A look back at the Music of Halo

A look back at the Music of Halo

I still remember the moment during my first Halo run through when I totally knew the game was amazing - it was during The Silent Cartographer level and it was time to leave the place. In a mad panic, I had to guide the Master Chief back up the surface of the Halo, whilst a relentless section of music was playing - 'Rock Anthem For Saving The World'  featuring legendary guitarist Steve Vai.

Yeah, the choir doing their funky monks 'oooh ooah aaahs' is pretty cool but that moment is stuck with me forever.

We remember....

10 years since Halo's original release, it's the stuff of legend that the Halo game had one of the best soundtracks that ever accompanied a shooter and this was a key element of the success of the game. Subsequent Halo games have followed in the tradition of great music - have they all met the standard set by the game that changed the way video games are made?

I thought I'd take the time to kick back and reflect on the music of Halo, have a chat about how music can influence a scene ....it's almost a love letter to composer Marty O'Donnell and less his well known counterpart, Michael Salvatori.

The famous Halo 'E Dorian' monk chant as a musical score

Halo: Combat Evolved

This is the soundtrack to the game that changed gaming forever. Marty had already done a couple of gigs for Bungie in the form of the Myth series and as Microsoft had brought the Bungie studio to get their hands on the Halo IP, expectations were high. Marty duly delivered one of the most brilliant soundtracks ever. The monks' chorus, and the main theme riff with those wondrous string instruments are perhaps as recognizable to a gamer as the first notes to Star Wars are to a movie fan.

I already mentioned 'Rock Anthem For Saving The World' right?

While many people might know that Steve Vai played on a couple of Halo soundtracks, I wonder how many know that Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers had a go with his trumpet!

Research suggests: play with friends, win more Halo: Reach

You might remember Aaron and Winter's study of Halo: Reach players - they asked us and some other cool sites out there to help lure in some Halo players to assist with his research. Well they've done the work and have some findings to share and I think they are pretty cool!

The paper focuses on the "questions of whether playing with friends has an impact on your or your team's performance. It turns out that it does, even after we control for the overall skill level of the team, which is cool."

Here's a bit from the conclusion which proves beyond all doubt I am an awesome Halo player because I'm 34:

"Although the typical age of our respondents was close to 20 years old, the distribution shows a long tail, with a large number of players over 30. Age correlated with several aspects of game play: older players (24 or older; 29.7%) tend to exhibit somewhat less within group conflict, exhibit greater pro-social tendencies (e.g., fewer betrayals), and are slightly more skilled (more kills per game). This latter point is counterintuitive given that younger players often have greater free time in which to invest in the game."

This touches a cord with me - I hate the douches, dickheads, and teenagers that ruin the gaming experience - and that's probably a sign of maturity. Haha!

I think the key take away from the research is the suggestion that teams can win matches if team mates actually know each other at some friendship based level - it seems obvious but now it's been concluded as being so:

"Both team and individual performance in Halo: Reach are improved by friendship variables and teams composed of friends, on average, win more games than teams composed of strangers. However, if overall skill correlates across friendship ties, then highly skilled groups of friends could tend to win often than groups of strangers because the skilled friends are more skilled than an average stranger"

It's probably because they don't run round betraying each other with blue stickies to the face....

This research could do with what I'm calling some 'stress testing' so Aaron is looking for more volunteers so if you're still playing Halo: Reach, check out this link and see if you can help  (I gotta admit I've dropped off multiplayer myself due to lots of campaign runs for CE, Gears and now ME3).

Here's the full findings of Friends FTW: Friendship and competition in Halo: Reach. Also check out Aaron's blog, Structure and Strangeness.