SDCC 2012 : Injustice - Hands On Impressions

Injustice was found in the DC comics booth in the exhibit hall much to my surprise. Injustice is a DC superhero game from the creators of Mortal Kombat. Thus, the combat system is very similar to Mortal Kombat as I discovered with my hands on impressions.

Basics

The game like Mortal Kombat is 1 v 1 in a 2D arena where winning a round/match means taking out an opponents life bar. Unlike other games where there is one life bar and several rounds to determine a match, your character has 2 life bars, which both must be taken out in order to win a round. A special note about 2 life bars is that, if you took a hit for half health, but your first life bar only had 1/3 left, you would only lose up to that first life bar, and the rest of the damage that was done is not transferred to the next life bar. This means it can be very important to decide when to use your most powerful attacks as you do not want to waste it when you won’t be doing as much damage.

The options you have in battle are rather simple, with 3 attack buttons (pressing B button on Xbox never seemed to do anything for me). Each of the three attack buttons were not associated to limbs as Mortal Kombat is, in fact I unfortunately could not tell the differences between the three. The combat engine itself is still rather different than Mortal Kombat and I really didn’t have enough time to fully explore the various moves and combos one could perform.

There are a lot of cool environmental interactions however. The Right and Left Triggers being used to trigger these effects. In the Fortress of Solitude level, there were teleporting machines on one side of the arena that could be used every few seconds to teleport from one teleporter to the other to perform a surprise attack. The Bat Cave level had a button that could be pressed that would fire a missile into the middle of the screen that could potential damage your opponent.

Like Mortal Kombat, there is an easy button for your Super attacks. Pressing Left and Right Trigger together will trigger your super attack, which varies from character to character. More on those later.

Roster and Character Impressions

As for the roster, its growing with more announcements to come. For this demo I was able to choose from Batman, Superman, Nightwing, Harley Quinn, Cyborg, Wonderwoman, Flash, and someone else I cannot quite remember. Each character has access to special moves and won super attack that differentiate themselves from one another. For example Superman has access to flight attacks, dashes, heat vision, frost breath, and a variety of other moves. Batman has many gadgets and quick acrobatic attacks. Harley Quinn has access to long range gun shots and some tricky moves for close range fights.

I played as Harley Quinn in my match and watched several matches with Nightwing, Superman, Batman, Cyborg and Flash.

Harley Quinn

Harley Quinn’s super was a smash with a hammer, knocking an opponent senseless with it then dashing towards them, feigning a punch but then instead sliding underneath them, and blowing them up with a cake. When I performed that movie most of the spectators laughed as they watched. Like I said earlier, she has access to a lot of long range attacks and some trickier moves. I unfortunately couldn’t pull them off and she is not as easy a character to play as say, Superman and has fewer moves.

Superman

Superman’s super has him dashing in towards an opponent, knocking them up into the sky with a mighty uppercut, well not really the sky, more like space. He then smashes them back into the ground, dealing massive damage.  Superman’s special attacks and normal moves are very balanced, a mix of close range, dashing attacks, long range heat vision attacks, and quick and slower moves. He was winning most of the games he was in but this is still very early on of course. He looks rather easy to pick up though and has a pretty large amount of moves.

Batman

Batman’s super had him doing a variety of kicks and punches onto his opponent as well as using his gadgets to stun them until eventually calling his batmobile, flipping over it as it runs into the opponent and smashes them away. His normal and special attacks are balanced much like Superman. He has access to a grapple gun to snare opponents and kick them away. He can also throw batarangs for long range damage (not sure if they are able to be thrown in the air). He also has access to a lot of acrobatic moves though I can’t remember too many of them. He has a rather large move list in general and seems easy to pick up like Superman.

Cyborg

Cyborg’s super wasn’t quite as interesting as the others, just a simple lazer beam to an opponents face. At least it looked pretty cool. He seems to be a heavy hitter and can still be rather fast. Unfortunately I didn’t catch too many of his moves but has access to a grapple that clings to the environment and can allow you to zip across the arena which allows a lot of mobility surprisingly. He does have access to some beam attacks thanks to the cannon on his arm.

Flash

Flash’s super had him punching the opponent several times at light speed before running around the world several times before smashing into an opponent with a powerful punch, then dashing behind them and kicking them one more time towards the ground. His attacks are very fast in general and all focus on getting up close to an opponent. He has no ranged moves but excels on closing the gap between opponents. A special note is that his dash along the ground is the longest and quickest in the game.

Nightwing

Unfortunately I did not see Nightwing’s super but he seemed to be extremely quick, faster than Batman for sure and fought with a staff. I can’t really say too much more about him since I was paying more attention to a monitor that had Flash on it at the time.

Final Thoughts

I can’t say much more about the other characters, I never got to watch a full match with them unfortunately. I wish I could have gotten more hands on time with it but it was still fun to watch and play nonetheless. I’m definitely keeping a close eye on this game now, because as a fighting game fan, and loving super heroes, who doesn’t want to see DC super heroes duke it out? 

SDCC 2012 : Sleeping Dogs - Hands On Impressions

One of the people working at the demo told me that this game was like GTA, open world but with a lot of focus on hand to hand combat and he was certainly right, at least for the demo.

The game takes place in Hong Kong, and I don’t know much else about the story except that my character is working with a drug dealer, and one of his customers hadn’t payed up. I was to make an example of him, so I set out to find him. The areas I followed were pretty large, filled with crowds bustling around the streets, street vendors and stalls selling goods (That I could not buy), the city looked like it had plenty of life. It was also night time and there were plenty of lit signs and overall atmosphere that really made me feel like I was in Hong Kong.

Exploring and Chase

Walking around Hong Kong, I had access to a map and quest marker just as any open world game would have. It allowed me to easily make my way to find a person who would have a lead on my target. I got to the quest marker, talked to the guy (Automatic dialogue, there were no choices on what to say) and eventually found the target.

He immediately began to run away and a chase seen like many of the great action movies began. My options were to sprint holding the A button, slide with the X button over stalls quickly, and A again to jump over small walls. The chase was actually very fun and rather intense. My target would frequently push things in my way, including people that would actually halt my progress. If I ran into someone, I would have to push them away or might even trip over something he pushed if I wasn’t careful. I even got caught into someone, pushing them several times because they were still in my way and slowing me down even more. It’s easy to tell this was still scripted as it looked like he stopped at one point for me to catch up and continue the chase. Nevertheless it was still fun.

Combat System

I eventually caught up to him where he sent thugs after me and this is where the combat section of the demo began. The focus was solely on melee combat so I am not sure if there are guns in this game but the combat was definitely great. It was very similar to Batman : Arkham Asylum / Arkham City in fact.

I had access to a normal attack, a counter attack and a grapple. The counter attack could be activated when an enemy glowed briefly, allowing me to open them up for a pummelling from my normal attacks or a grapple. Enemies would also block which made my normal attacks useless so I had to either try a grapple (which didn’t always work) or wait for a counter attack. I wasn’t sure if I could actually block in that game, I didn’t remember seeing a button for it.

The most interesting option was the grapple. When I grabbed an opponent I had a few options. Repeatedly punch in the face and knock him away, throw him which could hit other enemies as well, or the most satisfying option, the environmental reactions. I could pretty much slam him into anything I saw, with interesting consequences. I slammed one opponent’s face into a wall, one into a rail, another into a dumpster, one into a pole and the most gruesome one I found in the demo was putting one thug, face first into a spinning Air condition fan. Unfortunately his face looked relatively unharmed when it emerged from the fan, despite the large amount of blood from the fan attack.

I had to fight several thugs at a time which made it important not to attack too often since you couldn’t activate the counter attack if you were already in attacking animation. Grappling someone away from a fight was also a useful tactic. Once I defeated the first thugs, my target retreated high up on a building, and I was forced to use a dumpster to get up to reach him. The demo ended with one final fight, beating up my target senseless to make an example of him and then getting caught by the police.

Overall it was a pretty fun demo and the combat was definitely satisfying. It will be interesting to see how the game turns out but this one is also on my radar now.

SDCC 2012 : Tomb Raider - Hands On Impressions

I managed to get my hands on the SDCC demo of the new reboot for the Tomb Raider Franchise. For those that don't know, the franchise has been rebooted into a game more focused on survial then kicking ass in dungeons and temples. They are very much trying to set the character into a more grounded reality.

Basic Movement and Beginning of Demo

The demo was titled Pre-Beta Hunting Demo, which obviously shows what the demo was about. The demo started with teaching me the basic controls and movement. I could walk around, jump and interact with the environment, nothing too fancy yet. When controlling Lara, the animation for her movements was very realistic and she even clutched her stomach as she was wounded at an earlier point in the game.

I started off on the Cliffside and made my way towards the wreckage of a plane. I jumped onto it as it was the only way to make it to the otherside of the cliff and was quickly engaged by a quick time event to stay on. I grappled my way across with basic jumps and movements, having to press the X button every now and then if the part I was holding onto started to break. It was very reminiscent of controlling Nathan Drake in Uncharted when exploring the environment.


Hunting

Soon enough I made my way across to find shelter in a cave nearby which triggered a cutscene. Time skipped to the daytime once again and my new goal was to find food. I discovered a body with a bow, hanging from a tree which I made my way up to and snagged the bow. The controls for shooting the bow were simple enough and easy to control, pretty much holding left trigger than right trigger to fire as is the standard in FPS games.

I found a dear nearby and had to watch it from a distance because any movement near it that was too loud would scare it away. I lined up a shot and shot it in the side but it still survived so I had to fire 2 more arrows in order to fell it finally. Another cutscene were Lara had to end the poor beast’s life showed how badly Lara felt for it.

Upgrades

The demo pretty much ended with me making my way back up to the shelter and ended with one final cutscene radio-ing for help, managing to contact one of the other survivors. Before it ended I was able to choose from a variety of upgrades that would help me in the future (not in this demo). There were options such as retrieving arrows from bodies of enemies you’ve slain, gaining more health from herbs, gaining more experience from picking up certain plants in the environment, and unfortunately I was a bit rushed so I didn’t get to see what other upgrades were available.


Final Thoughts

There wasn’t any ground breaking gameplay in this demo, but what I found intriguing was actually the cutscenes. They really felt more grounded in reality and survival than most other games I have played and thanks to the great animation for Lara, we can really see how she feels and reacts in the situations around her. You can tell she is trying to get used to this idea of surviving and that’s it very difficult.

The upgrades give me more hope that there will be more to the gameplay. The demo was purposely linear but I have a feeling the game will be more open world in the final game. The various upgrades I saw hinted at exploring and picking up a lot items, which a linear game would have more trouble doing than a free world game. Also its an entire island so there should be a lot to explore. This is all however just speculation and my thoughts on what the final game might be like.

In any case, I found the survival and story enjoyable to experience and see and the gameplay was still fun thanks to the immersion. I’m looking forward to hearing more about the game and now it’s definitely on my radar of games to buy.

SDCC 2012 : Resident Evil 6 - Hands On Impressions

I won’t be covering the basics of the franchise, I assume everyone already knows what Resident Evil is, and with the upcoming Resident Evil 6 coming out, there is already plenty of coverage on it. Now an important thing to note is that recently a demo came out for Resident Evil 6 for xbox and playstation for those who bought Dragon’s Dogma. However the demo and San Diego Comic Con is not the same and features 3 completely new levels, one for each of the 3 protagonists Leon, Chris and Jake.

Unfortunately I only had 30 minutes to play and I was only able to get through Leon and Chris’ levels. I didn’t get enough time to get to Jake’s level. Like other previews have stated, Leon focuses more so on survival horror, while Chris involves more FPS, style of gameplay.

In general, each character controls rather similarly. You look around from a third person perspective, and you’re also able to switch which shoulder the camera is looking over the character on the fly. To aim your gun, you have to hold one of the left triggers and to shoot you press one of the right triggers. You can also use melee attacks if you aren’t currently aiming. This can help save bullets but what I noticed from the demo is that it looks like you can only hit one enemy at a time, where as in other games melee attacks could just knock a row of opponents away. This makes it so you can’t just run up to a huge mob and wail away at them.

Resident Evil 6, like Resident Evil 5 has coop, and does so in each of its 3 campaigns. Unfortunately I was not given the option of using any character’s partner for this demo. I also didn’t get the chance to do any partner sensitive actions besides just opening doors as a checkpoint to have both characters together.

Walkthrough - Leon

Leon S. Kennedy

Leon’s took place in a college campus. I was immediately put into the middle of the area, with only a handful of bullets. Walking throughout the campus, I was able to pick up a few supplies by exploring, finding some much needed ammo as well as medicinal herbs to heal. I was only equipped with a pistol so the ammo was limited to that gun.

The atmosphere was very dark, with few lights scattered around to make the room more visible and illuminate nearby zombies. The beginning area was easy enough and still rather creepy and eventually made my way to the outside where I needed to find a key to get through a door. I made my way towards where the key might be found and suddenly zombies exploded through the windows.

I also became trapped in the hallway I was currently located, with only my gun between the zombies and myself.  The ammo I picked up became very important now but there were just so many zombies that I was running out, making the event pretty intense. Thankfully I still had access to my melee attacks and used them to keep close zombies at bay to conserve ammo until I was able to hold out and get out of there.

Soon enough I got back to the door where the key was needed and entered inside. I then proceeded to foolishly walk through a metal detector with gun in hand. I’ve a feeling I actually could have gone through without setting it off, but its impossible to tell without another playthrough. The alarm went off and zombies charged at us from behind. I made a run for it, having to hoard my way through a few zombies that were still in our path and made it to a police car. Some intense quick time events followed and I was able to get away in the police car before flipping over because of a zombie. The demo for Leon pretty much ended there.

What I liked about Leon’s section was the atmosphere. So far it was pretty scary, though not nearly as frightening as the earlier resident evil games. I still had a sense of empowerment in being able to use melee moves and overall be able to move faster and less tank like in Resident Evil 5, but the scarcity of ammo still made my character feel vulnerable. If I had to run into any of the deadly monsters of Resident Evil besides zombies, than I definitely would have been even more frightened, due to my lack of ammo.

Walkthrough – Chris

Chris Redfield

Playing as Chris was definitely different. Though there were enemies with weapons in Resident Evil 5, they weren’t that many of them. However in this demo, which took place in Eastern Europe with snow blistering around in a city, was an urban warzone. I followed behind armored cavalry, while machine gun fire rained down from above by zombie soldiers. Yes I had to face against zombie soldiers with guns. It essentially turned Resident Evil into a FPS. In fact one of Chris’ unique quirks is that he is able to use cover, when aiming next to a piece of viable cover. (It’s also possible Leon can do this but I never tried to aim next to a wall like that. He wouldn’t have much use for it though anyways).

I played terribly but fought my way up, shooting and melee-ing nearby enemies next to my partner and other allies. Unlike Leon who had access only to a pistol, I had a pistol, assault rifle, knife and grenades. Ammo was much more plentiful this time around, with almost every other enemy dropping a box of ammo for handguns or for pistol. The action was definitely far more fast paced, with much more deadly enemies all around due to their possession of machine guns and other weapons.

Eventually I fought my way on top of a wall to find a giant B.O.W (Bio Organic Weapon), a monster that towered above all the surrounding structures, climbing over a rooftop and heading straight my way. It was a massive enemy that reminded me much of a Brumak from Gears of War in it’s appearance. It eventually broke the wall, forcing my character to leap away. From there I had to run away and find a good position to shoot it and hold out till reinforcements arrived.

I am not sure if it was a time event or if I finally did enough damage, but it took forever for the cutscene to get me out to occur. I ran out of ammo for a while, unable to shoot at it’s vulnerable, fleshy… sac. Thankfully some enemies spawned around my safe area so I could kill them for ammo. Eventually the cutscene did trigger though and it was chased away by allied armored vehicles. From there I continued to follow behind the armored vehicles, encountering more zombie soldiers along the way until, unfortunately my demo time ran out and I had to leave.

It definitely gave me a good impression of how Chris would play, pretty much like a FPS, but Resident Evil style. The atmopshere for Chris was much brighter, much more packed with action and explosions. It aims to recreate the intensity of some of the action in Resident Evil 5 and pretty much leave behind the horror portion of Resident Evil for his campaign. 

Final Thoughts

Jake

The overall the atmosphere and gameplay in Chris and Leon's campaigns is very different and Capcom has been able to capitalize on highlighting those differences. Unfortunately I didn’t get to play Jake to see how much different his campaign was but maybe if I have another shot at the demo booth I may. Overall the Resident Evil 6 Demo ws really good and provided a great sample of the playstyle and environments in the campaigns.

SDCC 2012 : Halo 4 Multiplayer - Hands on Impressions

At Comic Con they had the exhibitors hall where many of the big companies from various industries would show merchandise, marvellous set pieces, give out goodies, as well as providing hands on access to demos. I had the chance on Wednesday to take part in a Halo 4 multiplayer match.


To anyone who knows Halo, the franchise has a certain feel that has defined many Shooters on the console. I won’t go into detail about the basics of how a Halo game works, instead I will talk about the differences between the old games and new things I was able to see.


Customization

Before the start of the match, we had access to variety of ways to personalize our Spartan. Like Halo 3 and Reach, we could add on a variety of different aesthetic armor upgrades for shoulders, chest, legs, helmet, etc. The variety present at the demo was pretty nice, some familiar from Reach and Halo 3 and some entirely new.

The most notable thing was the inclusion of loadouts. In Halo Reach you had classes with certain armor abilities with weapons attached. These were default classes with certain weapons though these could be tweaked to have different weapons in custom game modes. But the loadouts in Halo 4 are more akin to Call of Duty. You’re able to select your primary and secondary weapon as well as armor ability. So now you don’t always have to start out with an assault rifle if you don’t want to, you can start with a pistol and a battle rifle. The weapons you are able to select from the load out are limited however, no one will be starting with a sniper rifle or rocket launcher. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the whole list of weapons to choose from.

We started the match with 6 vs 6 players. Once we actually got into the game, I could immediately see the graphics looked really good. I am not certain if they used the Reach engine or not but the graphics looked incredible. It ran at a solid 30 FPS with no hiccups and the visuals from particles to textures all looked fantastic.

Map : Longbow

I played on a map called Longbow, revealed recently at E3. I am not sure if this is the same build as E3 or if they had a build for Comic Con however.  It’s a snowy map, with a lot of trenches and changes in elevation but also with fairly long stretches of open space, perfect for long range and mid range combat. The map was big enough to allow the use of vehicles such as the mongoose and ghost but not big enough for the scorpion or tank.

There were snipers rifles positioned for each team strategically, and a Spartan laser in the middle of the map for the teams to fight over. There were a lot of areas that could go for decently long stretches, making the battle rifle very effective. I found myself in more long range firefights than close range so I made ample use of the range of battle rifle and pistol. There were some coordidors for close quarters fighting but for the most part there weren’t that many. There were no shotguns present so I assume this map really does go for mid to long range battles.

Weapons

The new Battle Rifle

The weapons themselves felt very responsive. I found myself loving this battle rifle even more. It felt more accurate and could fire a bit more rapidly than in Halo Reach.  I honestly liked the feel of this rifle more than reach even though it was still single shot. I got a chance to use the Spartan Laser once, and doesn’t seem quite as powerful now. I shot a warthog with it and in any other Halo game it would have been a one hit kill hitting any part of the vehicle. Either I have to target a more vital area of the warthog to one hit kill it or it’s power overall is just reduced.

Spartan wielding an Assault Rifle

The pistol felt like a balance between the power of Reach and Halo 1, not being overpowered like Halo 1 but a bit more useful than it was in Halo Reach. Unfortunately I didn’t try the assault rifle for very long, nor any other weapons but the assault rifle seemed more accurate and could be fired in bursts for decent accuracy. More accurate than the games at least, it looked overall more useful. Since the map had so much long range, I opted not to use it though.

I was on a killing spree most of the time so unfortunately I completely forgot about my armor abilities for the most part. The one I had equipped is not present in any other Halo game however. I am not sure what its called but it summoned a energy shield in front of me, much like a riot shield. I was not able to fire but no bullet would penetrate it while I held it up. This could be used in a lot of tactical situations, such as distracting the enemy or providing cover for my teammates. Most of the time I wasn’t next to my teammates so it never got much use.

Final Thoughts

The final score ended with us doubling the enemy teams score. I’m not sure how many kills I got but one of the 343 industries helpers watching me and some other spectators were impressed so I must have done pretty good. Unfortunately I was so into using the new battle rifle that I forgot to be looking for hands on time with other weapons and armor abilities, a mistake on my part but I had fun anyways, it was definitely a blast.

343 industries is doing a great job in the multiplayer portion of Halo 4, it was a fantastic experience, one of the highlights of my day. Hopefully they will do just as great a job in the single player portion as well. If there were any doubts about 343 industries before, they are gone from my mind now. I can’t wait to play Halo 4 when it comes out.

SDCC 2012 : Playstation All Stars Battle Royale - Impressions

Overview

As you may or may not have heard, Sony has decided to come out with it’s own game that meshes its various franchises together for epic battles in arenas from all it’s various franchises. The game is in fact a Playstation version of Super Smash Brothers.

Many comparisons are drawn to Super Smash Brothers for good reason. The game is in a 3D engine like Smash Brothers but takes place in a 2D fighting plane, only going up, down, left and right. The controls are simplistic, move around the environment and battle it out against up to 3 other players. You have 3 attack buttons, a super attack button, jump button and a block button. Pressing different directions for your attack buttons will yield different attacks unique to each character. This all sounds very similar to Super Smash Brothers and executes very similarly so if you have any idea how to play Super Smash Brothers then you will have a good idea how to move around and attack.

The difference comes in how you defeat other players. There are no “percentages” which determine how far an opponent in flung around the arena. The goal of the game isn’t to knock people off, but just to defeat them. However there is no life bar either, so how do you defeat them when it’s not knocking them off the arena or taking out their life bar? Well the frustrating thing is, I didn’t know at the time I played. I just kept attacking others and hoped it would take them out. It was only after I read an article of impressions on Playstation All Stars that I discovered you could only take opponents out by using a Super Move.

Super Moves are only usable when you gain levels of super meter, up to 3 bars. 1 bar yields a super attack, but 2 bars yields a better, larger one, and 3 let’s you use your ultimate ability. Since these are the only ways of actually earning a KO on an opponent, then there becomes a great importance on gaining super meter and saving it up to earn a bunch of KOs at once. However this also leads to the problem of your normal attacks basically doing nothing to an opponent and gaining meter being your only reward.

Since I didn’t have that much time with the game (yet) its hard to say whether this is a good or bad thing. But my initial thoughts have been that it was not obvious I had to use those and Super attacks are as obvious to see on screen. There are no flashy effects appearing to designate someone is using a super attack so it will take some time to get used to what certain character’s super attacks are.

Character Impressions

The character selection comes from a wide variety of Playstation titles (not all of them exclusive to Playstation games). There is Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Kratos from God of war, Heihachi Mishima from Tekken, Fat Princess from… Fat Princess, Sly Cooper, Helghast from Killzone, etc. There were about 10 characters available in my demo (can't remember them all) and though I only got to play as Nathan Drake and Kratos, they played pretty differently and unleashed moves that bring homage to their games.

I had the most time with Drake and he played as a mix of melee and range. He had access to a handgun, and machine gun as the default attack for two attack buttons. His other attack button I was able to use hand to hand moves, do  a drop kick when in the air and also toss a grenade upwards that explodes after a short amount of time. I can’t quite remember all of the moves but it reminds me a lot of Solid Snake’s playstyle in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. It would be weird if Snake also got in this game and see how the two characters would be different.  His Super attacks consisted of a really powerful explosive (This probably isn’t right, I can’t remember everything from the play session) for his level 1, and his level 2 consisting of pushing over a large pillar onto enemies nearby (This is right though). I never got to use his level 3 so I am not sure.

Kratos on the otherhand plays as viciously as his normal counterpart. He has access to his Blades up close for one attack button and can extend them into chains to unleash far reaching blade attacks in another. He also has access to a bow on his third button, able to rapidly fire arrows which slowly gain meter when hitting. I only had less than a minute to play him so I don’t recall any of his supers (Someone was playing and just stopped so I just continued from where he left the game paused).

Both seemed like fun characters but either I wasn’t pressing all the buttons in different directions, or there weren’t that many moves to choose from. I don’t believe it’s possible to “SMASH” the direction pad or stick like in Smash Brothers, since that gave you access to additional attack in Smash Bros, here it didn’t seem to work so I wasn’t able to use as many attacks. I can’t say 100% if this is true or not since I had a total of about 5 minutes to play.

Closing Thoughts

If I get my hands on the game again I am going to try those, look for more Super attacks and look at the amount of meter gained between the different attack buttons. I have a good suspicion that attack button 1 is close range, attack button 2 is mid range attacks and attack button 3 is long range, and that button 1 gives you the most meter while button 3 gives you the least. I will try and confirm this.

Nevertheless the game was still fun and its more interesting looking at it in hindsight then I did while playing the game. I need to dig in the mechanics to see more on how it works and the importance of building up meter and such. That’s it for now though, hope you enjoyed the impressions.

Tunes of the Week - Halo 3 and Halo Reach

Building on the memorable themes from Halo and Halo 2, Composer Martin O'Donnell makes the finale of the Halo Trilogy even more memorable. The Soundtracks of Halo and Halo 2 are all memorable but I find Halo 3 to be the most enjoyable of them all. They give a fitting finale to the trilogy in a large majority of its songs. The main theme of Halo is also remixed quite a bit through the Soundtrack but always in a very enjoyable way. Most specifically the piano version of the main theme I like the most in the entire soundtrack.

Halo 3 - Main Theme (Piano Version)

Halo 3 - Halo Reborn

Halo 3 - Final Level Theme

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Martin O'Donnell did fantastic work with the Halo franchise, helping to make the game's music as Epic as it's setting. But even better than the Halo 3 Soundtrack was the Halo Reach soundtrack. It did not feature the main theme of Halo very prominently at all in the soundtrack but built upon rather different themes. The soundtrack helped to show that the planet of "Reach" was a unique place, and that it should be fitted with music that would differentiate itself from the normal themes of Halo. Most of the music you hear in Reach is not present in Halo 1 to 3. It makes the game certainly feel more seperated from the trilogy and all of the music composed is really well done. Personally I enjoyed the Halo Reach Soundtrack more than the Halo 3 soundtrack.

Halo Reach - Overture

Halo Reach - Winter Contigency

Halo Reach - Tip of the Spear

Halo Reach - Epilogue