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How Halo 3's Forge consumed one striking writer's life

With the Writers Guild strike seemingly about to end, I thought it would be fun to share how "Halo 3" has impacted one striking writer's life. Justin Marks is a good friend of The Cut Scene, and also a supremely talented writer who, before he put his pen down in November, was working on feature adaptations of He-Man, Voltron, and Street Fighter, along with a DC supervillain prison break movie.

Justin was cool enough to take a little time out of his schedule -- though let's be honest, he has plenty of free time on his hands these days -- to write about how the Forge map creation application on "Halo 3" has consumed his life while on strike:

Which is why, on that fateful November day when we put our pencils down, I picked up my Xbox controller and haven't turned back since. They tell me it's been three months since we went on strike. Three months of glancing forlornly at the "work " folder on our desktops and sadly looking away. Three months of  rumors, letdowns, and dashed hopes.

I wouldn't know. I've been in a fog. Because it's been four months since "Halo 3" became my life.

You see, writers are creative people. And creativity is like a chronic disease --- if it doesn't get out of your system every day, you literally back up and die. Doesn't matter how it comes out. When I was a kid, I used to go to summer camp every year, where I had no access to word processors for several weeks. So I wrote screenplays longhand by the waterfront. I really wanted to be like the other kids, to just play all day in the sun until I dropped, but we don't write because it's our favorite thing to do, we write because if we weren't getting it out we'd blow up like that girl in "Cloverfield."

To the uninitiated, one of the great innovations of "Halo 3" is a multi-player tool called "Forge," where users can generate their own maps and game modes to play with their friends. Suddenly, a game predicated on shooting each other until we're dead can turn into capture the flag set inside the rules of the movie Tremors, or dodgeball with hand grenades, or soccer played with motorcycle-like vehicles.

There's no limit to the amazing games you can download or create.

More of a "Gears of War" fan? Try the maps built to replicate Gears of War maps, complete with falling energy coils where that train goes by in the Tyro Station. Someone even built the Millennium Falcon.

Literally. It has the little radar antenna that Lando knocked off by accident. Another guy proposed to his girlfriend on the Valhalla map by spelling out her name in weapons.

My friends now know me for pestering them at all hours online, inviting them to test my beta work, begging for them to switch over from "Call of Duty 4," pleading with them to stay online for just one more hour. My girlfriend has found me asleep on the couch with a bluetooth controller in my lap. I haven't seen my dog in weeks.

In 1988, the strike resulted in the emergence of "Cops." Everyone said this time reality TV would flourish again. But they were wrong. I hated "American Gladiators"... but if you want the real experience you can play my version on "Halo 3."

And in the middle of this, suddenly I feel creative again. What energy I can't get out on the proverbial typewriter I now can get out by coming up with ways to spawn sticky grenades in front of a man cannon so it can literally rain fireworks. I consider Forge maps to be a new art form, somewhere between Warhol's Campbell's Soup cans and those 60s New Wave experiments where "anybody can create." If I could develop my next spec script as a map set in the Narrows, I would.

So the studios can keep their strike. In the meantime you can see me every night online, forging away. Get me and [studio negotiator] Nick Counter in a slayer deathmatch and I'll end this strike faster than you can say "gravity hammer to the face."

Turok review: extra thoughts

I couldn't come right out and say it in my review, but I'll admit I was surprised at how much I liked "Turok." When a huge corporation like Disney decides to attack a new market -- like M-rated action games -- I expect something completely derivative and soulless. And sure, as I wrote, "'Turok' won't exactly revolutionize the game biz." This is "Halo with Dinosaurs," no doubt about it.

But coming even close to the bar set by "Halo" is no small feat for a first-time developer. By and large, Propaganda did it (at least in the campaign -- nothing comes to close to "Halo 3" multi-player). The graphics are just as good, the gameplay is just as deep, the story is much less ridiculous, and the audio and A.I. are arguably better. Overall, it's a solid package.

As always, you can read it all in the review, but here are a few extra tidbits that didn't make my final draft, along with reactions to some other reviews:

-The third person knife kills are awesome to see (though sometimes difficult to trigger). And the concept of having the camera flow back into Turok's head to re-establish the first-person POV looks great. However, it can be really annoying when, during the animated knife kill, Turok turns in a different direction. When you go back to first person, suddenly you don't know which way you're facing. Especially in the midst of an intense fight, this can be super annoying.

-I turned the camera speed down to the slowest possible setting and I still found that the reticule moved way too fast for me. Aiming at small targets is tough when you can't move the cross hairs precisely.

-Why the hell can't I run? Given how similar all the other controls are to "Halo 3," I kept pushing in the left analog stick expecting to dash, but got an an arrow telling me where to go instead as Turok kept walking at a normal pace.

-IGN dismisses the game's A.I. by calling the enemy soldiers "idiots," which I think is a bit harsh. They're at worst average in their cluelessness. But it's unfair to dis "Turok" on that front without noting how fantastic the dinosaur A.I. is. I loved how they would notice me if I got too close to them or made too much noise, but could also be drawn to the enemies when they start firing their guns. Not to mention the fun of attracting them to a group of opponents by firing a flare, then watching a velociraptor do my work for me. Eminently satisfying.

-1Up, to its credit, asks a question so obvious that it never occurred to me: "What the hell [are] dinosaurs  doing on this planet?" Sure, you could reply that it's so basic to the concept that it's not worth asking (like wondering why Bowser can never get over his freakish inter-species obsession with Princess Peach), but it would have been nice if the game took a second to provide an answer.