Oh, Bungie...
I can enjoy halo only if i up the difficulty and rush like a zergling on crack. This is much like how i played
gears of war and resistance. They're so one dimensional and boring otherwise, so to keep myself active while
playing i have to play so fast it becames only a test of reflexes. I don't feel engaged in those games in any other level.
Halo is much like a Michael Bay movie. It has all kinds of allright elements slapped together without making any kind
of coherent whole and without having any kind of edge. Instead all these edges are shaved off to make one bland-as-hell
movie that appeals to LARGE audiences since it really doesn't have anything particularly off-putting. A good game
gets the player engaged in other levels beyond just twitchy bulgy pop-corny. There is no intent to do otherwise either.
Halo's trying to be badass without understanding the soul of badassery. Everything is so tiringly one-dimensional it makes
me fall asleep unless i play on legendary. It has all these seemingly interesting worlds, lots of characters, different races,
but what does it matter when they don't really serve any kind of purpose? They're like a cardboard stage set that'll
fall over from the smalles gust of wind. Halo has as much spirit as a dead moth.
The marketing material on the other hand, it's full of spirit.. why is this? It's not present in the game. They're made
with the intent of evoking certain emotions, they've made with some kind of vision in mind and this is usually
thanks to some talented individuals. Some halo themed paintings by Craig Mullins have the ambience of a battlefield
present, the killing intent of barbaric enemies is oozing out, but when i play the game, it's all gone. Instead the whole
world is filled with warehouses and crates, rodent-mazes and an overall unimaginative atmosphere... or rather no
atmosphere at all. This is why Yahzee called it Captain Bland's monotonous adventure. To add to things, Halo3 gets
worse towards the end largely thanks to the level design which is what breaks the camels back by being absolutely dull(same since Oni, bad bungie).
Nothing seems to have a history, or a purpose, which is why i called it a rodent-maze . It's more like a puzzle game created
by some weird mastermind with only the one moment in mind when master chief arrives at the scene to do some fighting.
Compare this to Bioshock for example... every single room has or had a purpose, it's not there for the sake of being a room
in a level, it's there to add in to the story and atmosphere, even though it might have nothing to do with the main story.
In short, Halo3 lacks creative intent, and all the cool things are added to the end of the strings, as if it didn't
have a director, but rather "some guy" who checks the pieces don't violate each other, effectively also eliminating any delicious
complementaries. Having an awesome musical score is futile when it's not utilized to it's fullest. For creative use of music,
check out Kill Bill for example. Multiple elements are used together to create particular moods.
Essentially all the charm i see in the game is similar to that of Counter Strike, which doesn't even attempt to be epic, it's just
multiplayer game with terrorists and counter-terrorists.
The core gameplay in Halo3 is amazingly good, but that alone just doesn't do it for me(maybe if cortana was hotter?). It's a multiplayer only game as far as
i'm concerned. Otherwise it's just mediocre with lots of dollarz slapped on top, kinda lika a lot of big games today.
Now that Bungie is taking off to be independent again, i hope they come up with something completely new and original.