Thinking of Halo 3

To be dropped in Bungie Studio's customer suggestion box.

The video gaming market is as partitioned as any other entertainment medium — strategy, action, sports, adventure. Leading the action genre is the "first-person shooter," a literal description of the game type. Players wield weapons as if incarnate in the game.

My introduction to first-person shooters was one of the first, Castle Wolfenstein [as known colloquially; the retail title was Wolfenstein 3D]. The concept was simple, the game's thin narrative propped up by decades of historical fiction about the Second World War: you played an American soldier deep in the Third Reich, captured and held captive in an old fortification crawling with Nazis. A sapped guard, an unlocked cell door — what else could possibly come next?

Wolfenstein was simple fun. There is not a soul who couldn't be satisfied and edified fighting Nazis except for Nazis themselves, who a) Should not be playing video games but instead in prostrate supplication before the Israeli government; though if time is spent trying to escape from an imaginary, clandestine German fortress, b) Might let fly a few virtual bullets at the SS in token penance before reserving that one-way ticket to Jerusalem.

Wolfenstein bore imitations and successors alike. There was Doom. I have written of Doom before, and not flatteringly: picture Wolfenstein but on Mars and slightly more graphically complex, a repellent amalgam of sci-fi B-movie horror supplanting the charm of melodramatic Allied intrigue. Was it Aliens with fell creatures and zombies? No — Aliens was comparatively poetic. Doom's gameplay was dark, violent, gory and not at all rewarding.

In the wane of the Nineties I discovered a game called Marathon 2: Durandal. It resembled Doom — a first-person shooter set in a characteristically unlikely future — but I downloaded a trial version of the game to play anyway. Bungie Studios may have been the trend-seizing name of its designer but Marathon stood apart from any action game I had played previously — elegantly realized from a vivid imagination, sui generis in its otherworldliness. The main character, your part, was a cyborg in fetching armor. Your adversaries were totally alien in appearance, pale, lanky and sleekly armored; the name of their race was rightfully unpronounceable. Instead of bellowing or screeching, these creatures uttered martial clucks. The motivation? Novel: a computer program, an artificial intelligence, slipped from its tether and impressed you into service. This electric Moriarty offered help along the way — information, hints and small teams of wisecracking, frightened humans hastily equipped with weapons and royal blue uniforms. I played the demo, enjoying it, before my attention turned elsewhere.

Several years later, visiting a friend, I walked into the family room to find the friend and another who had accompanied me on the trip in front of the television, Xbox controllers in hand, working their way through a first-person shooter care of Bungie Studios. It was Halo. Some architects are prolific and varied; others will devote an entire profession to the refinement of a single, beloved concept. Bungie, it seems, is led by artists of devotion: Halo stars a cyborg in fetching armor, pitted against an original cast of aliens, working in concert with — slight deviation there — a friendly and womanish artificial intelligence.

For those unfamiliar, the game is too rich to be vicarious; it is better experienced. But I can describe my first moments of dumbstruck fascination. Two players move about in a swift cat-and-mouse among boulders on a hill, firing and ducking; darting. The enemy, the Covenant, is a jackbooted menagerie: spindly, hirundine beasts with translucent yellow shields; tall, muscular, grunting figures in glossy plate; squat, squealing, blue-skinned whelps in bulky, orange armor. The last group catches my attention — comical but dangerous, the juxtaposition almost laughable yet it succeeds in gameplay, striking one as ironic or even invitingly unsettling, like a shark's face painted on the business end of a warplane.

Halo was the reason I traded for an Xbox. Halo 2, released one year ago, is the reason I devote a weekend evening or two sitting in front of the television, fingers driving combinations of buttons and levers on a handheld controller; a headset hung on my left ear, through which I plot and banter with teammates, and occasionally mutter indiscretions.

Now: it is well-known that Halo 3 is under development. Halo 2 received mixed reviews, if for no other reason than the difficulty of standing against the game before it. Nothing is known of the third Halo beyond its inevitability — lacking information but not anticipation, a fan's instinct is to speculate and advise, one to which I have decided to submit.

There are two problems with this sort of thing. The first is the fact that this subject matter may be totally foreign to readers — then again, some prefer my personal anecdotes to my political writings. I resolved in advance to make the topic as accessible as possible. The second is that offering advice from a few thousand miles away based on absolutely no intimate knowledge is a long shot of long shots. Interviewed last week, lead Bungie designer Mat Noguchi responded to the matter of criticism, however constructive, with a wry understatement. "Making video games is hard," he said. He said it three times.

Creation for the purpose of invention is never a formulary undertaking. Convention serves as the trained artist's or engineer's scaffolding, and it is only through clarity of vision and technical capacity — with a pinch of luck — that a unique and successful work emerges from underneath. A painting professor of mine, Jerome Witkin, told classes that on the face of every completed painting was evidence of "1,000 decisions."

One thousand? Oh, very nearly. After the gestural sketch or the cartoon of a subject has been laid down on canvas, there comes the underpainting; then successive applications of paint, refinements, additions and obliterations; then for the traditionalist wet glazing, or else dry scumbling. With every brushstroke or appraisal from five or ten feet away a painter contends with form, shadow, color, tone, line — and only those if he has no concern for fidelity, anatomy, geography or biology (rarely does he not). The piece might careen away from the muse and out of control, or it can slow into uninspired drudgery, or it can proceed steadily and manifest a dream.

Jerome was known for two more axioms. His second was "The excitement of a fresh work fades as the doubt inevitably creeps in." Doubt could begin with a capital letter, so unmistakable once personified. When struggling with pictoral contentions come the questions: Have I done this right? What have I lost? Gained? Jerome's third was "You are done only when you have painted yourself out of the picture." To paint a way out means answering those questions in the definitive, for better or worse; to know that another try would only detract from what is. That is painting, for both novice and master: X-radiology and infrared reflectology reveal dubiety behind triumph, from the lapidary Hans Holbein the Younger to the capricious Leonardo da Vinci.

It is most often the case, however, that none of this will occur to a passerby or non-artist who may look the painting up and down, and with a shoulder-shrug, announce "I don't like it." Worse, the viewer zeroes in on a patch of color or some minor undulation that, while inapt, is the product of three dozen good-faith attempts and hours of contemplation — and does not, alone, cause the piece to fail. A poor finish can't excuse the ignorance of process and a good finish enjoins it. Several articles and a pair of brief documentaries comprise my knowledge of Bungie's labors — that is ignorance enough. And I am about to offer seven suggestions for a better Halo 3 that the game designer may have already implemented or even considered, attempted and abandoned. Mindful of Mr. Noguchi's annoyance at the judgment of his work through a single element in isolation, I ask my list taken as a compliment, and not effrontery.

Introduce Online Cooperative Play. Bungie's multiplayer Matchmaking — online competitive play — was to be a leading feature of Halo 2. As of October, Matchmaking's turnstile recorded 2 billion and counting — whether that besotting number was forecast or not remains a secret to Bungie's strategists and Microsoft's countinghouse. Online competition will bring tens of thousands of players to Halo 2 tonight; it is why some have picked up the game at all. One of Ubisoft's Frag Dolls — a dainty, nimble-minded professional gamer who specializes in puzzle, roleplaying and strategy titles — once admitted that she had never played the single-player campaign of Halo 2.

Not even her? Thereafter it might be asked if Bungie intends to spend any time on content for a party of one; after all, construction of Halo 2's single-player levels was, reportedly, expedited. In the face of that contrivance, an appeal: Not without the first Halo's campaign, the breakneck escape from oblivion, would there have been such a welcomed sequel.

Two friends can play either campaign in the same house but not across town. Why not? For that matter, why not three or four friends in a campaign just so designed?

Increase the Reactivity and Nuance of Maps. Bungie's level designers are already lauded for their predilection for detail. How else can players control the world? Buildings that would otherwise serve as backdrops could be fully rendered, then explored and employed. Certainly, there is the question of feasibility — and excess. Too much latitude produces confusion, then frustration, then boredom. The second level of the first Halo, "Halo," was to some players so open-ended as to be off-putting. But Halo 2 often proceeded like a guided tour. What if players were driven by objectives and opponents to select one of many available locations in a larger area for a stand or sortie?

Redefine the Antagonists. Terrifying and ineluctable in the first game, the mindless Flood decorated Halo 2's least suspenseful passages. The Covenant, for its part, splintered on oddly sectarian lines and towards the end resembled fisticuffs at a cocktail party — the bartender attacks the maître d' while the headwaiter stalks them both, and so forth. If the balance is preserved, could Bungie embellish familiar characters? Several exotic varieties of Jackal? The gelatinous form of the Hunter, perhaps, exploited through a variety of armored carapaces? Or something entirely new: Are there plot, aesthetics and code enough to grant a third adversary entrance?

Increase Tactical Variety. A favorite map of mine, shared with many, is the fourth level of the first game, "The Silent Cartographer." It was an adventure; a race to find an artifact. But it was a small level, much smaller than some in Halo 2. Why was it so memorable? Masterful use of limited locations. Returning to the same point was never repetitious, for the narrative had moved forward and your objectives had changed. How else does one retrieve an item without backtracking? And how exciting is it to, like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, emerge from deep, ancient chambers and find the tables turned?

In "The Silent Cartographer," nearly every engagement with the Covenant could be approached from a few directions. From there, a player could try one of several gambits to defeat the enemy. The enemy would itself respond differently, and the resulting multiplication — location, cause, effect — meant limitless replay.

Make Outstanding Artificial Intelligence Better. Halo quickly impressed with characters' discipline and sense of self-preservation. It was in Halo 2, we learned, that Bungie first scripted monsters that communicated with one another. Could small-unit tactics be integrated? What if a player shared an environment with a Covenant squad moving freely, as cautious, resourceful and autonomous as he?

Meaningful Control of Allies. The Xbox controller's D-Pad is unused. Could commands be delivered to your cohort — simple ones like "Stay here," "Cover me," or "Follow me," saving players undue work and untimely solitude?

Another Vital Use of the D-Pad. If everyone would agree to auto-mute a foul-mouthed child in real life, why can't it be done online? Two buttons to depress, and an entire team of louts could be silenced.

Will I be pleased to find one of these propositions as part of Halo 3? Of course. But I will mostly be pleased to play Halo 3.