Yet you can come up with no proof that he is wrong, or that you have played the games to back up your claims. Your opinion is in the minority, it has no basis, and is supported by nothing other than your obvious hatred for the series.tempest91
fine. lets show the cliffe notes of this game. I will tell you my play by play and a bit of what I felt about the game. pardon any typos. this is pretty long.
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mission 1# is not an actual mission. just the intro. insert insipid robotic exposition here
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mission 2#
- you wander through the country side for a bit with an occasional, bland building thrown in there
- you find covenant forces (which is introduced in the most uncreative way possible. they are just....... "there")
- you wander through the countryside some more, in static listless "battles" (if you can even call them that) with the covenant
- you are extracted. and you touch down at another unsinspired recycled building and you go in there and kill more covenant.
- insert insipid, robotic exposition here
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mission 3#
- you continue to fight your way through a road killing covenant with ease, with no sense of intensity.
- you wander through the countryside some more, with some occasional "stock" buildings (notice there has yet to be a single inventive or even interesting scenario yet?)
- you get into another building and fight a couple hunters. the game tries (emphasis on "tries") to simulate some kind of warzone between humans and covenant. this is semi intense. not very impressive though
- you progress through the building. nothing impressive happens. once again, it doesnt feel at all like a warzone. its all very static and awkward.
- insert insipid, robotic exposition here (im not even going to list this anymore. its at the end of nearly every chapter)
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mission 4#
- is pretty much the first mission again. going through the same type of buildings, at same basic countryside, only its nighttime now and there are some vague stealth elements thrown in.
- bungie decides throw in a few new enemies. which is a good idea. unfortunately they dont pose a big challenge and they seem completely out of place in this game. they look almost cartooney (not that halo itself isnt a bit cartooney)
- its pretty much the same combat situations over and over and over again. there is no creativity or anything inventive in your objectives so far.
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mission 5#
- opens with a bang. shows the first large scale battle we have seen at this point....... in a cutuscene. by the time you get the controls, you are wandering through the countryside getting into small confrontations with covenant troops here and there.......... yaaaaay.
- you sabotage this anti aircraft gun.
- you get to this factory location. this location is actually refreshingly new compared to most of the recycled crap that has composed most of the level design up until this point.
- you battle through a canyon. while this is one of the nicer looking part, the combat still hasnt increased in scale, and it still isnt intense. I find myself seriously board at this point
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mission 6#
- after some more ground combat you have this incredibly boring space battle sequence that goes on for, like 15-20 minutes. its terrible. people complain about the vehicles in KZ3. at least those were punchy and intense. but even if you dont like them, they were usually only about 3-5 minutes long. this space battle is painfully long.
- the one thing that is semi-true to the book and the only inventive part in the game is when you dock on a covenant cruiser. of course, in the book it was better because it was master cheif doing it and this is where he lost his only two friends, the two friends he had known since childhood. this was one of the most inpactful moments of the book. of course, Im not going to harp on the story too much. this is a genuinely good part of the game. more of the game should have been like this. too bad its short.
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mission 7#
- this is a part of the game that could have been something memorable, but instead it falls short. you go through a city as it is being invaded. unfortunately this opportunity isnt used to create some intense action, large scale conflict, and destruction. there are many games that have presented invasions a hell of alot better than this. the city is too sterile and the effects of the invasion are not really felt. it actually becomes boring. this mission had potential and it was never reached
- at least you get to use the jetpacks here.
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mission 8#
- this mission is nothing but a rehash of mission 7. only now they throw in some tedius flying segments
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mission 9#
- at this point, you would be expecting things to be reaching their dramatic, explosive climax, right? wrong. this halo reach, we're talking about. they are above such things as pacing.
- you take out a few more anti aircraft turrets and experience some of the longest "conflict free" segments in the entire game. you barely fight anyone in this mission, compared to the others. its one of the most boring since the first mission. im not sure if they thought it would build tension that way but........ it doenst. sorry
- things pick up a bit near the end of this mission, but it is still just the same listless combat scenarios once again. no diversity or thought at all.
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mission 10#
- so here is the denouement. how does it hold up? well, it starts up alright. you actually have some objectives with significance. you have to deliver cortana to the pillar of autumn. you even have a conflict with a scarab.
- the game quickly succumbs to its repetitive format and things slow down.
- one of the only legitimately challenging parts of the game is when you enter some caves and fight flying enemies. it actually makes me use a cover and strategy. who would have thought that.
- then its back to arduous exploration of the same buildings we've been seeing throughout this game and the prior games. this climax begins to drag its feet.
- before you know it, youre at the "final boss" if you can call it that. for a turret sequence, its mediocre. for a final boss, its a major disappointment. this is the final confrontation of the final halo game, and this is what they go out with? I have one word. "WEAK"
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so what do I think of the campaign as a whole? well, its not the worst campaign from this gen, but it certainly is weak. here are my complaints about the campaign.
1) its repetitive. much of the campaign seems to recycle the same the same battle scenarios. there is not much diversity to the gameplay. the environments, though they are repetitive at times, are not nearly as repetitive as the gameplay.
2) your missions are not interesting. in killzone 3 your objectives and missions include
- infiltrating an enemy base in disguise to rescue a friend
- using a jetpack to hop onto glaciers and oil rigs to sabotage the turret defence system
- sneaking through a jungle, making use of your environment and silenced weapons. far better than the stealth missions in halo reach. then you must fight your way back and you get into a large scale conflict with helgahst swarming your camp.
- taking on a giant, robotic behemoth from both land and air until you send it crashing down. there is real tension in the air since this thing has wiped out nearly all of your troops, and every time you think you've finished it, it comes back for more
- boarding and fighting your way up to the control room of a giant tash compacting tank
- fighting along side a caravan that is constantly under mortar fire, aerial attacks, RPG fire, and enemy tanks as you attempt to punch you way out of a nuked city
and much more. halo reach simply puts you in the level and puts in aliens to fight. thats all they do. they dont try in engross you, they dont try to impress you, they dont try to create an intense atmosphere, they dont present it in an interesting way and they dont give you creative objectives.
3) its boring, both in presentation and in mechanics. is it possible to have an FPS that is fun to play but not give you the most intense campaign out there? yes. borderlands is an example. but the thing that makes borderlands a far superior FPS game is that its gunplay and AI are far better. I have said it a million times that halo's mechanics are primitive and sub-par and I stand by that. halo reach's campaign is just boring in every way.
4) the pacing is bad. this game doesnt much buildup and it doesnt have a legitimate climax. the invasion itself was far too gradual. there are two ways that I think it could have been done.
- have an explosive beginning. then level it off as the game proceeds, but maintaining a high level of tension. have it build up at the end and hopefully surpass the beginning of the game
- have it work its way up slowly until things are reaching their peak at the end. the simple approach
the pacing in reach is just god awful. it builds up slowly, and falls back. it tries to build things up again and then loses its steam. then you get to the end and it is one big anticlimax.
5) it should have had more of an emphasis on the concept of the invasion itself. the destruction and devastation is never truly felt. it is hardly even shown to us. for a game that centers on an invasion, it doesnt seem to know how to handle such a theme.
6) it should have had more large scale conflicts between the humans, the spartans and the covenant. for a team of half a dozen spartans, they dont really seem to be kicking alot of ***, like you would expect them to. the missions in this game seem almost like recon missions. somthing that would take 1 spartan to accomplish. it really makes the spartans look like pansies compared to master cheif. which doesnt make sense since they all went through the exact same training program their entire lives.
overall, I would give the campaign a 7/10. of course, thats not the final score for the game. im willing to give an extra star for the multiplayer. so it comes out to an 8/10 for the whole game.
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