Color Blind Storytime: Halo 2

Like many eager young men across the US at midnight on November 9th, 2004 I waited in a long line at a mall just to get my hands on Halo 2 the moment it was released. Little did I know that this would turn into the first in a long, downward spiral of first person shooters wherein the coloration and texture hit the sweetspot that allowed for extremely non-colorblind-friendly imagery.

This was really the first time in the "Modern Era" of 3d games that I really noticed a major problem with my color blindness. The leap in the graphics engine from Halo: Combat Evolved to Halo 2 was quite a drastic change despite being on the same console and only a few years apart. The original Halo had, for the time, amazing graphics and beautiful environments, but most of the outdoor parts were high-contrast and featured a bright blue sky, bright green grass and a multitude of differing colors that really made me appreciate the present and future of games, and it wasn't impossible to play! In contrast, Halo 2 started to move more towards the gritty realism with active lighting and glow and my least favorite gaming trend: lots of brown. I mean, and there were A LOT of locations in the game with beautiful visuals, but at the same time it added more and more unfriendly coloration, especially in multiplayer.

This started a famous trend amongst my friends that almost NEVER worked out in my favor. The biggest egregious failure in color blind friendly design had to be the map 'Burial Mounds' and it became the basis for a famous game type that I have decided to call "let's screw Justin." If you aren't familiar with the map, it's a big, washed out brown map full of brown floors and brown walls and brown rocks. So for happy fun time we at one point decided to do green team vs. brown team on this map and it created the perfect storm of colors. The result: essentially everyone was invisible, even at close range. It was like playing with everyone else having Active Camo but me, and it was hilarious... for about 17 seconds. This did not get played all the time, but for the rest of our Halo 2 LAN party career it became a running joke and was frequently suggested as a game type, much to my chagrin. And still to this day, even though we dont all play games like we used to, I can imagine people would not hesitate to suggest it when we bust out an old game. 

I'm really excited to see more an more companies adding color blind modes to help us out, but it is still a problem in the industry as a whole. I plan on telling more of these stories over time, they seem entertaining to me, maybe I can get some laughs and address some issues. Next time: How I spent a decade thinking something was brown, how it turned out to be green, and how it BLEW MY F@#%*& MIND!

Blog Future and Goals

If you know me, you probably already know that I'm a gamer, and I'm color blind.
If you don’t know me, I'm a gamer and I'm color blind. 

I love to play games, analyze games, write about games, and argue about games.  I try to keep up with games and the industry, even though I am in the category of 'gamers with jobs.'  I have quite a few ideas for regular columns, in addition to news and opinions and I am going to be writing soon, and frequently.  Things on the list for the near future:

Monthly Game: Starting this July, I've been picking one game, typically an RPG or other lengthy title, from my massive backlog that I will concentrate and attempt to beat in one month's time.  Finally typing this out I am laughing at myself a little because I used to polish off long games in a week, real life happens I guess, but I've found I really enjoy taking some of these games at a less crazy pace.  I will play for the month and write my thoughts down at the end. (This Month: Dark Souls)

1000 Games to Play Before I Die: Last year I picked up the '1000 Video Games to play Before You Die' book as a gift from my brother in law.  I have several hundred of them already under my belt, but I am always looking to expand my repertoire as it were, so I would like to take a look at some of them on a regular basis.  I will be choosing games that I would not have normally played, or that I have heard are excellent, but I didn’t have the means to obtain or the time to play. I don’t want to make this like a full-blown retro game review, because god knows there are already a million people on the internet that do that, but I think that games of ALL generations can teach us something about games, about ourselves or even tell a great story!

Funny Colorblind Stories at my Expense: Let's face it, when you can’t tell the difference between red, green and brown, and have a general inability to see things how they were designed to be seen, it can (and has) lead to many an unfortunate situation.  Laughs, harassment and insane realizations are old news in my gaming history, and everyone likes a good old fashioned story at someone else's expense.

News, Reviews and Speculation: I spend a lot of time consuming media about video games. Podcasts, blogs, news sites, r/gaming, videos etc. and I subsequently find myself yelling at my computer monitor or iPhone, (leads to some awkward Detroit City Bus situations, but now is not the time) wishing that I could talk to these people and give a different opinion.  Maybe because I disagree with them, or just because I get sick of everyone always taking the popular opinion, but sometimes I just need an outlet for my game brain.

Games You Might not have Played:  I want to take a look at indie, obscure or just flat out interesting games that most people probably haven't played but deserve some coverage.  Partially inspired by several videos from another site, I think it will encourage myself and the world to take a look at something they might have overlooked, or never knew about.

Moblie Monday:  This is a section I would like to do weekly feature where I pick a mobile game, do a short review and make a suggestion as to if you should play it or not. There are about a million great games on iOS and Android, some of which get little to no media coverage and are often developed by small teams for now money and need all the help they can get.  But at the same time, regardless of source, if there is a great mobile game, I will try to tell you about it.

Links, Loves, and Shameless Plugs: I, much like Mr. Jeff Cannata of Weekend Confirmed and The Totally Rad Show, love loving things.  I especially love loving things of gaming nature and I like to spread the love.  There are a lot of people who love what they do and work hard on their content. I want nothing more than for more people to see what they do and maybe find some new things to love.  I want to share Podcasts, Artists, Video Series, and bloggers that I keep up with, and even new ones I find!

Other Stuff: I am trying to keep my personal life out of here, but video games are not my ONLY interest, just a big one.  Along with my concentrating on a game a month deal, I've set weekly/monthly goals for expanding my horizons: reading books, listening to new music, watching movies, documentaries and TV series, trying new food and restaurants, and just generally trying to live my life! You might hear about some of these things, or more likely I will relate them to games, but don't be surprised if you see a post about an amazing album, a video game soundtrack, or a snippet relating to something I’m reading when talking about a game. 

I'm excited to be working on this, and for all 4 of you reading this (thanks mom!) to laugh, learn something, yell at your computer or at the very least find something new to enjoy! My goal is posting at LEAST once a week, which isn't a whole lot but I want to be consistent.  We will see what the future holds, if people actually read it, the news is interesting, and I am enjoying it I would love to write more and more as time goes on.  Expect a first post by the end of the week!