Jude and I have learned an important lesson over the last five songs, and “Halo” really typifies it: In 2009, a song does not exist until it exists on YouTube. I’m happy to say that usethefork’s fantastic video caught the eye of Owen at Kotaku and he posted some love for it. Kotaku commenters are…unrestrained in their dislike for things that they dislike, so seeing so many positive responses and compliments on what we made and what usethefork took even further really means a lot.
When we did the lyrics, we were sweating details. We realized they had to be realstic — for instance, there are no Carney Holes on Desolation, but there are on Isolation. I knew if we didn’t get stuff like that right, we’d get busted by the fans. So I hereby apologize for this one, which xmywreckingballx pointed out:
xmywreckingballx: at 3:40 he says “losing in valhalla to a guy duel wielding maulers.” Guess what buddy??? Forge forbids you from using maulers on Valhalla!!! I’ve tried it! nice one.
Doh. I admit, I haven’t played with Forge enough to know that. But as I was looking for lyric fodder, I couldn’t resist the internal near-rhyme of “Valhalla” and “Mauler” so I rolled the dice. And lost. But this kind of stuff does matter to me. Song parodies are funnier when they’re true.
HandsomeCarl: WHAAAT?! I thought if you installed Halo 3 onto your 360 it would load slower?? Why would he do that? Unless they fixed that and I didn’t know about it.
No, as Bungie has clearly stated, for best performance, you should not install Halo 3 to your 360’s hard drive. But the song wasn’t intended an instruction manual or technical advice. It was just a rhyme.
I was a little concerned about people “getting it.” Like, will people take it literally, as some uber-endorsement of Halo? Will someone really assume that because Dan works at OXM, he is dissing these other games? Of course not. I mean, come on — we give gamers more credit than that! Who would take it that far?
TrueEnglishGent: Though saying Halo 3 is better then COD4 is madness to me.
Kia: Hilarious, but the guys need throttled for calling Fallout 3 contrived and then singing an ode to -Halo- of all things. Jesus.
Okay, we stand corrected. For the record, “Halo” isn’t editorial advice, either; we both happen to like both COD and Fallout 3. I guess people didn’t get that the singer of the song is a character who is closed-minded about all games but his favorite game, and the irony at the end is that he’s not good at it. It’s a story from a stereotype. The song is not a review.
It’s just games, and it’s a just a joke. Please enjoy it on that level.