Well, that was a bit of a let down. The only things that stood out for me were one brand new (and kinda unexpected) Halo game, and one kinda expected (and brand new) Halo game. I’ll start with the kinda expected one, Halo Anniversary.
It looks utterly beautiful in stills, but I’m sad that they’ve not updated the animations at all. It still looks like a juddery Xbox game in terms of frame-rate or smoothness or whatever. It’s visually stunning, but still a little rough in motion. Maybe they’ll tighten it up between now and when it comes out. It will also include download codes for some new (old?) maps for Halo: Reach. Classics such as Beaver Creek, Damnation and that really popular one that was in the PC version of Halo. 6 multiplayer and 1 Firefight – should be ace.
I have one huge reservation about the brand new one, Halo 4. I’m not worried about new weapons, new maps, new armour abilities, new features… Nothing at all about multiplayer worries me, I can adapt to new mechanics, and I usually warm to them after a few weeks. No, it’s the single player portion that is most at risk. Combat-based games revolve around the forces you are up against, and can 343 Industries really come up with an opposing force that matches the Covvie menagerie? What got me into Halo in the first place was The Covenant. It was an absolute joy to fight them.
From the swift, intelligent Elites to the cumbersome but utterly fearsome Hunters, from the shield-wielding Jackals to the sheer numbers of Grunts, not one group of the original four enemy types were boring to shoot at, and in a game that revolves around shooting, that’s the whole point, surely. Even the newer enemies brought new elements to the table: Brutes and their sheer aggression, the speedy and erratic flight paths of Drones, the support role of the Engineers, the tremendous speed and agility of the SKirmishers… Can 343 create such a varied enemy force? I have my doubts. I’m hoping it won’t just be a Covenant carbon-copy – several different types of Forerunner that are functionally the same as the Covenant – Shiny armoured guy that is intelligent, little shiny armoured guys that throw grenades, shiny armoured guys with energy shields, fast shiny armoured guys that can jump high, you get the idea.
Also, I really hope The Flood return.
In terms of other stuff, there wasn’t really much at E3 that got me going. So… That’s that for another year.
Edit: Just remembered – Engineers are actually Forerunner created, the only difference is that Covenant Engineers have those big spiky backpacks that explode if humans get too near to them. Well, they did in ODST, but not in Reach, but you know what I mean.
