Just when I thought it was safe to play a video game, it turns out I actually have to watch a crappy movie first.

As I sat through the opening credits of Black, EA's new piece of glistening gun fetishism for X-Box and PlayStation 2, I couldn't help but wonder what's happening to the video game narrative.

Awful storytelling is nothing new to the medium, of course (All Your Base, after all, Are Belong To Us). But where there was once no style and no substance, the industry seems to be dripping with the former and still painfully lacking the latter.

I just finished “Halo 2”

In the world of gaming nerds, or at least Halo nerds, I know that’s not big news. In fact, it might indicate a pathetic lack of devotion to the series.

Personally, I’d rather it look at it as a success. As a journalist, I don’t get a chance to finish as many games as I’d like to. As an older gamer, I’m simply proud of having plowed through the whole game on “normal” difficultly. I know this doesn’t mean much to the average thumb jock. But to me, it’s like hitting a home run, even if it is in slow pitch softball.

But more than anything, finishing the single player campaign mode gives me the platform for make some comments about the game. What I learned from playing “Halo 2” to completion is:

1. ”Halo 2” wont change how games are made, but it might change how games are marketed.
2. Ludology drowns out narrative (And dying over and over doing the same stuff is never any fun)
3. ”Halo 2” is a only a little better than “Halo “because of hardware constraints
4. In some respects the “Halo 2” hype was good and in some respects it was bad.

If you want the details, read on. There are not any “spoilers” in this discussion, unless you find intellectual twiddling with a game to be sort of buzzkill. But, if nothing else, I promise not to reveal any of the “Halo 2” “secrets”.

The following editorial was contributed by buzzcut readerChuck Griffiths . Chuck takes on the issue of innovation in the game business by staring down the barrel of one of the most cliched genres of all, the first person shooter.

Every medium has its burdens: The creations that are made only to sell, and which rust the wheels of progress. Using tried-and-tested formulae they are made, released and once they have been embraced by the public, seem to attract even more imitators. Literature has its science-fiction “airport” novels and its Mills and Boon (Romance novels, ed.). Cinema has its hackneyed plots of loose cannons, loose morals and loose women. It’s Hollywood, it’s mainstream - it’s largely terrible. Not always, of course. But too often.

Videogames are the same, and a particular style seems to stand out. It’s a genre that is bloated, flaccid and contains countless examples of the same ideas, yet also generates huge revenues with almost every child it conceives and ejects into the world. It is the “First Person Shooter”, characterised by the way the player views the action through the eyes of the avatar. As a general rule, the player can see the character’s surroundings and a firearm protruding into the digital space as they move though the game world. Today’s “FPS” collection is where you will typically find the least innovation or unique ideas. So, why is it probably the largest catalogue of games around? .

This is the story of the platypus:

The divine creator phoned down to the head of the mammalian-avian team at the end of a grueling seven day creation project and asked for a status. After being told that the new creature could still use some work, the Lord asked if it was functional. "More or less," said the angel in charge of the team. "Well then,” boomed the voice from heaven, "Ship it."

Or maybe that’s what happened with The Getaway, a game that’s actually an experiment to see what happens when you sew the face of movies onto the body of games.

The crtiical urge comes early.

For children, their first words are inevatbly expressions of need and identity: "mama", "daddy" and "kitty". But soon, within the first 10 words, comes the "no."

Even a baby has a critical urge. They know what they like and they know when someone tries to put something they don't want down their throat.

The best quote from E3, 2003:

"Negativity sells," John Romero told me as we talked at a party.

If you know who Romero is, you probably also have heard of E3?the Electronic Entertainment Expo. If not, maybe we should take a couple of steps back and do a little explaining.