Halo Reach's campaign has stopped being fun.
By artelinarose 90 Comments
I picked up Halo: Reach the other day as your "standard" Halo fan; I think they're fun games, but nothing amazing. Following Reach before its launch there had been many, many sources saying "If you've played Halo before, play on heroic." I have played Halo before. I also don't suck at video games. I know better than to play on hard my first time through a game, but I figured what the hell.
As I type this I have just finished playing the level "The Package" and I feel like the game is dragging on. And on. And on. AND ON. AND ON. I roll my eyes every time the game throws yet ANOTHER wave of three or four high ranking elites, jackals and brutes at me, or a pair of hunters, sometimes two pairs at a time, while providing me with nothing but a very, very hefty stash of assault rifles and half ammo plasma weapons. Arguably the worst weapon in the game, and limited resources for inaccurate weapons that take forever to do anything to the friends of their previous owners. Some of these enemy combinations with the equipment they provide have taken me a half hour(!) or more(!!?)to defeat, often culminating in bullshit death after bullshit death. I have died more times in this campaign than any other game this year. Not once have I thought "Oh, I could have avoided that if I hadn't been a dumbass."
I am not one averse to challenge; I think a challenging game is often more rewarding when you can finally overcome it. Some of my favorite games are known for being suicide inducingly difficult; God Hand on Hard, Shinobi, the higher difficulty levels in the Devil May Cry games, Ninja Gaiden, etc. While most of these might be action games, I have completed my fair share of shooters on their higher or highest settings, such as Modern Warfare and its sequel, Halo 3, and so on. I felt a sense of accomplishment when I finally fought through and overcame whatever the game had thrown my way.
But playing Reach, I do not feel this. I feel nothing but irritation knowing I'm just going to have to do it AGAIN because the game continues to throw waves of overpowerng enemies without the proper tools to finish it quickly and efficiently in repeated bouts of artificial difficulty.
Fuck it, I'm playing on normal.
92 Comments