i finished halo: reach this past weekend. overall it took a week of off-and-on playing to complete it. i played a couple of missions on the weekend and then a single mission on weekdays if i felt up to it.

reach is pretty good. another solid release in the halo franchise. i felt that the story was much more straight forward than halo 3’s. there’s about to be some *spoilers*. what the story had working against it though was the overall lack of surprise. if you’ve played the previous halo games and paid the slightest bit of attention to the cutscenes and lore then you’ll know that the planet reach fell and that master chief is the last spartan alive. despite the outcome being obvious the story is not boring. i think part of that success is based on elements of the story being character driven. you want to know more about the noble team including yourself. the writers then try to break your heart by killing off your team members one by one. some of these scenes provoke sentiment, but they end up being weakened because you know it’s going to happen…it’s just a matter of when. i liked jorge’s final scene best. i’m not sure if the game ever mentions what happens to jun?

gameplay-wise my favorite parts were when noble six was completely together. i’d love to play a whole game in this squad format. i imagine that would be too easy of a game though. speaking of which, they definitely cranked up the enemy difficulty and skill level in reach. that’s logical since there’s multiple spartan squad members at any given time. the elites and jackals seem a lot more agile than before. also the enemy shields seem to be as strong as the player’s. even the grunts seem to take more shots than usual. i remember thinking who thought the hunter needed to be tougher?? when i first encountered one in reach.

i liked how the warthog handled in this game best (not sure if it was the same in halo3). conversely, i did not like how the 4-wheeler handled. the night vision was cool (also not sure if this was in a previous halo game). i liked the needler rifle, but it was only effective on shieldless or de-shielded enemies. i did not care for the plasma repeater. flying the sabre was a nice change of pace. my least favorite missions were the civilian evacuation one and where you fly the falcon throughout the city.

i died the most on the clearing the landing pad finale. there’s so many enemies here from so many angles and some with very powerful weapons. i’d say i died at least 6 times. when this segment was over i was surprised by the abrupt ending…it seemed so anti-climatic. i was looking for a final boss or some kind of adrenaline racing halo finale. instead you just get one final shoot out. i’m at least glad there was the post-credits followup. now that i think about it i’m not sure that the finale could have been done any other way (and continued to make sense).

i started playing portal1 yesterday for the first time and i believe i got through the first 16 levels within 1 hour and 40 minutes or so. i only mention that to point out that the bulk of the levels can be finished in a relatively short time. i wouldn’t describe levels 1-16 as easy, i would just say they’re fairly straight forward. during these levels i caught myself having to take a few minutes to think it through maybe once or twice. that being said, the last 5-6 levels of the game kick up the difficulty level quite a bit. my total end game time was about 3 hours and 30 minutes which goes to show how much time i spent on the latter levels. also of note…the later levels are quite a bit bigger than previous ones.

i’ll only have a few minor *spoilers* mentioned here. i got stumped a total of 3 times (all of which happened on the later levels). the first time i couldn’t figure out what to do was level 18 – part 2 (the final segment of it). i couldn’t figure out how to do the far fling across the room. i had spent a lot of time on this level and was getting close to frustration…i was definitely ready to move on. i wonder if i had put in another 30 minutes or so on the level would i have figured it out? maybe, but i doubt it. the 2nd and 3rd times really involved the same solution – using the rocket turret to break things. when i first saw the rocket turret i assumed it was a boss or mini-boss and spent like 10 minutes trying to kill it. yet only to find out that its rockets don’t affect it so i simply walked past it. i should have figured out the rockets breaking the window since they show you that happening when you first meet the rocket turret. but alas…i did not. however, using the rockets to break the cube’s delivery tube i definitely would have never figured out. while the game shows you a broken tube earlier in the game it doesn’t really establish that they are breakable fixtures (as in by taking action upon them). i also managed to get myself stuck in the wall between the delivery tube during this segment with some creative portaling. i had to load a saved game to resume playing (this was the only time a bug like this occurred)

something that kind of annoyed me about levels 18 and 19 was that they were more platforming heavy. and by that i mean that the rest of the game focuses more on puzzle solving with only light platforming requirements. in levels 18 and 19 though you will die or not progress without some well placed jumps and quick reflexes. i never got overly frustrated by the platforming though because the game has perfectly placed save points. you never have to feel like “oh god i have to play through this entire level again” because of one misplaced jump.

i felt like the escape levels went on a tad too long. the end boss sequence was well done. i believe i died 2 times on the boss fight. the first time i was trying to figure out what to do and figured it out a bit too late. the second time i couldn’t pull off the necessary portaling in time.

overall, i give this game a solid 3/5 rating (moreso leaning towards 3.5ish). it’s definitely a good game, but a masterpiece? i’m not really seeing that. i’m not understanding how people gush over it or why one game reviewer site labeled it as the best game ever. i mean come on, really? i chalk it up to there being a generational gap between myself and youngsters nowadays. where portal may be considered a great game of their generation and thus means more to them. and anyone my age or older that thinks portal is the best thing ever are probably too excited over seeing an innovation in video games.

and the portal concept definitely is innovative. it’s cool and very well done. i would like to see it outside of the confines of a linear puzzle game, but i imagine it would have to be severely limited. for instance, imagine a game of counterstrike or capture-the-flag with portals…it’d be ridiculously cheap and unfair.

my final thoughts regarding the game are on the annoying “the cake is a lie” meme. i felt the initial reference in the game was mildly amusing, but even the game goes overboard with it. cake is mentioned a couple too many times and why is “the cake is a lie” written repeatedly and in more than one place? i think simply having the line once in one place would have been more effective. i actually thought the line “remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and i said goodbye…” line was much more memorable. but anyways, back to the scrawled writings of previous escapees. having escapees simultaneously write “help” while also giving escape directions is pretty lame. one thing i’m over in FPS games is having words like “help” scrawled on a wall. that has been played out for a while. and based on the directions it seems like previous escapees got to the end or near end. how did they deal with GLaDOS?

i saw so much stuff about this game online, rave reviews, and so on. i was intrigued by the concept from watching a few videos. so i picked up the game on sale and played it without really knowing what the game was about. this will include **spoilers** of course…but mostly i’d like to provide a public service by telling people don’t bother playing this game. seriously, disregard the pretentiousness of the critics that highly rated this game. there is no way this game deserved the praise it received. if i try hard to imagine what people thought was so great about it…i guess you could say the game attempts to do something “fresh”. it definitely has the potential for something good, but ends up just feeling like the framework of something that could have been way better.

first, i will point out what aspects i liked about the game so this doesn’t sound like i’m just hating for no reason…
what the game does well:
it creates a spooky atmosphere and sets the stage for a mystery. early on you are eager to find clues regarding what happened to your family and the story of the house itself. the atmosphere is excellent, a stormy night, an old somewhat creepy house with flickering lights, various old house creaks and other sounds. for the first 10 minutes of gameplay i kept wondering if something was going to jump out of a closet or if i’d see something running down the hall at me. again, i had no idea what this game was about and didn’t know what to expect. i didn’t get this game thinking it’d be scary. so eventually i started feeling more at ease as i continued to explore the house, but a feeling that i may stumble upon a weird scene still remained.

the gameplay mechanics are pretty good too as are the graphics. the biggest kudos i can give are for the attention to detail. i found this aspect of the game to be very impressive. so many notes and objects that looked realistic and it at least seems that great care were involved in their creation.

what the game does poorly:
the utmost failure of this game is the story (that is if this can even be classified as a story). the “story” starts off kind of all over the place and you’re not really sure where it’s headed…which actually adds to the mystery. but then it becomes clear that the story is centered around your younger sister. then it proceeds to become abundantly clear that it’s about your sister’s lesbian relationship with a friend of hers. so that’s it…that’s really all this game is about. the details of your sister’s romance and the fact that your parents are gone on a couples getaway. and none of it was a surprise or a shocker. i mean by the 2nd journal entry (or so) regarding lonnie it was clear there was something going on there. the game then beats you over the head with it in case you were unable to pick up on the many not-so-subtle clues. but i really don’t get it…was this story supposed to be unique and empowering or something? i thought the story was very unoriginal. i can’t forgive this game for feeling like it wasted my time. all the initial build up that ends with the ultimate anti-climax.

a youtube review of the game pointed out that if this was the core story for the game then why the spooky house, why the notions that it was haunted or a psycho house, why the crazy uncle, why the ouija board and ritual table? why have all these distractions from the designer’s precious main story? like why couldn’t just have taken place in a normal suburban home or neighborhood. i’m clearly bitter about these elements of the game because they were such a waste of time. the game is merely a voyeuristic view into an american family’s home. that’s it there’s nothing really sinister or terribly interesting going on.

the gameplay ends up becoming very repetitive and boring. if i could sum it up it’s like you’re playing a version of where’s waldo in a giant castle-sized house…but instead of trying to find waldo you’re trying to find paper notes. at first i found the note placement logical along with the other written materials, but eventually this deteriorates into ridiculousness as notes are strewn all over the house in very odd rooms and nooks and crannies.

another thing that bugged me is that i received the basement key after the attic key. when i play adventure games i typically use items in the order i received them. so i go to the attic and suddenly find myself in the endgame sequence. for the sake of proper gameplay shouldn’t this have been the last location i should have been able to get to? the only redeeming factor here was that i was able to resume game once again after the end credits rolled to explore the rooms i had missed.

conclusion
as you can see above i don’t think everything about this game terrible. it does have its good aspects but i will stick with saying it’s not worth playing. don’t bother getting it if it’s on sale or even free. it’s a crappy game that masquerades as an art piece.

this reminds me of a gripe i’ve had with the whole indie game phenomenon. it seems like people and critics are so quick to proclaim an indie game a masterpiece or a work of art. i’ve played several of these types of games and find a lot of them to be based on a single gimmick that although clever cannot successfully be the basis for an entire game. and i’m not saying that only AAA games can be good. tons of AAA games are crap, but a lot of indie games are also crap or average despite what critics and reviews say. indie games can also be excellent – the game “uplink” comes to mind.