A Reach beyond their grasp

Having completed the Campaign of Halo Reach on both Heroic and Legendary (and thanks to MitchyD for the co-op invite), the only emotion I have left for this game is disappointment.

Taking place chronologically prior to Halo: Combat Evolved, H:R follows a six man team of Spartans, (Noble team) based on the planet Reach, home of the Spartan program. Investigating what sounds like a simple act of piracy leads them into a discovery of a full-on invasion of the planet by the Covenant. What is clear from playing this short 8-10 hour game is that Bungie has made some massive assumptions about the audience in crafting what can loosely be called a narrative. It is assumed the audience already know what Reach is, what it represents and why the invasion is occurring. It is assumed that the relationships between the Spartans and those others within the Spartan program itself are well known. It assumes the backbone of the story is ingrained into those playing the game, so the developers could paint with the lightest of strokes. Finally, it assumes we will care about these characters and their eventual sacrifices because we already know all of the above. Bungie is relying on the audience to do the heavy lifting, and given the game is a prequel destined to lead directly to the events of Halo:CE, these are all erroneous assumptions.

It is also clear Bungie lost interest in Halo some time ago and while they have made a superb multiplayer experience, the single player campaign is bolted onto repurposed MP maps and tied together with unclear and underwhelming cutscenes. Essentially abandoning the mythology they created Bungie told what could be the greatest story of the Halo universe in the worst possible way and in direct competition/contrast to their own novelization "The Fall of Reach".

Though the prettiest of the Halo games to date, Reach owes a great deal to Halo 3:ODST in its structure. The appearance of open environments are actually simply massive corridors populated with waves of enemies sporting weapons and tech that never again appear in the Halo universe. The most compelling and only original mission of the game is a launch into space aboard a Sabre fighter, where the battle becomes a thrilling zero-gee ballet against waves of enemy craft. It concludes with a Halo 2 "homage" fight in vacuum as the Covenant ship is breached and boarded, and returns to repetitive form.

A late game section has Noble flying from sky-scraper to sky-scraper as the strangely empty city around them burns. Unlike the far too short urban combat of Halo 2, Reach again follows the ODST model of battles set in an empty area, after the city has already fallen. While Halo 2 had constant chatter of wounded civilians and soldiers in its urban environments, Reach peppers random civilians and soldiers as window dressing, with corpses ending up being just part of the window dressing rather than reflecting the actual impact of a global invasion. Perhaps a victim of an aging engine unable to keep up with the ambition of the developers it ends up having little impact.

As a multiplayer experience, Bungie continues to have virtually no competition, with MP integration built deep into the experience starting right from the main menu. Designed to give the player the experience of progress without awarding game unbalancing perks a la the "Activision method", Reach has deep customization of the player character appearance and sound. Though the minefield of Xbox Live is wrought with obnoxious homophobes/racists, the ability to drop in and out of both campaign and multiplayer with friends is almost effortless (unless you are trying to tie two separate 360 on the same home network to an internet session apparently).
Halo: Reach is the end of Bungie's stewardship of the franchise and their exhaustion shows. Mining their own back-story while framing it in the template of the previous games allowed them to capitalize on their strength as a multiplayer developer while paying lip service to a single player experience. Reach is at best a mediocre SP game and a disappointing end to one of the defining franchises of modern gaming.

State of my PC nation

Given that I often have the same games installed on my PC over multiple hardware changes I thought it would be cool to capture some screenshots of the games I am playing with it iteration of hardware.

It is also striking the level of detail even older games have when running at resolutions far beyond what is capable on current console generations. The vegetation in the Just Cause shot is a good example of this.

Running with the following specs I captured the below using FRAPS at 1680 x 1050 unless noted:

1.8 Ghz Intel E2160 Dual Core CPU
6 gigs DDR 2 RAM, running dual channel 400 FSB
Radeon HD 3850 graphics
Creative Audigy SB 5.1
Gigabyte P35 motherboard

Antialiasing and v-sync disabled with usually 4x Anisotropic enabled

Age Of Conan 1280 x 768 Graphics set to Low/Medium (click to enlarge)


Borderlands Graphics set to High(click to enlarge)


Dragon Age: Origins details set to High


Fallout 3 Details set to High


Dead Space Details set to High


Ghostbusters 1440 x 900 details set to medium (brutally buggy port)


JUST CAUSE Details set to High


Metro 2033 Comparison shots details set to high vs some details off



Titan Quest Details set to High


S.T.A.L.K.E.R details set to High

Game-A-Day Post-A-year

Fall 2010 is about to drop like a 10-ton weight,lead by the juggernaut Halo: Reach. Unfortunatley the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak and I have grossly neglected the simple act of writing to this blog about the games I play on a daily basis. While this tardiness may well never change, neither will my recreational habits so here's hoping I can knock some stuff out.

Upcoming is a snapshot of my PC setup, with the hopes of making this blog part of a living record of the hardware changes that happen and its impact on games, as I often have games installed for years, unfinished.

For now, this is a quick breakdown of what I have been tearing up over since the spring.

Red Dead Redemption: From Rockstar, the makers of the Grand Theft Auto series, this open world Western set just in the early 1900's scratches every itch a Western fan can have. Beautiful and sprawling, RDR follows John Marsten, a bad man who has done bad things but is trying to find a new life with his wife and son on the frontier. Unapologetically violent, RDR manages authenticity without straining credibility and is a deep 40 hour story. The ending, while unpopular, is poetic and appropriate.

Alpha Protocol: A spy story wrapped in RPG dressing, AP is a brutal mess of unfinished code and relentless ambition.Simply one of the ugliest Unreal Engine games ever made and burdened with a sluggish control scheme, the game stands only on its voice-acting and story. Filled to brimming with half-baked concepts and poorly executed ideas, AP is a frustrating kind of fun, the "time before you do the crime" and saved only by its story.

Blur: Advertised as a "grown-up's Mario Kart" Blur liberally lifts power-ups and tactics from the Nintendo playbook to create a fast paced racing game where victory can be stolen at the last second with a properly applied power-up. Varied tracks and unlock-able vehicles in both single-player and multi-player extend play time, making for a exciting variation on racing games.

Split/Second: Set as a high-concept reality TV show where contestants race against each, outside attacks and destructive changes in the track itself, Split/Second is thrilling in the short term but grows repetitive quickly. The destructible tracks are re-purposed but never really changed and the "rubber-band" effect of the AI never getting too far ahead nor letting the player dominate grows tiresome quickly.

Alan Wake: A long in the making followup to Remedy's Max Payne, Alan Wake follows a writer and his wife who attempt to vacation in a sleepy town in the Pacific Northwest. Once they arrive they are attacked by a dark force that appears to stem directly from the Wake's own words. Literary minded and often surreal, Alan Wake suffers from extraordinarily repetitive gameplay. The ambiguous story is ambitious but under-served, making for a game long on ideas and short on entertainment.

Prince Of Perisa Forgotten Sands: One of the slowest starting games mentioned, POP:FS opens exactly like every other POP game and takes its time getting started. The combat mechanics are extensively simplified following the example of last year's Prince Of Persia "reboot" rather than following the example of POP:The Two Thrones. Released to coincide but not replicate the POP film, Forgotten Sands has a compelling story and after quickly ramps up a few hours in to become a challenging platformer with light RPG elements.

Just Cause 2: A sequel to the Robert Rodriguez inspired original again find our hero with an inexhaustible supply of parachutes and grappling hooks. Hampered by atrocious voice-acting and writing the campaign story is pointless and best ignored in favor of exploring the massive game map, wreaking havoc. Just Cause 2 is a silly time killer that like any good popcorn, is forgotten as soon as you are finished with it.

Bayonetta: Sexy and insane, Bayonetta is a love letter to classic Sega games wrapped in Devil May Cry style combat mechanics. An incompressible story litters the gameplay, but double entendre's and one-liners make the experience entertaining outside of the spasmodic fighting. Lightening fast reflexes are a must to play the game to its fullest.

Aliens vs Predator: Essentially a remake of the original PC AVP by developer's Rebellion, AVP is a dark repetitive game suffering from loose controls. Brutal graphic violence is unable to compensate for cliche scenarios leaving me wishing I had simply replayed either of the original PC AVP games.

Left 4 Dead 2: Shipped only a year after the original L4D, Valve stunned the world by releasing a sequel within that timespan that was also good. L4D2 is tight, multi-player team based shooter set in a zombie apocalypse.Fast-paced, violent and scary, L4D2 follows the template set by Portal and L4D by allowing the story to be told by the environment, rather than clunky exposition and cut-scenes.

Metro 2033: Inspired by Half-Life 2 and made by some of the developers of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Metro 2033 is a gorgeous,dark, moody but linear FPS. Set in the Moscow underground after a catastrophic event, humanity struggles to survive while scrabbling for food and supplies under the near constant attack of mutant creatures. While I have only started the game, I am already struck by the mood and hungry to keep going.

Crackdown 2: A direct sequel apparently using the original engine and art assets from Crackdown, CD 2 is a empty exercise in open world destruction, similar in tone to Just Cause 2 but without the goofy mass destruction. All of the unique and exciting parts of Crackdown have been amplified and expanded to become the entirety of the game, robbing them of that excitement.

Dead Rising 2 Case Zero: A prequel to DR 2 and an XBLA release, Case Zero retains the central gameplay of DR, along with some annoying contrivances tagging along. Providing a strong backstory for what will be the retail release of DR 2, Case Zero is tightly controlled, gory, funny adventure in small town America. Loaded with re-playability and more direct method of combining items to create super weapons, Case Zero is fantastic value for $5.