Tuesday 15 January, 2008

Summary:
Halo is a first person shooter game in which you are an alien running around shooting other aliens.
First Gameplay:
I don’t usually play video games and so far I am really not a fan of halo. When playing halo the controller has two movement options. The left toggle moves your character forward and back, and the right toggle moves your character to the side as well as moves your view up and down. I think that it is a huge design flaw that the right toggle does both actions because I spent my first hour playing Halo trying to actually see. I was either looking up at the ceiling or looking down at the floor and I couldn’t see any of the aliens I was trying to shoot.
This made the game very frustrating, and didn’t make it any easier to follow. The storyline isn’t clear, and it’s very hard to relate to the characters considering that they are aliens. I would say that I don’t think of Halo as a fun game, and I think that I would prefer other types of games.

Second Gameplay:
My second round of Halo, was much more successful. This time I actually figured out how to move and look where I wanted to look. I was able to shoot the aliens and not die every few seconds. I said before that I didn’t like the feature where the toggle does two actions but it is actually an ingenious design. There is no other way that you would be able to efficiently and quickly look up and down to find the aliens to shoot. I also learned how to work with my teammate and protect him while he protected me. Once I was able to work with my teammate I felt like I had more of a purpose and I was able to find the game more enjoyable.
Design:
I still don’t think that Halo was designed very well. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and that made it harder to kill the bad aliens. When there isn’t a purpose or a goal behind the killings then it doesn’t inspire you to do them. I feel like if there was more of a story line established at the beginning of the game then it would be more inspiring.
I forgot to mention that I was playing Halo 2, and I’m sure that the graphics are much better in Halo3, but I wasn’t impressed with these graphics. The surroundings could have been much more interesting and different, because most of the rooms and halls all looked the same. It was hard to find the aliens when you couldn’t tell if you had already been in a room or not.
Overall I still wouldn’t call Halo one of my favorite games, it was a little too fast paced, and too full of shooting for my taste, but I definitely like it better than my first try at playing it.

First off, you need to put each game session in it's own log. Secondly, please space each paragraph to make it easier to read. That said, it's always interesting to see the evolution of a person's opinion from entry to entry. You bring up a good point about character motivation that is often overlooked by most players.


- David Seagal (Grader)