Halo2 stuff…
Ok, I’ve played a bunch of it over the last few days. I won’t give any spoilers.
Good: The single player campaign kicks ass. I went out and got an HDTV converter for the Xbox and that along with the Dolby surround sound really draws you in to the game. I don’t know how I could ever play again without the surround sound. You can hear the bad guys coming up on you from behind and know to turn to face them. Halo2 only supports 480p resolution on the HDTV part, it is much clearer and brghter using component inputs though. The graphics are amazing and the story line is interesting if a bit confusing to my 8 year old son.
Bad: Xbox Live support. It sucks. I’ve never seen a worse implementation of online gaming in my life. I’m not the only one who thinks so either. The forums at Bungie are full of people who hate the Live version like I do. You don’t get to pick the game you want. It uses ‘Optimatch’ to select what it thinks is the best game for you. “Wanna play plain old vanilla CTF on a map you like? Too bad. You’re playing Assault and you’ll like it. Maybe you’ll get CTF next time.” It takes anywhere from 2-3 minutes to finally find a match for you. You get to play for a whopping 6 minutes and then the game’s over. Back to the lobby for another 2-3 minute wait before it can get off it’s ass to find a new game for you. Just about the time you’re really getting into the match, it’s over. Once you start figuring out someone’s play style and how to defeat them you’re dumped out and the next match will have a completely different set of people. Online gaming has been around for years. Was it too tough to look at Gamespy, something fast and easy, and come up with something close to that? Bingie’s response, get some friends online and use the ‘party’ room to create your own match. I’m not online to make friends and only a couple of my friends even own Xboxes. I don’t want to make friends with a bunch of 14 year olds so I can play how I like. I just want to play what I want to play. I guess I’ll stick to playing against my son and friends who’ll bring over their Xbox for a system link game.