Finish the Hype - Halo 3 retro review

Note: As anyone who's read this blog will know, I'm not a big multiplayer guy.  This review is therefore centred only on Halo 3's qualities as a singleplayer experience, with no multiplayer discussion or judgement.

18 months after its launch, Halo 3 is still a big noise in videogames.  Widely regarded as the defining title of the Xbox 360, the question is, how well has it held up in the time since launch?

Visually at least, the answer is 'not too bad'.  Technically it's clearly outshone by more recent titles, and the graphics can look a touch jaggy (remember the game is only rendered at 640p) with texture work often coming across as flat.  But this is compensated for by the strong design, the Covenant particularly remaining an aesthetic highpoint with their brightly coloured technology and sleekly organic design.   Sound too remains excellent, with some good voiceover work and plentiful explosions.

It's when we get to the gameplay that gaps begin to appear.  Halo's mantra has always been '30 seconds of fun' and that's still applicable here.  Combat remains satisfying, with enemies treading the fine line between smart and stupid well, and the weapons give satisfying feedback, with the option to dual-wield at the expense of grenades and melee returning from Halo 2 for a nice touch.  But why so many weapons? There are 20 different weapons in the game, and many are duplicates of each other, such as the human SMG and the covenant Spiker, both of which are standard machine pistols.  My opinion is that there's too many different varieties here, and a slimming down of the arsenal would have better balanced the various weapons.  As it is some are practically useless while others (most notably the energy sword) are god weapons.  To be fair, there are some standout additions here, most notably the scenery-wrecking gravity hammer.

Level design is something of an issue as well.  With an upgrade to a next gen platform you'd expect a vast leap in scope, and while the game occasionally wows you, most notably in the battles against the colossal Scarab walking tanks, the truth is an awful lot of it feels underwhelming.  Haven't I seen this underground base before? Haven't I driven along this beach before? Haven't I attacked this control room down these corridors before?  Deja vu sets in quite early, and there's little real spectacle for the eye to feast on.  Some might argue that this isn't the point of a Halo game, but considering that one of the draws of the original was its sense of scale and outstanding art design, this falls a little flat.  The same goes for the story, so taut and well paced in Halo 1 but now expanded to a confusing mess of alliances and betrayals.  One of the game's main villains never actually appears onscreen, the other is killed well before the end of the game, and the strange pseudo love story between Cortana and practically every other character is laughable.  There's little sense of pacing and although there is a clever twist near the finish the finale ends up being another lame retread, lacking the intensity of its celebrated forebear (though it's better than the non-ending of Halo 2).  The game feels rushed, not helped by the fact that this is a very very short experience.  I finished it in a day, and I'm very bad at console FPS's. 

 And that's when it struck me - this entire singleplayer campaign feels phoned in, like it was very much a secondary concern.  It lacks polish, pacing and the major setpieces needed for a truly Triple-A game and compared to efforts like Bioshock and the masterful Half-Life 2 feels very immature and inconsequential.  The core strengths of Halo are as good as they have always been, the great feel of the weapons, the smart enemies and clever combat design.  They should have been the bones on which a much greater experience could have been fleshed out.  Instead, they're the bright sparks in a sea of average.  This is not a bad game, in fact, it's a good game. But, crucially, it is not a great game.  Which is a shame.

[7]

Dog of War or Cog of War?

It so happens that for the past week I've mostly been playing two games that end with 'of War'. Firstly, there's God of War, a title that's been languishing on my pile of shame for quite some time now. I actually picked it up about a year ago and got about halfway through the game, but then other shiny things distracted me. This time however, I ploughed all the way through in half a dozen sittings. It's a spectacularly visceral game, in more ways than just visually, although nobody could be disappointed with the amount of dismemberments, decapitations and all round bloodletting involved. The controls are tight and responsive, with excellent use of pad rumble and the combo system walks the line between simple and complex very well, allowing even cack-handed idiots like myself to chain in spectacular sequences extending into the hundreds of hits.
It's not all about the combat though, as the level design extends to some truly brilliant puzzles, especially the fiendish Rings of Pandora, where almost a third of the game is one huge puzzle. There are some decent platforming sections as well, although there's one particular platform bit near the end, involving rotating towers of blades, which deserves to be buried and never brought to light. This aside however, the game is truly a masterpiece of polish, with some of the most epic scenes imaginable. Glorious graphics, and a complex meandering storyline, making outstanding use of its inspired ancient Greek setting, provide some truly special moments, like seeing the Titan Chronos emerge out of the desert with a mountain strapped to his back, or reading the ramblings of the temple's architect as he slowly loses everything, including his sanity, to accomplish his work. One infamously immature moment aside, the game is also a great lesson in how to make a violent and explicit game which nevertheless uses these factors to it's advantage. In short, it's a masterpiece, and the second installment is high on my must buy list.

The second game I've been playing is the beer drinking fratboy's favourite, Gears Of War, and that opening sentence sums up my attitude to the game, more of which later. I'm late on the bandwagon for this one as well, but for good reason, namely that I physically cannot play shooters on consoles, so I've waited for a PC release. First impressions are good. The game runs well, and with a high resolution and plenty of processing, looks absolutely stunning.

This tends to happen a lot

It plays well too, the cover and popout controls adapting well to a keyboard. I'm only on the second chapter of the game at the moment, so I'll reserve judgment until the end as always, but at the moment, the firefights, weapons, terrain and level design are all top notch, while the story is rubbish, the atmosphere lacking and the chracterisation risible. And having said that I'm finding it terrific no brain fun. An open verdict on this one then, and I'll get back to you when it's done and dusted.

Multi-Tasking

I know I mentioned in the last post that I was going to take a step back from gaming for a bit, but what the heck. With a dearth of new releases at the moment, I've taken an opportunity to look back and sample some missed treasures on the creaky old PS2. Foremost among these is something which, to my great shame, I've never picked up, that being ICO. I've played and been entranced by its 'spiritual sequel' Shadow of the Colossus. But I've never played the original game which so many became attached to, so I went to the trouble of sourcing a brand new copy. First impressions are interesting. I'll hold off on any sort of review until I've completed it, but let me just say that it's not short on atmosphere.
I don't need any time at all to make up my mind about Burnout 3:Takedown which is some of the most wacked out fun I've had in a long time. This is pretty amazing considering driving games are among my most hated of genres, but Burnout isn't really a driving game. I think of it more as Smash Bros. at 150mph. Racing is a lot more fun when you have to smash your opponent off the road while avoiding him trying to do the same.
Tomb Raider:Anniversary is the third of the titles I picked up. Again, I'm not going to talk too much about it until I'm finished, but the most astonishing thing is how amazing the level design is considering it's largely based on a ten year old game built on previous generation technology. It's rather refreshing to revisit a more non-linear acrobatic adventure after the (still excellent) Legend.
Finally, there's God Hand, something of an ace in the pack. The last game from Capcom's tragically short lived Clover Studios, who produced one of my favourite games ever, Okami. it was largely on the strength of their reputation that I picked up the game, and it fits the stereotype entirely, being funny, interesting and totally off the wall. Graphics are rudimentary, stage design basic and difficulty infuriating. Balanced against this is a terrific fighting system that often leaps into cartoon style zaniness while retaining a fine balance. I'm going to keep plugging away at it, but I can foresee controller-smashing levels ahead.
I tend to focus on one game quite a lot, so trying to keep four on the boil at the same time is a new experience for me. Nevertheless, although Burnout has taken the lions share of my time, all four are proving very entertaining. Still, I'm pretty stoked for a few new upcoming releases, such as No More Heroes and Apollo Justice:Ace Attorney. Better speed up then.