It is difficult to know where to begin writing about Halo’s story; I became enthralled in it from the very beginning. When I came upon the fan site HBO, I read through all of the entries in the Halo Story Page. I even made a few submissions of my own. I went to the HBO Forum and began engaging in wild theories and speculations with fans even more captivated than myself. It was a very enjoyable experience. Halo’s story seemed to lend itself to that kind of discussion.

But why is that so? It is difficult for me to quantify it. I cannot easily express what makes the story in Halo so fascinating. When I considered whether 343 Industries captured my interest in Halo 4 in the same way Bungie did with previous Halo games, I began to wonder what exactly got me so hooked in the first place. The universe? The characters? The conflict? Rather unintuitively, the combat?

I cannot think of a better way to find out than breaking down the story level by level to try and glean from the parts what makes the whole so good. So why not join me as we awake from our slumber aboard the Pillar of Autumn?

Psychonauts was originally released in 2005 on the Xbox and was met with limited commercial success despite being received with critical praise, which raises the question: how did consumers know to avoid the game? Prescience would be the most fitting answer—perhaps the discs were printed on psitanium— but it’s far more likely that Majesco simply did not market the game as well as Double Fine would have liked.

Recently, the game was included in Humble Indie Bundle V which, as a gift, brought the game to my immediate attention. I had heard good things about Psychonauts for several years before I finally had a chance to play it. Even though it could be better, I would hesitate to call it a bad game.