You may remember that part of the reason that Giant Bomb even exists is that its team members are dedicated to maintaining a high level of integrity... So long as they're around, Giant Bomb will keep being awesome.
Battlefield 3 is definitely possible but there's not been much said about it at all, Uncharted 3 is unlikely since they only started production this year and who knows what the fuck is happening with Episode 3. I'm willing to bet that "Episode 3" will actually be an offshoot of the main story starring Adrian Shepherd. I seem to remember somebody from Valve (probably Gabe) mentioning that we haven't seen the last of him and it's definitely the kind of reveal that would explain why the prospect of releasing 3 bits of information could be a little funny to him. What we expected to be Episode 3 will actually be Half-Life 3, running on Source Engine 2, set for release in 2012. The other one will probably be DotA.
I think Jeff's article reflected the nonchalance a lot of people are feeling toward Halo: Reach. It's basically a known quantity, everyone knows it'll be great if you like Halo. It would've said "so I was ambushed by a dropship at this one bit, then there was a bit with some corridors, and I drove around in a car. Dual wielding". And I don't like the guy who wrote that article. Does that make me a game critic critic critic?
@amoremono1 I suppose it's something similar to MGS2 in a way. MGS2 used several gameplay tricks in order to better tell the story, the betrayal and disorientation one felt upon taking control of Raiden, the crazy business with the strange calls toward the end of the game etc. Though these were excellent ways of instilling in the player an emotion appropriate for the story, they were definitely decisions that would've ruined any game which did not have such a solid reason for implementing these odd design choices. When viewed as a tool to further the story, the slower pace of the gameplay in the back end of RDR is really clever but the sudden lack of challenge escalation is definitely atypical of video games in general and would be really unwelcome in almost any other game, so I definitely see why you and other people didn't like it so much. I've always been more interested in video game stories than I perhaps should be though, so for me it was amazing.
I think that sense of anticlimax might be part of the point. Dutch "gave up" because he realised that there was no place for men like him in the increasingly 'civilized' world. I think that John "gives up" for basically the same reason. He can't have the life that he wants, though he has fought to redeem himself and make up for his past, it seems that he simply can't. If you've ever seen The Hurt Locker, I think that the epilogue sequence of missions in Red Dead Redemption is a similar ending to when the main character from The Hurt Locker is sent home. You experience the mundaneness of everyday life, a world that doesn't seem befitting of John. Even though he is clearly glad to be back with his family, there is a strong sense that John just isn't suited to the lifestyle. I loved the ending, I felt that the sudden shift to missions which were certainly less interesting from a gameplay perspective than those previous was brave and that it conveyed the story in a really clever way. Forcing you to take control of John in that final Dead Eye sequence was a perfect metaphor for the impossibility of the struggle against an encroaching society that had no place for John. So basically I felt that the endgame was deliberately anticlimactic, perfectly showing that there could be no redemption for John.
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