So, the new teaser is out. We all know, we've all seen it... or at least I hope so.

It's pretty apparent that this sucker is going to be a Halo 3 campaign expansion or another telling of events surrounding New Mombasa's destruction and excavation. Not to mention, you'll probably be an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper). I'm not arguing that. I'm pretty positive though, that this is going to be a serious telling of alternate events contained in Halo 2. Better yet. Hey, I think I know why!

Now, to more fully prepare myself for the release (regardless of it being next year), I decided to put me some Halo 2 and Halo 3 in and check out the stories to refresh myself.  What I found is that Halo 2 is by far, the most, ridiculous game ever created. The story, fundamentally is fantastic, but if you look closely you'll notice it's pretty much the definition of "awesome" and "cool" or heck, better yet, "cheesy action movie". I mean this sucker is just bleeding with 90's action movie syndrome.

I remember a little while back seeing the E3 trailer for Halo 2 and some of the teasers and loving everything. Not only because of the anticipation, but because this game was looking to be a very serious, wonderful story equipped with everything I would hope for. I've read quite a few of the Halo novels and loved all of them, and this game was looking to be a pretty fantastic sequel... by the looks of it.

Of course, as we all know, Halo 2 turned out great; yeah. But it could have been a lot better, you know it. Only portions of the E3 trailer made it through in little ways and Bungie's approach on "taking-our-time for perfection" was ridiculously speeded up by Microsoft to create what we all see today. Even more so, it (well, Microsoft, I'm sure) helped to, like I said, make the game more like a cheesy action movie to cater to the fans and new gamers. I'm not going to get into that, but it's there, yeah, really, for real.

In saying that, I'm pretty sure Bungie wants to make this game as a response to that Halo 2, as a way to put a nice serious tone and some good detail into what muddy stuff was already in the previous game. I only say all this because, well, it's what I would do. Actually, I'm sure it's what anyone would do given the chance.

I'm pretty excited due to this fact because I really didn't like the "action movie" kind of Halo 2. I wanted to see the story unravel like the original or Fall of Reach...not like First Strike.

Coming to an end, I'd just like the say that Master Chief and his companions may be a strong characters and may be able to be exploited for some cool action moments, but the best is when they are taken from these obvious cliche roles and cast into deep, serious situations that mix sci-fi, action, thrill, and existentialism. I'm hoping this expansion will recover Halo 2 in a way, and stay true to the canon like the orignal and three, without getting too stuck up it's own asshole.

To Prelude My Tale

   Recently, a friend of mine left me with a couple of his games, due to his Xbox 360 being on hiatus somewhere. I don't have every Xbox 360 game, so I was pretty happy to get a couple of extras, especially oldies (or launchies?) such as Call of Duty 2 and Perfect Dark Zero.  Lucky me... I was given the opportunity to start playing through Call of Duty 2 again, in hopes of getting the 'easy' 1000 gamerpoints. As we all know, it was a launch title for the 360 back in '06. I'm sure some of you are probably screaming, "Jesus, why didn't you already beat that game?" Well, I did. It just so happens that in the two years I've been playing 360 though, I got a new gamer tag. After playing this, I regret that decision soooooo much.

   By the way, I don't mean to bash Call of Duty 2 entirely, this is simply serving as a reference to how far current-gen (360, PS3, Wii) gaming has come. Some people may not care to put some older games in the trey and check out what's changed, but after seeing this game I definitely am willing.

Putting One Foot Into Hell

   I pulled the disc out  of my friend's case joyously, giddly like a school girl for being sure I enjoyed this game at one point. I'm pretty sure I was giggling girlishly for some reason, really. Then, I fired the game up and clicked New Game, ready for World War II and the 'fun' of it's chaos. 'Fun' is in quotes.

   Now, at this point, the loading screen is doing it's thing and bringing me up to speed and the little videos are going along and showing me cool stuff. I'm pretty sure as of yet that this game is going to be easy as balls and I skip all the crap. Once the loading finished, I'm left with the tutorial level and the surprise of how ugly this game is when compared to newer titles. The textures look like a game of Tetris close-up and come off as blurry from afar and the "high definition experience" only adds to that really. Maybe it is or isn't because I have a 72" HDTV, but regardless, I can see imperfections easily. It's not a big deal, but seriously, if you compare this presentation to some of the newer titles... wowzers. I've also been playing Gears lately and comparing this and that is like chodes and cocks (pun intended?).

   It just kills me just how far presentation has come for a console. Maybe I was too ignorant with all my other systems, but I never noticed just how much developers (looking at you Infinity Ward) go in terms of pushing hardware and changing things to cater to the console and it's generation. You can tell now that this title is a launch title and that IW has gained experience since then.

Come On Buddy, Give Me My Points

   As I continued and rocked the tutorial portion... well, how can't you rock that part?

   Oh, nevermind. As I continued on, the crappier stuff became more apparent. I'm not sure if it's more of a reflection onto Infinity Ward or the launch title, but the terrain looks like poopy anushole. It's more-so revealed in the second Russian level, where you blow the Nazi building up, but uh... just look at it.  It's all jaggy and craggy and generally crappy looking ground all around. I also noticed something that isn't really a big deal, but explosions aren't active. They don't make terrain change at all... it's just static. Which is weird to me now at this point because I see games like Fracture and Mercenaries taking an environmental cue and I wonder why nobody did the terrain killing sooner. Especially this title would've used it nicely and gained more praise, seeing as how it's one of the first on 360. (then again, Infinity Ward doesn't even have environmental damage in COD4, maybe they're just not diggin' it).

  At this point, I also noticed how terrible the shooting mechanic and difficulty was on Veteran. The enemies can kill you much easier then you can kill them. It's so terrible when you see that Call of Duty 4 opts for better accuracy and more sheer numbers of enemies when pumping up the difficulty, rather then "cheap" kill tactics.