ODST Impressions, Thexter, Deep Shadows 0
So I got Halo 3: ODST from GameFly on release day, which is really cool. Unfortunately that required me to have that as the only game on my GameQ. I know. The game is alright. I wanted to buy it to get the ODST controller, but otherwise I would have not. The single-player is short, and only some levels are even fun. But these ‘some’ levels are actually a lot of fun. I’m a fan of the Halo universe, so I was interested in the story. It wasn’t a progression to what Bungie has given us so far, but it did give insight into what was happening on earth. I still want a game that plays like the Halo shorts we’ve seen. Maybe Halo: Reach will do this? Are we far revamping the gameplay to be a tad more tactical? The music is incredible and really drives emotion into the game. I think the open-world city is a great idea, but could have been executed better. Everything looked the same and didn’t really stand out as unique.
As for multi-player, I’m still not a fan of Firefight. What’s the point? Maybe I just get easily bored with just killing the same A.I. enemies spawning into the same map. Now, I had fun with the map that included vehicles, but even in the end I had no desire to go back. I think that this has to do with the fact that I’m mainly a single-player gamer. I do play a lot of multi-player, but I require that progression that comes with single-player campaigns. This is why I like CoD, Frontlines, Syphon Filter: OS…and, well, that’s about all. Objective based Halo games are fun, but just straight-up deathmatch gets boring. Halo: Reach could be the ultimate Halo game. Give me the progression and customization found in the recent CoD games, mixed with the large-scale battles of the (older) Battlefield series.
Joystiq posted their TGS hands-on with Sqeenix’s SHMUP remake, Thexter Neo, with generally positive things to say. I’m a huge fan of the genre, and love the ability to play them on a portable, but what I questions is why make a game likes this on the PSN PSP only? I guess they have the TV cable for the PSP right? Might as well do that… Check out the video here.
FarCry 2 is now $20 on Steam. I’m tempted to do this. I played it on the 360 but found it to play like a usual bad PC port. Ugly, low res, etc. From what I played though, it was a ton of fun. Very open-ended and really how single-player FPS’s need to evolve. There was one from a few years back (04-05?) called Boiling Point, which seemed similar, just not as gripping. A head of its time really. The developer, Deep Shadows out of Russia, continues to develop and I hope they get recognition someday.
