I’m knee-deep in a really fantastic project at work, one that will be announced in a couple of weeks and is very likely to appeal to readers of GameSpite. Unfortunately, as often happens when I become invested in highly demanding projects, I’m so deep into this project that my brain is in a holding pattern around that particular venture and I honestly can’t think of anything to write anywhere else. Including here. Everything I want to post needs to be held back for a little while.
So, I guess I’m gonna go play so more Halo: Reach. But I’m having a little trouble with that one, too, I’m afraid. After finishing the third mission, which consisted entirely of me sniping dudes invisibly with active camouflage, I don’t really want to advance the story. I just want to keep replaying that level, stealthing it up over and over again. I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve finally found an FPS mission that caters specifically to my twin loves of stealth and headshots. It’s pretty great.
In the meantime, this silly little article appears to have become the single most popular piece of writing I’ve ever written, somehow. I don’t think I’ve ever published anything that’s been picked up by every dang blog on the planet before.
Halo Reach’s campaign is awful. I wonder why Bungie forgot how to make great campaigns (Halo 1)
It’s sad how what often becomes one’s most popular output is not what one would choose. But, so it goes. Consumer Reports-style journalism tends to be really popular and I know you don’t do this whole thing for the page views and popularity anyway.
At the very least, you’ve inspired me to pick up Halo: Reach.
I’m surprised how effective Invisibility and Decoy are in SP. Usually, these types of “False intelligence” powers are useless against AI in an action game because it’s hard to know whether the trick is “working” or not.
Anyway, I really loved Reach, especially after the double disappointments of the mediocre Halo 3 campaign and the great but overpriced ODST.
The AI treats them exactly as a human player would. If you creep up on a foe cloaked, they don’t know you’re there. But they can see you if you run straight at them, just like you can see a cloaked Elite when it runs. It’s the best touch in the campaign so far.
There’s a ‘crispness’ to virtually all aspects of Halo: Reach’s design that I really dug. I respect Bungie for that immensely, because it’s hard to pull off in a franchise as massively popular as Halo, especially by the fifth iteration of an idea.
If only other developers could be so prudent as to bow out when they’ve exhausted their meaningful approaches to a core concept. I’m looking at you, Neversoft after Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4.
Anyway, yeah, the Night mission is good. The Space mission is good too. I love the reimagining of Elites, those laser-cannon-packing fleet-footed sons of bitches, as samey as the other enemies are this is a definite shift from the last couple Halos’ focus on the Brutes, who stood there arrogant as a mountain raining grenades on you while you tried to nick away at their armor with a Battle Rifle.
PS: Another great Halo: Reach touch: the excessive, trailing ‘glass breaking’ sound when the needles from a Needler/Rifle break apart inside you. Now that’s a nasty weapon, no?
I have to be honest. With the pirate DS review I was left a bit disappointed at the end. You show these great shots of the system, and then when you set up the biggest punchline of how it plays pirate resistant games, nothing. It just needed one final picture of the thing working.
I probably should play some more Reach, but I find Fallout to be so much more satisfying right now. So far, what I’ve played has been ok. Nothing to really proclaim it better than the original.
I might have to play some TimeSplitters 2 after I finish writing this comment. The first level (Siberia) on Hard in single player – while it eventually breaks down into a more open firefight, the first half or so is all about carefully stalking your prey. Stealth and headshots.
The second level, Chicago, plays out much the same way. I assume there are other levels that offer that perfect mixture of stealth and headshots, I can’t say for sure, because I’ve never managed to get past the second level. Hard mode is HARD.