Halo: Impracticality in the name of Balance

This is his 'action' pose

The year is 2552. Humanity at the height of it's development has found the key to release itself from the chains that has restricted us to the miserable wet ball that we like to call our home planet. Our civilization has stretched to an an interplanetary scale, yet the batteries for flashlights still run out in minutes.

The Covenant, a heavily segregated society of religious fanatic who have no feelings, or families to go home to (we'll discuss the social aspects later) are trying their best to ruin humanities day, but one man, Spartan-117, (pictured on the right) is all that stands in the way between the Covenant, and the destruction of the human race.

It's impossible to actually know whether we will actually last this long without killing ourselves off, considering all of the clever ways which we have invented to do so. However, humanity has somehow managed to absolve from our petty differences, decided to use the SAME TECHNOLOGY FOR WEAPONS for 500 years.

This may include wheeled, and tracked vehicles that go up against the shiny Covenant vehicles that all hover. This includes the four wheeled disaster that is the M12 LAAV also known as the Warthog which offers little to no protection from fire for the occupants, as well as having the ability to seamlessly flip, and roll out of control if so much as a pebble gets under it.

"I can explain"

While the humans do have access to directed energy particle weapons (aka Lasers), it seems as though most of the braniacs behind the United Nations Space Command have decided that simple lead behind gas operated firearms are still the pinnacle of death-dealing devices, and have basically just stopped development at that, to focus on other ways to inconvenience their soldiers, such as an assault rifle completely devoid of any sights.

An ammo counter where the sights used to be? This can't possible go wrong

Now, it is important to note that Bungie, the developers of the Halo franchise did intended to create a balanced system of weapons to accommodate the massive multiplayer fanbase that has gathered around the series for more than a decade. Bungie has made some very fantastic games, and has supported their community like no other game developer has. Since Bungie has become all too familiar of those "bunGle fiX HAlo" emails, it wouldn't be fair to blame them for how the weapons in Halo don't make any sense. All we can do is feel a at least an ounce of pity for the millions virtual AI lives that have been brought to their tragic end because of how hilariously impractical their firearms were.

This was most likely caused by a banana peel

Tom Clancy's Endwar: WW3 Simulation? Or Sociopath's PipeDream?

Let me start this off by saying that I am a very anti-war person. Despite my liberal disposition on world conflict however, I do enjoys the concept of war.

Because of this, it seems appropriate that Tom Clancy's Endwar, an underrated game with the first effective voice command system on a console be chosen as my first topic.

It's major fault however was the fact that it attempted to appeal to strategy game fans and shooter fans at the same time setting itself on this middle ground, but failed (however admirably) at grabbing the attention of either audience.
But we’re not here for a semi-inspirational tale of a game that tried, but didn’t quite make it. We’re here for the story.

Tom Clancy's Endwar starts off with the world in economic, and political turmoil after a nuclear war between Saudi Arabia and Israel leads to the majority of the worlds oil being destroyed. With oil at a record $800 per gallon, Russia becomes the world's #1 supplier of petroleum, and the nations of the European Union are forced to come together as one to form the European Federation as humanity does a collective face-palm waking up with an international hangover muttering "Oh crap what did we do last night?" The world responds by installing a new international nuclear defense grid making nuclear weapons obsolete.

With three superpowers now in the contest for world biggest douche bag, the United States decides that it should up the ante by building what is basically a space space that can send US Marines ODST style anywhere in the world within an hour, thereby holding up a symbolic middle finger to the rest of the world. NATO breaks up in protest.

It all pretty much goes to hell from there

The Russians, not taking kindly to this over-zealous display of military might organize a terrorist organization which proceeds to attack several European, and American bases and blow up the fore-mentioned space station after hacking in to a EF missile station, which ends up placing the blame on Europe.




Wait, so can this happen?
According to infoplease, Russia is the second largest supplier of oil next to the Saudi Arabia, so Endwar got that part right. It pretty much was all standard fare until the whole nuclear war deal. Saudi Arabia and Israel are both allies tied together in wedlock by their mutual best buddy America, so the chances of them actually fighting are rather slim. Also, it's as if the developers completely ignored the fact that China isn't even mentioned in the story of the games.
Next comes the terrorist organization hired by Russia known as the Black Hand. If they were a pre-existing organization, they would of course have a pre-existing agenda meaning that after the conflict began, they would have played a significant role. If they were Russian operatives, they would have been easily identified after bodies recovered from attacks on bases, thereby catching Russia red-handed. Get it? RED Handed?

"No"

So in the end, if the world ever does decide to have another International Civil War, it most certainly would not happen like what Tom Clancy's Endwar the video game says it would.

The awkward moment when you stop firing your rifle because you realized you're in a giant plot-hole