Halo Reach was actually a 3 year turnaround. Halo ODST was in fact made by a smaller team. It was the same engine as H3 and didn't have a full multiplayer component. Full development for Reach though presumably started immediately after H3, so that would've been three years.
I understand the analogy, but NO ONE should want to be the ESPN of ANYTHING. As someone that watched it religiously a decade ago, ESPN is fucking awful nowadays.
I am by no means a racing game savant, but I'm also not terrible. That being said, the AI is so bad in the Forza Motorsport games that I have to turn the difficulty down for single player to get any enjoyment out of it. This has nothing to do with Drivatars, as this has been a significant problem since at least FM4.
In a single player race, you're typically started farther back in the pack, if not dead last. This makes sense and doesn't bother me. What does bother me is the fact that the first two cars on the grid are significantly faster than the rest of the pack. So while you're fighting your way through a bunch of AI cars that have ZERO concept of where you are, or give a rats ass if they've made contact with you (again, this has nothing to do with Drivatar, the AI in Forza is awful), the first two cars are like 30 seconds ahead of you by the time your through the rest.
So, I turn the AI down a couple notches from my actual skill level in order to get around this. So instead of the first two cars being 30 seconds ahead, they're maybe five seconds head. That's much more reasonable. Oh, and once I pass the front two? Their speed drops down to the rest of the pack and I leave them in the dust.
I love Forza, and single player was often what I played while listening to podcasts (it's how I stayed sane getting 100% completion in FM3). But, I'm legitimately baffled as to why, after at least three games with this exact, reproducible problem, it hasn't been fixed yet.
As someone with limited time, and only one character (a maxed out Hunter), I would pay $10 to max out a new character (and all 3 sub classes). But yeah, this is fucked.
This DOPE AS FUCK battle mech game came out in like, what, 2006? Less than a year after the Xbox 360 launch, when no one had anything else better to play. I will never forget this game.
Austin, I assume you're at least familiar with this game (duh, mechs) so I won't go through explaining all of the mechanics, but GOD DAMN IT WAS SO GOOD.
Teaming up with my online friends at the time and coming up with new strategies and adapting others we saw was so ridiculously fun. And back then there was no such thing as party chat, only in-game voice. Having to capture towers in order to communicate and come up with plans for when you were out of range was so fucking cool. The number of options and customizability of your 'hound was nothing I've never seen in a console game, both before and since. Oh, and when your fake country you've aligned with makes it to another's HQ? YOU COULD POTENTIALLY BATTLE A GIANT BOSS ROBOT/TRAIN TANK/SUPER THING. The whole supporting your own country and going to war with others system was fucking awesome.
Half of the shit in Chromehounds wouldn't fly today. Voice chat couldn't be a major hindrance anymore (obviously) and it might be weird having a Fake Russia vs Fake Middle Eastern country vs Fake Euro country having a giant war?
But Austin, think about this; what if instead of the Souls games taking off for From Software, Chromehounds did instead. Imagine a world where every couple of years we got a new MMO-lite mech game on consoles that everyone and their brother played.
Chromehounds will always be one of my favorite games, and I may never play anything like it ever again.
(There like A DUDE working on a spiritual successor for PC, but... it's just... not the same.)
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