Halo 3’s Theater: Where're the Videos?

This week at GDC, Ninja Gaiden 2 was announced to include a Saved Film feature that is similar to Halo 3. Even though I’m interested in the game, I really like this feature and think this is where Halo 3 really innovated. I’m sure we all expected a flood of cool and exciting videos from the game. I even posted a few videos myself thinking that I had done something cool and that others might enjoy it. Turns out, it wasn’t that exciting to other people.

There were a couple of hits: it started with an spectacular grenade stick, an improbable sniper suicide, death by a traffic cone,and finally a wrong place at the wrong time barrel kill. Since then there have been no videos of late that have reached the same level of interest on the Internet (if I’m wrong, let me know). The game is still the first or second most played game on Live, by sheer volume there should be exciting and humorous videos being released all the time.

Forge had a lot of promise as well. The first amazing thing that came out of it was truly a work of art. Then we saw an amusing Mario tribute before degenerating to an over the top suicide competition.

Did gamers lose interest in these features? Did they forget about them? Maybe they’ve found it to be too time consuming to play with when they’d rather be actually playing the game. Maybe the community isn’t as creative as we hoped. Either way, it’s a shame.

Bungie should have implemented an easy export feature. Taking screen shots and the ability to share with other people who own 360’s and Halo 3 was not enough. There needed to be an easy way to either get the videos on your own computer or YouTube. This is where real editing can be done and peer review escalates exposure into the mainstream.

I fear that Ninja Gaiden’s feature will probably suffer the same fate, especially since there has yet to be some kind of competitive multiplayer mode announced that would, in my opinion, inspire the best videos.

Fun Friday: Portait Edition

Forge is an awesome addition to the Halo 3 package. I haven't spent a lot of time with it, but it gives very creative people an outlet to express them self through the game. One such player and Flickr user, Rit Dye, has used Forge to astonishing effect. It is sort of an optical illusion and plays on the 3D space but the end result is nothing short of amazing.

I Broke the Five Digit Barrier!

It took just over one and a half years, but I finally eclipsed the 10,000 point mark for my gamerscore. While it is a relatively low score in comparison to my friends and especially 360 players in general, I am quite proud of my accomplishment. I don't play a lot a games. For one, I don't necessarily play a lot of games. But more importantly, I'm very picky about the games I do play. I stay away from most sports games and popular franchises, as I look for games that provide new experiences and stories. Of the 483 achievements, two stand out above the rest.

• Most people get the Escape the Imperial Sewers first when playing Oblivion, I got it last. I had just received my 360 and didn't really understand the profile system just yet. I put in nearly 200 hours acquiring the other 49 achievements before I could allow myself to start a new game just to get the tutorial level achievement. So it's memorable to me because, while not terribly challenging to get all of the achievements in Oblivion, it took dedication.
• I have never been very good at twitch gaming. I always struggle in first person shooters, like Halo and Gears of War. However, on a fateful night in September, not only did I come from behind to win a Slayer match on Isolation, I did it in style; with an overkill earning achievement in the dying seconds of the match with the rocket launcher.

I've mentioned before and I'll say it again, achievements are one of the best features of the current generation of hardware. Furthermore, I find myself using websites like Achieve360Points to see what a games achievements are like before I make a purchase decision. Studies are even beginning to show that a more diverse list of achievements, meaning one that asks a player to play a game in ways they may or may not normally play, can lead to greater sales. Here's looking forward to my next 10,000 points!

Fun Friday: Halo 3 Edition

Halo 3 came out this week so needless to say, posting has been a little thin. Bungie has put together an amazing package with this game. In addition to standard campaign and multiplayer, the theater and forge elements are well above and beyond what anyone could have expected from this game. I believe it is safe to say that I will play this game for months to come. Inspired by N'gai Croal's posting earlier this week, above is my first multiplayer kill. That's me in the background and a very unlucky HARASSMENT OWNS getting splattered.

Ready to Finish the Fight!

It took almost three years, but I finally played all the way through Halo 2. I spent the last couple of nights playing through the original two games to refresh myself on the story and actually complete the second game. I did it on easy, which many may feel was cheating, but I wanted to get through the games quickly and it made me feel like the bad ass that Master Chief is as I stormed my way though waver after wave of the Covenant and the Flood.

Many people seemed to dislike the end of Halo 2 for it's abruptness, but I liked it. The game did a good job of setting up the third and the alliances between the Master Chief, the humans and the Elites, with converging story lines on multiple battlefronts. It's kind of like Empire Strikes Back in that sense. Although, I may not have liked it as much if I had to wait three years to find out what is going to happen. However, I think it's clear that the human race survives due to the museum and the "Believe" commercials, the questions remaining seem to be who will survive.

Goose Bumps

I'm a sucker for stark, moving music and movies that evoke emotions of honor and duty, movies like Saving Private Ryan, even Armageddon (I know it was cheesy). The new Halo 3 ad "Believe" gave me the same chills. Very nicely done.

An Eventful Week

It seems lots of things happened while I was away camping. Instead of going into too much detail I'll just hit up some details.

• Halo 3 pre-orders at 7-11: WTF??!??
• Resident Evil 5 trailer is racist?: No. You only have yourself to blame for feeling that way. Not all black people live in Africa. My first impressions were that they could have been in on a Caribbean Island, like Haiti, as well. Additionally, they are Zombies, not people. Please stop there. Thank you.
• GTAIV delayed! Nooooo!!!: Damn, now what am I going to get my wife on her birthday? Now, was it technological challenges or the PS3? I'm going with technological problems on the PS3.
• Marathon on XBLA makes you sick: No shit, I nearly needed a bucket after only five minutes. Thank god for demos or I would have been a very pissed off camper.

Initial Halo 3 Impressions

It took a couple of extra days to get my code, but it's finally here and I'm online. I had a chance to play about a half dozen matches, mostly on High Ground and a couple on Snowbound. My most immediate feeling was that I was having fun. FPS's are not my forte, but I was most definitely having more fun I would normally. Secondly, your character seems to move way too slow; like he's moving through molasses or something. This became especially apparent in Snowbound, where there is more open space. This may be improved if there were more people on the map. (I was in a 6-player rumble pit match getting my bearings.)

I did not see any glaring bugs or freezes. The only thing that really caught my attention is when the camera went through the ground after I died and showed the area outside of the game world. But still, nothing major. As far as balancing, I may not be the best judge as I'm not intimately familiar with the old nor the new weapons. However, it did seem that the rockets didn't fire fast enough and that the melee distance was tough to reconcile. Then again, maybe I'm just a noob!

Many people seem to be down on the graphics but I can honestly say that they weren't bad. They may not be up to hype standards but they were significantly improved upon from Halo2. The environments were crisp and detailed, things I believe to be hallmarks of a next generation game. Graphics, to me, aren't everything. It's in the details. Gone are the era of muddy, bland textures. The words now should have life and I saw that in the tease that Bungie is giving us. Furthermore, whether they improve the graphics before launch or not (I wouldn't hold your breath for a major overhaul, demos can be pretty indicative of the final product), Halo3 is about game play, pure and simple. If they can keep it fun, there is no reason to believe that this game will be a staple of Live for a very long time.

I'm in!

I feel special, especially since I'll be playing with everyone who buys Crackdown. (Which seems like a pretty good game in its own right, based on the demo.)