| The Behrend Beacon
'Halo 2' creates gamer widows
Review by Aaron J. Amendola
staff writer
Think back to Nov. 9. Do you re
member many people being absent in
your classes? Yes? It’s no wonder. Halo
2 was released at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday
morning, and a new definition of
“gamer widow” was just being created.
I was no exception . 1 had a rigorous
schedule planned. Beginning at 9 p.m.
the night before, I went retro and began
playing the first Halo game on
multiplayer with my friends. That is
until 10:30 when I proudly stood in line
at my local Gamestop until midnight,
when I would turn in my pre-order stub
and recei' e my brand-spanking new
copy of Bungie’s Halo 2.
I was excited - what can I say?
Over three years that Xbox hype ma
chine has had, a substantial amount of
press time has been given to this title.
Microsoft has treated this game as if
they were releasing a brand new con
sole, not a game.
You see, Halo isn’t just a game any
more. It’s a calling. It’s been saturated
into the being of console gamers every
where. It almost seeps from the pores
of gaming goodness, so much so that
the game’s main protagonist has become
a trademark for Microsoft. Just as Mario
is Nintendo’s sugar daddy, Master Chief
will serve as Microsoft’s icon for years
to come, and it’s easy to see why.
Halo 2 outdoes its predecessor in nu-
Movies put a new gloss on animating humans
BUENA VISTA
The stars of Pixar’s new animated film, “The Incredibles," are superheros that are forced to
enter a relocation program. The humanity of the story line shows why it is necessary to create
advances in animation to portray human life.
By Chris Vognar
The Dallas Morning News
The best thing about animation is its capac
ity for invention and imagination, its ability to
go places and do things off-limits to live-ac
tion film. But what happens when your subject
isn't a wacky creature, but a human being?
A whole new set of challenges arises as the
moviemakers try to strike a balance between
animation's fanciful potential and the believabil
ity expected with the depiction of people.
Two new big-budget movies tackle these
challenges with novel technology and winning
results. One, Pixar's humbled superhero saga
"The Incredibles," opened Friday with some nu
anced new wrinkles in computer animation. The
other, "The Polar Express," arrives Wednesday
bearing a painterly look achieved through mind
blowing (and not easily understood) filmmak
ing advances.
Together, "The Incredibles" and "The Polar
Express" represent bold steps in the field of
humanimation.
"Our goal was to do something patently un
real that feels very believable," says Brad Bird,
the "Incredibles" writer and director. "Some
thing where you're going to get involved with
these guys and be convinced that they have lives
and hopes and dreams and are thinking beings."
That's a tough balance, but it's essential to
the movie’s story and themes. The heroes of
"The Incredibles" are superheroes forced to en
ter a sort of suburban relocation program after
all "supers" are targeted by a rash of lawsuits.
As they navigate civilian life before jumping
back into action, their dual nature as ordinary
people capable of extraordinary feats comes into
sharp focus. Their humanity is essential.
"Animation is bringing characters to life, not
just making them move," says Mary Clarke-
merous ways. Luscious graphics, pulse
pounding audio, and even some minor
tweaks in the controls have made all the
difference in the world. After playing
Halo 2 for even five minutes, you’ll look
back at the original as an eyesore. That’s
not to say the original was ugly in any
manner, but the sequel trumps it in ev
ery aspect.
The most scrutinized portion of the
game comes in its single-player cam
paign mode. Ever since early summer,
Microsoft has been using a fake propa
ganda site oddly named ilovebees.com
to help stir up commotion for the game
by using cryptic messages and fake
hacker threats warning of an alien inva
sion. Thousands of avid fans signed on
daily to see if the site would reveal any
information about the game whether it
be sparse or nothing at all.
Clearly, Microsoft’s ploy worked, and
frankly, the campaign mode delivers in
spades. Gone are the repetitive corridor
levels of the first Halo game, replaced
with whole cities, lavish alien infrastruc
tures and other intergalactic sanctions
that will have you guessing at every
turn.
At least once during every level (of
which there are 15), there are marquee
battles. Whether it be taking down a gi
ant robotic spider during a city raid, de
feating a covenant general while evad
ing dozens of enemy sentinels or taking
down a fleet of the covenant’s finest,
there is something to remember in each
(KRT)
STUDKNT UN
Miller, associate dean at the Art Institute of Cali
fornia in San Francisco. "And ‘The Incredibles'
is awesome. It’s A-plus. The attention to detail
that they applied to the characters is just amaz-
Bird notes that our familiarity with the hu
man race makes people difficult to animate.
"Everyone is really well versed in how hu
mans move and how they shift their weight and
how they go about things," says Bird, who pre
viously made the hand-drawn animated film
"The Iron Giant." "So the litmus test for what
is convincing is much more thorough."
The biggest challenge was gauging how
much detail to use, when to hold back and when
to go all-out. Bird and the Pixar folks solved
this problem by going beneath the surface. The
computer models for the characters were given
muscles that move with them. They also ben
efited from a process called subsurface scatter
ing, which is based on what actually happens
when light hits skin.
"The light doesn’t just hit the surface of the
skin, it also goes beneath the surface," says Bird.
"It hits blood vessels, and that scatters the light
under your skin. It's a very subtle effect, but it's
the difference between flesh and plastic. You
don't have to do some of the surface details. We
didn't do hair follicles or pores. And it gives
the character a kind of a glow."
"The Polar Express" features a completely
different approach to capturing human move
ment and emotion. If you've seen the trailers,
you might have noticed that the characters, five
of them played by Tom Hanks, look almost real.
That’s because, oddly enough, they are real.
The movie's technological trump card is
called performance capture and it's a lot more
elaborate than subsurface scattering. On the
most basic level, the characters aren't really
animated. Actors wear body suits covered with
reflective jewels, which are also affixed to their
and every stage.
Master Chief doesn’t have any time
to waste either, with the assortment of
foes he has to deal with this time around.
Everything has increased: enemies,
weapons, vehicles and the most fun of
all, ways to kill. Now that you can dual
wield weapons, you possess an uncanny
amount of potential carnage in your
hands. Don’t even get me started on the
fact that now the power of an energy
sword is but a click away.
The game’s only downfall rears its
ugly head in the form of the co-op cam
paign mode. Bungie seems to have made
the warp and spawn nodes at very inap
propriate places. Whether it be in the
middle of a battle or far away from
where you started, it gets annoying af
ter a while. If you’re not playing with
someone you are totally in-sync with,
you’re in for trouble. An experienced
Halo veteran playing with a newbie
makes for bad bedfellows.
What gave Halo its legs after the ini
tial story mode was its multiplayer op
tions. Bungie has clearly listened to and
addressed the questions and concerns of
fans everywhere, implementing addi
tions like more customization options
and bigger, more lush maps for players
everywhere to get their frag on in Halo
2.
Just give the game a few hours with
three of your closest friends. You’ll see
how friendly everyone is after you get
done pummeling your roommate relent-
But, at the end of the day, the same basic chal
lenge faces animated and live-action films: If
the story doesn't work, neither does the movie.
And if the characters don't work, neither does
the story. Great writing is just as key to Pixar's
incredible run as great animation. As Bird puts
it: "Animated films have all the strengths and
weaknesses of live-action films. Some of them
just have a little more going for them than oth
ers."
faces. Digital cameras record the movements
of the bodies as an assortment of three-dimen
sional dots. The characters are then integrated
into virtual sets, created in computers. (A simi
lar motion-capture process was used to bring
Gollum to life in the "Lord of the Rings" mov
ies).
"Performance capture is key to trying to do
something that has always been very difficult
for animators to do, which is animate correctly
proportioned characters," says "Polar" director
Robert Zemeckis. "All the performances in the
movie are digitized and captured in real time,
along with the voice, in three dimensions. That's
why I think you have that wonderful ability to
have those subtle things that actors intuitively
do that it would take an animator way too many
hours to try to draw."
How important are correctly proportioned
animated characters? The question gets at the
relationship between animation and realism, and
the matter of whether animation should embel
lish reality or replicate it. Zemeckis sees mo
tion capture as the perfect way to re-create the
impressionist look of Chris Van Allsburg's be
loved children's book. "The Polar Express"
looks like a painting come to life.
"Chris Van Allsburg never wanted the movie
to be animated, because he knew the animation
would have to simplify and cut the heart out of
his art," says Zemeckis. "In this particular case,
photo-realism (or live action) would take a lot
of charm out of the movie as well."
"The Polar Express" does look magical, but
that's mostly because of the settings and effects;
in other words, the stuff that isn't real. The char
acters certainly move convincingly, as well they
should; they're human. But the vacant look in
their eyes is a bit eerie, like the neither-here
nor-there faces that made the 2001 space ad
venture "Final Fantasy" such a flop.
"Some of the characters feel cold," says Dr.
Clarke-Miller of the Art Institute of California.
"They don't seem to light up. There's no expres-
sion."
Bird, the "Incredibles" director, has spoken
about the importance of caricature in animat
ing humans, the art of capturing a character's
abstract essence through creative exaggeration.
We see this in "The Incredibles" with
Incredible's oversized head, shaped a bit like a
pineapple and his daughter Violet's floppy mane
of black hair and big, nervous eyes.
"Animation is about catching the essence of
something and being truthful in the essence, but
being a little bit pushed in the execution," says
Bird. By contrast, "The Polar Express" is after
something closer to reality, hence the use of real
actors and motion capture.
one person at a time
BUNGIE SOFTWARE/GAMEWALLPAPERS.COM
Video game lovers stood in line Tuesday morning to purchase” Halo 2,” which
was released at 12:01 a.m. “Halo 2” provides more options than the first,
such as larger maps and more personal options.
lessly with two needlers in a round of
Slayer. The multiplayer is, dare I say,
the best time you’ll have killing your
friends on a console since the legend
ary Goldeneye 64.
It’s that perfect. There’s literally thou
sands of combinations that could be met
by the furthest reaches of players’ imagi
nations. With Xbox Live capability en
hancing the experience allowing you to
go online and frag worldwide, Halo 2
very well could be the only game you’ll
need for awhile or at least until Halo 3
comes out
When the end of the day comes, the
best way to play Halo 2 is with four
friends, a ton of Pepsi, pizza, and a
Friday, November 12, 2004
couch. You’ll be set for hours. You’ll
commiserate with your comrades about
the tragic losses and uplifting victories
on the battlefield and no one will get
hurt, sans for maybe a few egos.
If you’re an Xbox owner and you
don’t yet have your very own copy of
Halo 2, then I pity you. It is no longer a
matter of if you have time to play; this
game will make you reserve time to play.
It is with a clear head and a stable heart
that I say Halo 2 is the must-have game
for the Xbox. Don’t have an Xbox?
Here’s your excuse. Christmas is just
around the corner. Beg your parents.
Beg your cousins. Just do whatever you
need to do and buy it.