4 March 2009

Petering about is boring.

It really is. I miss having a job…

Got Halo Wars, and whilst I was sceptical both about the demo and during my first few hours of play, I have to say that it’s growing on me. The controls are pleasingly streamlined, and whilst the level of detail in the graphics is rather disappointing – you can barely zoom in at all, and when you do zoom in as far as you can, the units are rather blocky and the textures rather flat – the animations and effects are excellent. From Spartans diving about the battlefield, peppering Grunts and Elites with dual SMGs, to the way that warthogs slide and drift around corners, it’s actually managed to pull of the impossible – this actually feels like Halo.

There are a couple of bum notes – the gameplay is perhaps a little too streamlined, and there’s actually very little real strategy to it besides ‘build force, manoeuvre it properly’, and it does away with the base-building of old – but to be quite honest, it’s a thoroughly entertaining game with loads of replayability in it’s 15-mission campaign thanks to some carefully thought out achievements, and a fantastic multiplayer system. There’s also a decent story going on…so all in all, it’s the m ost satisfying game I’ve bought in a while, which is encouraging.

I got the Legendary edition, too, which means I got my grubby mitts on the Mythic Map Pack for Halo 3. ‘T’was only a fiver more, and considering that it’ll cost £6.80 when it’s released on Xbox Live, I thought that was a pretty good deal.

Maps are good, too. Sandbox is particularly good fun, giving us three different ‘zones’ of the map – there’s the Skybox, the Crypt, and the eponymous Sandbox – and each one can have different things done with it. The Skybox is more or less a 100% blank canvas (you even have to put down your own floor!), the Sandbox is a semi-contained desert-like level, and the Crypt is pretty much a box. I’ve mucked about in it for a while, mostly trying to find the skull (I found it eventually…fucking hard, it was). Assembly and Orbital are nice too, Orbital in particular isn’t just a great level, it also manages to incorporate (or, if you haven’t read the books, introduce) some Halo mythology into the mix, which is nice.

Nowt much else going on. Watchmen’s out on Friday – me and Ryan are planning on going to see it in the afternoon. Hopefully it won’t be too busy, but you never know. Will attempt to review it, but honestly I don’t think I can review it particularly well without having read the comic book…sorry, ‘graphic novel’. But I’ll do my best if/when I see it.

That’s about it for now. See you lot later.

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