Yeah, well, I'd say the game stand better chances against Ghost Recon, The Darkness 2 and Dark Souls than it does Gears 3. Or at least on the 360 anyway. Of those three titles Ghost Recon is like the only high profile one and even then Ghost Recon's hiatus probably curbs it a bit.
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There it is, the new Halo remake. Totally digging the new box art. So we got two new Halo games on the way.
I have mixed feelings about this though. We just got Halo 3: ODST and Halo Wars in 2009 and Halo: Reach last year. Now we're getting another Halo game this year and Halo 4 next year? Thats four straight years of Halo. Not only that but Halo 4 is the start of a new trilogy. We're gonna have a Halo 5 and 6? Just how long after 4 will they come?
I guess my concern is if Halo is becoming a yearly thing. I love Halo and all but Xbox is getting a bit cramped with them. We're getting to the point where a Halo game announcement just doesn't have the same impact. I doubt that for many people the announcement of two new Halo games really significantly improved their outlook of the Microsoft press conference.
Well, with that rant out of the way lets actually talk about the Halo Remake(and start a new rant). So it turns out this remake is very faithful. So faithful that apparently it's pretty much the same game. All they're doing is improving the graphics. I'm not kidding, one of the remake's features is allowing the player to freely switch between the new graphics and the old.
343 claims they're doing this out of respect to the game and it's fans. I can understand this to an extent I guess. Halo: Combat Evolved has stodd the test of time very well and it's pretty fun.
However, I feel this doesn't leave many people too much reason to buy this. The only people that are really going to enjoy this are the Halo hardcore and those who've never played it before but even for them it might seem a bit odd to if they've played later games in the series since in the original Halo vehicles can't blow up, you can't use the sword and some of the aspects of the physics and animation such as how theres only one animation for flying dead bodies and how Halo Reach used mocap where as Halo 1 used more traditional animation will feel a bit antiquated.
This remake will not include the original Halo's multiplayer. Yeah, too bad, tad disapointed, what ever. I'm not going to dwell on it. Obviously they don't want to kill Reach off already, thats understandable. So This rmake includes seven new maps for Reach, all of which are remakes of older Halo maps(one of them is for firefight).
The odd thing is you can choose to play the Reach multiplayer from the disc but you're limited to these seven new maps. You do not have access to Reach's original maps or the two already rleased map packs. However, the game also comes with a code you can use to download these seven new maps to Reach so that you can play with them along with the original maps and the other DLC map if you already own them.
So what if you don't own Reach? I suppose your limited to only the playlists tht utilise the maps. Will they offer the maps that shipped with Reach as DLC for those who want the maps but don't want Reach? Or do they expect them to just buy Reach if they want the full multiplayers experience?
What ever. I already have Reach so it doesn't to me, I guess.
So when I first saw this I was kinda worried we'd be paying sixty dollars for expansion material again. Turns out that it'll actually just be fourty bucks.
Initially that was a rlief but after some thought I'm not really sure that it's any better a deal. ODST was at least an entirely new campaign and included the new fire fight survival mode along with the complete Halo 3 multiplaye experience. This is just a prettier version of a campaign we've already played with online co-op and a map pack. Still, if not having the complete Halo Reach multiplayer is what stopped this from getting the sixty dollar price I wont complain. As much.
343 claims there are still some additional features not found in the original, such as terminals and some things they've yet to reveal so this remake just may yet further justify it's price.
Oh, and it's releasing on the 15th of November. When I first found this out I thought they were being stupid. Thats only a week after Modern Warfare 3, the same week as Skyrim and the new Assassin's Creed will be out sometime during the month. But then I remembered, November 15th was the same day the original Halo Combat Evolved came out.
I listened to their podcast recently and apparently they had to fight with Microsoft for the price and the release date. These people really care about Halo. They cared enough to make sure this was on the anniversary, they tried to make sure the price was right and they loved Halo so much that they triied to respect the game by keeping the gameplay exaactly as we remembered, quirks and all.
While I can't agree with everything here it's clear that they tried to do this right. I'm betting this will probably be the least well recieved Halo but I think whats important is they've met their goal. It's not like they could of let the occasion go by withoutdoing something big.
And my thoughts on Halo 4?
...
um
It's Halo 4. Not much to be said at this point.
I was originally going to make this an E3 post... But I got too caught up in eh Haloz to reasonably get my thoughts on other E3 content in here. Maybe tomorrow.
Today I got on Bungie.net and I noticed something almost surprising...
This is from Halo: Reach's online stats page on bungie.net. As you can see today's population for Reach is just under 500k. I assume most if not all of you do not keep up with this kinda of stuff. I can't blame you, it really isn't that important, I just personally find this kind of stuff interesting.
Anyway, point is the Halo: Reach population has really taken quite a hit. It's slowly been shrinking, but a much faster rate than it ever did for Halo 3. Halo 3's population never wnet below 600k prior to Reach and was regularly above 700k back in 2009.
Now, a few months ago a Bungie employee did clear a few things up on bungie.net about the population counter. Apparently it works differently/more accurately than the population counter for Halo 3 and thats what made up for the discrepency... Back then. But I have difficulty beleiving the this desprency of hundreds of thousands is now fully up to the accuracy to the population counter.
You can attribute the recent population drop to several things. Mortal Kombat and Portal 2 just recently launched, the Gears of War 3 beta just went up and today the newest map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops was released. But still, Reach has been on a slow but sure decline.
So you can't help but ask why. Did Reach do something wrong or is there something else?
I'd say some of it is on Reach.
I don't want to sound like a whiny fanboy but it sorta seems like the additions made to the Halo gameplay in Reach has served as only a detriment. First, lets start with armor abilities.
The obvious offender of the armor abilities is armor lock. With armor lock players can become invincible for a full five seconds(without the ability to move, of course). This put the action to a dead stop. It kills the pace of combat completely. The moment a player uses armor lock the enemy is at a complete disadvantage.
Let me set the usual scenario for an armor lock encounter for you. Two players are in a heated fire fight and the armor lock equipped player shields are dropped so he goes into armor lock. What should the other player do?
One option is to wait for the armor locker to leave armor lock, but thats five whole seconds of waiting. In that time the armor locked player's team mates could easily just swoop in and kill the other player. Another option is for the other player to retreat, but the armor locked player is free to leave armor lock and attack his foe as soon as he tries to leave or turn his attention else where.
Also, keeping in mind that players can sit in armor lock for a full five seconds before running out of energy, thats only one second less the the amount of time it takes for the player's energy shields to start recharging. If the players waits only one second after losing their shields to go into armor lock then by the time they leave armor lock their shields will already be partially recharged.
Armor lock also generate a short range EMP blast based on how long it's held down. If you're near a player leaving armor lock, chances are your shields will go down and all it will take for that player to finish you off is a single melee, so a player using armor lock at close quarters has a huge advantage. This makes using weapons like the energy sword and showgun more risky than ever. Meleeing a player in armor lock also stuns them, not only that but players in armor lock can freely change their view so once they leave armor lock they can be facing a player tha was originaly directly behind them.
Really, the only time you're not at a huge risk dealing with a player in armor lock is when you're at sniping range in a large open map.
Then we have evade and Sprint. The main issue with these is that players will rush up and double melee. With the amount of shots it takes to drop a player's shields in Reach if a player can just be sure to rush in and get a melee on you before you can shoot down their shields they they pretty much have a garenteed kill. Reach got rid of bleed through damage, meaning all damage done with out power weapons do not damage the player's base health until the shields are knocked out.
So say a player has small sliver of shields left and are meleed, it will only knock out the shields. The player will have to melee again to finish the kill(or you know... shoot). But yes, the reason double meleeing is so effective in Reach is because usually a player can not shoot a sprinting player enough to drop their shields before they get in melee range. if bleed through damage was in Reach then this tactic would not be as effective since the rushing player would likely be killed in the melee clash after having been shot up on the way in for the double melee.
The rest of the armor abilities aren't as offensive. Holograms can be picked out from a normal player since crosshairs don't turn red when over a hologram and holograms flicker. The jetpack isn't bad unless used to reach areas on the map that shouldn't be available to players(thankfully these spots are few and far between). Andthe drop shield isn't featured enough in matchmakign to be bad.
Then theres the bloom and the damage output. First off, alot of people really don't seem to understand how bloom works and what it was intended for and really, Bungie probably should have tried to explain that to the players. Alot of people believe bloom was made to prevent player from "spamming the trigger". This is not the case and I really don't see why shooting your gun as fast as possible has suddenly been considered a bad thing.
No, bloom was made so that the non sniper weapons would not be usable at sniping ranges. As the crosshairs expand on the DMR all thats inside the crosshairs are possibly locations as to where the bullet can land. If most or all of the area in the crosshairs are taken up by your target then the bullet will hit the target. Spam on that trigger unless the target is so far away that they do not take up most of the crosshairs.
The real problem with bloom is that once you start spamming the precise location of where the bullet lands is random after a few shots and in a heated battle you have to choose weather to slow down for the headshot once the enemy's shields are down or to keep spamming. The enemy might not stop spammig and once they get your shields they just might get lucky and get a heatshot despite spamming.
Then the damage output. I was reading through a message board a few months ago and almost to my disbeleif I read that in Halo: CE that three pistol shots could kill a spartan(provided the third shot was a headshot). I went back and tested it out and this was in fact the truth. After years of Halo 3 and my recent time with Reach I had forgotten all about this.
Halo has progressively become slower and slower. The player movement has become slower from game to game and the weapons have become weaker. The primary weapon of Halo CE, the pistol, took three shots to kill, The BR of Halo 2 and 3 took four shots(and I'm not going to get into the whole BR spread in Halo 3 debate), and finally in Reach the DMR takes five shots minimum to kill a player. Add bloom into this and you have the longest kill times and the most effort it's ever taken to get a simple kill.
I know it looks like I'm painting a bad picture here, but don't get me wrong. I love Reach. I think it's a great game. I'm just stating some observations. Hell, I still stand by my review.
I wouldn't say it's entirely on Reach though. To be honest it feels like most of xbox live's population is afraid of learning how to play anything that doesn't have the words Call of Duty in the title. For months now not only has Call of Duty: Black Ops dominated Major Nelson's xbox live charts, but Modern Warfare 2 also occupies the number 2 spot, right above Halo Reach. Not only that but Call of Duty 4 and World at War sit at the number 9 and 10 slots, respectively, beating the likes of much newer games such as Crysis 2, Red Dead Redemption and Homefront. Thats right, four out of the top ten most played games on xbox live are Call of Duty titles.
It seems that an annual release cycle, once percieved by many a game as detrimental to a game franchise actual may just help bring of awareness of a franchise.
So, could Reach or a future Halo turn things around? I believe so, through adressing the gameplay issues I stated. Reduce the amount of shots it takes to kill a player and bring back damage bleed through. Nerf armor lock by perhaps reducing how long players can stay in it, getting rid of the EMP, not allowing them to turn the camera while using it and/or now allowing shields to recharge while in armor lock. That or just get rid of armor abilities or armor lock entirely. increase the player's movement speed.
Maybe my fanboy senses are too sensitive and I'm just over reacting though 
I feel like typing stuff here. So I will.
So I bought some xbox games recently, sorta, I figure thats something to talk about.
Beyond Good and Evil HD
Notice I use pictures to make my blogs more interesting to look at. Who wants to look at walls of text? Thats boring.
Anyway, theres actually an interesting story to this game before I even played it. Back in the day I actually used to really want to play this game but I could never find it. To be flat out honest I just thought the main character looked cool and I like my action adventure games, theres really not much else to it. But yeah, I looked real hard and I just could not find a copy.
In 2007 I finally found a copy for the original xbox. Unfortunately, it's not compatible with the original xbox which I got rid of. So I was really happy when I found out that this was being ported to the 360 and in HD in wide screen, but in all that time searching for it and hearing about how it was some hidden gem of the last console generation I feel that maybe that set up my expectations too high.
Beyond Good and Evil could easily be described as an action adventure game in the vein of The Legend of Zelda. Theres a lot of puzzle solving in "dungeons"(not litteral, but they are in the videogame sense). I would say this is the greatest part of the game. The Puzzles are fun to explore and beat. However, every other aspect of the game isn't particularly strong. Theres some stealth But it merely boils down to learning the simple routes gaurds walk(simple as in, they walk in a circle within a ten foot radius) or the four different directions they're field of vision shifts to while they stand in the same spot.
The combat consists entirely of button mashing and occasionally hitting the Y button(if I remember right) to activate your partner's special ability. A neat aspect of the game is photography, you take photos through out the game of animals and you'll recieve chash for it that you can use to buy health restorative items, upgrades and the like. The camera recieves a few other uses through out the game, not too many though. It's hard to describe but the photography is one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. Maybe becuase it's just something different?
There are some side activities you can partake in. In the main city there are a couple minigames, a air hockey-like game and a gambling game. Theres are four races you can compete in and four bandit keeps you can raid. None of these side activities will last you very long though, they certainly aren't as sustaining as side activities you might do in a game like Grand Theft Auto.
In fact, the game as a whole isn't very long. I managed to beat the game and earn all the achievements in under eleven hours. I did everything you could do in the game save for a couple of short and meaningless side quests. The game really feels rushed towards the end. As you progress through the game you purchase ship upgrades with pearls you earn throughout the game. The last couple upgrades lack any major story missions in between unlike the other upgrades and one of the side quests practically throws around twenty pearls at you for killing some common monsters you had been beating up with ease early in the game. The effort it takes to get those pearls is completely disproportionate to the effort it took to get the rest. It's as if the game designers ran out of time and had to throw in those extra pearls you needed all in one place.
Alot of people praised the game for it's plot and honestly, I'm not too impressed. It's not bad and I give the main characters props for not join the rebel forces right of the bat without evidence as to why she should unlike most main characters of many games would but aside from that it's nothing particularly great. The writing is cheesy at times and the villains just aren't as well portrayed as the main character.
:::SPOILERS:::
For instance, the leader of the military force's last words are "May the Angels of Darkness Rise to Glory". This character's motivations or origins are never explained. He's just some evil guy. The ending isn't very strong either. A revalation is revealed, Jade apparently is an alien with magic powers and saves the day. This is dropped on the play's lap out of no where and this is litterally the ending. Not much closure
:::END SPOILERS::::
I don't feel Jade is that great a characters. She's not witty, not funny, you can't really say she's particularly courageous, she nearly gives up at one point. I'd argue there aren't really any traits that stand out about her, just the design. I honestly feel most gamers actually believe she's a good character just because she's a girl instead of a guy.
I wish I had typed up my feelings on this game earlier, I generally feel more strongly about things shortly after the experience. At this point I kinda just don't care too much about this subject and sorta half assed this(funny that I say this despite having just typed up several paragraphs on the subject).
Anyway, is it worth it? I guess? When I first saw that the game was just ten dollars I was shocked at how generous Ubisoft was being. Alot of xbox live arcade games are priced at fifteen dollars now a day. Now that I've played the game though I feel this is probably the highest price Ubisoft probably could have sold this and expected people to actually buy it. It's a good game but nothing amazing. You can easily complete everything in less than twelve hours. The most impressive part of the game is the presentaton, top of the line graphics for last gen which is pretty good by Arcade game standards and fully voice acted cut scenes are pretty rare for Arcade games.
It's not a rip off but it's not a bargain either. If you're interested check it out.
Well, I was going to talk about more subjects but it's late and I've gone on about Beyond Good and Evil for longer than I expected. I'll probably blog again very soon about Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and share some thoughts on Halo: Reach.
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