiplayer mode is only four, but through the network, a player can battle against as many as 15 opponents.
This opportunity led to the creation of the Amherst Halo League. The brainchild of sophomores Oren Krinsky and Jake Thomas, the League was established as a way to finally get everyone playing the game together in one place to communicate and to create easier methods of organizing game times. The group not only exists on thefacebook (with the ominous description "Abandon all hope ye who join"), but has a website as well: www.amherst.edu/~rrwilliams/halo. Previously, when playing the game on the network, players would lose or win against opponents they had never met before. The League allows for a means of determining a face and a real name to attach to the "Halo" names most knew from playing the video game. Thomas adds, however, that the League has become somewhat outdated now that the Internet has "revolutionized console gaming."
One of the champion players on campus, James Karras '05, said that he used to devote at least a couple hours per day to the game and had become unstoppable. With graduation approaching, however, he has cut down his game time, and he believes that other up-and-coming members of the League could beat him now. While there is indeed life after "Halo," he still plans to play the game after graduating. However, this is all in line with his plans for the future-he will begin working next year for Sony Online Entertainment, starting out, fittingly, as a video game tester.
Game time per week seems to vary between as little as 2-4 hours per week to as many as 20 hours per week (as many hours as a part-time job). When asked why he devotes so much time to the game, Krinsky said, "'Halo' is addicting. It rewards you if you play well, and you get to stroke your ego 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on Xbox Live, because there is always someone waiting to get reamed."
As for the draw of "Halo" in comparison to any other video game, Thomas said, "The competition and skill of it is so much more pronounced. Because the setup of 'Halo' is so based on strategy and speed, it makes for a really interesting game."
However, the most interesting responses came when I asked League members why they think girls do not play the game as much as boys do. "Video games are traditionally a male-dominated hobby," said Marco LoCascio '07. "In particular, violent games that center around killing, such as 'Halo,' seem to appeal to a particularly masculine desire to display strength and prowess. It's like wearing a wife-beater, but for geeks." Thomas agreed, but for a different reason. "I just don't think that girls like the competition as much. If you don't get a real rush from the game, you don't invest the time, and if you don't invest the time it's not fun at all to play at a competitive level," he said. "This isn't true for all girls-one of the top players in the country is a female-but it's the exception and not the rule." None of the players seemed to believe I could ever beat them at the game, regardless of how much I practiced.
While these players may dominate the College's "Halo" scene, some members got a reality check after attending a tournament in Boston last year. While Karras said that he believes Amherst students are actually "pretty good," they apparently were "destroyed" by a fanatic group of "Halo" junkies who travel straight from tournament to tournament, leaving a wake of destruction in their path.
This loss did not discourage the League members, and they are still quite active players. The release of "Halo 2" in November was a second coming for the members and elicited the sense of excitement and anxiousness seen in, say, Harry Potter fans awaiting the release of a new book in the series. Sequels are always hyped up, and the main selling point of "Halo 2" was that it would be playable online, meaning that players were not just restricted to opponents on the campus network, but could now play against people in Australia, for example. There is also voice capability, which means that players can actually speak to the people they are playing against. All of these aspects of the game only serve to make "Halo" gaming more and more of a social gathering, no longer limited to the campus alone, but extended to the rest of the world as well.