Posts tagged with “Halo”

So, Halo: Reach beta – I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I said it. After almost 10 years of evolved combat, the newest iteration of Halo still has enough gusto to grab my attention. But why is that? Two words: Jet Packs.

When Halo ODST came along, it seemed thoroughly mediocre. The inspiration behind the game seemed like a solid foundation. I liked the jazz score, the dark lighting, the general ambiance, the Firefly cameos, but the excitement was missing. So, when I booted up the Reach Beta, I was doing it out of a sense of obligation (sort of like how I need to watch the Lost finale, but I don’t want to). And to my surprise, there were jet packs!

Flying really changes (evolves?) the game’s combat to the point where everything feels fresh and new again. As with each new release, there are new weapons too, but they aren’t the game changers that will bring in new fans while exciting the old. Flying is.

More importantly, the Halo series has added a new mechanic to the tired FPS genre. People frequently lament that all FPS’s are essentially the same game, but players would be hard pressed to say that about Halo: Reach after a few play throughs.

So, congratulations Bungie; You created a cool new mechanic for a genre that hasn’t really changed in the last ten years.

I’ve spent the better part of the past weekend playing through Borderlands, a new first person shooter with RPG elements from 2K. I had fun playing so here are my thoughts on the game.

What was interesting: I liked the Diablo similarities where you get procedurally generated loot for killing enemies. While it can be cumbersome at times to sort through all the drops it did certainly feel satisfying when you found the rapid-fire-rocket-launcher-of-lighting-your-enemy’s-face-on-fire. The tech tree part was fun too, I played as a Berserker and leveled up my ability to punch people to death instead of the tried and true shooting method. The missions that you picked up, while mostly formulaic, kept me engaged enough to want to keep playing to see what happened next. Finally, I really enjoyed the voice acting for a couple of the characters, especially the hillbilly who offers you vehicles (“Get you one!”)

What was ok: The vehicle sections were about as mediocre as I expected, and felt very reminiscent of Halo Warthog Jeep (alas, no flying motorcycle or tank). The plot was entirely throw away as far as I was concerned (I’m searching for some secret treasure vault? Who gives a shit?) but luckily the game didn’t really shove it down my throat too much. The game had a nice visual aesthetic with some cartoony/serious graphics, but after a while things started to blend together and I got tired of the whole junkyard look and feel. It’s too bad they didn’t explore different environments with different colors more! The boss fights were generally good, with some memorable tangles, but there were too few bosses to break up the game play.

What sucked: After a while things started to get a little bit repetitive, especially in the enemy department. By the end I was just playing for the sake of playing, not because I wanted to see the next exciting thing. Some of the fetch quests were kind of annoying too, especially when it clearly felt like a fetch quest.

What I missed: The multiplayer! Everyone tells me this is one of the best features of the game, but I only played through single player. After I find my gold trial I’ll give the co-op and death match modes a shot and see how they play out, I’m sure they’re a ton of fun.

Overall I think Borderlands was a lot of fun, and it appeals to me even though I’m not usually into FPS-es. I’d definitely recommend giving it a shot, especially if you like playing with friends. Accept its flaws and you’ll have a good time.

So what do you think of the new website? Pretty badass, huh? If you are experiencing problems viewing the page please, PLEASE e-mail us at support<at>firehosegames[dot]com so we can fix the bug. Please include what browser and version you were using when you saw the bug (you can find out by clicking in the top bar on Help, then About to find out what browser version you’re using), and a screenshot would be super useful too. Thanks!

This week has been packed with talks. On Tuesday I was part of a panel at Northeastern on business and making a name for yourself in gaming. Some of the highlights? The most game changing innovation in gaming in the past 5 years has been the advent of social networking in games (and games in social networking), that new UIs will be one of the main changing forces in the next 5 years, and that the iPhone is a complete shit platform for developers without major IP to make real money (although the business model of a 70/30 split with the distributor is a pretty good one). The panel was a bit pessimistic about one’s chances of “making it big” in the games industry given how fragmented and hit driven the industry is, but that’s with good reason! Think how many studios are shutting down nowadays, and how many people try to make games and never get off the ground.

The AI talk at Boston Post Mortem on Wednesday was a bit more technical, and featured a high powered panel of AI designers for major titles like Halo 2/3, Bioshock, and F.E.A.R. . The panelists discussed some of the problems with making “intelligent” AIs (“Ray casting is the bane of my existence”), and there were lots of interesting anecdotes. One panelist pointed out that it is more important for characters to NOT look stupid than to look smart, since people may not notice an AI that is coming up with a neat plan but will definitely notice a character trying unsuccessfully to walk through a wall. Another good point was that many people won’t notice AI when they are desperately trying to survive, but that if you put the game on god mode all of a sudden you can see all sorts of little bugs you might not have normally noticed. The panel was really great, I hope future post mortems are of the same quality!