Back in 2001 I eagerly pulled together my Dreamcast and games (don’t hate on me) ready to trade it in at the local Gamestation for a Nintendo Gamecube. I wandered in to ask about prices and so forth however something caught my eye. On a screen there was a demo Xbox with a copy of Halo playing. As the staff members counted up what my trade was worth I had a go and was blown away by the graphics, the feel of the game and the characters. I hadn’t been looking into an Xbox as a purchase but this immediately made me swap from the Gamecube to the big beefy American machine and I never regretted it.
Halo to me was the perfect combination of 1st person shooter and story. It really made me care for MasterChef and Cortana whilst making me feel like a powerful warrior, in the same vain as the best 40k novels about Space Marines. I loved the multiplayer too but it wasn’t until Halo 2 that this really kicked in and true console 1st person multiplayer shooters where born (I know there were many before this but this made it really viable and up to the level of PC gaming).
Jump forward 20 years plus and Halo Flashpoint is due put my Mantic games. Initially I wasn’t up for this game as what I really wanted was a big game full of Spartans, marines and warthogs fighting the Covenant and also heard it used the Deadzone engine which again didn’t excite me. This was as myself, Richard, Paul and Ryan (of the D&B parish) pumped in a load of money to the game when it first launched and only ever played it once. I then however was drawn into watching some videos of the gameplay and that was it. I can see what Mantic have gone for and it works. They want you not to feel the joys of the single player game but more the joys of the multiplayer games and I think they have this just right.
If your a fan of Halo check it out. I will be buying the Spartan edition of the game from Kendal’s friendly local gaming store Beer and Pretzel and hope to run games in the club. If anyone wants to try it out please do shout. I would love to get as many people as possible involved as I think this will work well along side the other games we have in the club as a quicker smaller ruleset.
Further thoughts to follow once I’ve played a game… until then this fight… is finished!
Ian
Dice and Bolter 