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Wednesday 5 March, 2008
Gamelog Entry #2
GAMEPLAY
I do have a small criticism of Halo 3 and the Halo series in general. I think that the series' characters are a bit underdeveloped. For example, no one really knows a lot about Master Chief's background, where he comes from, why he never takes his helmet off, etc. You do, however, get a solid basis of the core storyline describing the epic battles/wars between the alien species and the humans. Another character, for example, is Cortana. Again, no one knows where she came from, except that she is the amazing AI. Overall, I wish there was a little more description and character buildup in Halo 3.
One thing that Halo 3 did accomplish very well is flow in the game. I never found my playing experience interrupted by annoying text boxes or pauses in play to where I had to change weapons. The whole system of picking up weapons with the X Button and switching with the Y makes the game flow better. I personally find it very annoying when I have to pause the game to go to another screen just to change my weapon or item. I find the Xbox system of button pressing to be much more efficient.
DESIGN
One of my favorite elements of this game is the new addition of grenades and items that players can throw. For example, there is this shield called the bubble shield; no weapon can penetrate it and the people inside the shield cannot shoot the people outside of it. I personally find this to be a very innovative item that increases the possibilities of gameplay because you can use this bubble shield to come up with different strategies of defeating your enemies. For example, players can throw the shield on their enemies, run in really quickly, throw a grenade or two, and run out and watch the intensity of the grenades destroy their enemies.
Another item that I've had a lot of fun with is throwing air lifts. These are especially fun because you can strategically place them in certain areas to gain special items or avoid your enemies (or get to a key sniping position and gain the upper hand). All of these new items placed into the game adds in emergent qualities and allows the players to build new, more intense and intricate strategies. This also makes a very interesting round of Slayer.
Halo 3 helps foster social interactions among players because it helps the player release stress and anger (at times). It also is extremely fun to play with human players because they are better than any AI that could be programmed into the game. When given the weaponry and tools for annihilation, each player can come up with some very uniqe (and very hilarious) strategies at defeating people. This game also promotes extreme competitiveness through its 50/25 kill set up. The goal is to kill the most people out of all your other opponents - this leads to the extremely competitive nature of Halo 3 (and also the extremely addicting aspect of it).
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