The first week of Backlogtober has come to an end, and I'm really happy with the progress I've been making so far. Since my last update posted on Sunday, I've managed to put another pair of big dents in my challenge for this month. The first of these was reaching the end of Chapter 1 in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I must have put over eighty hours into this thing by now, and thankfully I still haven't hit burnout point yet. I've now started gradually picking my way through the remaining missions and side-ops, and hopefully I'll continue to make decent progress and wrap up the whole story by the month's end. I'll refrain from posting anything more substantial about the game right now, as I'd like to save that for a dedicated blog post in the future.

What I've mainly come here to talk about is the other big Backlogtober achievement from this week - the fact I beat the campaign in Halo 4 last night. I was in two minds about playing through Master Chief's most recent adventure solo, given I'm supposed to be working through the entire franchise co-operatively with my good friend Duncan. However, that endeavour has been punctuated with a joint playthrough of the original Borderlands, which itself has been on hiatus for quite some time, so I decided to bite the bullet and go it alone for now. I also figured that playing through a game one of Microsoft's flagship series might help me finally make a decision as to which current-gen console I'll be opting to pick up next month (in the interest of fairness, Sony will be getting a chance to shine later this month with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves).

From a campaign perspective, I genuinely think Halo 4 might have the best single-player component of all the numbered entries in the series. The action flows brilliantly, providing an expertly-paced blend of standard FPS combat with tense exploration and the series' hallmark vehicle sequences. It even throws in a Star Fox-esque on-rails fighter jet section near its end which I thought I'd hate but ended up really enjoying. I still don't believe it attains the lofty heights of Reach, although it does come pretty close in spots. It offers up a pretty strong story, too, accompanying the expected epic space-opera trappings of an interstellar threat to the future of Earth and humanity with a much more personal story strand centred on the relationship between Master Chief and Cortana that ended up hitting me a little harder than I was expecting it to. Everything I saw through the game's story missions led me to believe that the Halo series is in very safe hands at 343 Industries.

While the overall experience was a very positive one, there were some particulars that bothered me a little. The new Promethean enemy types, for instance, were a bit of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed fighting the dog-like Crawlers with their skittish movements and clear weak points, but the humanoid Knights frustrated me greatly. I'm not even sure why, because conceptually they're no different to the Covenant Elites - wear down their shields, then aim for the head. Maybe it's because of their ability to revive thanks to the assistance of another new enemy type, the Sentinel-esque Watchers, or perhaps it's because they seem even more bullet-spongey than their Covenant counterparts. Their associated weaponry was also a point of conflict for me, as conceptually I loved the weapons' aesthetic design, but in practice found them to feel a little too much like re-skinned versions of already-existing weapons. Some, like the rapid-fire Suppressor and powerful Lightrifle, were incredibly useful whereas others, such as the pistol-like Boltshot and Promethean grenades, left me underwhelmed. Most tellingly, nothing that I picked up prompted me to try and alter my play-style or deviate from my standard loadout of an automatic weapon and something with accuracy and power at a distance. There's not even a Promethean equivalent to the Energy Sword or the Gravity Hammer to encourage you to get in close and partake in some melee combat.

It feels lazy to describe Halo 4 as 'more Halo', especially when various sources have been using that phrase to describe every game in the series since Halo 3, with both positive and negative connotations. Having said that, it feels like the best way to sum up the experience for both better and worse. The quintessential Halo 'feel', the nebulous quality of how every aspect of the game is balanced, is intact. The new enemies and weapons fit comfortably into that balance, although I suspect that's more down to how closely they mimic the established enemies and weapons than anything else. Halo 4 doesn't re-invent the wheel, it doesn't do anything too far out of the series' comfort zone, it doesn't push boundaries. What it does do is deliver a fun, tight, challenging eight-level campaign that I enjoyed from start to finish. For me, that was literally enough - it didn't leave me dissatisfied, but it didn't particularly leave me wanting more either.

So that's where we're at - seven full days into this crazy challenge and I've already managed to burn through three games and make significant progress in a fourth in the background. Next up on the list of games to get through is indie puzzle-platformer And Yet It Moves. I've got it installed and ready to run on my laptop, although it's unlikely I'll get to start it today - I'll be heading off to work after posting this, and then I'm straight back out tonight for band practice. Still, it's something to look forward to for tomorrow night, when I'm hoping its ambient soundtrack and charming aesthetics will prove a decent remedy for a long day at work. If all goes to plan and I manage to beat And Yet It Moves in the handful of hours projected, I'd say to expect the next Backlogtober blog at some point this weekend. Until then, thanks very much for reading. Take care duders, and I'll see you around.

Dan

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Currently playing - Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (PS3)