Halo Reach Review

Halo Reach Footage Filmed by Blizzard

 

"I've seen your file. Even the parts the ONI censors didn't want me to. I'm glad to have your skill set, but we're a team. That lone wolf stuff stays behind."
Noble-One tells the newest member of Nobel Team. You are not Master Chief, you are Noble-Six. A Spartan that once was just like Spartan-117, a Lone wolf, now taken out of your element to work with a team. Halo Reach, the newest (and maybe the last) Halo to hit the X-box brings us to the planet Reach, home world of the SPARTAN program and the beginning of the story. Some of you may say "It's not the beginning! Don't you read the books! Or comics! Man your dumb!" I know all of them. I was there when Dr. Hasley gave birth to Miranda. I was there when Lt. Keyes and Hasley went looking for John-117 on Erianduss II. But when Halo came out it was just Combat Evolved. Now Reach brings to the table a great story, action like you would never believe but how can you play it when you already know how it ends? What I say to that is "Who cares that we know that Reach will fall, what we don't know is who tried to save the planet and how they deserve just as much respect as the Master Chief himself."
Not only is Reach a better Halo then Halo, but it also feels like a better game overall. It's so beautiful that some of the scenes I felt are almost real. The controls are very tight and responsive. Piloting some of the newer vehicles is very easy to understand. I've heard from many people that the space flight mission is the best that's ever happened to Halo. Yes, it's a great addition, and it's as if you really are in space fighting but it's hard to feel the speed like you can for many others.
One major thing taken out of the series that was implemented from number two is the dual wielding. While it seems saddening to see it go the weapons seem to be a little stronger and there is a few new weapons that help ease the pain like the new focus rifle. Part sniper and part sentinel beam.
The only real downside I found with this game is level design. All the multiplayer maps are from in game levels, but this causes the campaign to feel like a big multiplayer game along with the fact that I've been to sword base at least a hundred times and I don't like that map one bit.
So for outdoing Halo 3 in everything and Fixing ODST's problems, (Matchmaking firefight! YEA!) Halo Reach is the Halo we all have been waiting for and deserve with an over all 117/120 score.

5X XP Weekend for WfC!!!!!

We wanted to let you know that the guys at High Moon Studios, award-winning developer of Transformers: War for Cybertron, are continuing to listen to fans and are hosting a colossal 5x XP multiplayer weekend starting 6:00pm Pacific, Friday, September 17th through 12:00am Pacific, Monday, September 19th. Anyone playing in multiplayer matches on the Xbox 360, PS3 or PC versions of the game will earn five times the XP rewards and level up faster than ever.

So join Blizzard/Inferno Project on the adventure! Yes that means put down your copy of Halo Reach.....

Trilogy Manifesto

Trilogy Manifesto

One of the things that have been bothering me lately is the idea of the trilogy. Trilogys are a cornerstone of storytelling (at least of modern storytelling). There may be many reasons for this. It could be because purely because of the number three, which shows up in many major places like the holy trinity, the three sons of Kronos, etc, etc. But that's not the thing which bothers me, though that is an interesting idea to begin with. What really is bothering me of late is the fact that some trilogys just aren't ending; and yes, I'm looking at you Halo. While this is all well and good, endings are a major driving force of any story. Agent Smith said it best when he said "everything that has a beginning has an end." Not to sound melodramatic, but this is true. Everything will end, even this world; whether by natural forces such as the sun exploding, by supernatural forces such as the Christian Rapture, or even just by the natural law of entropy itself. Everything ends. Also, when you think about it the ending of something is one of the most satisfying parts of something. If the knight never saved the princess, if the world was never saved from the invaders, if the one ring was never destroyed and the fight continued forever how would you feel? My guess is you would feel unsatisfied. Why is that? I believe we need resolution, we need to see how it all turns out. I will argue that half the reason we read a book for example is not to see how many hi-jinks some wizard will get into but how he will get out of said hi-jinks alive. The journey is interesting, yes, but if the journey continued forever the exciting would become mundane due to over abundance.

So, back to why I feel unsettled. Halo Reach is out soon, and boy that's exciting; but to be honest, I'm tired of fighting the fight. You've all probably heard the joke, where Halo 3's tag line was 'Finish the fight,' so ODST would be something like 'Keep fighting' and Reach's tag line would be something like 'Start the fight again, just earlier.' Halo was all good and fine, but I had my fun. It's cool what they are doing with the series in Reach, I am going to play it, but I have to wonder if those innovation would or would not have been better in a different, newer series. I finished the fight, and I feel that I am being sort of robbed of getting to learn and explore a new story. What is wrong with just letting something end, what's wrong with stopping? Nothing; endings are important, endings are complete. I believe that Halo should have ended, instead of dragging on for who know how long.

Is anyone with me on this, or am I all alone?

PS. I'm not against series. The Silent Hill series has interesting game mechanics that make Silent Hill something like a sub-sub genre in the horror genre, but each story is different and separate from each other. My beef stems from people who set out to make a trilogy, tell a story arc, but just keep going.

Singularity

Controlling time is not a new concept to a few games but Singularity takes it to a different point that we have never seen before. Using the TMD (Time Manipulation Device(Created by Berisov) ) that Lead actor Nathaniel Renko finds, you are able to revert objects in time. say a staircase is old and broken down you can change that to what it was the first day it was built. how about those pesky soldiers? well aging them to ash is a good way to get rid of them. Now your thinking about if you had a TMD you wouldn’t need anything else. Wrong. the TMD works only with E99 Tech that you may find laying around . Your also given  many different Weapons  along with the TMD. Using the Assault Rifle is great along with the Sniper but why not use a E99 infused weapon like the Seeker? with the seeker you can control the bullet.

Now the story of Singularity is great.Renko is involved in a helicopter crash and soon after is engulfed in a Time Distortion Singularity. the Once deserted and decaying build he was in is now full of life and on fire. One man is running and falls through a floor almost until you help him up and bring him to safety. As the man thanks you your brought back to your time. As you look around at the deserted and decaying building a few things just seem to be off. the man you saved is Demichev. the new ruler of the USSR and Katorga 12. As they always say, a butterfly flaps it’s wings in New York and it storms in Japan. Changing the past is a no-no and now you have to fix it. A few things seem that they would cause a loop hole while some hidden messages that can be found on the walls kind of throw your perception of what is really going on off. Along the way you can find some E99 Weapon Tech Cases that you can use to upgrade your weaponry or even some E99 Tech that you can use to upgrade some of your skills. This is a part of a problem though. it seems like you could use the powers as it’s very misleading. First you have to buy the power, go to another menu then and then attach it. Then while we are on a similar page the Controls work. But i know they could have been better. in some parts of the game where if gets a bit hectic i was scrambling around because i accidently switched weapons or i used up all my E99 by mistake.

Now I'm not saying this is a bad game but i would have loved to see a few things added to it. Like the ability to replay certain levels so you can go back and redo some things or even a New Game + so you can be some super strong solider and unlock all upgrades on the harder difficulties.  Maybe even add a few stronger monsters as a couple of the ones you fight seem very weak. but overall the game is great. Very enjoyable and is a reasonable 88/120

If you like the 2009 Wolfenstien you’ll like this game

If You Gave An Avatar Any Other Face, Would It Still Be You?

Given the immense time I have on my hands at my night job, I get to thinking a lot. One of the things I have been thinking about lately, besides what killed the dinosaurs (the fact that we don't know yet bothers me), is avatars. Take any avatar really (not the movie though, no thank you), whether it be the Mii, the 360 avatar, or an in game customizable avatar (as in Oblivion or Mass Effect). The thing I've been thinking about is how much do we make those avatars in our own image, or how much do we use those avatars to live out a different life. Personally, my avatars are usually a proxy of me; as my 360 avatar is as close as I can get it and evidently my Mass Effect 2 Sheppard looks an awful much like me (which I didn't mean to do). Furthermore, why is this? While I understand that games are a form of escapism, much like books and some drugs, what does this mean? Does this mean that we would like to be these characters that we play, or that we want them to be exactly what they are, extensions of ourselves in situations that are dangerous in thought, but actually safe to ourselves. Something else to nibble on, what does the existence of games like the Sims or Second Life mean? That we are unwilling to put in the work to change our real lives or that we are getting something from these sort of games that we can't get from real life? It's things like these that bother me, any ideas?

Dark Sector (Or as i call it; DARKwasteofmoneyandbraincellsSECTOR)

After many, many, many painful seconds playing this game i could not finish it. It's that bad. If you really want to play it go ahead and E-mail me. I'll E-mail you my Review sheet of it. But the simple version is this it scored a 37/110

Plants Vs. Zombies!!!! I-phone

Plants Vs. Zombies on the PC was such a hit why not port it over to the I-phone? using the touch interface works; bottom line. much easier then the mouse on a PC. All you have to do is touch the seed you would like and touch were to plant it and your done, no clicking and dragging. Once you finish the adventure mode the quick play mode is unlocked so every level is playable and all the bonus games as well. The “Second play through “ has CRAZZZY DAVE picking three plants for you and you can’t change them giving you a difficulty that is interesting.  So i’m loving this game and i can’t give it a worse score for the price of 2.99 then a 5/5