Cacophanus wrote:First, watch this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7-Qg7-IvGI
That was the first unveiling of Halo to the masses back in 1999 (they dropped the Myth-like RTS obviously) and it was originally meant to be a Mac exclusive , which wasn't surprising considering Bungie's background in developing various FPS games for the system (with Pathways into Darkness and the Marathon Trilogy being notable here).
Anyway, for me it was wonderful to see a game placing you in a fantastic environment and being essentially told "go play". This was something accentuated further by the various comments from Jason Jones et al to deliver a game that allowed the player to explore the entirety of Halo and tackle the Covenant emplacements in a manner they saw fit, emphasizing the focus on player driven guerrilla warfare. There was no shock and awe in this approach, as far as I remember, it was purely an evolution of their previous FPS into something vast and open. Personally, I didn't care that Bungie jumped ship to make Halo for the Xbox. I was just glad that the game intended to offer so much was still getting made.
Cue Halo's release on the Xbox and all that had gone. To be replaced with mundane trudging through identikit rooms as you were funneled through levels. The Silent Cartographer was about as close as the game got to what was originally envisaged and even then you were on a fucking island and had to deal with the Covenant there before progressing. To make matters worse, Bungie's prior approach to gaming narrative had been thrown aside in favour of dull and blunt cutscenes. The same can be equally said for Halo 2.
Now, eight years after that initial announcement Halo 3 is upon us and the scope of what was originally offered is almost nowhere to be seen. It's just another shock and awe brain dead FPS meant for American teenagers with an attention span less than that of a goldfish. There are minor moments of functionality possibility that appear but these are quickly replaced with pedestrian trudging through the bowels of some kind of installation.
Finally, the other bizarrely awful aspect of the Halo Trilogy is the Flood. Honestly, whoever came up with those deserves to be shot, boiled in acid and then fired into the sun. The small amount of fun you may have whilst combating the Covenant is completely undone with the horrific tedium of battling the Flood.
At least Bungie's approach to multiplayer survived intact, which is at least a small mercy but still having a next-gen game offer functionally less than that was outlined for a Mac eight years ago is depressing and appalling in equal measure.
He is roughly correct. What he fails to note is that even despite all the complaints the first game was still a masterpiece. I will talk about this in depth in my review though. I only wanted to save the link here for future reference.
