Halo Reach screens leaked – I offer my speculation

Earlier today, some screenshots for Halo Reach were released. That said, nobody seems to be speculating on what’s in the screenshots, so i’m going to offer up my opinion.

It is very important to realise that Halo Reach is far from finished – the game isn’t due for release until next year at least. It’s also important to realise that these screenshots were, of course, leaked, and as such is content that is Bungie & Microsoft didn’t want us to see yet. We don’t even know if these screenshots are legitimate or not. That said, lets get on with things:

Here we’re in first person holding a Rocket Launcher – you can see that the crosshair for the Rocket Launcher is different than usual. Whether the Rocket Launcher functions differently to how it did in Halo 3 is unknown. Also take note of the person standing in front of us – it’s a Spartan. You can also see a symbol next to the Motion Tracker and some text next to it, but it’s too blurry to make it out.

Here we get a full view of the Heads Up Display. As you can see, the shield + health system in the first Halo game seems to be making a return. The general look of the HUD looks similar to the HUD of ODST. In fact, i’m pretty sure that the compass above the shield bar is identical to the compass that was in ODST, but it could just be a placeholder.

Again, there are some symbols next to the motion tracker – more than there were in the previous screenshot, but again, it’s too blurry to make anything out. Additionally in this screenshot you can see a Banshee, a Needler, and some kind of town/city that looks like it’s on fire.

Another view of the HUD. Most prominently you can see a new weapon that looks very similar to the Battle Rifle that was in Halo 2 & 3. However, it looks like it’s had a bit of a redesign. The base of the weapon looks like a Submachine Gun, but with an Ammo Counter and a Scope attached to it. It also looks like this “Battle Rifle” has a smaller clip size than the one that we’re accustomed to in Halo 3. Also take note of the crosshair design, it looks much bigger than the crosshair for the Battle Rifle in Halo 3.

In the distance you can see what I assume are Marines (But they could be Spartans). You can also see some kind of huge gun emplacement on the left of the screen. An anti-air weapon maybe?

Here we’ve got what looks like a redesigned Spartan Laser. You’ve got some Banshees flying around in the distance, and there’s also some kind of screen on the Laser. To be honest, we have no idea if this is even a Spartan Laser. It could be something else for all we know.

Here we’ve got what could be the most bizzare looking weapon i’ve seen so far in the Halo series. The gun that the player is holding here looks like a cross between the Needler and the Carbine. It’ll be interesting to see how this works. You can also see a Warthog, with what looks like an ODST in the drivers seat. It also looks like the chain gun on the Warthog has either been removed or replaced by something else.

Next up is the Pause Menu, which looks largely unchanged from the menu in Halo 3. Unfortunately there text is quite blurry so it’s hard to make things out again. Underneath the pause menu you can see where the player has paused. You can quite clearly see the Assault Rifle in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. It has a 32 round magazine, so presumably it’s the same Assault Rifle that we saw in Halo 3. The crosshair for it looks bigger though.

Finally we’ve got a glimpse at what the Main Menu might look like. It just looks like a piece of artwork with some options laid over the top. What’s in the artwork intrigues me though. The structure to the left of the screen looks similar to the Portal to The Ark that was in Halo 3. The structure to the right also interests me. It’s either a strange building, or smoke from a pretty large explosion.

So they’re all of the screenshots of the game that were leaked. Like I said earlier, we don’t know if these are legitimate yet. If the screenshots are legitimate, then the game still has a lot of development to go through. Feel free to speculate, but also remember: It’s not done yet.

Google Suggest… best thing to happen to the Internet

Google Suggest is nothing new, I remember it being around for a while. However, after a fellow chum of mine over at Cnet found some amusing suggestions that it presented, I decided to see what kind of crazy shizzle I could get Google to suggest.

First of all. What is Google Suggest? Well, it’s simple, you type in some words in to the search bar on the Google homepage, and Google will try to guess what you’re trying to type. For example, if I type in “Cookie”, it’ll suggest “Cookie recipies” and “Cookie monster”:

But that’s not where teh lulz are to be had, no. Take a gander at some of the screenshots for some of the more amusing things that Google Suggest recommends:

“I like to tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would be like to be a dinosaur”

“Why can’t black people swim” and “Why can’t I own a Canadian“

All of the above.

I totally went there

You learn something new every day

Stop look and listen.

That’s all i’m going to bother you with. But you should seriously try it out some time when you’re bored. You might get some lulz out of it. Just remember: Real people are actually searching for this stuff.

Why i’m not getting Modern Warfare 2

Modern Warfare 2 – the game that FPS nuts are (most likely) going crazy about. Modern Warfare 2 – the sequel to 2007’s Call of Duty 4, is due for release in just a matter of days. The game already looks like it’s going to be highly successful, it’s already smashed pre-order records and has probably already guaranteed Activision and Infinity Ward a rather tidy profit – and those are just pre-orders alone. No doubt there’ll be a lot more copies shifted during the run up to Christmas next month.

That said, however, this isn’t a game that i’ll be getting. Certainly not on release date anyway. Why? Well, that’s the purpose of this blog post, to explain why (You should note that some of my criticisms are directed towards the Xbox 360 version of the game).

1- No Xbox Live party chat

For Modern Warfare 2, Infinity Ward has decided to block Xbox Live Parties (For those of you who don’t have Xbox 360’s, parties are basically large private chats). This means that you can’t talk to your buddies that are playing different games. Now i’m unsure about the details regarding this, mainly because Infinity Ward hasn’t specified how this works. Does it block your private chat all of the time? Or can you still use Private Chat when playing a campaign game? I have no idea.

But what I do know, is that this is not an idea that I like. This is apparently to stop people from cheating, but I rarely encounter this kind of behaviour while playing FPS games. Certainly, I never encounter this kind of cheating enough times to justify the total removal of private chat. I enjoy using private chat so that I don’t have to deal with those screaming kids who take the game too seriously, and also so that I have someone to talk to if me & a friend are playing different games.

Infinity Ward are just punishing a majority to try and make life more difficult for a minority, who will probably find some kind of way around it anyway.

2- No Xbox Live co-op campaign

One of the main things I look for in games these days are co-operative campaigns – a campaign where I can jump in with a friend. I enjoy the relaxed and laid-back nature of co-operative gameplay when I don’t feel like playing human opponents. Modern Warfare 2 was originally slated to have a co-operative campaign mode, but it got axed during development.

The reason for this was that it “broke the cinematic feel”, which is fair enough if i’m playing the game for the first time, but after a while, it just gets to the point where I just want to kill some bad guys with a friend, but Infinity Ward have removed this option from me. Sure, there’s a Spec-Ops mode, but it’s not the same thing.

Simply put: I only care about the “cinematic feel” the first few times I play the game. If I really cared about the “cinematic feel” so much, then i’d decide for myself whether to play the campaign co-operatively or not. I don’t need Infinity Ward to babysit me and tell me what I can and can’t do.

3- It’s overpriced

I’m probably no angel in this regard considering that I paid £35 for Halo 3: ODST, but this is not a mistake I plan on making again. The RRP for Modern Warfare 2 was raised from the standard £40 to £55. Activisions attitude towards consumers also stinks, with the CEO of the company saying “if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further”. Wow guys, that’s some good PR there.

4- The music in this trailer

Is it me, or is that Eminem? Seriously guys? Eminem? It’s bad enough that 50 Cent is in the game for christs sake.

5- No dedicated servers for PC gamers

Although i’m not the most hardcore PC gamer around, I can still understand the frustration that this brings to PC gamers. Dedicated servers allow PC gamers to find a “home” in which to play in, a group of people who they’re familiar with. Infinity Ward are removing the option for PC gamers to have their own servers. The lack of servers also means that PC gamers can’t use mods in the game, which is one of the main appeals to PC gaming.

Of course, this wasn’t always the case for me. The Washington DC trailer for Modern Warfare 2 actually had me a bit excited. Washington DC being invaded? It would be awesome to see how that works out. Sadly, i’m not willing to pay £55 to have Infinity Ward tell me what I can and can’t do.

I think i’ll get Assassins Creed 2 instead.

From Halo to Battlefield – Why am I making the jump?

It’s probably no secret that i’m a huge fan of the Halo series. I have blogged quite a lot about the series, from what I like, to what I dislike. A few weeks ago I bought Battlefield: Bad Company for about a Tenner. I have every reason to believe that this is the best £10 i’ve ever spent, and I now eagerly await for the sequel that’s due to arrive next year. Indeed – I now play Battlefield more than I play Halo. In fact, I last played a game of Halo four days ago, and that was a custom game. The last Matchmaking game I played was on the 26th October. A long time, considering that it’s, well, me.

But why have I made the jump from Halo to Battlefield? I’ve enjoyed Halo’s multiplayer since the days of Halo 2 – I joined Xbox Live way back in 2006, got Halo 3 the following year on release date, and have played it ever since – very rarely straying to other titles such as Call of Duty 4 or Gears of War.

By the way, if you’re one of those people who can’t accept that Halo has flaws, then I suggest that you stop reading. I’m not flaming Halo, but I am criticising it quite a lot in this post.

1- Halo doesn’t immerse you

None of the Halo games immerse you in to the experience. Humanity is supposed to be getting their arses whooped by a technologically superior alliance of xenophobic aliens, but you never get that feeling. Marines who fight by your side are cocky, unlikeable, and frankly, retarded.

Where’s the fear of war? Marines will just some times walk straight in to enemy fire without any regard for their own well-being. The same applies to the enemies in Halo – while their AI isn’t quite as bad for the enemies as it is for your allies, they’re still not very intimidating enemies.

The Brutes wouldn’t look out of place if you put them in to an episode of the Power Rangers, and their dialogue is about as clichéd as it can get. If a Brute yells at you in the game, he’s probably threatening to eat you. Oh, uh no, please don’t do that? I’m more likely to laugh at something if it says it’s going to eat me, than I am to shit my pants.

Then there’s the general design of the enemies that’s the problem. Like I said earlier, Brutes look like childrens toys, Jackals look like retarded rat-birds, Grunts & Hunters are both retarded. Hunters are supposed to be difficult to fight, but all you need to do is grab an Assault Rifle or an SMG, jump over them, and shoot them in the exposed orange bit on their back.

I should also mention the sound – the sound in Battlefield completely kicks the arse of the sound in Halo. Weapons sound like actual weapons, if an explosion goes off near you, then your hearing will get muffled. I think that people grossly underestimate how much good sound can add to the experience, although I think that Martin O’Donnell composes better music.

2- The multiplayer is more frustrating than fun

This is due in part to a number of things:

Firstly, the Matchmaking system does not match players up fairly. Level 50 Generals can, and do get matched with Level 10 Lieutenants. This results in one team getting completely destroyed. It’s pairings like these that make you ask the question: How is this fair?

Secondly, the respawning system in Halo is retarded. All you have to do is watch the video below to prove my point:

In Battlefield you can choose where to spawn – so that you can at least place yourself in a safe position. It’s not a perfect system, but it works a hell of a lot better than the system in Halo does – which seems to think it’s okay to put you in front of an enemy Warthog.

Thirdly? The lag, or, more specifically, the hit detection. While this is admittedly an uncommon occurrence, this problem still rears its ugly head at the most inconvenient of times I most commonly experience this issue with the Scorpian Tank, but others have issues with all sorts of weapons. The Sniper Rifle in particular.

Additionally, we’ve got another problem that I dabbled with in my previous post: host migration. Battlefield has dedicated servers, so this is a non-issue. In Halo however? It has some adverse effects:

3- Battlefield has large scale battles that are actually large scale

The “large scale” battles in Halo are 8 v 8 affairs with up to sixteen players. That might sound like a lot of people, but Battlefield allows for up to 24 people to be duking it out with each other. What’s more? The maps in Battlefield are actually huge, and I mean enormous. The “large” maps in Halo like Valhalla or Avalanche are dwarfed in comparison.

That’s another issue with Halo – the big maps have gradually been getting smaller and smaller. Don’t believe me? Load up your copy of Halo 1 and take a look around Blood Gulch, then load up Halo 2 and look at it’s successor, Coagulation. Then load up Halo 3 and load up the successor to Coagulation – Valhalla.

The vehicle combat in Halo is one of the best parts of the series, but the maps in Halo 3 are so small that it’s hard to make a decent use of them. In fact, with the recent map packs for Halo 3, it almost feels like Bungie has completely forgotten about the vehicle combat in Halo. As someone who played Big Team Skirmish in Halo 2 for hours on end, the loss of large scale battles disappoints me. This is where Battlefield comes in.

That’s just a few reasons why i’m starting to jump over to Battlefield from Halo. It’s fun, it’s frantic, and is pretty much everything that I ever wanted from a multiplayer game. I’ll still be looking out for Halo Reach next year, but the Battlefield series is going to start getting a lot more attention from me from now on.

Xbox Live Gold… what exactly are we paying for?

Xbox Live was an online gaming service that was released in late 2002 back when the original Xbox console was still in its early years. The Xbox was by no means the first console to attempt this – Sega attempted to start an online service with the Dreamcast, but due to the lack of broadband adoption at the time, the service fell short.

Originally, there was only one type of Xbox Live subscription – you had to pay a monthly or annual fee to be able to access the service, or you wouldn’t be able to access it at all. When the Xbox 360, the successor to the original Xbox console was released in 2005, a new type of membership was added. There was now a free version of the service called Xbox Live Silver (The paid version of the service being named Xbox Live Gold). The free service was very basic: You could download content from the Xbox Live Marketplace, create a friends list, and that was just about it. If you wanted to play games online, set up a private chat, or use something like the upcoming Twitter and Facebook features, then you’re going to have to shell out your cash.

But the question that i’m asking right now (and indeed, have been asking myself for a long time), if why do we have to pay for this service? Lets break down the benefits of the Gold membership, just to see what I mean:

- Play games online: Simple enough – you can play with people on the other side of the world if you wanted to, this is pretty much the bread and butter of Xbox Live. But well, how does it work? Every single first party game on the 360 (That is – games that are published by Microsoft) don’t use dedicated servers. Each one of these games uses a peer-to-peer networking system.

What does this mean? You’re effectively paying Microsoft to use your Internet Connection to host their games. Uh… something doesn’t sound quite right there, don’t you think? If anything, surely Microsoft should be paying me to host their games? Microsoft are even outdone by third party publishers in this regard – Electronic Arts have dedicated servers for the Battlefield games, and Valve have dedicated servers set up for Left 4 Dead. Two companies who probably get very little (if any) of the money that I spend on my Live subscription.

The most annoying part of this is that the peer-to-peer system doesn’t work very well. In Gears of War 2, if the host quits the game, the entire game ends for everyone. In games like Halo 3 or the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 (Which isn’t a first party game so I can forgive it slightly) where there’s a host migration feature, which means that when the host quits, you have to sit and wait in the middle of the game. Sometimes this can take a few seconds, but at times this process can take a good minute or two (Sometimes the game completely craps out during the process). Quite often this can have some adverse effects on the game:

Granted, the Battlefield games, which use dedicated servers aren’t perfect, and they can lag at times, but I find that dedicated servers make the game more fun. It results in less bullcrap occurring in the middle of a game, which means that you don’t get as frustrated as you can in, say, Halo, when some guy kills you through a wall. Simply put: In regards of online gaming, you’re getting pretty much nothing for your money.

Also, please don’t give me the whole “Dedicated servers would cost too much” bullshit. Microsoft are one of the wealthiest corporations in the world, we pay for Xbox Live, thus, there should be dedicated servers. I’m not a huge fan of World of Warcraft, but at least the people who play that game get their damn monies worth.

- Early access to game demos – Xbox Live Gold members get access to game demos a week before Silver members do. This is a nice benefit, but a gimmicky one. What kind of tool pays money to get access to something that they can get for free a week later?

- Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm, etc – Again, why pay for something that you can get for free elsewhere? Just about everyone with an Xbox probably has a PC. If you have a PC then you have a web browser (which is free), you can then type in www.twitter.com or something, and bam, you’ve got the same functionality as Xbox Live Gold members have, but 100% cheaper. Again, the Twitter and Facebook functionality is nice, but making people pay to use them is ludicrous.

This is the exact same functionality that you get out of the Twitter app on the 360, except on the 360 you have the joys of being able to spend an eternity typing out your 140 character message using a controller. Unless you paid for the overpriced Chatpad. Again, why pay to use something that works better on your PC, and is free to use there? The same applies to the Facebook and Last.fm functionality – it’s free on your PC.

And so that concludes my post. Microsoft may have gotten away with charging people in the previous generation of consoles, but with Sony and Nintendo offering similar services for free I think that Microsoft are going to have to start to step things up a bit, or they should make Xbox Live free. That said, I doubt that either will happen. Console gamers seem to like getting ripped off. In fact, writing this post has made me feel like a bit of a mug.

My favourite things I made in Photoshop

Just a quick blog post here. In the past I used to fiddle around with Photoshop quite a lot. This is a list of the things that I made in Photoshop that I was most proud of. Click on the thumbnails to go to their profile pages on deviantArt (Where you can download them, and use them as desktop wallpapers):

I’ve also made an arseload of Halo panoramas here.

So there you have it, a group of what I think is a collection of some of the best Photoshoppery i’ve done in the past.

Taking a short break from Video Reviews

So yeah guys, just letting you know that i’m probably going to take a short break from the video reviews that I usually release. This is due to several reasons:

1- Too many games are coming out – Left 4 Dead 2 is out in a few weeks, as well as Assassins Creed 2 – two games that i’m looking forward to very much this year that should hopefully suck less than Halo 3: ODST did. There’s a ton of others coming out as well, or some that I simply haven’t played yet (Modern Warfare 2, Brutal Legend, the list could go on forever).

2- Unhappy with the quality of the reviews – Thus far the reviews that i’ve done on the site have been 100% done by me. The footage is by me, the voice overs are by me, the video editing is done by me. You get the idea, it’s a very time consuming process and ultimately I think that I can do better. I would like to work with a group of people for future reviews. This gets more ideas on to the table, which hopefully results in higher production values, and ultimately, something that’s more useful to the people who watch them. When I look at the amount of views for my reviews, everything is dwarfed in comparison to my review of Sonic The Hedgehog. This is something that I wish to change.

So yeah, the video reviews that I do are being put on hold mainly because i’m unhappy with the quality of them at the time being. I also have a minor addiction to Battlefield: Bad Company right now. Which, coincidently, is an awesome game. You should buy it. NAO.

 

Three minutes of awesome

The wonders of… Turkey and Ham?

Yes, while nosing around in the fridge today looking for noms at dinner time, I noticed a packet of “Wafer thin Turkey Ham”. Uh… what? The box doesn’t even explain what it is exactly, I assume that it’s some kind of weird mixture of Turkey and, well, Ham. Or maybe there’s some kind of weird breeding programme going on at Bernard Matthews or something.

Anyway, it was at this point in which my cat (Called Oscar) walked over to me, and started to meow at me for food. Or more specifically, was meowing at me because he could smell the Turkey Ham. I figured “Meh, why not?” and gave him some. He started to purr as he was eating it, so I assumed that they were indeed, what cats call, “Good Noms”.

Not everyone is completely sold on the idea, however:

I’m going to have to side with Rufus (The Ginger one) on this one. These are bad noms. Very bad noms indeed.

Edit: In preparation for the hordes of people who are going to hop on to their IM Clients to tell me what Turkey Ham is, it’s Turkey that’s shaped as Ham. Except that, you know, this isn’t shaped like Ham at all. It’s just “wafer thin”, which we just call “Wafer thin Turkey”. Plus, this stuff had a hammy taste to it, so I don’t know.

Frugal Game Night 14/10/09

Last night me and some d00dz at the Frugal Gaming Forums had a game night in which we played Halo. I recorded the games and have uploaded them to YouTube & DailyMotion. You can check out the videos in the embedded players below. If you want to participate in a future game night (We don’t just play Halo) then head on over to the Frugal Forums and take a look in the Game Nights section.