I listened to it in one sitting. Took a big chunk of a Saturday morning on the Halo channel.

: Now the question is why a radio drama completely engrossed me the way Halo
: 5 did not. I mean, Hunt the Truth had only audio, and Halo 5 had video,
: audio AND interactivity. Why did Halo 5 not completely blow Hunt the Truth
: away in engagement?

Because the story has to stand in abeyance while you shoot stuff? And a lot of HtT was an inner monologue, the thoughts of a character, a stream of consciousness. How do you represent that in a shooter?

The original game story worked for me because the Chief's tasks where things that I wanted to do. I was presented with this amazing place that I wanted to explore and the Chief's tasks were to explore and to go to the places that I wanted to go to.

For example, when we landed on the Halo, there was this strange thing shooting into space on a regular basis. You could see that it was coming from "over there" and you realized that the game was taking you over there. So I was always willing to see where the game was leading me.

There was a lot of trust between the game and the player. I knew I was going to have a good time.

So the story wasn't an in depth examination of the human condition but it was fun and it engaged me. I trusted that the game would give me the answers that I was looking for.

343 doesn't deliver the things it promises. At this stage you are expecting disappointment when you play the game. The opening cutscene in Halo 4 was one of the best starts to a game that I have ever seen. I thought, "OMG, looks like 343 are going to blow away everything that Bungie has done in Halo".

Then we find out that Cortana is broken and might die in the game. So I want to fix her, to find help for her. That is my total focus, all I really care about and want to do. But the game gives us irrelevant make work: press this button, investigate this signal. It was a collection of busy work that I had no interest in. They were just irrelevant distractions from the one thing that interested me.

I had no interest in Infinity and in the fate of characters that I never knew. They could all die and I wouldn't care. I wanted to help Cortana and their problems were getting in the way of that.

A game is a set of tasks that you impose on a player. You must do a string of Xs to complete the game. That string of Xs better be what the player wants to do.

: I'm working on answering that in a H5 story writeup, but I just wanted to say
: how awesome Hunt the Truth really was.

Yes it was. And I know that you work in film and think that the visual medium is always superior. But a radio play has touched you. Its almost all tell instead of show but the medium's limitations are also it's strengths because the story plays out in your head - that is where the story takes place. And when it works, it's a very compelling place to be.