I started re-playing Halo maybe 10 days ago on Heroic, and just finished it on Saturday. Kind of skipped a lot (using shortcuts I remembered and always avoiding fights when possible), some parts were tougher than I remember, but still, not too hard for me. Finishing it and thinking about the game’s plot made me realize I don’t remember much about what goes on, especially the end, so I went on GameFaqs to find a story summary. There’s this one, which is a transcript of all the dialog, and an edited summary at Rampancy.net. I’ll read them through over the weekend.
I wanted to read back my review for the PC version of Halo to get some notes for this post, plus I reread parts of the Halo 2 review on Gamespot.
Wired had a recent article about Bioshock and how games can scare the hell out of you, perhaps much more so than any movie since you’re the one who’s interacting with the world. I agree, at the same time, I’m not so into the traditional “scary” games like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. Those are the horror genre of video games. Instead, I think scary is when your adrenaline is flowing and you feel like you’re panicking and just trying to survive. The scariest games for me are when you feel like you have total control over a situation (such as a first person shooter that has great control) and yet, you’re about to get your ass kicked. You have the ability to stop the ass-kicking but at the moment, you were not good enough, and now the pain is coming. Scary.
The scariest moment I ever had playing a game was with Aliens vs Predator (forgot if 1 or 2) for the PC. Face huggers were crawling around (and this was only in the first few levels), they had gotten me a few times, and they were very freaky creatures. AvP is a really dark game, so you’re running around (it’s a first person shooter) just trying to move sense of what’s going on, and face hugger can just grab on to you out of nowhere. I was in a level, being super cautious, walking trying to notice everything so I wouldn’t be caught by surprise. Already on edge, very fearful of what was around me. ARRRRRGH! Face-hugged! Dead!
My heart literally (or in my mind) stopped for 2 seconds to process the face-hugger on top of me. I was so shook up, I quit the game and swore I’d never play it again. And I kept my word.
So I went off-topic as normal, back to why Halo is so fantastically great. Halo is great because running is always a good option. Halo’s tagline is “Combat Evolved” and while I’m not sure if other people would agree with me, I think running away is a big part of that. In a real life situation, if you can run away from a battle to survive instead of trying to kill everyone, this is a good idea. In video games, however, you get deducted with mission incomplete or you just can’t progress. With Halo, this isn’t a problem. Running away can help you avoid large battles that might be takes extra hours to get through. Running helps you find secret shortcuts that help you get through the game faster.
It’s another reason why I’ve always felt like Halo truly makes you feel like a space warrior inside realistic conditions within its game world. You have a sense of freedom of not being restricted or being urged to follow conventions that only apply to video games (X kills, Y headshots, etc.). Halo doesn’t make you break out of the make-believe-spell it casts on you. You are allowed to believe it’s real.
I’ve started playing Halo 2, and it just sucks. There’s a reason why I’ve played completely through the original Halo 5+ times (on Normal to Legendary), yet only played Halo 2 once. I played a lot of multiplayer Halo 2 when I still worked at my old company, and then more at Mike’s house, but single player is barely a memory to me. So when I started again yesterday, I realized why: it sucks. The control just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t quite have the same cinematic feeling of playing inside the scene of an epic movie. I started playing on Heroic, but I might switch back to Normal just to get through it faster. I don’t really find the challenge fun this time around. I don’t care much so far for the setting or plot, and I remember not caring much about playing on the Covenant side back then too.
Wired has an article about Halo 3, and Bungie realizing Halo 2 single player just wasn’t that good and what they’ve been doing to stop it. That, coupled with a new assortment of screenshots released on the Internet has me really wanting to play Halo 3 for the XBox 360. I’m hoping it’s going to be like Halo (1) again. Now if only I could get a raise at work….I’m not sure how I can afford to get it + the X360 + Guitar Hero/Rock Band (either one), that’s a $500 price tag, and I barely make that each month working in Vietnam.
Great Blog.