Bring back Halo’s Library and lose the roller-coaster ride of duty

I'm sick of roller coasters. I'm tired of being strapped in and slapped around on a narrow cart with a iron bar crushing my bladder. I'm tired of being hurried down a glitzy, quick-time-event-laden corridor chased by explosion after set-piece destruction until I can't remember my own name.

Stop the ride. I'm getting off.

 

I like Halo's Library level. Even though the universally abhorred flood fest and the infamous recycling of mirrored environments remain a stain on the legacy of Halo: Combat Evolved. But I bet you would take the Library level over the alternative Call of Duty has given the world, which has made its developer and publisher too much money for anyone else to risk not copying it.

 

But I still miss the Library.

 

Sure, it's an example of poor level design, but it's just the by-product of something beautiful. The recycled environments are just the outgrowth of immersion…

 

…which I also miss in my shooter. Not the immersion of life-like graphics, convincing A.I. behavior, or quality voice acting. I want to immerse myself in the gameplay. But that's not a possibility when a Call of Duty campaign gives you completely new guns, new tools, new mechanics — even pulling you into different characters from different time-frames — every four minutes.

 

But immersion is impossible when deemed a necessary sacrifice to avoid levels like Halo's Library.

 

Missed you, big guy. Come give us a hug.
 

 

Did you enjoy riding that snowmobile? Well, that's over now. Don't worry about, though, because you'll never use those skills you just learned again. 

 

Did you become comfortable with how that rifle feels? Well, that was only available for one stage.

 

Were you intrigued with the mechanic of performing a fireman's carry on an injured comrade? Too bad. You can no longer perform that action.

 

The anniversary edition of Halo only twists the knife, reminding me of pre-Call of Duty game design, when campaigns taught you a series of skills and left you to hone them to a razor's edge and allowed you to really inhabit an environment instead of ripping you away just as you were feeling at home.

 

Just remember your snowmobile training from basic.
 

 

Halo let players dig in and get comfortable with the world and the weapons. Yes, we had tons of alien pea-shooters to spice things up, but near the end of the campaign, you knew your human-issue sidearm and assault rifle like the squeal of fleeing grunts: that is to say, very well.

 

And that was comforting. When you were thrown into the Warthog to escape a self-destructing Halo Construct, it was frightening, but you were self-assured. You had spent plenty of quality time with the Warthog. By this time, you knew every steering hiccup, all the side-swiping handling, and the minutiae of its traction and acceleration; you spoke the language of Warthog. 

 

Friendship lasts a lifetime. Not with him in the back. I mean with the Warthog.
 

 

You weren't thrown into a rafting sequence with just a quick heads-up hint telling you how to steer. That's a roller-coaster ride. And I want to get off.

 

Like Jurassic Park, I want to leave the track and spend the night in a tree, wake from a Brachiosaurus' leave munching, and marvel at a field of the dinosaur herds, living and breathing in their natural habitat. Yes, some visitors will be eaten by raptors and others lost in a library, but that's the difference between entertainment and an experience.