Halo 3: ODST - No tentacles please.

I've been playing Halo 3 : ODST of late, and its undoubtedly a fun experience. Whilst the Master Chief is off on annual leave, the playstyle of '30 seconds of fun..repeated' is intact.

My fellow PC gamers tend to treat Halo as an unwelcome guest in the hallowed halls of the first person shooter genre. Firstly, there is not a keyboard and mouse in sight. PC gamers are notoriously protective of their fine-tuned control system. Secondly and arguably more important, is that the Halo franchise's popularity took the crown away from the PC as the sole domain of the 'hardcore' shooter genre. Console shooters have the whiff of the 'everyday- joe' invading the supreme geek realm.

For my part, the original Halo grabbed me big-time. The setting, the characters and the 'feel' of the game sat alongside my PC gaming sensibilities surprisingly well. Truth be told, PC shooters (before Half-Life) were never about characters or narrative. It was always about maximum carnage courtesy of madskills and a de-fluffed mouseball (now thats oldschool). Halo introduced something different, and that was welcomed.

I played Halo 1 repeatedly. Whilst I never cracked legendary difficulty, normal and heroic got an extreme workout. I recall lining up for the midnight release of Halo 2. That's when proceedings took a sour turn. Halo 1's exceptional setting of adventure and discovery, gave way to some bizarre half-baked story with a giant tentacle monster rabbiting on about philosophy. The narrative was all over the place. Instead of trying to escape a mysterious doomed deep space installation, Master Chief was errand boy for a plot I still cant be bothered to recall. Oh and ending a game on a cliff-hanger when the next episode is years away. That reeks of 'marketing device' invading game design.

Halo2's misfire saw me casually picking up the 3rd installment, long after its release. I really would have settled for a crashed spacecraft and another 'escape' adventure. Instead it was more characters blabbing about this and that. Something about a Covenant rebellion, lost artifacts - all a bit uninteresting. And, oh the giant tentacle monster was back. This time he had ambition as well as philosophy. Calamari cannot be smart. Ever.

Still the online multiplayer was a treat, and the competition was and still is fierce. The mouse and keyboard might be the most accurate virtual combat system from an ergonomic point of view, but goodness me these halo guys can muscle a controller with pinpoint precision. The multiplayer component of Halo 3 is so engaging, its only drawback is highlighting the deeply un-awesomeness of the single player campaign.

Thats the concern I had with ODST. Was this going to be another multiplayer centric Halo title? So far, things are looking good. Interesting characters, a sense of adventure and discovery, and probably one of the most atmospheric gaming soundtracks in recent memory. And not a philosophizing tentacle in sight. Sweet relief indeed.

Thanks Bungie, from one old-timer Halo fan.

Loading screens. How I loathe thee.

World of Warcraft has once again promoted itself as my 'full-time' game of choice of late. I've tried other massively online games, as I enjoy the genre immensely. Correction, I have a perception that I enjoy the genre immensely. Truth be told, most new MMO's these days hold my attention for one or two weeks before crashing headlong into the categorization that all game designers hold in high dread - 'Meh'.

Since my posts of late have been lacking enough fastidious fussiness and aggravation, here goes my breakdown of what's wrong with the current batch of MMOs.

Everquest 2 -Its not unreasonable to assume Sony had plans of building upon the success of the original Everquest. Those ambitions quickly vaporized, as an aura of 'fail' quickly surrounded EQ2. A graphics system that required Skynet's younger cousin to run in addition to lack of content, quickly had gamer's feeling nostalgia over EQ2's predecessor.

Lord of the Rings Online - With the 'one Intellectual Property to rule them all', LOTRO should have raised above its status as moderate success (ie it hasn't been shut down yet). More than one gamer has commented "I just cant get into this game..and I don't know why". Ive suffered the same syndrome, only to have my wife solve the mystery one fateful day. She looked over my shoulder...

"Why bother playing, its like World of Warcraft except...boring".

And that's the truth of it. Whilst the zones are beautiful, they lack variety especially in the long haul 1-20 level zones. Endless areas of trees, hills and thousands of bloody bears (seriously this game could be called Bear-World). Reading and watching Tolkien seems more entertaining that playing Tolkien.

Age of Conan - The train-wreck of a launch has been well documented. Take note game designers. Do not list features on the back of the box, that are not in the game. It raises an aura of smoke and mirrors from the outset. AOC arrived with big promises, but fell on its face due to technical hitches and a 'poof and its gone' endgame. The one deal breaker for me was the lack of consistent world design. Instead of traversing my character in an expansive fantasy land, I always felt as though I was stuck on a small path between lots of pretty backdrops. Its a toss up whether Hyboria is populated more by monsters or loading screens.

Warhammer Online - Arguably one of the best marketed MMO's of all time. The developers were all over the gaming press for months promoting the large feature-set, all aimed at the singular focus of skull-bashing Player vs Player combat. Soon after release, the MMO kiss-of-death soon arrived, aka the 'server merge'. Like Age of Conan before it, Warhammer lacks an engaging world. The whole playing environment feels stale, more akin to deathmatch zones strung together.

Ask World of Warcraft critics why its success eludes other games, and you'll hear responses along the lines of its a 'dumbed down' game for the masses. Relegating Warcraft as the McDonald's of gaming completely misses the point. Blizzard struck gold, because they realised what others have not. Players want a tangible connection with their characters and the virtual world they inhabit. They don't want a bunch of levels clumped together, or poorly animated plastic looking avatars equipped with generic looking loot.

I'm really hoping the next generation of Massive Games shift their emphasis back to creating compelling adventures in compelling worlds. Get rid of loading screens, small worlds and bears. I'm hopeful for Aion, but on current word of mouth it seems Champions Online went the 'great characters - bland world' route.

My hopes once again gaze towards Star Wars : The Old Republic...

Grandad - Halo was for noobs.

When I was a young lad in the 1980s, being a gamer meant predominately one thing - isolation. Countless hours on my own staring at a screen exploring dungeons in Ultima or traversing a galaxy-on-a-tape in Elite.

And I loved every minute of it! Problem is that this solo aura of gaming fostered a reputation of gamers as nerds. The labels of 'weird' and 'suspicious' were not far behind. Tags that still hang around today, as evident in media scare reports about gamers fostering all sorts of anti-social behaviors.

That said, today's gamer is a lot less likely to be considered a nerd. Thing have changed considerably. Gaming is more often than not a social event played over any amount of numerous gaming networks. Consoles have become a near ubiquitous home entertainment device, sitting comfortably in the center of the living room. And everybody seems to be playing various casual puzzler games on mobile devices. And I for one salute South Korea for recognising the 'mad skillz' of Starcraft players, elevating elite players to national celebrities. Football needs a rest...seriously.



Still video gaming, even with its financial juggernaut status does not have the mainstream acceptance of movies and TV. Accusing fingers still point at games, murmuring the words "corrupter of children" , "dangerous", "waste of time" etc. And every time a serial killer pops up, a hint at a behavioral link between his games collection is not too far off. Whilst ignoring his collection of TV crime forensic shows DVD's lurking in his basement. Cultural bias is a pick and choose game.

Why is this so? It could be a generational thing. My Generation X still labels game players as "nerds". They play games, but feel guilty about it. The current young generation have grown up with Sony's Playstation brand marketing games as cool. For them, gaming is a past-time on equal status with any other leisure activity.

And of course, Gaming is paying its dues as a new technology. Radio, TV and even print have all suffered the glare of suspicion when first introduced. TV would kill movies, VCR's would kill movies. Cinema would stop people going to the theater, Ok maybe that one has a point.

So a new generation of media operators, and gaming losing the 'new' label means a cultural green light? Probably not. The biggest problem gaming has, is also its greatest advantage. Technological advancements. Graphics and the way we interact with our games is advancing at a hyper-pace. Its no great jump to think we'll be at photo-realism in graphics within 10 years. We're already getting 'sorta' close with titles like Crysis. And then there are input technologies such as the Wii, Ps3's 'magic wand' and the 360's Natal.

Put all of those together and soon enough we'll be able to explore and interact with any photo-realistic environment we wish to, complete with incredible levels of immerson. Will gamers of today, those raised in the confines of hand controllers and stylized graphics, be suspicious when their kids are playing Call of Duty 25 aka the 'virtual reality' edition? I would put money on it.

Sheez even me Mr geeky Dad will reel in horror when my grand-kids jack into the Matrix...for..like...real :)