30 seconds to Halo


"In Halo 1, there was maybe 30 seconds of fun that happened over and over and over and over again. And so, if you can get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game."

Joystiq magazine has a sweet interview with the guy that coined this oft repeated quote, Bungie game designer, Jaime Griesemer.

"Yeah, it's probably the most famous thing I ever said," For some reason it really resonated with the community and got quoted and repeated to the point where I would hear it from people that didn't realize where it had come from in the first place! Especially with journalists."

As commonly occurs, out of context the quote hasn't been given it's full flavour of meaning. Jaime told Joystiq of people such as journalists using the quote to mean one thing when he mean something a little different:

"All of which would be fine," he continues, "but the worst part is, everyone uses it to mean exactly the opposite of what I meant when I said it! They use it to say you only need 30 seconds of fun, and if you repeat something that is fun for 30 seconds over and over you have a game like Halo. There was a whole second half of the quote that got cut out of the Vidoc [video documentary] where I talked about taking that 30 seconds of fun and playing it in different environments, with different weapons, different vehicles, against different enemies, against different combinations of enemies, sometimes against enemies that are fighting each other. No 30 second stretch of Halo is ever repeated; the missions are constantly changing the context on you."

This probably all very true all right but then Tetris was 30 seconds of fun that simply sped up at the end of every level. Imagine if the Covenant came at the Master Chief as fast as the blocks would fall at the end of Tetris?

I'm not actually sure that last sentence makes sense but it's been a long day and there's a Becks or three in the fridge that need to be emptied into my belly....


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