 |
|
Feb 12th, 2013 at 03:31:55 - Halo 2 (XBX) |
WOW. Halo 2 is awesome. Infinitely better than Halo 1. I beat it over this 4-day weekend that is (sadly) ending. Every single issue I had with the first game was addressed. The level design is no longer repetitive. They were well done, interesting and fun to play. Many environments had space for flanking, some had cover and some didn't, and the enemies were much more varied, with tough guys being thrown at you early and easy guys still being used in numbers late. Also in the late game were hordes of really tough enemies. These battles were epic.
The sparse story was fixed. This game dove into what was going on within the Covenant, what their goals were, and how they were internally divided and betrayed. You actually spend 1/2 the game as Master Chief, the human hero, and 1/2 the time as The Arbiter, who isn't the Covenant hero, but in digging through the lies of their leaders and being hunted by seemingly everyone, ends up inadvertently helping the humans. The story was *excellent,* and it ends smack on a cliffhanger where I assume Halo 3 picks up, which I will be playing next.
In Halo 2 you can dual wield! My favorite thing was to dual wield plasma rifles. In Halo, it was the Needler, which was still fun. There are also a bunch of other guns, including a shotgun, sniper rifle, missile launcher, rocket launcher, beam laser, and energy sword. The energy sword is iconic, and I remember it from multiplayer. There was always some guy at the top of the ranking who ran around slaughtering me with that sword. But it's fun to use! It was especially fun to use, as were most weapons, with The Arbiter's stealth ability. You can activate it for about 10 seconds, then it takes at least as long to cool down again. Usually, I could just run past enemies while stealthed, but occasionally I used it for a from-behind sword kill.
Halo 2 uses the same checkpoint system as Halo 1 did, which is sort of unfortunate because again I found myself just sprinting for the next checkpoint. These suicide runs were extremely challenging and fun though! It's like playing the game a different way. You can shoot your way through, or try and sprint (and stealth on and off with The Arbiter). I dare say I got very good at jumping, strafing, dodging, and one-shotting enemies as I darted around looking for a way through each area.
Halo 2 had a bit more/fun vehicle sections than the first game, which was welcome. I like that you usually get your choice of whatever is laying around, and the same with weapons. You're quite the scavenger. But it gives you choices of what guns to equip and which vehicle to drive almost all the time, and that's a nice feeling.
One thing I thought might be an issue is that the game would look dated, being 2003 or 2004 on Xbox. But this must have been one of the best looking Xbox games ever because I barely noticed. It looks great. I did have this odd issue where the game would burn an image on the top 1/2 of my TV screen, and keep that image there as the game continued. It was hard to see through, and I ended up having to reset my console every so often if it didn't go away after a few minutes. I imagine that's just something to do with playing it on the 360, or with my TV, but I have no idea.
Anyway, top notch stuff. After Halo 1, I was sure Halo 2 would be better. But now after the excellence of Halo 2, I am *hoping* I am not let down by Halo 3!
add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
Feb 10th, 2013 at 03:34:56 - Halo Anniversary (360) |
Finished up Halo Anniversary last night (happy Lunar New Year!). It was a good game, but I didn't have my mind blown or anything. 13 years does make a difference, even though the graphics and sound were enhanced by this new edition. I'm sure it was incredible in 2001. There were a couple big issues I saw. One was the terribly repetitive level design. I eventually recruited my friend to help me play toward the end, and in our first session together, he said at least 10 times, "Wait, haven't we been here before? Where are we (going)?" You fight down the same hallways with the same numerous waves of enemies forever and ever. This isn't bad in like the first half of the game, but it picks up as the enemies get harder. But one thing this repetitive level design/enemy onslaught led to was me/us just sprinting through levels to the next checkpoint. Tons of enemies in your way? Run run run to the next checkpoint! If your shields get damaged, find a place to hide for 10 seconds, then continue your sprint to the checkpoint!
The other issue was the lack of detail in the story. It just alludes to this and that. There seem to be big reasons and machinations behind everything that is happening, but it's all very cryptic. I understand what Halo is and what I'm doing there, and what the Covenant is doing and who the Flood are, but especially 343 Guilty Wheatley is mysterious. I hope all this gets cleared up in later games. What is Covenant culture like? What is their religion that I am so offending? What's the origin of the Flood? What's up with all the other Halo worlds? 343 Guilty Wheatley alludes to like 100,000 years of backstory, but I don't get any of it.
Besides these things, the gameplay itself is quite fun. It's fast, frantic, and the weapons are a blast to use. I especially enjoy the Needler because it shoots like mini sticky bombs that explode after a few seconds. That coupled with the Covenants' silly screaming and ranting is hilarious. I had anxieties about the vehicles because in my experience in multiplayer years past, as well as with other Halo engine games like Stubbs the Zombie, the vehicle controls are abysmal, and they act like they're floating on the moon. But, and maybe this was because it was the enhanced Anniversary edition, the controls weren't that bad. Floaty, yeah, but manageable and wacky fun. Also, the game's difficulty is excellent. I played on normal and I had a nice challenging time.
I'm starting Halo 2 now, which is the proper original Xbox version. My biggest hopes are that the story will become clearer in the details, the level design won't be so repetitive (surely they learned!) and that the older graphics won't be a hindrance to my enjoyment. Let's go Master Chief!
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Feb 10th, 2013 at 03:35:24.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Jan 27th, 2013 at 07:16:34 - Words With Friends (PC) |
I suppose I should create a Gamelog for this, even though I never thought of doing it before. I'm also pretty sure everyone knows what Words With Friends is, although I bet a lot of people take it for granted that it's a game. I've been playing this off and on with people forever through Facebook. I've played against friends, co-workers, acquaintances, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, my stepmom, and on and on. For the last month, I've been mired in a long series of games with my friend K. Not to brag, but I've been kicking his ass. Words With Friends can get pretty intense. The first game, I won on the last play. The second game, he won on the last play. The next game, I almost doubled his points. And I've consistently been beating him by 100 points per game since. I have gotten the Z and J and Xes, so that's lucky. Anyway, it's quite fun. I did have a big moment the other day when I used all my tiles for the first time! You get +35 points if you pull that trick. I also regularly play with my girlfriend, and regularly beat her and make her frustrated. I understand. There's a linguist in my office who I used to play with and he routinely scored 500 points against me. Pshh, linguists. And I mentioned playing with my stepmom. She started a game with me last week. She's very competitive in games and I hate losing to her. I guess that makes me competitive as well. I intend to destroy her. But she won't play a word and it's been a week. Scared. Words FTW!
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Jan 19th, 2013 at 00:42:44 - Halo Anniversary (360) |
So I've been playing the Halo Anniversary this week by 343 Industries, the company that took over the Halo franchise with Halo 4. Halo Anniversary is a re-make of the original Halo. I hear it's almost exactly the same, just with updated sounds and graphics. I wouldn't know because I'm one of the 5 people on Earth who never played Halo. I did play online some at friends' houses, but I never played the campaign because I never owned an Xbox. So this whole giant series, best Xbox games ever, popularized console FPS, yada yada, I know very little about. I have Halo 2, 3, and Reach (don't have 4 yet) ready and waiting on my shelf.
Halo Anniversary - cool game, fun enough, more review type stuff later. What I want to talk about though is how my mind is blown from all the *stuff* on this disc. I've never seen anything like Halo Anniversary in terms of tie-ins with other games, features, videos, information, community, fan service, etc. etc. I want to just describe what I see. I've spent like the last 2 hours going through menus and things.
When you boot Halo Anniversary, you get a normal looking start screen. Oh, I just booted it again. This time there's a video...maybe I skipped this every other time. Ok, starting over! When you boot Halo Anniversary, you get a video panning through some of the environments and playing some epic music (I really like the music in this game). Then you get the start menu:
Campaign - What you'd expect. Choose difficulty, "skulls," which are all kinds of extra bonuses you can add to make the game easier or harder like guns consume 2x ammo or your head explodes with confetti when you die (my favorite), very much like Bastion's system, and here you can have friends join in your game.
Halo: Reach Anniversary Multiplayer - This takes you to a separate multiplayer menu where you can do the typical Xbox Live matchmaking. There's another option called Firefight that appears to be something like the Last Stand/Horde/Survival modes in more recent games. You can do a custom-based game that says you and your party can create custom missions with maps, objectives and all kinds of things. There's something called Forge that is described as a real-time group map editing program. I guess you take some friends and all go edit a map together. Sounds interesting. The last option is Theater, where you can watch replays of your multiplayer matches.
Halo Waypoint - This is the insane one. Halo Waypoint is like everything Halo ever. You have to download this 200mb add-on, which is free. When you go to Halo Waypoint, here is what is on the front page:
(1) Barracks - ALL your Xbox Live friends and their Halo Anniversary data is here. It tells you who is online, shows all their equipment, multiplayer rank, you can compare friends, etc. etc. If you want to know anything about your friends playing the game, go to the Barracks.
(2) Waypoint Career - This one has a ton more options under it: (a) Halo:Reach Service Record - This also has a ton of stuff under it. You can see challenges that people have sent to you (don't know what those are), you can see daily and weekly objectives. Completing those gives you extra credits to purchase items and things. You can see and unlock some sort of special armor items. You can see all your multiplayer game history, including k/d rations, headshots, w/l records, everything broken down by weapon and map and any which thing you could possibly think of. And here you can compare friends even more detailed on things like accuracy, weapon choice, etc. It's crazy the level of detail you can get. Going back out to the Waypoint Career, the next thing is (b) Restricted Access, which is something to do with Halo 4. It's locked since I've never played Halo 4. (c) is Milestones, which is some badge that I don't know what it's for. (d) is Classified and locked, and looks like it's data archives you get for finding Terminals in-game. I'm not sure. I don't even know which game it's referring to, since this Waypoint seems to integrate Halo Anniversary, Reach and Halo 4. (e) is Awards for unlocking achievements, and (f) is achievements.
(3) Halo 4 Intel - This is everything you want to know about Halo 4. What's the story? What's the multiplayer like? Who are the characters? Etc. etc.
(4) Play Halo - Buy and play all the Halo games.
(5) Restricted Access - Also something for Halo 4 that I can't check out.
(6) What's New - A Halo news feed.
(7) Halo 4 - A ton more media about Halo 4 - trailers, gameplay, images, behind the scenes and making-of stuff, a live-action episodic digital series. Can you possibly want to know more about the game that isn't here?
(8) Spartan Ops Season 1 Trailer - Spartan Ops looks like a giant add-on of co-op missions and maps and other goodies that comes with Halo 4. Maybe like free DLC. And I think it's another episodic story.
(9) A trailer for another thing...oh, a movie.
(10) Store - buy Halo stuff.
(11) The Universe - A comprehensive guide to the Halo universe. All characters, factions, stories, ever.
(12) Community - This one is crazy. Under Spotlight, there are player's screenshots, videos, comic series, "toymation" shorts, some feature on how the Halo toymakers make toys, top Halo clips of the year...150 items here. Under Creations is player-made maps, videos, screenshots, behind the scenes of some of the live-action things and other stuff...81 things in this category. Then Events has 87 items worth of tournament coverage, event notices, videos, award ceremonies, interviews with teams and players, etc. etc. Finally something called Rooster Teeth looks like some featured Halo community. There are videos, commentaries, fails of the week, machinima, event hosting and more. 40 items under this one.
(13) And the last thing is Games, which is a guide specifically to the stories events, videos, speedruns, dev diaries, all kinds of stuff related to each Halo game.
Halo Waypoint: All the Halo.
Extras - And then somehow there is a separate Extras section, which has all the Terminals you've unlocked in Halo Anniversary, a Library which is a thing that actually uses the Kinect if you say "scan" on various objects in the game. It then gives you entries for those objects. Neat. Then the Credits.
I imagine Halo fans were *really* stoked about all the content here. I figure if you like Halo a lot, you need to buy Halo Anniversary. I wonder if Halo 4 has all this stuff too. It's something else. I would love it if series I really liked had things like this -- Gears of War, Final Fantasy, Assassin's Creed -- all just in the interface from the main menu. Very cool.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
