I agree. A lot of commercial games writing is poorly researched, mostly because of the timescale it has to be produced in and well, you get what you pay for.

I'm quite disappointed in these Reach previews because nearly everything I knew already. Granted, I've been following Bungie's output pretty closely and I know a bit about Halo. Perhaps I'm just not the target audience, to be fair.

Almost none of them have mentioned the fact that Headhunter was a mode dropped from Halo 2. An interesting question to Bungie would be, what is/has been done differently, that makes the mode work now? Nobody asks it.

I quite liked Ars take on it mind as it didn't completely devolve into paragraph long descriptions of modes and changes we already knew about.

GhaelonEB's NeoGAF post is pretty darn awesome and a lot more accurate and factual than most of the previews.

A new vidoc whilst we're at it! :)


http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topne...

I got a couple PMs about my Ars post, so here it is... all you "Acert93 hates Halo and doesn't know anything about the series" should sit down before you faint...

Most FPS aren't revolutionary but instead evolutionary. And not every new/unique feature is well deployed the first go around (see the evolution of cover mechanics). So regardless of the fact PC FPS have been doing many things for a long time is irrelevant. I would ask: How many PC FPS have a good ranged gun combat design, melee, and nades (the Halo "trifecta" which is quite good BTW) in additional to vehicular combat? Not many, if any. And yet Halo 1 did a lot of things right in one package (e.g. drawing together limited guns, instant nade access, powerful mele, and ranged guns with significant range advantages), while adding vehicles in a balanced manner, and the rebounding shields really took over the industry. The entire FPS industry has followed Bungie in that regards.

Halo 3 is a more deliberate "Quake" style FPS in terms of maps: map mastery and control are important, knowing where field spawning power ups are, and utilizing them accordingly is what counts. Bungie passively forces successful players to work as a team (2v1 almost always favors the 2 as you can take down the shields and score the kill before even 1 of you has your shields down meaning you could take on a LONG stream of lonewolfs without losing; compare to MW1/MW2 where flanking a group of 4 or 5 players can result in as many kills before they even knew you were there).

Anyhow, I don't think people are saying Halo is (a) the first or (b) the only game to offer certain features or design choices. It certainly isn't. But it really rises above the fold in regards to balance and how refined the gameplay is. It also has a robust package; Halo 3 had a basic map editor, full "theater" editor, 4 player Coop, split screen campaign, and a massive MP component in addition to a 7-10 hour SP experience. And none of it feels tacked on. So Bungie deserves credit where credit is due. It isn't the "first" but it certainly knows how to make a compelling product.

One area where Bungie does kick other games in the rear is Matchmaking. When I first started off it was great getting to play other 5-10 ranked people of similar skill. It made the games a LOT more enjoyable. Likewise now I tend to play gamers in the 25-40 range. Allowing a broader range of FPS gamers to enjoy and succeed online is a good thing. I enjoy MW2 but nearly a 2:1 KDR I am in the top 5% and do feel many other unfortunate gamers have an experience that pretty much revolves around being cannon fodder. I would have hoped IW added true match making so that people can play against similarly skilled gamers. Because while it is fun for me going 32-3 on a good round I don't think others enjoy it. Halo 3's matchmaking made this a much rarer event--going 20-5 against 40 ranked players ment I had an AWESOME game. Going 12-10 was more typical and felt more rewarding as the other guys actually felt dangerous. And I remember being a 10 rank struggling to break 1:1, but the game rewarded you and it never felt lopsided--you always had a chance in ranked games. In MW2 most people stand no chance against me, which doesn't make them better gamers.

Per MP, it could also be running on revised Halo 3 branch that is more iterative for MP and won't see all the SP polish on the renderer side.

That is so not true. In fact, in some cases it's strictly the opposite. Look at the DLC maps for Halo 2, and try telling me that they don't smoke the SP in terms of attention to detail.I think it's just a little easier to be good at MW2 though, and honestly there are people who are cannon fodder in every game. I only got to play it for around seven hours and didn't have too much trouble. Call of Duty 4 is infinitely better in this regard too, because you can just hop on a promod community server and know that you're playing against other good players 90% of the time. But you're right, Bungie does match making best, and it would probably help noobs get a start in Call of Duty without making them suffer. Match making still sucks, but Bungie does it better.Add Call of Duty to this list, and I'm sure there are many more.