What’s coming next? In short, Halo 3. The new year will see the release of the X-Box 360, the most graphics-heavy gaming console yet to be made. In 2005, the computer game industry achieved a milestone: it made more money than the film industry for the first time in history. When something like that happens, it’s time to pay attention.

Being in the Movie

The new X-Box and increased sales show a trend: the continued march toward stories that are completely immersive. Stories in book form always invited us to participate through imaginative reconstruction, but the invention and growth of movies increased our hunger for stories that went beyond telling a story to walking us through it. More and more our storytelling carries us through actual (even virtual) experiences.

The next natural progression is toward storytelling that increases our sense of experience even more. The popularity of IMAX films is an example of such a trend. However the next level of story-as-experience must add a key element: the spectator stops watching the experience and starts participating in it.

Enter the video game. Movies will not disappear in the future any more than books have today. But the next wave of movie-story is the interactive video game in which graphics will become as realistic as the computer effects we see in sci-fi and fantasy movies today. The stories will become more complex and more filmic, containing more video “cut clips.” Most importantly, players will become integral characters in telling and advancing the story. Rather than simply playing a game, players will tell and live the story they’re watching. They will be audience and participant at the same time.

Halo 3

At the cusp of this trend is the Haloverse, a sci-fi storyline played out in the form of a first person shooter game in which intricate plots advance with the action. If you really want to see what I’m talking about, go on-line and look at the trailer that was created for Halo 3, the next installment of the story which was designed specifically for the upgraded graphics capabilities of the new X-Box (both to be released sometime this winter). To watch the Halo 3 trailer is to wonder whether or not you’re watching a preview for a game or a movie (the answer is, essentially, both). Books have been written to flesh out the Haloverse, and Peter Jackson, who created the Lord of the Rings films, is producing a Halo movie and designing an all new Halo game.

What fascinates me about the Haloverse is its love/hate relationship with religion. Overtly, religion is the cause of all evils in the story. The enemy aliens are a confederation of races called the “Covenant” who believe the gods have called them to wipe out humanity. They are ruled by “prophets,” space popes governing space jihadists. At the same time, the game is filled with a sense of religious awe and mystery—it looks to fulfill the very same religious impulses which it decries in religion through the use of mystery, mystical music, and messianic heroes. To me the game stands as a testament to Ecclesiastes 3:11 which says God has “set eternity in the hearts of men.” Even a game that appears at first to be anti-religion builds its story, images, and music out of the same forms that evoke the religious sensibility in people: that sense of wonder, awe, mystery, and the longing for transcendent things larger than ourselves.

So What Now?

As with all media, parents need to research and monitor the games their children play. The biggest danger in gaming is the lack of physical exercise that goes with it, although this is true of all media, even books. Sometimes we just need to put the controller, remote, mouse, or book down and go for a walk. Some will worry about violence in video games. I don’t. I say violence in film, TV, or computer games is only wrong when it is gratuitous—when it has no purpose or meaning in the story.

The real excitement about computer games is their ability to act as an instructional tool. Many games require the mastery of numerous rules, the careful management of resources, the recognition of interaction among complex variables, and the need for strategy and tactics.

In the future students will play games in which they have to learn a great deal of information, but they won’t realize they’re learning because they’ll be too busy playing and enjoying the game. Of course educational and computer games exist now, but those are primarily for younger children and are built for education first, fun second. The best new games will be those which, like the best movies and books, are built for fun, adventure, and storytelling first and to which educational goals appear to come (though such would not really be the case) as an afterthought. |L

Dr. Charlie Starr teaches English, Humanities, and Film at Kentucky Christian University in Grayson, Kentucky.

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
May 3, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part five)
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Another generation grew up
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
May 11, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part one)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 17, 2008 - The college choice (part one)
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
August 5, 2007 - The art of reading
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
July 8, 2007 - Why books matter: the sequel
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 27, 2007 - The universal gospel
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 17, 2006 - Mercy, mercy
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells