Review of the "Mata Nui Online Game (MNOG)"
By C. Randall Nicholson
Play online here or download here.
When I first saw the advertisement for Tahu and Vakama, the Toa and Turaga of Fire, on the back of one of my Lego magazines in 2001, I thought they looked interesting but had no idea what they were for or that they signaled the beginning of an amazing phenomenon called Bionicle. This phenomenon would eventually come to include more islands and monsters and characters and plotlines than I could keep track of, and would then be rebooted in modified form after a brief hiatus, but it started out as just a simple yet charming story of good versus evil.
Villagers called Matoran*, led by elders called Turaga, lived simple and peaceful lives under the care of the Great Spirit Mata Nui, the namesake of their island home. But Mata Nui's evil brother Makuta became jealous and sent him into a deep sleep, turning Mata Nui into a land of darkness and infecting the island's beasts, known as Rahi, so that they became aggressive and dangerous. Six heroes known as Toa - one for each village and each element - arrived on the island with no memory of who they were or where they had come from, but a mission to collect Kanohi masks that would increase their power so they could defeat Makuta and awaken Mata Nui. In the game this story is illustrated with rocks.
When I first saw the advertisement for Tahu and Vakama, the Toa and Turaga of Fire, on the back of one of my Lego magazines in 2001, I thought they looked interesting but had no idea what they were for or that they signaled the beginning of an amazing phenomenon called Bionicle. This phenomenon would eventually come to include more islands and monsters and characters and plotlines than I could keep track of, and would then be rebooted in modified form after a brief hiatus, but it started out as just a simple yet charming story of good versus evil.
Villagers called Matoran*, led by elders called Turaga, lived simple and peaceful lives under the care of the Great Spirit Mata Nui, the namesake of their island home. But Mata Nui's evil brother Makuta became jealous and sent him into a deep sleep, turning Mata Nui into a land of darkness and infecting the island's beasts, known as Rahi, so that they became aggressive and dangerous. Six heroes known as Toa - one for each village and each element - arrived on the island with no memory of who they were or where they had come from, but a mission to collect Kanohi masks that would increase their power so they could defeat Makuta and awaken Mata Nui. In the game this story is illustrated with rocks.
That story unfolded via comics, books, and this similarly simple yet charming computer game, known simply as the "Mata Nui Online Game", or MNOG. As a seven and eight year old in 2001 I played it and watched it unfold episodically month by month, creating a linear storyline that became more open-ended as more episodes were released. All these years later, it still holds up and retains its charm. The game picks up where the Game Boy Advance game "Tales of the Tohunga" (later "Quest for the Toa") left off, and you play the same protagonist, a Matoran named Takua who, unlike most Matoran who are content to stay in their own villages, travels all over Mata Nui having adventures. He starts out on the beach of Ta-Wahi in front of one of the empty Toa canisters. Most of the game is played from his perspective, and no one addresses him by name, so you don't actually figure out who he is for a while unless you've played the other game and can figure out the contextual clues. The story of the Toa was being followed in the comics, so this project enabled one of the "little people" to shine and showed more of daily life on Mata Nui.
The game has a phenomenal soundtrack, which incorporates both New Age and techno elements. Templar Studios CEO Peter Mack explained that Sound Designer Justin Luchter "faced huge challenges composing in Flash, as there is no timecode to depend on; how fast or slow the action is depends on everything from a user's computer, to download times, to when they decide to click the red arrow and go to the next scene. So he had to make music based on looping tracks that could play forever, but still be in sync no matter when the change comes in." In spite of these constraints, and the rather poor sound quality, the soundtrack is so good that I often listen to it just because I can. The deep, mystical singing at the beginning and end of the game still sends shivers down my spine.
The game has a phenomenal soundtrack, which incorporates both New Age and techno elements. Templar Studios CEO Peter Mack explained that Sound Designer Justin Luchter "faced huge challenges composing in Flash, as there is no timecode to depend on; how fast or slow the action is depends on everything from a user's computer, to download times, to when they decide to click the red arrow and go to the next scene. So he had to make music based on looping tracks that could play forever, but still be in sync no matter when the change comes in." In spite of these constraints, and the rather poor sound quality, the soundtrack is so good that I often listen to it just because I can. The deep, mystical singing at the beginning and end of the game still sends shivers down my spine.
* The Matoran were originally known as Tohunga, including in this game, but this was one of several Maori words the Lego company had borrowed and had to stop using after some Maori complained. Tohunga are highly respected masters of various skills and arts, so using the term to refer to any and all villagers was offensive. The name was therefore changed in the game and in all subsequent media. The company was allowed to keep using some more innocuous words, such as "Toa" meaning warrior, "Kopaka" meaning ice, and "Kanohi" meaning face.
Easter Eggs
The Arumbaya fetish (idol) from The Adventures of Tintin story "The Broken Ear" can be seen in the lower left corner of Turaga Vakama's hut, though it's largely obscured by the curvature of the wall and it's difficult to stop moving in just the right place to get a good view. I would love to see a full-fledged Tintin/Bionicle crossover. Come to think of it, I should just write one myself.
This souvenir stall sells stone idols of Mata Nui, action figures of Gali and the Tarakava (who fought earlier in the game), and a rock that says "My friend went to Po-Wahi and all I got was this lousy rock."
This wall in the Ko-Koro Sanctum quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"
This wall quotes from Lego's packaging instructions. "Made by Lego; Produced by CH 6340 Baar Switzerland; Distributed by the Lego Group; DY; 7190 Ailluni Denmark; (c)2001 Lego Group." Turaga Nuju is probably having an existential crisis as he ponders this information.
[Spoiler Alert] This one is the most fascinating to me, even more so than the Tintin reference, because it shows that someone at Lego (Greg Farshtey, more than likely) was planning far ahead and not just making things up as they went along. Although Makuta was "defeated" in this game in 2001, he continued to send menaces at the island and the Great Spirit Mata Nui was not reawakened until several stories and plot twists later in 2009. At that point he was revealed to be encased in a colossal robot body. Yet this had already been anticipated in the game eight years earlier. Among the constellation prophecies carved into the base of the astrologer's telescope on the beach, the robot's face can be seen.
They just don't make them like this anymore. The evolution of the Bionicle franchise is comparable, I suppose, to the process of growing up or of attaining a richer and deeper faith. It starts out simple, with one island and one plotline and one set of characters, and you assume that's all there is. Then another wave of villains comes, and then another, and then it moves on to another island altogether, and then it just keeps expanding and suddenly it's more complicated than you imagined. The Turaga, or village elders, are particularly infuriating in this regard as they never tell the Toa any more than they need to know at a given time, even though they themselves know basically everything. But no matter how complicated that reality gets, the original storyline still remains and is just as true as it was before, even if it must now be reevaluated in the light of things you didn't know before. And you can always revisit it by playing MNOG.