DAY 257 / GAME 257
Killzone 2
I remember being very excited for Killzone 2. I was really very happy with the first one on the PlayStation 2. Though I never finished it due to some very poor level design near the end, I wound up wanting more. Lucky for me, developer Guerrilla learned from their mistakes and polished up the sequel into a completable game. Not only did they create a new game that was considerably more playable, but they also went so far as creating one of the most beautiful games I've seen on the PlayStation 3.
Though I didn't quite buy it at launch, I would have been more than happy if I had. In fact, the entire Killzone series to date I've purchased late into it's release. Killzone 1 and 2 were 'greatest hits' by the time I bought them and Killzone 3 and 4 I actually just purchased now. Killzone 4 I bought for the PlayStation 4 last week and KZ3 is actually still in the mail.
Though Killzone is a beautiful series that really captures this 'future wartime' feel, that's essentially all I get out of it and is the main reason why I typically don't want to pay full price for any of the games. I find the characters and the story somewhat lacking. But I especially care very little for the protagonists. I've heard people complain about Gears of War, that the main characters are just these big meathead grunts with no personality. And while I tend to disagree with that I feel similarly about Killzone. Especially with the manner in which Killzone 2 ends, I realized I really dislike the main protagonists and moreover I disagree with their actions. And yet, this aside, the entire game is so beautiful and exciting to experience, it almost balances out. Certainly enough that I want to playthrough each of the games because I know I'm going to enjoy them.
Killzone 2 was also well known for it's online multiplayer which I've heard is quite comparable to Halo and the like. I've been meaning to try it forever, but I'm typically put-off by the fact that none of my friends also play. And typically, I don't have much interest in playing against strangers online.
Either way, Killzone 2 was a thoroughly beautiful experience and I'm currently enjoying Killzone 4 on the PS4 as I type this. And soon enough, I'll get a chance to see how great Killzone 3 was.
DAY 256 / GAME 256
Halo 4
The most recent addition to the Halo series and also the first, Halo Wars aside, to be handled by a company other than Bungie; Halo 4 has proven to be one of the best of the series. It took me a while before I could part with the bread, but eventually I was in just the right mood to be playing more Halo and ordered both this game and the artbook to go with it. Which is something I started doing more and more lately. Not necessarily buying them together, but having an nice book that shows the development process of my favorite games is just this fantastic, timeless piece for whatever moment I feel like remembering a game that I don't necessarily have time to start playing again.
I was told Halo 4 was just fantastic by a friend of mine and he was so enthusiastic about this that I knew right away (not that I didn't feel this way already) that I couldn't let this title evade me for much longer. I recently finished the single player campaign and it's not hard to say that it's the best of the series. 343 Studios managed to get the PlayStation 3 to render characters so lifelike that during the introductory cutscene I really was uncertain whether or not I was viewing life-action footage or rendered content.
Halo has come a long way and ability of each studio to push it further and further each iteration has easily kept it from becoming stale without having to 'reboot' the franchise or take any other risk that may detract from the series' soul. Gameplay is equally tight and reliable and 343 Studios continued the Bungie tradition of building beautiful alien worlds. The Master Chief and Cortana characters have taken a step towards better explaining their past and exposing their more 'human' side which really added to the depth of this narrative over the previous three games.
It's funny how the shift of Halo gameplay for me has gone from almost exclusively multiplayer to exclusively single player. Halo for me had always been about some of the best local-multiplayer events in my life and has really been a staple among some of my best friends. I guess more responsibility in life means less time to arrange events like this, but I can't say I don't miss it. I really should make time shortly to see just how much fun Halo 4 would be with some of my old friends. It certainly makes me excited for the upcoming Halo Anniversary collection that is coming down the pipe on the new Xbox One.
DAY 255 / GAME 255
Halo Wars
After the release of Halo 3, but before the release of Halo: ODST Microsoft enlisted Ensemble Studios to create an RTS (Real Time Strategy) spin-off of the Halo series. It came with mixed reviews as the intention was to create a console-friendly RTS which meant certain elements of the game needed to be simplified for controller use. Now, for someone who is terrible at RTS games this was right up my alley but for others I suppose it felt lacking.
Halo Wars drew a lot of appeal for me since, like StarCraft it's focus is on commanding about ships and other vehicles and one thing I love about Halo is the incredible vehicle and armor designs. Games like this one have this amazing feeling like you're playing with all your toys as a kid again. It's a digital version of a big Transformers (or the like) playset. You've got a bunch of tanks and army guys and you're waging war on the enemy with them. And since I'm typically quite terrible at these RTS games, Halo Wars takes it a bit easy on me so I can actually enjoy it all. In fact, even with the complaint that it's over simplified I still get panicky because it all moves too fast for me.
Though I primarily enjoyed Halo Wars' single player campaign, I had a blast playing the multiplayer skirmishes; which is effectively all I played in StarCraft. Though I did only ever play versus the computer, over and over again and I'd really love to find someone else interested enough to play with online. Though, chances are I'd just get creamed since I'm so terrible at RTS games.
Halo Wars was just the right kind of spin-off Halo game for me. With a property this solid and exciting it's really nice to see Microsoft expand it outside of the FPS genre. It was also smart of them to expand the game into a game type that is still appropriate for multiplayer gaming, since it's such a large component of the Halo series.
While Halo Wars is the one game in the series I've played the least of, it's still one I really enjoyed and although I have yet to beat it I do plan to return to it one day soon and see it to the end.
DAY 254 / GAME 254
Halo: Reach
In between the release of Halo 3 and Halo 4 we had a few 'filler' games which strayed from the larger Master Chief storyline. First there was Halo: ODST which followed a special drop team during the events of Halo 2 and then there was Halo: Reach, which was a prequel to Halo 1. Like Halo: ODST, Denise was brilliant enough to have purchased this as a gift for me on our wedding anniversary. (Doesn't matter how many games I own, it's always a great gift.) Also like ODST, I played this primarily for the single player campaign and only recently got some multiplayer time in on it. Reach featured a much more cinematic, much more story driven single player portion of the game compared to the first three Halo games and the final sync up between the ending of Halo: Reach and the opening shot of Halo 1 was brilliant.
Halo: Reach follows the events prior to Halo 1 where Nobel Team, a group of Spartan elite soldiers engage in a mission to transport the Cortana AI to the Pillar of Autumn. During the game's events your team slowly gets pared down member by member in an attempt to secure Cortana from being captured by the Covenant. Nobel Team, a team of six is successful, if only at the cost of their own lives. With that in mind, like ODST there is more of a sense of vulnerability and somewhat darker feeling of the warfront compared to the Rambo-esque Halo trilogy before it. And with that a deeper darker narrative.
Reach also added some really fantastic sequences to the game that I absolutely adored. During an attempt to aid Reach's population in it's evacuation there is a beautiful, rainy level where you pilot a tilt-rotor helicopter. A vehicle that is easily one of my favorites in the series and is available in multiplayer as well. There is also an incredible ending sequence where you pilot a fighter craft into orbit that makes for a very notable ending.
Halo: Reach sure pushes for one of my favorite single-player Halo games of all time. Like ODST it is much deeper and more beautiful that the games before it. Of course, that's exactly how it should be when developing a series of games. The only downside is that like most Halo games the campaign is quite short. On the upside, since I'm really looking to play through these stories again, short means maybe I can make the time to do just that.
DAY 253 / GAME 253
Halo 3
Halo had reached a pretty big high by the time the Xbox 360 was released. Halo 2 was one of the best selling games on the original Xbox console and one of the most popular multiplayer games. Halo 2's single player storyline left us with on a cliffhanger that eagerly awaited closure on and the idea of this already fantastic looking game now in HD meant the 3 year wait was a long one.
Microsoft teased us with beta entry to the online multiplayer included with purchases of Crackdown, which meant a lot of people bought Crackdown without actually playing it. Turns out Crackdown was pretty good, but I too intended initially to just get into the Halo 3 beta. It was pretty fantastic, but since none of my local friends were playing it all staying power was lost.
Soon enough though we saw it's release and a few of us got our copies. Local multiplayer, which was 95% of this game for me, was vastly improved with the jump up to HD resolution. Squeezing four player's screens into one becomes more and more of an issue as the level of detail and information on-screen increases; there were times when it was difficult in Halo 1 and 2 to see exactly what kind of grenade you had selected or how much ammo you had left. The jump up to HD resolution was so incredible I don't we got along before it was available. Halo 3 became such a staple with us that even when ODST and Reach came along, Halo 3 was still what we chose to play. Though a lot of that was simply because unlike 3, they didn't bring much extra to the table as far as changed to the multiplayer content.
Though multiplayer was a big part of Halo 3 for me, the single player campaign was an improvement as well. Though I had enjoyed Halo 1 and 2's main storyline, they were somewhat repetitive and and times hardly memorable. Halo 3 however felt significantly more cinematic and seemed to offer a much richer story and higher quality level design. They even added the incredible option of an online co-operative single player which meant you could experience the story with a friend. Something that was available in Gears of War before this and has become more and more available over time in some of my favorite games.
Bungie did the impossible by creating a third sequel to an already popular title and beat out it's own success by outselling Halo 2. Until the release of Halo 4 five years later, it stood as the best game of the series and held us all waiting for the return of the Master Chief.
DAY 252 / GAME 252
Halo 2
With a series as big as Halo, that I've followed through for each and every title, as I did with Silent Hill and Resident Evil I may as well do this as a multi-installment run. Though I've already discussed Halo 1 and Halo: ODST, I may as well finish it up with Halo 2, 3, Reach, Wars and 4.
The first Halo game was something special. Featuring fantastic local multliplayer and some strong FPS gameplay, it ended up being enough of a hit amongst friends that we were all pretty excited for a sequel. In fact, I hadn't owned a copy of Halo myself until the release of Halo 2 in 2004 at which point I finally broke down and bought an Xbox console (the crystal edition) along with the steelbook limited edition of Halo 2.
Not only did Halo 2 push me to buy a whole console, but since it was also the reason I first signed up for Microsoft's paid subscription online service Xbox Live. Mind you, the only reason I paid for it was because I signed up for the 3 month free trail and forgot to cancel. For 3 years. In fact, I signed up because I thought the idea of playing online with all my friends that I normally played locally with would be incredible fun. But in the end, I never actually used it and instead simply continued to play locally when we all got together. I never really used the Xbox Live service until I purchased an Xbox 360 years later at which point I used it frequently.
Halo 2 really was just a marvel overall. It featured some of the finest multiplayer maps, some great single player maps and just a really solid feeling game overall. It was a fantastic move forward that really solidified the series and brought players on board that weren't there previously. As it stands, Halo 2 was the most played Xbox Live game until the release of Gears of War and it was also the best selling Xbox game of all time. As with the rest of the series, Halo 2 may not be my absolute favorite game of all time, but I will always have a special place for it. For it's multiplayer content and the memories that come with it, the well rounded and memorable worlds and though not the best written characters ever, there's a certain attachment to Master Chief and Cortana that both inexplicable and guaranteed.
I can honestly say that I was at least a little excited to hear that they will be remastering the series with full online support for the new Microsoft console, Xbox One.
DAY 251 / GAME 251
Fable Coin Golf
It's a rare treat when a developer creates a mobile phone game that features as much structure and innovation as a full-sized console/PC title. It's not so much that they don't exist as when they actually do they get buried in heaps and heaps of shovelware, puzzle game clones and other blatent attempts to walk away with people's money for the least amount of work. In fact, the one thing I had to say I really enjoyed about the Windows Phone gaming system was that it had your regular list of games and then a special list of supported titles which featured your standard Xbox achievements and were generally sorted to a more rigorous standard. I essentially shopped exclusively through this channel on that phone.
Not that there aren't a lot of great games on other phone mobile platforms, but I really did enjoy the Windows Phone Xbox Live platform. Some great existing games were ported over and some fresh new games were exclusive as well. One of my absolute favorite games on this platform was Fable Coin Golf. I enjoyed it so much I really miss it after I switched from the Windows Phone to an iPhone.
Fable Coin Golf is kinda a bumper-pool style game where you have to navigate a coin/disc around a table-top course in as few flicks as possible. You can simply complete a level within a maximum number of turns, or attempt to reach or beat the par for the course. The game has an incredible level of polish rarely found in these low-priced mobile games. Not only do the physics and controls work flawlessly but the sets and graphics are perfectly suited for the platform and look fantastic.
On top if it all, one of the best parts of this game is the over-the-top voice acting and writing that was unnecessary but well welcomed. As you play, you are pressed forward and generally harassed by a couple of hilarious characters. It contains the level of acting and writing found easily in the rest of the Fable series on the larger consoles and truly brings this game up a notch above what's expected in terms of production quality for cell-phone games.
If you're lucky enough to own a Windows Phone buy this game. It's easily the best way to spend your battery life. Certainly better than talking to anyone.
