Pre-Order: Check
Go into the store to pre-buy? Check
Check In: ... Forgot
Stay in a long line: No
Was the last person to get the game: Just about.
Was there a ton of people in the line for Halo Reach? You betchya. Why? Don't know... ofcourse I was there too, so I don't have much room to talk, but hey.. I was smart about it. While people stood in line, cursing, smoking, and being idiots.. I was in my car eating Haagen-Dazs' White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle ice cream, listening to 104.5 (http://radio1045.com/main.html best music ever) and chilling out with the boy...seriously, most fun I ever had.
Now, was the game worth pre-ordering? Well... I got it in order to write about it, other than that? Can't say I'm too much of a fan... I'm still a COD lover.
HALO: REACH, WHY IT'S NOT A 10/10:
I don't like describing a series/franchise as huge as Halo as "horrible" based off of my opinion... I try to be unbiased. I can appreciate the fact that Halo has been around since 2001 and has a major fanbase. However, I'm updating this because I understand after my previous post that I really wasn't specific enough, and after the playing the game more, I realize that there were more issues that I left uncovered and I really didn't give credit where credit was really due.
CAMPAIGN:
I'm not a huge, huge fan of the campaign. It was rather short and not as entertaining as I really anticipated and aftertalking to other hardcore gamers (and faithful Halo fans) about this game, it really eased my mind about updating this post and creating it to be more fair and discriptive.
The campaign takes setting two weeks before Halo: Combat Evolved (Halo1). The problem with this is that they took this game and did the prequal approach, "in the beginning before the beginning" type of thing, and really.. it's not shocking to me that this is the last game Bungie is doing. Whenever a company goes and says "we're just recreating the past and adding to that" it's a big slap of "we ran out of inspiration and motivation in order to try and continue the future because we don't know what to do", and that, I don't respect. I do respect the fact that they did 10 years of story telling with mangas, comics, books, games, and even a movie coming out, but I would rather call it quits on a story or a project rather than trying to add to the past of it and trying to milk people for money.
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| ... Even go after your piggybank. |
The campaign took me 5 hours to beat on normal difficulty, and that's my first complaint. I don't feel like I got the bang for my buck, sure.. this game usually gets it profits from buying the game to play it on multiplayer, and that's all fine and dandy, but why can't the "perfect game" cater to those who do love the interaction that live gives, while as well cater to those who really love the story part of the video game? That's how it all started, video games before were built off of great story telling, okay graphics, and sounds that ringtones on modern day cell phones would put to shame.
The story, I don't believe was well thought-out and it seemed like a rushed or a last-minute concept. I know the story of Halo, my boyfriend is a fan, we have several friends who are major Halo fans, I hear the story about 10 times a day without buying every single book or piece of writing there is out there, and we all really agree that the ending to Reach campaign rather... sucked.. and the story just seemed like "whatever". The end? Any fanboy will tell you that the end is "OMGZ! IT IS SOOOO GOOD!" but no, really.. the end was horrible. I'm not going to spoil anything, but let me tell you this... it sucked..
-SIGHTS&SOUNDS: The graphics for this game was everything I expected it to be. Is that bad? No. Is that good? Not insanely, I didn't feel surprised. The Halo series has been going on for 10 years, I would expect graphics to improve as time went on, so.. the upgrade in graphics isn't something I'm in awe of. Now... I've had conversations with people about this game from A-Z, and people were saying "the graphics are amazing! Not the best, but definatly amazing", and I agree... amazing, compared to the rest of the Halo games, and because it is a new game, I would think that their graphics are up to par with the graphics of other games as well. So was I shocked that they upgraded graphics? No. It's something I expected.
The sounds with the game were decent as well. A game needs sounds, and as the years go foreward with gaming, gamers are really expecting a "cinematic adventure", they want a great story, amazing graphics, and dramatic sounds, because you know... the game wouldn't be all that interesting if all you heard from the game was foil swords being smashed together. So.. the sounds were in tune with the game overall. However, when it came to other characters in the story of the game, they all have accents... which I cannot pick up accents very well from video games, so I enabled Subtitles.. and oh my gosh, what a disaster that was. The subtitles were on average 2 seconds off and in some parts maybe 3 seconds off, and it doesn't seem like such a big deal.. but when the character is saying long sentences and quicker than normal speed, it's hell trying to understand that they're saying as well.
MULTIPLAYER:
- MAPS: I think it's really a cool idea that you can allow people to vote on what maps they want to play on... but when the game gives you the same map 5 times in a row, there's only so much of that you can handle before you over-play a map and just decide to back out of the lobby because you can't stand that map anymore. Also, there's nothing new to the maps... last time I played Halo it was 2 years ago and it was Halo 3, and it all seems the same. Some of the maps are so verical, you can't really do anything except try and jetpack your way around them, and even then.. that's not so amazing because now you have people focusing on this flying object in the air.
- GUNS vs SHIELD: The guns need some work. I understand their ideas and they're trying to be creative with the guns and even bring some cool guns back (personally, my favorite is the Needler).
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| It's purple and has diamonds coming out of it =] |
But if you mix the power of the guns with the strength of the shield, it's all out of measurment and proportion. To me, and it's just my opinion, but there's no way how I should get sniped in one bullet when I have full shield strength, and on a usual basis, I'm putting full on two clips into someone who will have a full shield also (and I shoot quite accurately). I also have to throw grenades at people and hit them twice on a regular basis in order to see a kill...and that's just exhuasting... now compare that to just one sniper bullet who can not only kill me in one shot, but drain all shield power I have.
- PSYCHE REPORT: Wanna troll? No problem. Want to be in a quiet lobby? Peice of cake. Is your motivation to win? Awesome, because there is a psych report that matches you to players that have their psych report similar to yours, and let me tell you... this is one awesome feature that I wish CoD had. Now, I filled mine out to "Quiet Lobby, Team Player, Motivated to Win, Mature Lobby" which... sure, it takes forever to find it.. but it's worth it because there's actually a drop of sane people in an ocean of insanity. Now, it doesn't seem like much, but trust me.. I'm grateful to every extent.
OVERALL:
Would I buy this game again if I had to? Sure.. to write about it. Do I play this game on a regular basis? No I don't.. and I'll probably only play it for an hour once a day beings that most of my friends are on the game, other than that... I'll mostly be on COD. Which, the main difference between this and CoD is the fact that I can play COD by myself or even with friends and not be bored whatsoever, Halo is kinda boring if you're playing by yourself. It's a game that really thrives off of people playing it with their friends, which would explain why the campaign is so short and they didn't pay much attention to story.
I wouldn't recommend this game to people who want a fast-paced game.. it is very sluggish compared to games like COD or even Battlefield and the transition from going to a in-you-face game to something slower could be slightly difficult... never in a million years would I put my sensitivity on the highest in COD, but I did that for Halo in order to try and speed it up and that only does so much as far as actually moving around is concerned.
WHAT TO REMEMBER: Games are all about preference. I don't normally prefer games like this and I'm not into futuristic works of art or aliens, it's not something that interests me. So keep in mind that everything I said (especially about the story and campaign) it is coming from someone that doesn't care so much about Sci-Fi... I'm more into realistic and fast-paced games, so I wouldn't recommend this game for someone who prefers those types of games also.
Is Halo fun to try though? Ofcourse, but It's definitely different than COD, and it's not on my Top 10 List.
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