I am by no means an Xbox fan boy. But I bought a 360 for two reasons. Gears of War and Halo. Halo 3 wasn't even close to next gen in my opinion. It is what I call Halo 2 complete. Halo 2 lacked a fun campaign mode and Halo 3 came in and made it better. Playing 4 player co-op was really fun but does more people players equal next gen. Halo 3 I felt was disappointing because the graphics were just a little bit shinier than Halo 2's. What about REACH?From interviews and videos it seems that Halo REACH is the next gen Halo. I've only watched videos from X10 and I already want to play this game. The story seems more cinematic than the past Halos'. What seems to be the setup to this game is, you're a rookie Spartan (Master Chief?!?!) sent to replace a MIA spartan. "Spartan's don't die they just go MIA." I don't know why but that line just sounded really cool to me. It's not a line that none of us haven't heard before but I'm sure it makes most of us want to say "urah." Yes, it's going to take more than a cliche line to sell the story of the game, but for a trailer it's a good start.
REACH graphic-wise is everything that Halo 3 should have been. Like I mentioned before, Halo 3 looked good but compared to other 360 releases, such as Gears of War, it just wasn't up to par. Looking at the videos of REACH you can definitely see the next Gen graphics in this game. Some thing so simple as the rifle in the game looks ten times better. Character movement and enemy movement seem to flow a lot more natural and smooth, too.
One thing that could possibly take this off my must buy 360 games' list is if they decide to take away split screen co-op and four player co-op in campaign mode. I understand that the overhaul in graphics in the end could take away from the needed CPU power to run a game like Halo: REACH in co-op mode. However, one of the main reasons I was sold on Halo was for two things LAN skirmishes and campaign co-op. Can Bungie maintain the foundation of Halo while moving it into the next gen graphics territory?
I miss Halo. I really do. I bought my OG Xbox specifically to play Halo. Xbox ruled, and I relegated my PS2 and gaming to another, unused room. It became a dvd player for the guest bedroom in the end, and finally traded in for Gamestop credit...
ReplyDelete...Once I got my PS3. It was a hard choice, becuase I had really wanted a 360. And the PS3 was crazy expensive. But after adding up all the costs of the 360 over a five year period compared to a PS3, my forecasts showed PS3 was the better buy. You got more, and didn't have to worry about what was already a problem with the RROD on the 360. That really scared me away.
What does that have to do with Halo, you ask? Everything. That franchise, that one measly franchise, makes me lament for a 360 to this day. Of course I won't buy one now, but oh do I miss that franchise. It was the shooter that got my wife interested in playing current generation games with me. We blazed through the co-op of Halo.
I figured I would be ok, though, because I also game on PC. So the exclusives I liked on Xbox were also available on PC. No problem....except they stopped releasing them for PC! ARRGH! No Halo! No Fable! ARRRGH!
Now I have distanced myself from the exclusives for XBox. I will not allow them to torture me. I have a PS3, and finally,...finally, we are starting to get AMAZING exclusives. And I'm really a PC gamer if the option is there, so nothing lost from Xbox...
...except Halo: REACH... :'(
Depending if my friends here get a 360 I might just wait until I go home this X-mas to check out Reach. My 360 was the game machine I left behind because it collected the most dust. I tend to only play exclusives on the 360.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that PC is the way to go for FPS and RTS. Too bad Microsoft stopped porting the Halo series over to PC.