Halo: Reach Review

 Make it count.

And so, by my own perspective, do we finally come full circle all the way around with Halo: Reach; the story at the end and the beginning. For Bungie, this would mark the very last Halo game they would make before the company would move on from the series altogether in order to pursue Destiny, which they're still trucking away at to this day. 343 were created after Halo 3, the original end of the series, in order to make other Halo projects such as the 'Halo: Legends' anime, whilst Bungie finished up their tenure with the series with two stellar spin-off games, 'Halo: ODST' and 'Halo: Reach'. As this was the last go around, I can only guess it made sense within the studio to go back to where it all started; neatly bookending the narrative into a cyclical nature and leading right into the beginning act of 'Halo: Combat Evolved'. Few can deny the poetic nature of such a sentiment.

For me, coming around to play this game again was something of a nostalgic twist to this journey into previously untested waters. I mean I had played ODST before, but so briefly that there wasn't a single shade of the game I remembered on the second go-around. Reach, however, was my entire Halo world before this adventure. The only Halo game I ever owned, and the only one that I would go onto complete. My history started with the canonical first entry in the series and it would eventually end with the first entry in the series. Well, actually I fully intend on playing Halo 4, but that's kind of like a new separate branch of the franchise, original Halo dies here. And with that added layer of nostalgia and a little better understanding of the significance of this entry, (most of the overt lead-ins were fairly obvious even for a newbie back in the day) I come to this spoiler laden review here today. Those who don't wish to spoil things can congregate in the summary at the bottom of this post.

Gameplay

Halo Reach has always served as something of the gold standard for what Halo games should play like for the longest time in my head. Which is why when I was praising the gunplay all the way back in Combat Evolved when I commented on it's similarities to Reach. Now I'm here, I can honestly say that in raw content things feel as responsive and satisfying as Halo 2 Anniversary Edition; which is to say they're pretty much peerless. The feel of the weapons, the sounds, the impact; everything sings with a smoothness that makes you just want to keep playing for hours, and that satisfying 'pop' of kicking down the enemies shields is magical. I didn't even realise that was something I was missing from fighting exclusively Brute-led Covenant for so long now, but I was. Sure, Brutes had shields too in Halo 3 and ODST; but it just doesn't feel quite the same. There's not that special moment where the clouds clear and you go "ping, the next one is going in your skull", you know? 

Speaking of; wow, does it feel nostalgic to enter the battlefield with Elites again! I didn't realise how separated we'd been until the achievement popped up for slaying 1000 Elites and I suddenly realised how I'd received the equivalent Jackal, Grunt and Brute achievements beforehand. Only this time marks the first time in the series they share the battlefield with Brutes, and that marks one the many reasons why I consider Reach to be one of the most challenging Halo's I've played (Probably mixed with the bullet-sponge half of Halo 2) and a lot of that comes down to great enemy variety empowered by noticeably tough AI. Enemies seem to know to press the advantage on me once they've knocked my shields down and have sought cover, use splash damage with their explosives in order to ward me away from a shooting position, and even put headshot-foiling helmets on their Grunts. Wait- someone cared enough about Grunts to give them protection? And it only happens in the Prequel game? Who did the Grunt race piss off so badly that they got their life saving protection withdrawn for the entire rest of the war?

These enemy combinations, married with the glorious selection of weapons that harken back to the first Halo titles (such as the single-shot DMR and original Magnum pistol) made moment-to-moment combat both engaging and so rewarding. Bonus points goes to the whole 'health bar under the shields that needs to be maintained with health packs' gimmick that the team bought back with Reach which hasn't been with their series since Combat Evolved. (And it makes canonical sense too; because this is an earlier generation of Spartan armour to the one introduced at the beginning of Halo 2. Geez, the amount of lore I just had to shift through to confirm that one fact is ungodly.) I say this with a little bit of bias but also a lot of confidence, but I think that this is the best feeling Halo in the entire series so far. Just as smooth as 2's remaster, but with a more satisfying spread of aliens to shoot. The best of all worlds.

Narrative

Even if you've never picked up a Halo book or comic or anime in your life, having played through the series in order up to this point it's impossible not to have heard of Reach. It's the planet that The Pillar of Autumn just escaped from at the beginning of Halo CE, the invasion that Earth's is compared to during 2 (pointedly commenting how that huge attack is nothing compared to what happened on Reach), and appears to be something of a dog whistle rallying cry for civilians across the universe as ODST features several 'Remember Reach' graffiti scrawls across the ruined streets of New Mombasa. It's clear that Reach is important, just as it's clear that it was once the sight of a great defeat for humanity. Meaning that in choosing to tell this story, Bungie not just picked up the idea of telling the origin story of the Halo games, but of telling a story that's has a predetermined 'loss' built into it that audience is very likely to be expecting going in. So how did they do in balancing that and still delivering a satisfying narrative?

I actually think they did a bang up job. From it's heart, the doom driven plot of Reach conveys the desperation of a people slowly coming to terms with the fact that everyone here is going to die, and Reach helps wrap the player up in this thinking with the use of Noble Squad. For the first time in a Halo game, you are enrolled in a squad of Spartans that you stick with for the majority of the game, Noble Squad, and your every operation is conducted with them at your side. (Carter even mentions how this posting will be different to the Lone Wolf antics you'd apparently performed before meeting them, subtly acknowledging the solitude hero of the main Halo games.) Noble are your backbone, your strong arm and a symbol of your unity as you start to investigate the new Covenant attacks popping up all across Reach. Thus, when the attacks start to build up into the biggest invasion that humanity has ever faced and sorties slip from dire to deadly, it makes sense that members of Noble start being picked off one by one, representing how battered and bruised the whole of Reach is becoming and the slow break of humanities frontline. It's supremely well pulled off.

Behind the chaos is the narrative delving into what Reach's secret military research was exploring, an inevitable story branch designed to further justify this story as a prequel to everything to come in Halo; even more than the setting already does. No matter in what direction you approach it, there would be something unescapably dour about playing a game which is destined to end in total failure for the protagonists throughout the story progression, so Bungie tied in this secondary goal to show how the actions of Noble Team, and specifically you, lead to the torch that Master Chief would pick up to eventually defeat the Covenant. It's a little bit contrived, but the emotionally correct choice to make in order to frame this story neatly into the wider narrative. Honestly, I think that even after my play around the whole series, Halo Reach might remain my favourite narrative in the series with some of the best stand-out set-piece moments colouring the story in. The cinematic drop from just beyond the orbit, the fall chaotic of New Alexandria, that iconic final post-epilogue last stand- it's all tonally on-point for a story about being on the losing side, but not suffering total, unrecoverable, defeat. 

Characters

With the characters of Noble team I think Bungie wanted to give another shot at doing the ODST group mechanic but with a better swing at more memorable people. Not only are their personalities certainly distinct and a little bit more nuanced, but their designs carry the instantly recognisable colour scheme and silhouette you need in order to create a cover-worthy team. Carter strikes a more serious leader of the team then Bungie's last attempt, neatly selling the act of a man carrying the responsibility of a team coming against insurmountable threats with a believable heft. Kat marks the intelligent second-in-command with the reliable tactician pluck, and knack for out-of-the-box solutions which the team needs to rely on in a fight so helpless. Jun is the quiet sniper type, characterised by stoicism and the occasional thoughtful observation. Emile is the shotgun wielding edgelord with the aggressive combat-lust you'd expect, and require, from the assault specialist. And Jorge is the large humanitarian with a heart swollen with empathy and a permanent role as mother of the group. Honestly, I liked all of them and appreciate the fact that the game gives us the chance to spend time with each of them one-on-one before the end (Except Carter) and fight alongside the whole squad as a unit for a couple missions.

They make up a great team with just enough intricacies and character to them for you to become attached. Even Noble Six, the protagonist, feels like they have a purpose to their intentionally neutral lines that you can feel in their delivery. Now none of these characters are hugely fleshed out, of course, this is still a Halo game where the focus is less on character driven drama and more the action- but for what bonding time we did have with the team, I think Bungie spent each second very well for building that all important rapport that made each's death ring with appropriate sadness. You won't bawl your eyes out about any of them, but that hollowness as another body hits the floor always hits home. (Oh, and Kat's death was especially clever with it's shocking, intentionally non-cinematic abruptness; ensuring the audience is just as emotionally battered by the war as the team are.)

The only other major characters from this game would be Colonel Holland, whom is more of the floating voice on the end of the radio, and Doctor Halsey; an eminently important character in Halo lore that is only showing up in person now. Halsey doesn't get much screentime, but still she does a great job in establishing that hard-shelled and emotionally dim edifice of a woman who orchestrated some truly messed up operations during her career in order to get results. It's never explored explicitly in this game, but you can pick up on the morally-dubious-scientist vibe coming off her from the very first encounter, and I love the ability to exude personality like that. I found her mere aura enthralling. Cameo shout-outs go to Captain Keyes, glad to see his small appearance and not-at-all surprised to see him fly down in an active war zone, in person, just to make a drop-off; and Cortana, who says literally nothing. (Her only voice line is recycled words from the beginning of Halo Combat Evolved.) At least we get to see an example of why she, in Halo 3's ponderous introduction scene, said the defining factor for the Spartan she picked is 'luck'; cool way to call back to that line by making the player character of Reach the unlucky last Spartan who had to stay behind.

Level Design

Reach's levels are designed to a standard just above what was established in Halo ODST and 3, which is to say that they are grand with at least one set-piece moment or iconic battle for all of them often with a little extra spice. Some missions have a lot more verticality in their design to them then we're typically used to, 'Oni: Sword Base' in particular, and some levels capture that sprawling wide-open, almost free-form, design we haven't seen too much of in this series since Combat Evolved. (Like both levels set in 'New Alexandria'.) There's even a series-first thrown in there where we get to blast off from the confines of terrestrial gravity and have a duel in space! Followed by your prototypical Covenant-ship assault mission- but with boarding and execution happening in space! It's another adventure with twists and turns at every moment to keep us hooked and never bored.

Whatsmore, the enemy spread throughout these levels are some of the toughest I think the series has ever put together, which I think was probably due both to conscious effort from the team to represent the fall of Reach alongside a genuine side-effect of improved enemy AI and design. The slight buff to Grunts alone really shakes up the balance of the battle just enough to make you more susceptible to Elites and their flanking strategies, Jackals simply slay with their roaming packs of sniper killers baring down on you with deadly efficiency, Hunters have taken a bunch of painkillers before deployment because they are absolutely hell to take down with typical methods (shotgun to the back is no longer a one-shot) and Brutes- actually the Brutes were a total push over in Reach. Maybe that was the tradeoff for everything else the game was throwing at us, they made Brutes the teddy bears of the Covenant army.

And of course, I can hardly talk about Reach without mentioning that iconic swan song of a final level. Where Noble Six, last of his team on Reach, finds themselves in a Spartan graveyard where they are forced to fight until the endless waves of Covenant forces overwhelms them. It's a great way to portray a player character death, putting the power in the hands of the player, and an opportunity to go down fighting. The mission is tiny in actuality, but as one long set-piece it sells it's dramatism flawlessly- particularly with the damage received finally cracking the helmet of the hero and distorting the HUD, showing wear and tear, until a stray explosive finally takes you down and the final cutscene of the last stand plays. As far as cinematic gameplay goes in AAA games- this is the way to pull it off and make the player and the story synchronise for one glorious moment. Truly a series-highlight moment.

Music

Reach marks the return of the series to the grander scores of Halo mainline entries, and whilst I enjoyed the oddball musical cues of ODST, Reach brings back the power-house scores that I remembered from Halo CE Anniversary Edition. Soaring scores at the beginning of the game which give way to quieter, but no-less noticeable, pieces during more ponderous moments during the fall of Reach. It's undoubtedly a different musical language to what Halo 2 was attempting, but one which sells the world of this game just as well in my opinion. Maybe Halo 2's best scores will stay with me for longer, but Reach still gave me chills in it's best moments, just from playing the right tracks at the right time. Definitely better then the slightly too bombastic lean of Halo 3. 

Summary

Halo Reach is Bungie's last Halo game, and in my opinion it soars as one of their best. Painting one of the most important and formative moments in Halo lore was always going to be a tall ask, and I think Bungie took that task as seriously as they could to make a game that would stand the test of time. Characters, Music and gameplay reach that level of mastery which Bungie had been eking at for so long and I have trouble deciding at the greater experience between this game and the stellar Halo 2: Anniversary Edition. This was my second playthrough, and I'd loved to play through again someday, because this is the sort of title I would return to time and time again to relive those lingering gameplay heights and echoing story lows. As such it's hard to give a game like this any less than an A Grade, with an easy recommendation to anyone, not just fans of Halo or FPS heads. Reach serves as a perfect in-road to the Halo franchise, just as it was for me, as well as a satisfying bookend to the Halo narrative. Having not made another Halo since, it's gratifying that Bungie went out on such a clear high. But it doesn't end here and next, for the rounding out of the Master Chief collection, I move onto the great waking of the big green man himself in Halo 4. So fingers crossed for 343's first Halo game. (Reach is going to be a tough act to follow.)

My first week with Kenshi

 A new world: Fresh and terrible

A couple of years back I made a discovery. I wish this was one of those stories in which I could trace back it's totality for you, where I could recount everything from the brand of cereal I inhaled that morning to the exact amount of brushed strokes it took to clean my teeth- but the truth is that the day in question just wasn't that memorable to me. Another dull thud in this persisting monotonous march towards my dank empty mausoleum, soundly punctuated by one brilliant glittering spark in my way. For that was the day I somehow found myself on the Steam page for Kenshi. Now the fact that I read through it all is incredible, given that the marketing of this game does the one thing I utterly despise; it leads off by telling me what the game isn't. God, never do that when writing your descriptions! It's confrontational, argumentative and, crucially, doesn't tell me what the game is about! Yet somehow, despite myself, I kept reading.

Yes this isn't a game where you're the chosen one, yes you navigate a world we're you're just as weak as everyone else- but what was the game actually? Well as I read further I learnt about a post apocalyptic world with heavy simulation elements imbued in it's skeleton to create a world that feels breathing. I learnt of shifting tides of factions and unstable pillars of a wobbly world that could be dynamically toppled down by a callous player. I learnt of a game with a hands off approach to agency- where you are the one who decides what you want to become and the goals you need to set to get there. A game that seemed eager to offer total autonomy to those that worked to wrest it. And to this game I said- "huh, sounds pretty interesting" and put it on my backburner. But I have a long memory. Last year it became apparent that my excuses had run out, I'd played so many other games from my extensive back catalogue that I needed to get around to those I'd promised myself to sooner, and so I picked up Kenshi.

And to slightly out myself as a liar, I actually played it last year too. (This past week wasn't technically my first) Albeit, fleetingly and never for more than an ingame day. Because for every other Sandbox RPG I've played, (Note: I mean actual 'Sandbox RPG', it's funny how few internet sites know what that genre is even defined as. Google lists Red Dead Redemption 2 as an example? What are you on?) I think I'd have to crown Kenshi as the densest. Not in content, but in approachability. The game gives you nothing to get your bearings, which one might argue is sort of the point but heck, even Rimworld gives you a tutorial to guide you through your first colony! Kenshi drops you in the middle of nowhere, doesn't tell you how to make money, how to eat, how to even fight and makes none of those things intuitive enough to not require an explanation. Whatsmore, the 'tutorial' system that the game does have is... spotty. (It only gave me the dropdown menu on Bounty Hunting when I was in the process of turning in my third warm body. I appreciate the thought, but the ship had sort of sailed at that point.)

That barrier to get involved really soured me to this game, because Kenshi just oozes like the kind of thing you want to go into blind, without having it's delicate secrets splayed out and ruined. I didn't want to just look it all up on the Steam forums, and I wasn't invested enough to read thee incredibly long, divided by topic, database which Lo-fi Games provided. This is supposed to be a game about exploring. In this instance, exploring an incredibly creative, wild and dangerous dark fantasy world in which sticking your finger on the burner flame just to see if it'll burn you is very essence of the experience. (Note: 9 out of 10 times: it will.) It took a lot of coming to terms for me to realise that if there was any way I'd get into this game, it would be through swallowing my pride and preconceptions and watching a tutorial youtube video (How far had I fallen as a gamer?) just so that I would know how to control the damn thing. And I think that is a pretty big problem with first adoption of Kenshi- some sort of tutorial mode would do wonders for player retention.

This past week, after getting a basic schooling, I finally came around to playing a somewhat serious campaign of Kenshi just so that I could discover the secrets of it's special open world for myself. I began strong by immediately deciding I'd play as a religious zealot called 'Sublime Intent' (10 points for guessing which series I recently discovered which inspired that choice and naming convention) before even learning that this world had a ready-made theocratic monocracy called The Holy Nation. So that lined up accidentally perfect, now didn't it? Of course, as per Kenshi starts, I began my life as a nobody with no skills in a wasteland of a town called The Hub. The prototypical start for any Kenshi journey, and not exactly a springboard for greatness, given how every building in the town is blowout except for the bar.

Fearing first for securing my food (Which in hindsight was quite foolish, Kenshi is rather lenient with food consumption requiring about one bit of food per day) I immediately took to mining with my main man Sublime and starting off as a lowly wage slave. For literal days I dug and dug and sold my earnings until I had enough to buy the biggest ruin in town (who even sold it to me? I don't know.) and then I came to the realisation; there was no way I could go this alone. You see, Kenshi is a game about building squads of people and managing them just as much as it's about struggling to survive a harsh and brutal world. And even though I had yet to explore more than 15 feet around my spawn town, I knew having people to watch my back would eventually become an unavoidable necessity.

It was somepoint here, between setting up mining routines, stocking up on raw meat, and slowly training my swordsmanship skills on the crippled cannibals and bandits who were melted by the town guard, that I started to devise what my role in this world would be. I didn't really come to it, but in that way so indicative of a Sandbox RPG like this one, it came to me. I would use this dingy little junk heap of a town as a staging area to create my own thriving community in Holy Nations land, from there I could work as a free agent- furthering the holy word in a typically zealot-like brutally clandestine campaign. A guild of farmers on the surface with darker political aspirations underneath; fuelled on a meta level by a destructive desire to see how much I could demolish this already-fallen post apocalyptic world. "Is that society I see these people trying to re-establish? Time to stamp that out nice and completely!"

The past few days have been working up to that, gathering materials, building up that base, researching technologies and scouting out potential spots for serious gains. My dreams are big, and one of the things about Kenshi is that it really knows how to humble you without dashing those aspirations. Much of this week was spent collecting the tools and training to be able to stand up to bands of roving Bandits without needing a 2 day recovery coma afterwards, only to find out that the second I left 'Dust Bandit' territory, everything else is significantly more deadly! Through scouting I've found regions that constantly spew face-melting acid rain, and one desert-stretch in which a laser from space randomly strikes the land throughout the daytime like some astralgeological event from hell. These are just the broader strokes of the endlessly atypical dark fantasy Kenshi world, without even going into the insectile race of Hive, the spiky Shek or the robotic Skeletons; nor the expanded lore of how their societies, races and factions function uniquely and in conjunction to one another. I imagine I have a lot of world to discover and pitfalls to tumble into, but that's just the experience of getting into Kenshi and to be honest; I freakin' love it. It took some time, but I'm honestly truly falling in love with this hard, tough world and it's quirky inhabitants. So much so that I can't wait to do something crazy and drastic to the delicate balance of the world state and screw it all up! 

Alan Wake 2

This is not the story you want it to be

Sometimes dreams do come true. And sometimes so do the tortured nightmares of a fiction writer wracked with schizophrenic episodes. I can't remembered how long I've heard the cries echoed from the rafters for an Alan Wake 2 to be realised; but I can certainly say that it was a lot further back than the time that I had actually played the original game, Alan Wake. This was one of those titles that I heard of from pure reputation alone, because god-knows that the marketing wasn't doing much to throw the thing my way. A clearly loved cult classic with legions of loyalists simply begging Remedy Entertainment to go back to their most beloved IP, after Max Payne which they no longer own. Such that I could feel the excitement buzzing from behind all those computer screens around the world when they finally got that confirmation in a teaser sizzle during the Game Awards last December.

It was an huge and important announcement, one very clearly worthy of a little bit of covering on this here blog, but I- well you see the thing is I didn't actually like Alan Wake too much. Woah, woah, careful with those pitchforks- you'll have an eye out. What I mean to say is that I didn't think Alan Wake was a bad game as such, it just didn't really leave an impact on me when I played through it, to the extent where I didn't even touch the 'American Nightmare' spin-off sequel-thing despite having technically bought them both in a double pack. (Although fans of the series seem to think that sequel was varying degrees of bad so maybe I got off lightly) My nonchalant feelings could honestly stem from a number of reasons- maybe because I never grew up with shows like Twin Peaks, and was much more into 'Tales from the Crypt' as a kid than 'The Twilight zone'. As I understand it, for a lot of the fan base out there, Alan Wake keyed into the dormant childhood love for that kind of entertainment and built upon it. Love that I never had- so I guess it just didn't end up being my thing.

Which doesn't mean to say I'm not interested in what they're doing this time around. That's the thing with Remedy, they're a cosy studio who can embark on wild and weird flights of fancy in order to make these quality titles with an creative oddball edge to them, without going full artsy love-it-or-hate-it. Alan Wake, Control and even Quantum Break were all very approachable and recognisable types of games to your average gamer out there, whilst exploring wild topics like temporal displacement, SCP-like cryptids and inner-darkness personified. Remedy have made something of a name for themselves with games like that, and holding themselves back from going fully off the deep-end like some might have expected by now. Heck, even Max Payne is considerably more stylistic and narratively complex than a lot of the contemporary shooters of the time, these guys never fail to stand out.

Now Alan Wake actually did have a sequel in development around the time of the first game's release, which was a real passion project for that period of their history, and not something that Remedy wanted to do just because all other cool single games were turning into series' back then. (Although maybe that bears some looking into) Their writing process was laser focused to rope in strings and hooks that could be picked up in sequels or spin-offs, such to the extent that they even ended the story on a cliff-hanger that I totally remembered and didn't have to just look up. (Maybe I need to play that game again- it's not right for me to have literally no recollection of the things whatsoever!) Look online and you can even watch some gameplay snippets of what Alan Wake II would have been like thanks to an internal demo which was built for the team to show off some of the directions they wanted to go in. But as you can likely guess from the fact it's taken 11 years for this to even be officially announced; that project didn't quite take off.

Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, weren't interested in an Alan Wake 2 when it was pitched to them, although they did want to bring Remedy aboard for something new they might create. What resulted was another step in the oh-so-weird 'games crossed over with TV shows' gimmick which was actually close to being a thing back then- Quantum Break. Break had it all, famous faces attached, flashy time bending effects and tons of action- it just didn't bring it in the gameplay department. Oh, and the extended show portions of the game kind of dragged. So fans of Remedy had to accept the bitter pill that Alan Wake was put on ice for this. Although Alan did get a tiny nod thrown into the game, perhaps as Remedy's way of showing they hadn't forgotten about their little tortured artist. Although it would still be several years and whole different game release later before Remedy would get around to actually paying off that tease.

And you know what, this may seem like something of a controversial take from me but I think the brand of Alan Wake is better off for the wait. Allowing memories and fondness to swirl and bubble into nostalgia fits a nostalgia-baking brand like this incredibly well and there's something just right about a literary-themed narrative ending on a major cliffhanger that waits a near decade to be resolved. (Or just continued, I guess. I don't think Remedy are going to kill their most beloved active franchise off just yet) Tell me that's not every book series ever- wouldn't Alan Wake, a game conceptually authored by it's own protagonist, be keeping with it's premise to follow suit? And I mean just look at that old gameplay demo for Alan Wake 2, if the project was greenlit it just would have been more of the same. I'm sure to those cult fans out there such sounds like a dream, but I and people like me wouldn't have been interested. Now the intrigue of what could be, especially after the very impressive Control, has me curious.

But what I really want to know, is what lessons will Alan Wake be taking from it's extended hiatus when it comes to horror? Because the landscape has changed substantially. When Alan Wake was king, Remedy was taking their first steps into Survival Horror and you could tell from the way they borrowed certain concepts from classics in the series whilst framing those ideas in a unique setting. But what lessons might have taken hold now? Five Nights at Freddy's, for example, is a massive series; and that has demonstrated admirably how effective it can be to take away a player's personal agency and have them simply sit and wait for the horror to find them. Resident Evil 7 bought players close and personal with the gruesome and weird, resulting in an impressively immersive and voraciously vivid experience some would call too scary. And GTFO lives off the horror of putting the player at the bottom of a very long, very unsettling and very eldritch food chain. Any one of these influences could drastically change and rewrite the experience of Alan Wake should they be weaved into II; and I think such a transformation would be perfect to justify this long awaited sequel's final appearance.

We've probably a while to go before Alan Wake II materialises, there's no release date yet, just a window, but already there's excitement drumming up from the sheer mystery awaiting. Sam Lake has made in clear in no uncertain circumstances that this will be a different kind of experience to Alan Wake 1, calling this sequel a 'Survival Horror' whereas the original was an 'action game with horror elements'. I don't know if I quite agree there, I think the first game was a survival horror, just one that focused on being creepy rather than terrifying, but I understand the sentiment. This new game is going to try new things, it won't be afraid to mess with the status quo and Remedy aren't going to just become a middle-of-the-road sequel factory like so many other video game companies in today's world already are. This won't be the last preview we get on this game, and despite my rocky recollection and lack of interest in that first title- this game might just have my attention. And so to coin Alan's parlance: To be continued... (Or Hirohiko Araki, I guess)

I want Showa American Story

 Love and hate have never ridden so close to one another

We all have those moments where we see something and fall instantly in love, don't we? From the very first glimmer of a hair bouncing off that refracted glint in our eye, we know that this is a unique little something which will sweep us away against our very agency. But sometimes that instinctual feeling might betray us, and leave us, or specifically me, feeling utterly confused once I watch the damn thing and realise- you know what, enough vague talk. This is a recently unveiled game from the right the heck out of nowhere called Showa American Story and I do not know how to feel about it, honestly and truly, I'm at pure equilibrium stalemate right now. Maybe just by breaking things down about this trailer to you, blog person, I'll be able to untangle right way up of  'Do I hate or love this' that's doing battle up in my noggin' right now.

So Nekcom \Entertainment is a company I've never heard of before, but their only other game on Steam is positively reviewed so I can assume they're actual developers. What they've put together is a 80's stylised project (Yawn. With the current state of pop culture trending to the 80's, it'd be more out-there if the game was set in modern day) which tells the story of America suddenly becoming an unofficial colony of Japan. (Hold on, this sounds like it actually has potential.) Yeah that was pretty much all this trailer needed to say to instantly hook me, but backing that up with headscratchingly visual icons was a nice backup. Audiences have already been treated to shots of the Golden Gate bridge reshaped with Torii towers and paper lanterns, so god knows what the goofballs who dreamt this up are saving for the actual game. God knows that I'm a sucker for anything that shoves Japanese surrealism in places where it doesn't usually go, which is likely why I'm a never ending sucker for Cyberpunk, apparent Weeb that I am.

And then you kick of the trailer with a little bit of the ol' ultraviolence in that grind house B-movie fashion, with a touch of sexuality to garnish, as our protagonist blows the genitals off of her (I presume 'former') boss. I mean how can you not just help admiring one of those games that goes all 'hammy gore movie' on you? Kind of like Bethesda's 'Wet', only hopefully a bit more of a full game than that game ever was. And the campiness isn't fleeting, no it sticks around for this whole trailer and practically sings it's sonorous melody in a frequency that the degenerate deep inside me responds to. There's cheesy heavily antiquated J-pop music, a replacement to the Hollywood sign that reads 'Neo Yokohama', the Statue of Liberty in a Kimono, that aforementioned Japanified Golden Gate bridge; the cheese is everywhere and it's oh-so glorious that I couldn't help but guffaw for those first few seconds of the trailer. And then the gameplay starts.

Now typical disclaimers apply, it's hard to judge a game's play from trailers, this is an unfished product, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, yadda yadda. But I don't like it. In fact, the gameplay makes my skin crawl. And I cannot for the life of me think why. On the box, or rather in the description, we're told straight up that this is an RPG, but in the gameplay what we see is movement-free hacking and slashing game on zombies accompanied by damage numbers and godawfully floaty over-the-shoulder shooting sections. Thus I can only assume this is one of those 'faux-RPGs' which gives you a skill tree but doesn't really design it to have playstyles or anything, it's just the minimum requirement to print 'RPG' on the box. Then there's the damage numbers which really makes me think of loot-flood game, where you get drowned with endless 'rarities'  and 'level' of new items that has you picking through menus and comparing meaningless numerical values every other encounter or so. And finally there's the, almost modern Tomb Raider feeling, shoulder cam; what does this game remind me of? Oh god, it reminds me of Metal Gear Survive.

It all makes sense now. The instant dislike, the unexplainable foreboding. Seeing a setting as cool sounding as this one be used for a Zombie game made my mind shoot to the worst possible scenario, and it's not because I hate zombie games or anything, just because those are some of the most easily exploited titles. MGS-urvive was a character assassination of the venerated Metal Gear name by Konami, in their task of making a 'profitable' low effort zombie survival game with ill-fitting crafting mechanics stretched across that already-horrific edifice. That's the instinctive thought I get whenever I see this thing in action and, fair or not, I recoil in abject horror at these jittery animations and damage numbers. Which is a darn shame because everything else about this game I simply love.

The absolute absurdity of a continent as large as America being a 'colony' of Japan, the fun nature of the gangs roaming the post-apocalypse, including one group called The Warriors who clearly steal some design prompts from 'The Baseball Furies' in the film, The Warriors. The old-school Japanese action movie posters littering our hero's trailer which glitter with nostalgic goofiness. And, of course, the rampant fan service as our stuntwoman revenant, Choko, does strange workouts in hotshorts with curious body-part physics. The game looks irreverent and a lot of fun, until the bouts of gameplay inbetween which aren't awful, but just remind me of something much worse underneath it all. Something I thought I'd gotten over long ago.

To be fair this is my very emotional response to the game, and emotions are whirling, turbulent little buggers that are hard to pin down to one spot. Love and hate dance and pirouette about each every other day, one displacing and replacing the other with the drop of a hat. That's why love is fleeting, and hate it's shadow, because intensity can, by it's very nature, only burn for so long. That which I dislike about this trailer could oh so easily blow me away a couple years from now, or at least prove decent enough to house the genuinely silly and enticing world that Nekcom are teasing. And I really hope it does either of those two minimum victory scenarios, because god do I want to see this world up close for myself, get embroiled in the stupidity and maybe even feel a touch of nostalgia as I go along. Not so much for the 80's, but of irreverence for irrelevancies' sake.

So I guess what I want to say is; I love to look at Show American Story and want to see endless trailers in this version of America so bad. I just don't know if I'm going to love to play it, and foreboding creeping doubts has be thinking I'm going to hate it's moment to moment activity. Then again, I learnt to love the new Tomb Raider games with their pretty meh combat, so I could learn to love a game like this too. It's going to be a relationship of understanding, and as much as I want this game to be the best thing ever just from it's mouth watering premise alone, I may have to come to terms with the reality of that just not being the case. Still, I want more of these trailers already. Just keep showing me popular US landmarks twisted to be Japanese cultural hubs and you'll have me wrapped around your little finger for good, Nekcom!

Halo 3: ODST Review

Take my advice, Rookie. You ever fall for a woman, make sure she's got balls.

Wow, I am really just blasting through these Halo games, aren't I? The second I'm done with one I'm blasting away at another like no one's business and already am somehow onto the one Halo game that I actually did play back in the day; Reach. (But that's for later) This will come of as something of a truncated review, because a lot of what 'Halo 3: ODST' does is covered in my earlier Halo 3 blog, and the series didn't totally reinvent itself this time around, however that's not say there aren't still some points worth going over in all of my usual categories. So join me in defining specifically what made 'Halo 3 ODST', in my opinion, a more satisfying campaign than raw Halo 3. (By a smidge) I know, quite the scandalous take to throw out there, but hopefully you'll get the chance to see what I mean in this lightly sprinkled spoiler review. If you don't wish to see the spoilers, the summary at the bottom of this blog is the place for you. Thanks bunches.

Firstly, this is a game that tells a story from the perspective of one of the many ant-like-marines that Master Chief totally ignores in the best case scenario, or indirectly gets killed in most scenarios, all mere roadbumps on his journey to rescue his blue AI girlfriend from the clutches of personified space Covid. The Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, or ODST, are special forces units that don't get fitted with special spartan armour and cyborg implants, and the ways in which Bungie tweaked the gameplay in order to ground the players in comparison to their Master Chief antics is the core of what makes this experience so stark to all of the Halo games. This is the only Halo first person shooter game in which you aren't in direct control of a Spartan the whole time. (Or decent Spartan equivalent; through the Arbiter) and after feeling some of that vulnerability I, in the sado-machoistic way that I often do, felt myself really gelling with that style of gameplay and honestly wishing that there were more games in that vein.

Gameplay

At it's core this part of the review can be summarised fairly easily. You remember Halo 3? This game plays exactly like that. Very solid first person controls, an array of enemies that prove more varied and challenging than typical first person fodder and solid overall gunplay. The improvements and tweaks here are minor but welcome, such as a few new weapons, (with functionally useless silencers) no power-up bonus equipment whatsoever, the ability to hold up to three explosives of each type instead of Chief's two (All those pockets in the marines suits are useful for something!) and slightly less hop power behind those meaty non-super powered legs. The details behind the way that the game controls are where Bungie put in little tweaks to the core game in order to hammer home the human nature of these characters in comparison to the Green Demon of Master Chief. Such as the new health system which relies on 'Stamina' rather than shields (Apparently grunts can shake off damage as long as they've got the 'stamina' to withstand it) and the return of limited health and health packs from 'Halo: CE'. Stamina restoration is slow and causes you to play much more cautiously, and the urban environment allows for much more natural reasons to pepper the levels with health packs. Although, to be fair, I did see one pack inside of dentist's station. Not sure what kind of services they're offering there, but if it requires a first aid kit to be constantly on hand, maybe I don't want to.

This more grounded approach plays alongside generally more sedate selections for the enemies that are thrown at you, which still play very much they way they did in Halo 3 (Brutes that have armour which need to shot off before a finishing blow) and are paired off with much less unpassable odds. Which does feel a bit like a free-pass because the ODST marines don't feel that much weaker than Chief. Yeah, there were a few heavier encounters when the game forced you to hide behind cover and cower like the squishy human that you are, but as long as you know how to deal with them it wasn't too much of an ask to mow down squadrons of Brutes with a Needler or the like. Also, I respect the restraint of the team to bring back the improved vehicle controls of 3 but not add in another bloody moon-buggy obstacle course level. Thank god, I am so done with that trend.

Narrative

This title follows the exploits of the ODST marines, an elite squad of drop shock troopers that are said to be the best of the best. And when I say 'said', I mean in the intro screen. That's right, Bungie actually told me something straight up without sticking it in a comic book and expecting me to find it! Wow, this is a real breakthrough in the therapy, team! I'm glad basic storytelling techniques such a single screen of introductory text has entered their repertoire of presentation, I wasn't significantly contextually loss throughout this entire story! (Can you even imagine that?) Of course, I still didn't realise until the final epilogue that this story is supposed to be set in the time during Halo 2 whilst Earth is being bombarded and actually before The Prophet of Truth turned up in his forerunner ship at the beginning of 3; but I'm sure that's just my own stupidity. I mean, why would I possibly expect this narrative to run parallel with Halo 3? The narrative of 'Halo 3: ODST'? I must just be being unreasonable.

Through breadth, the journey of this story is actually fairly straight forward for a military sci-fi shooter game, less about the 'fate of the universe' and more about the struggle of Humans under siege from an overwhelming alien force. And with that simplicity comes a greater connection with the individual human cost of this war. The game will have you prowl the empty streets of New Mombasa, picking across abandoned apartments and seeing the angry graffiti sprawled on walls, (Which is often as frustrated with the invaders as they are with the USMC; likely for picking this fight to begin with) It's a humbling perspective and one which we rarely get to see whilst jumping across alien planets and squashing Covenant with Gravity Hammers. That's probably why I found it easier to connect with the characters and people that inhabited this space. I believed them more.

Speaking of, I loved the unique way this game told it's story in comparison to past entries. There's this semi-free roam perspective as the Rookie where you wind up on your own and have to find your teammates by following the traces of their crash several hours earlier. You'll find several personal effects and each will inspire a story mission from that character's perspective. Sure, everyone functionally plays exactly the same to one another; but the novelty of having a different voice ring out of that helmet every once in a while is breaking whole new grounds in this series! Plus, it allows us to get to know, even briefly, each member of the team. If only these games were longer and we could use that new found understanding to appreciate the team in full battle, (You literally never fight together as a complete squad once in the whole game) but Bungie still did the 'play their stories' style of storytelling better than 'Call of Duty: Vanguard' ever did; so that's something at least.

Characters

The ODST team are the heart of this game, as their relationships and drives push the bulk of narrative; and they are... fine. Just fine. Pretty much every member of the group is a typical team-member stereotype from the charming leader type who gets a little stern when giving orders, Buck, to the nagging ex who annoys the heck out of everyone with every sentence, Dare. Dutch and Mikey seem to share a love of blowing things up, although Mickey is the supposed specialist in that regard. Oh, and the Rookie, player insert, character doesn't speak. To this game's credit, they pull of each off these characters very well and makes them likeable, and relying on stereotypes and clichés helps the narrative sell these caricatures in a reasonably speedy fashion so that you get to the action, so I don't knock it. Although I will say that personally, I could not stand Dare (as I said, she was annoying) and Romeo, (because he was a total creep) which is quite some feat considering he was rather clearly voiced by Nolan North. You made me hate a Nolan North character, game, that takes doing!

I just wish that these games were a bit longer because it really did feel like this team just got themselves established by the time the credits rolls around. I'm sure there's some extended universe book that follows their post-war adventures (provided they survived Truth's slipspace shockwave from Halo 3) but I'm here to play. 'Homo Ludens' and all that noise- don't make my enjoyment into a book report, Bungie! Also, and this is totally irrelevant to everything, maybe I totally misheard some important piece of contextualisation, but I felt like Buck's story with Dare was just that he had a one night stand with her years ago and fell totally in love with her. The way they interact makes it sound like they were in a big relationship, with hints about 'things not said' and the like, but then Buck turns around and says "What can I say? It was an incredible night." and the original premise you're told seems to back that up. So I'm just saying that I think Buck needs to learn to let things go, falling hopelessly for the first woman he sleeps with after a single night together certainly raises a flag. Not sure if it's bright red or just slight mauve, but it's a flag.

Level Design

In it's entirety, the campaign of Halo ODST takes place in the city of New Mombasa as it's undergoing assault from the Brute-led Covenant, which sounds like it might get old super fast, but Bungie really knew how to take advantage of their urban environs to keep things interesting. From the shifting times of day starting with the Rookie's perspective in the dark rainy night to the various perspectives of his squadmates throughout the previous day, sun soaked afternoon to moody dusk hours. There's also quite a diversity in urban locations, from wide plaza's with little cover to close-quarters hallway shootouts, to building-top rumbles and sewer bug hives. There's a lot more going on in this game's level design then one would typically expect.

My only real complaint would come in the actual number of these missions because like I've been implying, you only really get to play as the protagonist for two out of the eleven mission. During the rest you're in this semi-free roam state which is unlike anything the series has done before, but also not even remotely groundbreaking to anyone who has played a game other than Halo. (still, I guess we got to see the groundworks for what Bungie wanted to do with Halo CE and what 343 managed with Infinite.) I didn't even mind the few vehicle heavy missions that were in the game because they didn't ask me to drive over bloody ramps. (Okay, there was one ramp but that a cutscene trigger, I couldn't possibly mess it up.) It's odd to think that some Marine's had as exciting missions as Master Chief would later, but I had just as much fun, even if I didn't get the customary ice level.

Music

Just to quickly touch on this, I think the music for ODST was non-typical, understated, and simply fantastically scored. Some of the incidentals made me actually stop playing just to soak in the atmosphere for how different they were from anything else the series had to offer. Big call outs go to the noir jazz track which sounds like something out of Cowboy Bebop, (the good one) and that one piano track that sounded like a mix between the Dark Souls Bonfire theme and Resident Evil 1 save room theme. I mean really sounds like them, as in I'm decently sure it was a send-up to Resident Evil in some obscure fashion. There are of course your typical Halo bombastic themes, but none of them especially stood out this time around; I just hope that 343 have time for some quieter bangers like these when they take ahold of the series.

Summary

'Halo 3: ODST' is a rare new take on the Halo universe that manages to refresh a solid formula to the extent that it can surprise you all over again. The story was grounded and simplified, but managed to worm into your steel-trap heart a bit easier, and Bungie learnt how to convey basic simple exposition. (Which they then totally forgot how to do again when making Destiny. Good looking out, guys.) Despite functionally providing a pretty comparative experience to Halo 3, the small improvements and more personable cast led me to actually enjoy this title just a little bit more, but is that enough to equal a whole integer on the rating grade scale? Unfortunately, I don't think so as this game does falter on some of the merits I just listed, in doing them better than Halo 3 but not spectacularly in their own right. Thus I'm giving Halo 3: ODST a B grade, however, I will be recommending this game because I genuinely was impressed with what I played and think it deserves to be looked at as an essential playthrough for those trudging through the series like I did. It won't blow your socks off, but you'll learn to appreciative it's more human stakes and angles yet, just give it the chance.  

Is Red Dead Online Doomed?

 Probably yes.

Red Dead Redemption 2 was the smash hit single player swan song industry-influencing game that everyone pretty much hoped it would be, and given that the half of the dream team who lead the project, the brother who wrote that game, has now retired- it might just be Rockstar's last smash-hit release ever. (Not saying that's a definite, but I just think it's prudent we all brace ourselves for that reality.) With Grand Theft Auto Online not just proving to Rockstar how the billions are really made, but slowly diverting more and more resources directly to it's maintenance, it may not be too long before the critical darling single player games simply don't have the standing behind them to be mounted by the studio anymore. But here's me threating about the questionable future of Rockstar as a single player developer, when right now they've already let the ball seriously drop when it comes to maintenance of the titles already on hand. Notably, that of Red Dead Online.

Launched as a companion piece to Red Dead Redemption 2, RDO promised to take everything that made GTA Online a success and port it to their fertile old west world, meaning constant updates, new big content drops, attention, and a reason to switch on the console every week or so. Grand Theft Auto Online took a while to get it's footing in that regard, but now it has so many drops every month or so that there's genuinely work needed to be done to refit certain UI menus in order to hold it all. We're talking mod-menu levels of new cars, clothing, properties, missions and just reasons to endless grind. Even when having to deal with the endless hackers, bad network connections, and abandoned old content that could really use some updating in order to remain as rewards as new stuff. Now imagine all of those negatives I just mentioned, only without the influx of content to tide people over through the frustrations. I've just spelled out your typical day playing Red Dead Online, you can see why the game is slowly dying then, can't you?

Players of Red Dead 2 just aren't ready to lay down and except that, however. Even when their community drops off, their game loses relevance, and Rockstar celebrates the new year with a double XP event instead of anything worthwhile whatsoever. Thus began the 'Save Red Dead Online' hashtag petition that demands some sort of action on the storied developer's end, and which will result in absolutely no substantial change in the long run. (But at least the community can rest assured that they died screaming. Isn't that all anyone can ask for?) News reports have been written, folk who long abandoned the game have dipped their toes back in for a little, and Rockstar proper gave a little stir from their seats before going back to counting the piles of GTA Online money. Because I'm sorry to be the cold water on this hopeful parade; but Red Dead Online is never going to be GTA Online, Rockstar can't be bothered to even try to make it so.

Over the years Rockstar have revealed that they really don't care about the conceit of the game in question when it comes to supporting their online endeavours, so even when we're talking about a crime simulator, you'll have grand expansions that make you a secret agent with flying bikes and orbital lasers. Themes are unimportant, selling shark cards are. It's a lazy creative ideas process that scores high return, the perfect sort of business model. Red Dead doesn't have that flexibility. You can't add time travelling rocket trains, or slap a new purchasable minigun in the weapon store; the team has to make specifically western style content for their online world, and you can see how that's stumped them to no end.

Red Dead Online's biggest, and only, content has come in the form of 'roles'. Sold as roleplay jobs that players can take on to add some progression to the fictional life they want to live, but playing out just like the latest GTA expansion, roles are what bought Trading, (hunting with extra steps) Collecting (literally just finding collectibles) Naturalism (hunting with less killing) and Bounty Hunting (self explanatory) into the game cycle. Oh, and they weren't in the base game. The only long-term progression the game holds, and it came after launch. (Troubling.) Later the team would add Moonshining (the trader role with a mission chain attached to it) and... bounty hunting again? Bare in mind that accessing each of these roles requires a heft chunk of premium currency (thus a lot of grinding) and you can start to see why people don't take kindly to the fact that Rockstar ran of ideas so quickly they're now charging for updates to existing roles. (Did you even really try?)

The lack of effort permeates everything in Red Dead Online, from the main story of the online mode which was introduced with the main game and hasn't been followed since, (nothing major has resolved in that little quest thread so far) the terribly unbalanced ingame economy which rewards any non-role mission with a pittance so poor it's more profitable to loot corpses than complete world missions, a buggy camping system which makes some of the roles genuinely frustrating to even attempt (having the trader progress reset at least once a day is a bit of a mood killer) and then the sheer lack of things to try and buy once you have stuck out everything. There's no gameplan for this live service, and without that it's no wonder that the team have all but given up on the project to go back to the golden goose. They can bring Dr Dre in on that! What celebrity cameo can they possibly cook up for Red Dead? Resurrected Robert E.Lee? Nah, he was already dead 20 years before RDR 2- there's just nowhere near as much potential.

Or at least that's how the Red Dead team must be thinking, but the community disagrees and they actually have some cool ideas to cook up. If only Rockstar wasn't so obsessed with their image as untouchable models of the AAA industry to actually listen to their fans, maybe they'd see countless of paths worth dedicating just a tiny bit of resources to in order to make Red Dead a revenue stream to rival GTA Online! Okay, maybe the potential isn't that promising, but they could be making extra millions with RDO and I can't think of any reason that wouldn't be appealing to Rockstar heads. (They can do with an extra summer home for when the other 3 are being fumigated, can't they?) It'll just take a little dedicated, some work to put actual progression in the game, and just a smidge of commitment. Does Rockstar still know how to do that? Commit to something that isn't spitting out annual billion dollar cheques to them just yet? I doubt.

So the hanging noose over the community asks a question, "Is Red Dead Online doomed"? It seems insane to say for a such a ripe setting that hasn't even begun to have it's depths plumped, but the answer is a pretty clear 'yes'. Rockstar aren't interested in supporting this game the way it needs to in order to sustain a viable audience and all the browbeating will achieve is keeping the fire for this game burning a little brighter so that it's agonising death will last just that bit longer. Somehow the big R aren't interested in putting in the work, and when what's there isn't nearly enough, nothing but solid and concerted work is going to put Red Dead Online where it needs to be. I don't like being a fatalist, but there are other hills to die on and if Rockstar aren't bothered to fight for this game then the fight is pretty much lost before it's started. But kick up a ruckus all you want, light a signal fire, call for help at the top of your lungs; maybe you'll set an example for the next live service which rolls around trying to follow the Rockstar example: you have to be willing to improve the game in order to keep the service afloat. That's... well it's kind of the whole point of the 'live service' thing. (Seriously, what where Rockstar even thinking?)

Halo 3 Review

 Wake me, when you need me.

Okay so there's no way that I just sat down and played the entirety of Halo 3 in a single day, now is there? Except, yes that is exactly what I did and now I'm at the end of my rope. I've reached the final embers of the original Master Chief Saga and thus have touched the end of the crazy, noisy, no-good, week that encompassed the entirety of the Halo narrative up until this point. Okay, I know that technically there were a few weeks between the events of 1,2, and 3; but if we wipe away all of the ancillary lore that Bungie loved to drown the critical path of this series in, then I can totally seeing this entire series just being huge binge for crazy Chief and his bag of nutcase adventures. This is very much the tail end of the Halo franchise as it existed back in the day and you can see the way that Bungie saw themselves out the door whilst leaving one foot in the threshold just in case they ever wanted to come back to it. Which some of their breakaway members eventually did under the moniker '343 Industries'. (Don't know why it wasn't 'studio'; that would have made tons more sense.)

This was the first Halo game I played which didn't have a remaster touch up it's rough patches, and the game really does show it. Halo 3 likely won't get an anniversary release anytime soon, (given that 343 totally missed the 10 year anniversary window) which means the game I played is much closer to the original release than 1 and 2 were, and how that informs my grade will give you a back end metric to judge how good of a job that the remasters actually did. Now of course, there are going to be huge spoilers for everything that I can wrap my head around, because Bungie have serious storytelling issues that, judging by Destiny, were never really resolved; but that still means if you haven't ever played Halo 3 and want to experience that for yourself, then it's probably time you consider skipping to the summary, shouldn't you? Now back to my key points.

Gameplay

One of the casualties of the previous remasters right away is the way that the much rawer game that Halo 3 offers is instantly weaker and all the under-the-hood intricacies don't live up to their predecessors. Shooting is nowhere near as good as 'Halo 2: Anniversary Edition', which isn't to say it's terrible or anything, I actually think it's pretty darn good, but there's a considerable step down you have to acknowledge going into this one. The actual visualization of the recoil, the feel of the gun, the sounds, none of it is as crisp as it once was. Yet I feel obliged to insist for everyone that it is, crucially, very much still playable. I still had a ton of fun shooting my way through the game and even found the dual wielding mechanic feeling a little less forced on me this time. It's still there, and the balance is still skewered to disincentive single wield side-arms, but the enemies are typically less overbearingly brutish and 'do or die', when compared to Halo 2 Brutes, and thus you can afford to have a little more fun with your choice of arsenal to fight them.

Power-ups, like what one would expect find in the multiplayer portions of these games, actually show up in the main game quite often now, and fit in a lot neater than you might have expected from such a proposition. Having a deployable shield to chuck down and change the shape of the battlefield added a special little trump card to the combat dynamic that I really had a ton of fun experimenting with, even if I never managed to find a single instance where the 'Grav lift' was helpful. (I guess I wasn't creative enough) The fact that enemies were allowed to use them too added a parallel layer to combat which gave me pause at some otherwise sure-fire encounters and forced me to think on the fly here and there. Now it seems like a no brainer to add these systems into the campaign and, judging by my memory of Reach, that is something the team decided to keep up. (Which I'm stoked for.)

Vehicle manoeuvrability has taken a considerable improvement over what it was in the first two games, which still doesn't make it good, but it allows some of the cool vehicle set-piece moments to drum up some excitement only slightly tainted by the fear of the car doing a sudden 360 flip and getting you killed because of bad physics and crappy controls. There seemed to be a decent number of big car and flying machine moments in this game too, so the improvements were quite needed. Do I think the touch-ups were enough to justify the final challenge being another Warthog obstacle course? Absolutely not, those designers over in Bungie must have been bloody vindictive to force that on their audience once again, what absolute terrors.

Due to story reasons, the regular Elites from the previous games had to be replaced with the Brutes, which presented an obvious balancing concern. Brutes were tough to the line of un-reasonability in Halo 2, and there was no way that Bungie could have enemies that annoying be the bread and butter of all combat. The solution? A  huge nerf to all Brute kind that made them similar to Elites in power level, but different in raw gameplay. Essentially they gave all Brutes bulky armour that can be comfortably shot off with precision aim before a final shot can be dealt. Obviously this means that they're still pretty annoying to fight, and take much more to down than the typical Elite, but throwing you against a room full of them isn't totally unreasonable like it was in 2. (Only mostly so) They changed up the combat dynamic a decent bit, and familiarity in the ranks still kept up thanks to the return of Grunts and Hunters. (Huh, I'm pretty sure they took the Elite's side of the Covenant civil war back in 2... but I guess we'll just ignore that for the sake of balancing.)

Finally for the gameplay section, there are more boss fights in this Halo game, although it might be fairer to say that there is one boss fight repeated about three or four times. The impressive Scarab enemy weapons platform from Halo 2 returns in a slightly more vincible state (only slightly) to serve as all of your boss encounters for this entry. And you know what- I actually think this is the best boss that the series has had yet. It boasts modular weak points, totally changes up the shooting monotony, offers several totally legitimate angles to tackle it- these make for really great challenges! I don't even mind the repetition of them, because it makes for such an impressive and cool set piece moment each time you manage to get the better of one of these behemoths and watch it fizzle up in azure flames, I was never disappointed with these fights. One more repeat of them and I might have become a little leary, but the team knew the right cut-off point.

Narrative

This topic is going to be a sticky one, because I have a lot to say on this front. Firstly, Halo 2 did a fantastic job setting the stakes for this game to hit the ground running, practically ending on an endgame cliffhanger that could have kicked off in roaring flames. Chief was there, aboard the Forerunner ship, ready to confront the Prophet of Truth- this game was destined to start with a bang! And then Halo 3 began with Master Chief falling out of the sky, landing in a heap inside of Africa, and spending the rest of the game chasing down the ship he just ejected himself from. Why? When did this happen? Does the game bother to explain? Of course it doesn't, and here bleeds some of the worst tendencies of Bungie storytelling- the tendency to, you know, not tell the damn story! As I had to learn from reading a freakin' forum post, prior to the release of Halo 3 there was a comic released which depicted Chief directly after the events of 2 (right after "I'm finishing this fight!") trying and failing to assassinate Truth and then being forced to jump off the ship in an emergency exit. Did Bungie bother to explain this in the actual game which was telling the story? Maybe with a cutscene, or even an animatic with panels from that comic? Nah, they don't even mention what happened with dialogue, leaving anyone not following these games with a religious fervour, totally out-of-the-loop.

I know this probably sounds a little strange coming from someone who loves untraditional narratives that don't lay out their stories like Dark Souls or Hollow Knight; but it's so important, even when telling a multimedia story across games and printed media, that each individual story is satisfying in it's own right. Further reading into works around the main line project should lead to a greater understanding and appreciation of the story, not a basic understanding and appreciation. If you have to turn off your game and look online to read a page of lore in order to appreciate what is happening in that game, then you've failed to write a cohesive scene. Halo isn't a game laid out like Dark Souls is, where the discovery of the basic plot is symbiotic with the theme and worldspace. Halo is a traditional action game with Sci-fi trappings, such genres simply scream to have their basic plots be sensibly laid-out, otherwise key important emotional scenes can completely and totally fall apart.

But I've gotten away from myself. Halo 3 flounders and fumbles the momentum set-up from 2 and thus has to build everything from scratch. Not too much of an issue given that these games are pretty exciting and pick up fairly quickly, especially with the state of the world that 2 left things with, but it does feel like some time is wasted. In the 11 missions this game has, 4 of those is spent just trying to make back the ground you lost when Master Chief decided to jump out of a window off-screen. It feels like a poorly contrived plot rug-pull in order to facilitate an ill-fitting follow-up story in my opinion. And though I have enjoyed the Halo 3 narrative quite a bit, enough to binge the whole thing in a single day; I think the game would have been better served with a cleaner rewrite. (Maybe one which remembered that The Arbiter was a main character in the last game and thus probably deserves a mission or two thrown his way. Poor guy.)

Oh, and let me retroactively take back one praise that I gave Bungie in their last game, how they were learning the intricacies of basic world building. Because I just learned that, apparently, Bungie kept a huge piece of the overarching lore totally out of the game in 2, and I only know of it now because of how it's offhandedly implied, and then directly mentioned in 3. Namely that the Forerunners who built the Halo rings, where the ancestors of the human race. A pretty big plotpoint to keep from the script, don't you think? And yet the Prophet of Truth just randomly mentions it midway through this game in a line just dripping with a sense of 'You already know this, obviously. You read all the books and comics, didn't you?' Show Bungie, show your lore! I don't know why I get so worked up over this but it really does annoy the crap out of me. And maybe that's the reason why despite liking this third arc of the core Halo story, and decently enjoying the way things wrapped up, (I would have preferred a more direct encounter with The Gravemind) I just don't think this narrative was as strong as Halo 2's. So that's a bit of shame.

Characters

For pretty much the first time in this series I started to get used to the idea that Master Chief was the badass that the game really wanted to insist that he is. I think it comes from being tasked with doing important missions entirely by himself, equating his worth to that of an entire human battalion, rather than sending him in with a stocked troop and just not acting surprised when he was the last one standing. But Cortana was really the one who stole the show here. Despite having left herself behind to have a prolonged chat with the Gravemind, Cortana seems to telepathically haunt Master Chief throughout the game and force her emotional connection upon the player with stories about why she picked Chief as her Spartan and harping on about the promise he made. (Which, by the way; he technically didn't make the promise to come back. She stopped him.) And I'm not a total heartless scrooge, despite finding Cortana kind of annoying in previous games I did kind of care about her in this game. Their connection felt genuine and when Chief went into the worst place in the galaxy just to get her back, I could totally understand why. The two of them are partners and they're happy to share their icy crypt together.

The Gravemind made a return, although in voice only, to serve as one of the antagonists in this game, and I really did enjoy his performance. He has this creepy 'omniscient' vibe to him, being the heart of the Flood hivemind, and the idea of something as chaotic and ravaging as the Flood having a sentient mind with thoughts and wants operating at the centre of it is a really cool concept. However, in the level when you here the most from him, 'Cortana', he does slip into 'scary hivemind' clichés at times. Raving about being all powerful and slipping out of his 'I can be reasonable' façade of just being a simple virus trying to make way through the universe. Maybe that was an intentional move from the writers part to show the 'monster' beneath the apparent rationale, but for me it just ironed in the creature and smoothed out some dimensions in the process.

The Arbiter and his journey are relegated to mere side stories in this game, with him just being your most commonly reoccurring battle buddy, practically abandoning the interesting exploration of his self redemption and emancipation. (I don't feel like it was totally resolved in 2, but here we are.) And the Prophet of Truth became a cliché badguy. I was hoping we'd get the opportunity to explore more about his race and perhaps their true intentions and desires, but instead we just got the "I'm going to wipe out all life in the Galaxy, just because." One curious little tidbit is that Truth seemed to acknowledge that the Halo ring would indeed kill everyone just before the end, and not embark them on the vague 'great journey' line that he seemed to be selling his congregation, but there doesn't really seem to be much more room to dive into that in the future of the narrative, given that The Arbiter freakin' shanked him and now the Covenant is no more. Oh well... missed opportunities.

343 Guilty Spark is always a welcome addition to the team, especially given that he was actually part of the team in this game, for unclear and arguably somewhat fudged reasons. I don't care, I loved having him aboard and never tire of hearing his high-pitched nattering. A simple character in motive, but soaking in intrigue and curious casual world expanding elements each time he talks, I love his character to bits. Such that I was actually a little distraught having to kill him. Although that was offset by the recent death of my favourite side character, Sergeant Johnson. I mean it was only a matter of time, the guy was pretty much useless and kept throwing himself into dangerous situations, but not getting to hear another one of his ill tempered insult strings with that charismatic wink in his tone almost makes me want to quit this series right here and now. (I hope he shows up in ODST.) Oh, and Amanda's performance was a lot better this time around. If they keep this up I might actually start to like- oh and she's dead. Oh well.

Level Design

In design I think that Halo 3 has been the most modern out of all the games I've played so far. Which is to say that each mission was paced with just the correct amount of content in just the right places to keep me hooked and make me play on and on until the end. Previous Halo games suffered from the odd level that was tad too long (or for Halo 1, over half of the levels) which would tire you out and maybe even bore you for some prolonged bouts of 'defend the position', but for 3 the team seemed to hone in on that golden ration which ruled the entire game's structure. In fact, there were a few missions that I felt were actively too short, such as the first one. But the action was never totally absent, even if there were a couple of mission that felt designed to be more picture galleries as you ran through them rather than deep, complex explorations. (like 'Cortana') Nothing had the scale of 'The Silent Cartographer' from 'Halo: Combat Evolved', however, so that's a bit of a loss in my book. (I quite enjoyed that almost unburnished approach to level design.)

Visually, the stretch of locations you visit might be the least surprising in the series so far. Several mission are in the African jungle, the snow level doesn't hold anything we haven't seen before apart from the best double boss fight in the series to this date and there wasn't even a Covenant ship assault! Well, okay so there technically was- but High Charity was more of a Flood level- which was probably the most unique new environment this game had to offer. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind; this game was more about telling the end of the story rather than taking us on sight-seeing trip across the galaxy; but I didn't get the desire to stop and admire the world quite so often, and that wasn't just due to this being the original release and not touched up in a remaster. The visual bounty wasn't as new and vibrant.

Music

The suite of music was good, as expected from the team, but again it falls a bit short after 2. Now this one I readily admit is unfair, because Halo 2 anniversary Edition intentionally redid a lot of it's scores in order to sound better and fit scenes more, but I can't help but point out how Halo 3's non-remastered OST feels limp in comparison. It's still great on it's own merits, however, and the scenes that are meant to get you pumped still ring in your ears just as rhythmically, but there's no tune nearly as powerful as the howling Precursor theme from 2. Also, and this might be something only I in the entire world felt, but Halo 3 might have played the exact same version of Master Chief's theme just one time too many. Escaping the Halo ring at the end and hearing the same rising riff build up felt a little eye-roll worthy; as if this was just 117's Saturday morning cartoon theme tune now, rather than a roaring moment of musical triumph.

Summary

All in all, Halo 3 is another great entry in the series of Halo games, neatly concluding the original trilogies story, but it fails to capture the magic and grandeur of 2 in it's entirety, regardless of 2's Anniversary touch-ups. But maybe that's too high of a bar anyway, because Halo 2 really was remarkable in it's execution and Halo 3 is no slouch for not matching that. But aside from the gameplay being strong, I'm a story guy deep at heart and unfortunately this is a story where some of Bungie's worst narrative habits sneak into the game to sully the experience. They don't totally upend the enjoyment, but they still manage spoil the story being told through the gameplay. Ultimately I found this whole finale to be decently satisfying, however, and can be confident in giving Halo 3 a right-on-the-dot B Grade. If you're following the Master Chief collection like I was, be aware that this is going to be a noticeable step down from 'Halo 2: Anniversary Edition' on most fronts. Now I look forward to touching on the side games that bridge the Chief's long hibernation, which results in him utterly forgetting how to be ambidextrous for the rest of his career.