Adventures Await Within....
As of this post:
- Power Time: 147:23
- Play time: 69:42
- Online Matches Played: 442
- Available Stages: 41
- Trophy Total: 408
- Sticker Total: 616
- Available Music: 258
Of the challenges I'm about 85% done with them. Only ones left to do are the clear whatever mode with certain character on each of the difficulties. All events and targets yada yada are done.
Since I only have a small handful of people on my SSBB friends list, I havent seen many of you online or if you go online I don't really know at what time. I usually play in the evenings and really late at night on PST (west coast). I play it almost everyday so I'm not hard to miss. If I see any of the rest of you online I'll try to get a game going.
On the other hand, since you can't send a game invite there is always the possibility of setting up a game through any kind of IM service. I use MSN messenger and if you want you can send me a PM so we can use that for setting up matches online.
Oh and if anyone new adds me, make sure you send me a PM with your info or comment here so I can add you too. My info is above my sig at the top of this blog.
So after the first day of owning Halo 3 on launch day I completed it on Heroic partly due to the fact it has a very small single player campaign much like Halo 2 (honestly how many big name blockbusters can you beat within the same day?) That being said, I'm going to list some of the improvements Bungie has made in the campaign and overall pro/cons of Halo 3.
Pros:
Campaign:
- - More open environments
- - Better paced campaign
- - More vehicles/weapons
- - Online Co-op
- - Storytelling (more on this later)
Muliplayer:
- - Highly customizable (far more than Halo 2)
- - Forge (pseudo level editor)
- - Rankings and character tracking sheets in conjunction with Bungie.net
- - Replays and file sharing
Cons:
Campaign:
- - Extremely short (on par with Halo 2) even faster and easier (though more fun) through co-op
- - Level design - though improved over Halo 2, there are still areas (especially the last few levels) where you'll tend to get lost and somewhat frustrated. Backtracking still exists though not nearly as bad as Halo1/2
- - Cortana/Gravemind story sequences are too frequent and get annoying by the end of the game
- - Deployables - far more useful in multiplayer. Feel like an afterthought and underutilized in campaign
- - Story - though improved over Halo 2, requires heavy understanding of the overly convoluted and somewhat uninterestingHalo1/2 campaigns. Newcomers to Halo will undoubtedly be lost as will even some veterans
Muliplayer:
- - Map design - few maps (such as High Ground and the new Zanzibar) are great while others (like Sandtrap) aren't. Possibly why forge was introduced so players could "fix" maps how they want to. Halo 2 had better maps at launch
- - Game types - Bungie needs to wake up and realize that a lot of their game types are uninteresting and not nearly as fun as others. Neutral Bomb, Territories, Ninjanaut, VIP, are constantly being vetoed by the community and end up with a high percentage of Ties/No Scores by the end of the game.
- - Connection issues - lots of restarts/host switching/dropped players/quitting playersas in Halo 2
- - Matchmaking - can take a while to find games (not nearly as bad as Halo 2 was at launch) and why Bungie still hasn't put in a search game list/server feature is silly. At least give players the option
- - Community - not a problem with Halo itself in any means just that the Xbox Live community in general is full of jerks/idiots that can ruin online gaming sessions and most of them seem to flock to Halo online multiplayer
- - No bots - this would be a great way for newcomers to get into the multiplayer and be better prepared before hopping online against other people. Even Perfect Dark on the N64 had bots back in the day
Closing Comments:
When evaluating a game as big as Halo 3, don't let the hype blind you in your constructive criticism. Review it as you would any other game. Halo 3 has the biggest production values and general value (money wise) for a game I have ever seen. The core gameplay is still just as good and even better and more further refined than ever. I just wish for all that time spent on production value and marketing etc. more time was put into the campaign. I would gladly take a cut into the production value or afallback in release date if it meant a few more single player levels. Multiplayer will keep people coming back to this game for a long time to come but multiplayer alone cannot make up for the shortcomings in other parts of the game.
Anyone willing to trade some Metroid Prime 3 friend vouchers so I can unlock some of the extras? I have about 16 friend vouchers for trade myself. I just put up my Wii Console Number so I can add friends to it (next to my Xbox Live tag in the sidebar) so just send mea PM if you're willing to do so.
Also I'll be playing a lot of Halo 3 when it comes out next week so if anyone wants to play that with me let me know. I'll also be looking forward to beating most of you when SSBB comes out in December!
