I can't see Microsoft picking up a big publisher like Activision. It's just out of character. They're more likely to narrowly target developers with some unique hardware or software assets. They may be looking to buy Nokia soon.
True enough. The original Gears of War provided a rewarding challenge on the default difficulty while GoW2 definitely turned the dial down on difficulty. 3 was a bit of a mixed bag with a lot of easy shooting, but some challenging, engaging sequences in the big set-piece confrontations.
Or maybe because anybody who's seen Prometheus knows that it makes no sense and explains nothing anyway, so they have to pretend that it adds something to the Alien mythos.
Reminds me of the cutscene movies Sony was showing off when they first announced the PS3 and promised us all, "The real gameplay will be just like this". Shyeah right.
Bioware uses Star Wars to create Knights of the Old Republic. KotOR inspires Bioware to create Mass Effect. Lucasarts reintegrates that inspiration of Mass Effect back into Star Wars for 1313. It's the circle of video game life.
While I agree with the overall conclusion on this piece, I have to disagree with so many of the details. Previous Halo games didn't have atmosphere or lush environments? Sure they did. Metroid doesn't have a monopoly on atmosphere. The elite was vaporized by one of the new forerunner AI enemies. It wasn't that subtle. The prospect of new enemies is exciting. The prospect of an involving, character driven narrative involving Cortana possibly going rampant is exciting. This game has the potential to be as good as, not Halo: CE, but Halo 2 which was actually a much better game in terms of variety, storytelling, and atmosphere (at least in the single player campaign). The ending was a bit of a let down because they didn't finish it, and then Halo 3 largely squandered the storytelling potential that Halo 2 had set up, but that was the point of decline: from Halo 2 to 3, not from Halo 1 to 2.
nparks' comments