It wasn't supposed to be this way. The Xbox was going to boast the power of a PC, and leverage the skills of PC game developers, who'd bring a new degree of sophistication to the pizza-and-beer paradigm of the console -- but on a uniform, stable platform free from the tyranny of CTRL-ALT-DEL. And now with its first true crossover audience, interactive entertainment would finally, fully enter the mainstream. It would be a revolution in gaming.
This is what Microsoft wanted, too, wasn't it? Bill Gates himself said as much, recently telling Nikkei Electronics Online, "The initial buying group will be very heavy in men from 14 to 30 ... [but the] power of Xbox isn't just for the popular racing and boxing games. Its possibilities are wide open. There will be games that women like, while there will be others that capture the hearts of the elderly."
And I was overjoyed when J. Allard, Microsoft's general manager for the Xbox, seemed to confirm my sense of what was to come, and what should come. "I think that our approach, as compared to some of the other console manufacturers," the peroxide-haired Allard told Gamespot last year, "is to invite creative independence to come to the platform and really do some magic. To steal from film industry examples, I want 'Run Lola Run' . . . [and] 'The Blair Witch Project.' I want those types of zany things that don't really fit into the mold to find their way into Xbox."
So for the first time, I actually dared to entertain warm thoughts toward Microsoft. Maybe J. Allard would become the Lorenzo di Bonaventura of the game industry -- and like the production head at Warner Brothers, who regularly uses AOL/Time Warner's cash reserves to fund provocative, offbeat films like "The Matrix" and "Three Kings." Allard would steward a handful of eccentric games to the Xbox. Sure, there'd always be the wrestling and the snowboarding titles, but in among those frat house staples, you'd regularly come across crossover games of genuine daring and artistry, the likes of which you'd never quite seen before. (And this wouldn't just be a P.R. sop for pretentious game critics -- it would reflect a savvy business sense, an acknowledgement that many acclaimed games, like Myst or the Sims, began as unclassifiably odd projects that were at first rejected by many but ended up redefining the industry.)
So on a warm November Saturday, along San Francisco's Embarcadero, I did go searching for the video-game equivalent of "Run Lola Run," at the (sparsely attended) Xbox Odyssey, a big touring tent for Microsoft to show off its lead games.
In that regard, Bungie Software's Halo and Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee from Oddworld Inhabitants -- both titles produced by studios within Microsoft's games division -- are the only plausible contenders on the console's premiere list. Yet, admirable as they are in their own right, neither quite reaches the status of a "killer app" -- a game so good as to justify the purchase of the hardware it runs on.
To be sure, Halo is an excellent, squad-based first-person shooter, set in a sprawling game world (a lush, artificial planet shaped like a ring), with an epic sci-fi story about humanity's last desperate stand against an alien coalition, fought on land, in underground bases and in aerial skirmishes above the surface. While it shares much from previous PC shooters -- including the strong narrative of Half-Life, the outdoor multiplayer combat of Tribes and the squad-based sci-fi action of Elite Forces -- it's the first to synthesize so many different elements seamlessly together in a console title.
It's already drawn the interest of PC gamers, who often dismiss console games as brainless kiddy fodder. At the Odyssey tent, one self-described PC loyalist was hardwired to a Halo demo, emptying clip after clip into hordes of dwarlike aliens. He'd already cleared his schedule for its debut, he told me. "I'm taking three days off work to play it, dude!" he said. But what other Xbox title is he interested in? His expression blanked a moment. "Dead or Alive III, I guess," he said, without much conviction, referring to Xbox's visually arresting (but conceptually undistinguished) fight title.
This ambivalence, equal parts enthusiasm and total indifference, is a recurring theme among the hardest of the hardcore gamers. "At the moment, nothing interests me enough to plop down $400 for an Xbox and games," says Jason "loonyboi" Bergman, news editor and console expert at Shacknews, a popular gamer site. "Especially not with all the bundles retailers are forcing people to get. Halo is going to be great ... But the rest of the lineup doesn't really interest me."
And while PC gamers are already predisposed toward Halo -- coming as it does from Bungie Software, one of the most respected (and oldest) computer game developers for Mac and Windows -- it's not clear the Bungie name will draw in console players. Especially considering its "hero," known only as the Master Chief -- a nameless ultracommando in a bulky power suit.
Underdeveloped protagonists are a recurring flaw in Bungie's games -- its strategy classics Myth and Myth II, for example, are masterpieces of real-time combat in a vividly realized world, but they're coupled to a generic fantasy story, recounted by an anonymous narrator. This lack of an appealing character never really hurt the popularity of the Myth games; however, they were cult hits confined to the much smaller market of computer games. In the console space, where the potential audience is in the tens of millions, the field is dominated by instantly identifiable, engaging personalities, intrinsically linked to their parent console. Nintendo has Mario; Sega, at the peak of its console dominance, had Sonic the Hedgehog. And for its own billion-dollar system, Microsoft leads off with ... a guy in a boxy outfit with a title for a name, his humanity masked off by a faceplate of tinted glass.
Come to think of it, for a Microsoft product, this is the perfect figurehead. It's also branding suicide.
Which leaves Oddworld, the adventures of Munch and Abe, vaguely humanoid, popeyed heroes trying to make it in a surreal, alien land. Beautifully rendered with eerie whimsy, Oddworld even includes witty touches of social satire -- much of your game time is spent freeing Fuzzles, tiny furballs condemned by their corporate masters to toil away for them, while literally caged to their workstations. After a few hours of play, though, a sheen of familiarity begins to creep in: Weirdness aside, much of the game involves scooping up power-ups and demands a lot of twitch-driven jumping; it feels a lot like Shigeru Miyamoto's Super Mario games, but with internal organs for heroes.
And that's it for the Xbox premiere list. Otherwise, it's the usual sports, racing and fight titles, rendered with slightly better graphics than the PS2, but really notable only for their slavish imitation to all the console games that have come before them.
Next page: Nintendo strikes back with a delightful new offering from Miyamoto
