I played Halo: Reach campaign a little differently from how I play most games — I also simultaneously read the novel Halo: Contact Harvest, and the Dr Halsey’s Journal that was packaged along with the special edition of the game.
Contact Harvest is a novel that traces the story of the Covenant’s first contact with humans, on the colony of Harvest. Written by long-time Bungie writer Joseph Staten, it features as protagonist everybody’s favourite cigar-chomping African-American marine, Sgt Avery Johnson. Needless to say, it manages to bring alive the entire Halo universe in great detail, far better than what is possible in a videogame. The novel allows you to experience the conflict from the point of view of the humans as well as Covenant forces, and greatly helps dispel the oft-repeated notion that the covenant just ‘sit around, waiting for Master Chief to come by and shoot them’.
This is my first Halo novel, and until now (with the minor exception of playing as The Arbiter), I never had the opportunity to understand the Covenant, their motivations, politics and personalities. Reading the book hugely increased my appreciation of many nuances and details of the universe that are present, but not explained in the games.
Dr Halsey’s Journal is a neat bonus included with the Halo: Reach special edition, a book presented as a personal diary kept by Dr Catherine Halsey, inventor of the SPARTAN programme, during the months leading up to the events depicted in the game.
Using journal entries, sketches, collected shreds of evidence, notes, letters, photos and diagrams, the journal cleverly weaves an engaging back-story to the game, giving us a peep into the mind of one of the most important characters in the story of Reach. As Dr Halsey tries to unlock the mysteries of Covenant technology, improve the SPARTAN armour and ‘grow’ Cortana, we get a glimpse of the efforts that went into creating the forces that would become humanity’s last defence against this powerful alien enemy. Reading the diary and scanning all the little notes and pictures in detail fleshes out the game’s content quite superbly — it’s the ultimate geekgasm. Of course, in true Bungie fashion, it’s all immaculately written and produced.
The effect of reading all this material on my gameplay experience was surprisingly profound. I’ve played every Halo game made until now, but it’s always been about the gunplay for me. The basic firefights in the Halo series are so much fun, and the set-pieces so immaculately crafted, that you can play the whole game without so much as a sideways glance towards the story, and you would still end up having a great time.
But with Reach (partly due to my reading the ancillary material, and due to the game itself), I found myself being tied emotionally to a Halo game for the first time. With a deeper connect to the game’s fictional universe, I found myself caring about my fellow Spartans, the marines, the people of Reach, and the whole conflict itself took on far greater meaning. By the time I reached the game’s stunning, tragic, almost poetic final sequence, I was completely overwhelmed. In fact, I’m now thinking of, just on the momentum, playing through the entire original trilogy once more, just to savour the universe.
With more game publishers putting out comics, novelisations, and films (Gears of War, Mass Effect to name just two), the possibilities are exciting indeed — giving us the opportunity to enjoy games in more meaningful and intimate ways. Now, where’s that Pac-Man novelisation?