Let’s start by calling Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary what it is: a cheap money grab playing off the tenth anniversary of the Halo franchise. With that business out of the way, let me point out what else the Anniversary edition is: a beautiful looking re-enactment of the classic that kept the Xbox alive. Surprisingly, the game still feels relatively fresh all things considered, although things that were annoying ten years ago still are annoying now. Is it worth checking out, or for die hards only?

The Highs
For starters, Halo looks great in HD. There is a neat feature where you can hit the select button and switch between the original graphics and the remade ones and the difference is stunning. I guess it should be expected considering the new hardware, but it still is a sight to behold.

Halo remains an excellent game after the last ten years. There are some great moments that still hold up after all this time. Looking back, I think Bungie did a great job – splitting Master Chief and Cortana before the Flood reveal, the various twists and turns in the plot, and other moments throughout the campaign.

Another high is the combat itself. Halo’s subtitle was combat evolved, and it really did change the face of gaming in a lot of ways. First of all, it proved that first person shooters could work on a console, of course, now they are a dime a dozen. More importantly, the combat is difficult and challenging, even annoyingly so at times. I played through the entire campaign on Normal and died way more than I should die at that difficulty level. It was a different time back then, and games have definitely gotten easier. Still, playing through Halo again made me realize how fresh and unique the combat was at the time.

Overall, the presentation is great. The music has been remastered, so that sounds good, and everything looks good as well as I said. In general, if you are a Halo fan, this is probably worth having, if only to be able to play the original game again. Of course, if you’re a Halo fan, you also know some of the series’ problems.

The Lows
I’m not sure if they were working off the old engine, but my only fault with the redesigned look is that the mouths don’t always sync up to the audio. It generally isn’t a problem because of Master Chief’s helmet, but it still should be noted.

The real lows are the things that have annoyed me about the original Halo since release. A lot has been written about the amount of backtracking in the original game, and it’s mostly true. It’s annoying! By my count, at least 5 of the 10 levels take place in the same areas. Not only are you backtracking a lot, but a lot of the levels look exactly the same. Also, I remember hating the Library (which is still awful and awfully hard, for what it’s worth), but I didn’t remember how much I hated the level AFTER that. It definitely got a little tedious in some of those middle chapters.

Since everything looks the same, it’s also relatively easy to get lost. The game has compensated for this with some markers on the ground with the new graphics, and they are VERY welcome. I think it cut down my getting lost by like 75%.

What may or may not be a low for you is the sheer difficulty of the game. As I mentioned, the combat can be quite unforgiving. Check points occur at random times, they don’t always pop up and if you miss one it can really suck to lose a significant amount of progress. Also, I’m not sure if it was due to my playstyle or due to the game itself, but I found myself very low on ammo a lot of times. It kind of made the game survival horror-y, which was cool, but it also could get frustrating. Your mileage will vary depending on the type of game you like.

Final Thoughts
All in all, I enjoyed Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary more than I thought I would. It was a nice bit of nostalgia, and the game still shines all these years later. After I finished the game I found myself on Wikipedia just reading up on some of the lore and stuff like that (it can get confusing!) Is this remake a cash grab? Most definitely. But is it worth the cash? I’d say so – and I didn’t even bother to go online to get killed by 10-year olds on Hang Em High. Actually, come to think of it, they weren’t even born when this game came out. Maybe I’ll go find them and frag them after all!

Final Grade: A-

I don’t have time at work (or at home, for that matter) to keep up with every single thing going on at E3. Still, I like to stay abreast of what’s going on, and some things are EXCITE, while others are…meh. Then there is the stuff that just makes me say, “What the…” After the jump, I detail what’s what from E3.

EXCITE

New and Old Halos
I know this announcement was meh for some, but I’m a sucker for new Halo stuff. Microsoft announced Halo 4, and also the original Halo remake – I’d like to play the original in HD and hopefully with a shorter library level. I also have missed Master Chief and Cortana in ODST and Reach, so I think it’ll be good to see them again. I don’t know if Halo can still be innovative, but I’m interested to find out.

The Threes
Uncharted 3. Mass Effect 3. Modern Warfare 3. Battlefield 3. Gears of War 3. A few years ago we were hit by all the sequels, it feels like this year is the year of the threequels and I cannot wait! The trailers that came out for these games leading up to and during E3 accomplished what they set out to do: they got me pumped to play these games. I’m happy Mass Effect 3 got pushed, because I don’t know how I’m going to have time to play all these games. There’s even going to be a Far Cry 3!

Meh.

Playstation Vita and Nintendo 3DS
The more I think about it, the more I think Sony and Nintendo are missing the point with their handhelds. I think that era is over – the casual gaming market dominates the pocketsized landscape. Yes, it is cool that I can take my PS3 game with me on the go, but what if I don’t get to a save point by the end of my bus ride? I should just play Words With Friends instead. And hey, Nintendo – gonna release some actual games for the 3DS…ever!?

Kobe Bryant
Seriously Sony? You want to win back our hearts with Kobe Bryant, probably the second most hated NBA player on the planet besides Lebron James? Oh, and you want to add Move support to a game that people absolutely love the way it is (NBA 2K)? Great idea!

Kinect
Dear Microsoft, nobody who actually cares about video games cares enough about Kinect for you to dedicate so much time to it. Nobody wants to yell orders at their screen in Mass Effect and get further mocked by their wives. Also, did you know that headsets act as audio inputs and only cost $15 as opposed to $150? Here’s an idea: let’s just call Kinect “Dance Central”. It’s like buying instruments in Rock Band, except you need to buy the Kinect to play Dance Central.

What the…

Wii U
I still don’t know how I feel about this. I keep vacillating between “this is going to be completely stupid” to “this sounds amazing!” First, the stupid stuff. Obviously, the name. Too easy. Secondly, it seems pretty risky to have such a large controller with a 6.2 inch screen on it. That sounds kind of bulky: Nintendo is taking dual screens to a whole new level. Thirdly, am I going to want to play Assassin’s Creed on a Nintendo console? It’s a shrewd move business wise, but it doesn’t really excite me personally.

Now for the exciting stuff. The idea of playing the game on the controller screen if my wife wants to change the TV channel is intriguing. Also, the whole concept is innovative: take your game on the go, use it as a media center type thing, etc. etc. I’m also willing to give Nintendo a little bit of rope since they proved to be so successful with the Wii (even though I never play mine). Can they win back the hardcore gamers with the Wii U? The name certainly isn’t going to help, but I’m interested in seeing what happens.

Final Thoughts
I get the feeling video games are going to like incredibly different in 10 years. Yes, that’s obvious, but as the people buying video game consoles get more and more diverse, the fundamental function of the consoles is going to change. They are already becoming media centers, in 10 years, who knows what they will do. I’ll tell you one thing I’m happy about from E3: I don’t think I saw any stuff about 3D. YAY!

It all boils down to this: our game of the year for 2010. cmfl3x and I had some discussion over the various games we decided to nominate for game of the year this year, so have a look and see what we have to say. Keep in mind that all games on this list are worth playing, but if you can only play one…look no further than our game of the year.

Nominees for Game of the Year 2010

Bayonetta

espion4ge: I’m slightly sad that cmfl3x never got into Bayonetta like I did, so it’s been all me pushing for Bayonetta in the various award categories as well as getting it an entry here in one of this year’s top games. By now, all of you have probably read how much I have gushed over Bayonetta – and it’s for what I would call good reason: it is probably the best action/adventure game ever made. Of course, this is going to be debatable, since its storyline simply cannot compare to games like God of War, but for me, most games come down to the gameplay and Bayonetta was an adrenaline rush from start to finish. You know an action game is good when you can sit and play through it multiple times in a row and still have so much fun. I think the only reason I stopped playing the game was that I beat it on its hardest difficulty so there wasn’t much left for me to do!

What I love most about Bayonetta is the combination of the sultry heroine and the feeling of being a total badass once you get the combat system. Then you can feel almost like an artist as you traverse the screen tearing apart bad guys and getting graded accordingly for it. If you enjoy action/adventure games – do not miss this game.

Mass Effect 2

cmfl3x: I don’t have much to say about Bayonetta, but I didn’t get to write about Mass Effect 2 and I just want to say I LOVED it. As espion4ge mentioned, Mass Effect 2 improved a lot of the shortcomings in the original. What I love about Mass Effect 2 is that your choices from the first game are persistent – I really felt like they had an effect on the Mass Effect world. Moreover, Mass Effect 2 introduced a lot of new cool characters, and almost (almost) introduced an acceptable Wrex substitute. The gameplay improved a lot as well. I love Bioware’s dialogue trees, and Mass Effect 2 is a worthy successor to one of my favorite games of all time.

espion4ge: Mass Effect 2 is my runner-up for game of the year in 2010. BioWare has really turned the Mass Effect series into something quite amazing with the sequel. It improves many aspects of the original game, making for quite an enjoyable game from a gameplay standpoint. It comfortably walks the thin line between RPG and shooter, allowing for fans of both genres to have fun. It weaves an interesting storyline that actually continues choices you made in the original game by checking your save game file. The last time I saw something even remotely similar to this was in the orignal Metal Gear Solid game where Psycho Mantis was telling me I liked to play Castlevania and Suikoden (two other Konami games). Mass Effect 2 deserves all of the accolades it has won, and I highly encourage anyone even remotely interested in the game to check it out.

Heavy Rain

espion4ge: As a new PS3 owner this year, Heavy Rain was the top PS3 title of the year that I wanted to play. Of course, with my brother and cmfl3x both already having played through the game and loving it, I instead decided to devote my time towards other games to write about for you readers. I hear nothing but good things about the game, and it looks to be a very unique experience that the Xbox 360 has not yet been able to provide. Hopefully I get around to it in the coming months, but for now, I’ll let cmfl3x do the gushing on this one.

cmfl3x: The best thing about Heavy Rain is that it takes risks for video games in general. It has a radical control scheme (basically everything is a quick time event), and its emphasis on story really makes gamers feel like their decisions have weight. It’s probably a good argument in the “are games art?” debate, but I don’t usually mess around with those deliberations. The thing I loved most about Heavy Rain is that I really wanted to see how the story played out AND I also felt like I had a huge role to play in the story. When you are “fighting” bad guys, it’s nerve wracking – make the wrong move and your character might die. It’s tough to explain, but I really felt more involved in Heavy Rain than I do in other games. I think every PS3 owner should at least rent it to feel how different it is – it is truly a unique game in a sea of copycats.

Halo: Reach

cmfl3x: The next game on our list is Halo: Reach. Of course, the last Bungie developed Halo title needed to be on the list, so it’s a good thing that Reach is one of the best. Although I miss the openness of ODST, I did enjoy the story in Reach and I thought the multiplayer tweaks were good as well. Reach was the game that finally made espion4ge a believer in the Halo series, so I’ll let him finish up.

espion4ge: While Halo: Reach is not what I would consider innovative as it has built on previous Halo titles, it is what I call THE “definitive” Halo experience. In the box, Reach provides a decent campaign, several co-op options through the Campaign and Firefight modes, multiplayer, and an experience point system that ties all of the modes together into your single Halo: Reach profile. If you like Halo, you already have Halo: Reach, and if you don’t have it yet but are considering it – you won’t be disappointed. It’s the series that saved the Xbox and is probably responsible for the Xbox 360 today!

Call of Duty: Black Ops

espion4ge: Treyarch has come a long way with its share of Call of Duty games, and Black Ops is the studio’s best game – netting it a spot on this list of top games of the year. Like its competitor, Halo: Reach, it provides a full package of an interesting campaign, co-op zombies, and a full-fledged multiplayer. While the Call of Duty series is starting to get a bit worn out, Black Ops carries the torch well and will keep Call of Duty fans busy until next year’s game.

cmfl3x: I don’t have much to add to what espion4ge said, except that I am still playing Black Ops now, so that’s pretty high praise. It’s Call of Duty. What else is there to say?

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty [winner]

espion4ge: If you’ve been following our 2010 awards since the beginning, you’ll probably note how many awards Starcraft II took this year. It will also take our final award as the game of the year for 2010. While the game is not perfect (lack of chatrooms, clan support, LAN support, replay rooms, etc.) the whole package is a game that is worth far more than its asking price. Consider what you get in the box for Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty:

1. a campaign that is dozens of hours long, innovative, interesting, and enjoyable.
2. various non-campaign related single-player modes such as skill-based tests, matches against the AI or even partnered up with the AI, etc.
3. a full fledged multiplayer with 1v1 through 4v4 support with automated matchmaking, ladder rankings, and custom game types.
4. An achievement system that awards achievements for playing everything the game has to offer, with point scores, gamer icon unlockables, etc.

What Blizzard has done is not just create a game in Starcraft II, but an entire system for it. And guess what? For what it is nowadays, it could easy be worth a monthly fee, as it gives so much and executes so well. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfect in all the areas that count. Starcraft fans have been waiting many years for a proper sequel, and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty has been delivered with flying colors. Through the course of these awards, I’ve already got Starcraft II on my mind again and find myself itching to play whenever I think about it. That is the mark of a good game – and our game of the year.

cmfl3x: Oh man – I absolutely love Starcraft II. I want a new computer so I can play Starcraft II better. A friend of mine said that he gets an unhealthy adrenaline rush from playing the game. The great part about multiplayer is that you will always win 50% of your games. The matchmaking is well done, and that ensures that you’re never frustrated or never bored. I cannot wait for the Zerg campaign!

espion4ge: This wraps it up for 2010! Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty nearly sweeps the competition, winning practically every category it is nominated in. If you have yet to try this game out – the only excuse you can possibly have is that your computer cannot run it. So get a new computer – this game is so worth it!

We hope you had fun reading through our awards and shopping guide. Hopefully there are more terrific games in store for 2011!

As someone that is a big fan of gaming in all of these categories, I’ll be presenting the best shooter games, games with the best gameplay, and the most addictive games of this year. See if you can guess the winners before the jump!

Best Shooter of 2010

MAG
BioShock 2
Halo: Reach [winner]
Medal of Honor
Vanquish
Call of Duty: Black Ops

MAG was the first major shooter released this year as a PS3 exclusive, and came from Zipper Interactive, the team behind the Sony exclusive franchise: Socom. The primary unique differentiator between MAG and other FPS games is its 256 player matches. While traditional multiplayer shooter games are 4 on 4 to 8 on 8, 128 on 128 completely blows it out of the water. Unfortunately, the sheer scope of the game highly encourages team play and objectives – something that gamers seem to have a hard time grasping these days. Combine that with the fact that once you pick one of the three factions in the game and you’re stuck with them for the rest of your MAG career and we can see why MAG didn’t quite live up to its hype. But, if this does sound interesting for you as a PS3 gamer, consider checking it out.

Shortly after MAG was released, BioShock 2 made its way to the masses. I was a huge fan of BioShock 1, picking it as my Game of the Year in 2007 over Call of Duty 4. It was basically a perfect game with a fitting end. Yet, most likely because the statistics showed far more people having played BioShock than the number of sales, Take 2 decided to put together a sequel with multiplayer in the hopes that more people would hold on to their copies of the game. Unfortunately, while the core BioShock 2 campaign is enjoyable and brings more BioShock gameplay for those that couldn’t get enough of the first, its multiplayer and even its relevance aren’t quite good. If you want more BioShock, definitely give BioShock 2 a look since it’s only $20 now and is a lengthy adventure. But is it necessary? Definitely not.

Halo games traditionally launch in the Fall and mark the beginning of the holiday season. Halo: Reach was no exception, and unlike Halo: ODST last year, Halo: Reach delivers the most engrossing experience for a Halo game to date: a campaign, Firefight, and multiplayer. While its campaign is a bit weaker than previous iterations of the game, as a whole – Halo: Reach is the pinnacle of the Halo series to date. Of course, the game is not an overhaul as much as it is a refinement of the series, so for those that never enjoyed Halo or have gotten sick of traditional Halo gameplay – you may want to avoid this one. But even with me as a Halo “non-fan”, I can appreciate the amount of effort Bungie put into their last Halo game – and the game rightfully deserves the place of Best Shooter of the year.

Medal of Honor is EA’s reboot of the franchise, and while it isn’t quite good enough for cmfl3x or I to have picked it up just yet, it can be enjoyable for the right type of shooter fan. First off – the game’s campaign is decent and seems to be getting praise. It’s the multiplayer that seems to really alienate the shooter user base. First off, keep in mind that the Medal of Honor multiplayer is not by the same team that did the campaign – it’s by DICE, the team behind the Battlefield and Battlefield: Bad Company games. DICE was riding high off of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and its strong team-based gameplay, but they decided to make Medal of Honor’s multiplayer a hybrid of Battlefield and Call of Duty style mechanics. This worked out to displease strong fans of both Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2, but for some the combination was actually quite enjoyable.

It’s very rare for a non-Western shooter to be good, but it seems like many gamers besides me love Vanquish. Vanquish is a unique shooter that straps the player into a jetpack-like device, allowing you to slide, dodge, and slow down time as you run and gun your way through the game. The gameplay never seemed that amazing to me, and combined with its short 5 hour length was enough for me to hold off on buying it for now. But, critics and fans seem to really dig it – so here’s a game that I didn’t really think was too hot but I’ll probably check it out when I can get it cheaper.

The final, and biggest shooter of the year comes out last: Call of Duty: Black Ops. In this four year since the Call of Duty series rose to prominent fame, we have another Call of Duty game that does do nearly everything right to satisfy the shooter fan: an interesting and engaging campaign, co-op through an infinite zombie mode, and a more balanced and refined multiplayer experience. The biggest negatives going for it though are that it’s the 4th Call of Duty game in as many years in a row, and it doesn’t quite deliver as an overall package compared to last year’s Modern Warfare 2. But for those that still can’t get enough Call of Duty, Black Ops delivers and is only slightly bested by Halo: Reach this year in the shooter category.

Best Gameplay of 2010

Bayonetta
Super Street Fighter IV
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty [winner]
Civilization V

As a hardcore gamer, gameplay is the most important feature a game can provide for me. Each of these games I am about to describe are simply at the pinnacle of gameplay for their respective genres through a proper combination of input, feedback, challenge, skill, and enjoyment. For a game to even be considered on this list, it follows a very important requirement: easy to learn, hard to master.

Bayonetta is the pinnacle of action/adventure gameplay design, and something that I hope Western developers will eventually get to understand. The feel of combo-ing several enemies in a room, watching your rating go up, performing finishing moves with over-the-top theatrics, slowing down time as you dodge attacks and counter opponents into oblivion all require a certain amount of skill to pull off. You can’t just hit one button over and over again like Western action/adventure games, and one thing that Japanese action/adventure gameplay design has over Western action/adventure gameplay design is that you personally feel like the badass, not the weapon you are holding. For games like Bayonetta – the weapon is irrelevant as you could be wielding a toothpick and still kick butt. Bayonetta can be so daunting, but when you get it, you don’t wish for the game to ever end.

The Street Fighter games have come long way. Even with the move towards more complicated gameplay elements in games like Street Fighter III and Capcom vs. SNK, Street Fighter IV (and Super Street Fighter IV as a result) brings the gameplay back to its roots. The gameplay is not overwhelming enough that it turns away less hardcore fighting game fans, yet is not underwhelming or imbalanced enough to drive away the more hardcore fighting game fans. In short, it may very well be the fighting game with the most perfect gameplay design – making it sit right here among this year’s nominees. Of course, it’s a bit cheating to consider Super Street Fighter IV as a game of this year, as it is more an expansion to last year’s Street Fighter IV so it gets some points deducted when considered for the winner of this category. But, with the amount of content put into the game, it is worth every penny.

So far on this list, we have a nominee that is the pinnacle of action/adventure gameplay design, and another that is the pinnacle of fighting gameplay design. It should be of no surprise to anyone then to see Starcraft II weighing in as the pinnacle of real time strategy gameplay design, and winning the category altogether. Starcraft I was released over 10 years ago, was perfectly designed, and became a sport in Korea with several TV channels dedicated to the game. What other game has people clicking everyone as fast and as much as they can in order to raise their average APM (actions per minute) in order to become better Starcraft players? Starcraft II’s gameplay had a lot to live up to and did not disappoint. Starcraft II has taken gameplay from Starcraft 1, added in innovative new units, buildings, and gameplay elements, all while still preserving the Starcraft look, feel, and balance. Like Street Fighter, Starcraft II is played very competitively, but can be enjoyed on so many levels. Starcraft II is the most entertaining game released this year to simply spectate – I can watch replays of matches for entire days and not miss a beat. It’s this level of gameplay that makes it worthy of winning the Best Gameplay award of the year.

While the gameplay of Super Street Fighter IV and Starcraft II have elevated both games to international competition, Civilization V makes the list of nominees for Best Gameplay purely due to how well it plays for a turn-based strategy game. Every new Civilization game is met with great fervor and acclaim for good reason: they are remarkably designed. Save for the arguably iffy AI, Civilization V introduces several new gameplay elements to the series such as the switch to hexagonal grids allowing for six sides of attack, and the removal of the ability to stack units on the same tile. These major gameplay changes combined with the Civilization polish have strategists learning the game all over again and enjoying every minute of it.

Most Addictive of 2010

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty [winner]
Halo: Reach
Civilization V
Call of Duty: Black Ops
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

What a surprise: Starcraft II wins another category on this year’s 2010 list. This time around, cmfl3x and I both easily voted for Starcraft II as this year’s most addicting game. (I think I’ve logged over 200 hours into the game myself.) There are a combination of features in Starcraft II that make it so addicting. The first off is that its gameplay is just so well designed that you want to keep playing it. The beginning to the end of a game of Starcraft II is so much fun to play that you’re ready to play another one right behind it. On top of this, Blizzard has set up matchmaking and leagues for levels of play, enabling all players to get competitively matched with players of their own skill level – making each game quite thrilling and interesting. The final “nail” on the coffin that can suck you in for Starcraft 2 are the Achievements and Portrait unlocks. Starcraft II has a huge Achievement point system just like the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, drawing players in to do various things in both the single player and multiplayer game to increase their Achievement score. Then there’s the portrait unlocks that you also get for completing various challenges in the game online and offline, as well as wins in particularly multiplayer modes. Just the gameplay would have been enough for the game to be considered among this year’s most addictive, but everything else just brings it to the top.

I speak from firsthand experience when I say that Halo: Reach is addictive. After all, I’m not even a Halo fan but I just kept playing it. The reason? Challenges. Halo: Reach’s tiny addition of Daily and Weekly Challenges and a revised leveling system that takes into account cP gained from all modes of play as well as Challenges completed had me like a dog jumping through hoops to acquire those delicious Challenge bonus cP. The Challenge system opened up the game for me, persuading me to try new modes or things I would generally skip over otherwise. But yes – I will admit that without the new cP leveling system and Daily/Weekly Challenges, I would have stopped playing the game much sooner than I did.

A Civilization game being nominated in an “addictive” category is about as surprising as a McDonald’s serving french fries. Unlike the other games in this category, Civilization V is one game where if you are not watching the time, you could miss out on sleep entirely. It’s not hard to see why a game that allows you to build up and empire and rule the world can be considered addicting. The biggest problem about the game is the whole “one more turn” desire. When do you stop playing? After you sit for several minutes analyzing the current landscape to make a move but quit so that you don’t get to see what happens as a result of the move you planned to make? Or how about after you’ve made a move, and then you see all of the other nations responding to your move. Do you quit then without getting to react? How can you quit this game at all?!

While Call of Duty: Black Ops is not as addictive as last year’s Modern Warfare 2, it still follows the new Call of Duty formula of playing online, earning points for killing opponents or completing challenges, and then leveling up to unlock new items and gear. The concept of playing an enjoyable game to unlock more stuff is always going keep people addicted, and Call of Duty: Black Ops has enough of this going on to land itself in this year’s nominee list. Unfortunately, it may be among the least addictive games in the Call of Duty series, either due to features lacking compared to last year’s Modern Warfare 2 or the fact that the series itself is just getting stale. I liked leveling up to unlock stuff 4 years ago – but why am I doing this again for the fourth year in a row?

One game that cmfl3x and I did not want to mention on this list but I feel like the list would not be kosher without it is the new World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm. I almost don’t want to consider the World of Warcraft game and its expansions in the gaming category, as the franchise is more like a drug than a game in how addicting it can become. Of course, many ex-World of Warcraft fans thought the original core game was fantastic and that these subsequent expansions have never been able to restore the glory of the primary game, but I don’t see how Cataclysm won’t be enough to hook in current World of Warcraft addicts. It’s hard to evaluate this game as it’s just throwing more content for the World of Warcraft player – who would already be addicted to the game should this expansion have never come out. Regardless, I highly recommend avoiding this expansion and the entire game if you want to actually see daylight and have some real world responsibilities but for those in the hole, might as well enjoy more content!

What do we have in store for you today? Best XBLA/PSN title, best music game, and best multiplayer game. Bet you’ll be surprised who wins that one!

Best XBLA/PSN Game of 2010

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom
Limbo [winner]
Comic Jumper
Super Meat Boy
Joe Danger

I have a soft spot for small, downloadable titles. For one thing, they’re cheap. But more importantly, they offer small, compact experiences that often end up feeling more valuable. Finally, I really love downloadable titles because their smaller budgets allow developers to get more creative and risky in their design. I thought this year was not as exciting as years past, but there still were some great titles released.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is a puzzle platformer in the spirit of Braid. Like most downloadable titles, it has a great sense of style, it’s presentation as a silent film really sticks with the player. Like all puzzle platformers, the game has a great physics engine, and it’s based on a task anyone could love – gathering pies!

Like Misadventures, Limbo exhibits a strong sense of style and utilizes a black and white color scheme that is absolutely stunning. Limbo is a dark, kind of messed up game that will stick with you after the end. It’s a puzzle platformer as well, but is more timing and physics based. The result if you mess up a puzzle? A gruesome death. The game is fun, and the world created is amazing. Like most downloadable titles, the “story” takes a less is more approach – with great success.

Frankly, Comic Jumper was a bit of a disappointment after Twisted Pixel’s awesome game ‘Splosion Man. Comic Jumper is a good game, but mostly because of its funny dialogue and story. The gameplay ends up getting repetitive, but if you or someone you know likes a good laugh, Comic Jumper can fit the bill.

If you want to harken back to the good ol’ days of excruciatingly painful platformers, Super Meat Boy is the way to go. Each of the 200+ levels in the game only takes 15 seconds to finish – if you get everything right. In reality, you won’t finish every level, and some of them might take you an hour to complete. But if you get all the achievements in this game, you will feel AWESOME.

IGN has called Joe Danger the marriage of Excitebike and Trials HD. That is pretty high praise! It’s a motorcycle game where you perform various stunts – the premise is that you are an injured stuntman who needs to get back in the game by doing all your old stunts. The game is presented in a happy go lucky way that disguises how difficult it actually is. If you’re up for some stunt related challenges, Joe Danger is for you!

Best Music Game of 2010

Green Day: Rock Band

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

DJ Hero 2

Rock Band 3 [winner]
Dance Central (Xbox 360 Kinect)

If you’re not sick of music games yet, this was actually a pretty good year. Despite their financial troubles, Harmonix released another band specific game, Green Day: Rock Band. As a huge Green Day fan, I really enjoyed it. Basically, if you like Green Day, this is a no brainer.

Guitar Hero 378, better known as Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, is actually a very strong entry in the series. Guitar Hero has becoming more and more user friendly, having all songs unlocked from the start, allowing drop in/drop out, etc. The tracklist is pretty good, but make sure you check it out to determine whether the game is for you or not.

If you like more contemporary music, consider checking out DJ Hero 2. It’s tracklist is stellar, and the gameplay is pretty challenging. I’ve always been a fan of the DJ Hero series, and the sequel definitely makes a lot of improvements over the original. It’s too bad this game hasn’t made more traction amongst consumers, but it definitely fills a nice niche in the music genre.

The winner of this category, almost by default, is Rock Band 3. Harmonix has always been the main innovator in the music genre, and the ability to actually learn how to play an instrument is a big plus. Rock Band still is the gold standard for music games, and this year is no exception.

Dance Central wasn’t originally on the list, but I guess as a gift guide, it probably deserves to be on her. Kinect isn’t worth much in my eyes, but Dance Central has been enjoyed by a lot of people as a party game. Tycho at Penny Arcade said his wife even took his Kinect to a party. It’s basically a dance game, and it takes advantage of what Kinect does well – interpret gross motor movements. If you’re willing to shell out the $150 bucks for a Kinect, you could do worse than buying this as a gift.

Best Multiplayer Game of 2010

Halo: Reach
Super Street Fighter IV

Call of Duty: Black Ops
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty [winner]

Bungie’s Microsoft swan song, Halo: Reach, might be the strongest entry in the series yet. The game even made a believer out of espion4ge. Reach takes the tried and true Halo formula with a few new twists, most notably the loadout system. Jetpacks and headshots are a pretty fun combination.

Super Street Fighter IV feels more like an expansion to the original than a brand new game, but with it’s new quarter matches and tournaments, it’s a bit more user friendly in the multiplayer experience. You probably already own this game if you are an avid fighting game fan, but still, the multiplayer is relatively lag free and it’s tough to find a better fighting game on the market right now. Plus, DeeJay. Not.

As this site has noted, Call of Duty: Black Ops, provides a more balanced and less crazy multiplayer experience than Modern Warfare. For people who felt MW2 was unbalanced, Black Ops provides a good alternative, plus there is the zombie mode for people who enjoy that sort of thing. It’s fun to play with friends, although you’ll unlock guns at a faster pace so it’s not as addictive leveling up wise. It’s Call of Duty, what else is there to be said?

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood is the first Assassin’s Creed game to feature multiplayer. Unlike other games that are trying to force some sort of generic multiplayer into their game, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood provides an innovative thinking man’s game. Instead of the running and gunning that we are used to seeing in various multiplayer shooters these days, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer is all about blending in with the computer crowd such that you can make your way to the player you are trying to assassinate without other players being able to tell you apart from the AI. It’s quite a fresh take, but whether a vibrant multiplayer community will be formed by gamers who have the patience these days to sit through slow methodical killing is yet to be seen.

Finally, the winner in this category is – you guessed it – Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. Was there any doubt? This is a game worth buying a new computer for. Addictive gameplay? Check. Achievements? Check. Continual support from Blizzard via patches? Check. Zerglings? Check. Banelings, banelings, banelings, ohhhh? CHECK PLUS. True story, someone asked me to play Starcraft 2 today, five months after the game released. I’m logging back in after I finish this post – that’s longevity.

A few weeks back, cmfl3x provided his review on the single player campaign of Halo: Reach. I’ve been spending a lot of time playing the campaign as well as everything else on the disc these last couple of weeks, and am ready to provide a review. Once again – for the record, I will state that I am not a Halo fan. Curious as to what this non-Halo fan thinks of Halo: Reach? Hit the jump to find out!

Full Disclosure
I’ve bought every single Halo game, but could not get into the first or second game. I’ve always disliked the automatic rifle that has been present in every Halo game – I just don’t get why it continues to be present considering how terrible a weapon it is. Can I kill anything besides a Grunt with one of these things? The combination of the automatic rifle, the shield system, and ability to only carry two weapons at a time has always made playing the game just not that enjoyable for me. If you’re playing on Legendary, you pretty much have to carry a Plasma gun and a gun that can perform headshots to even kill Elites so you don’t get much weapon variety at all.

Starting with Halo 3 and continuing through Halo Wars and Halo: ODST, I’ve started to soften up to the series a bit. Of course, each of these games brought things that I really enjoyed to the series: Halo 3 brought forth a thorough multiplayer system, Halo Wars brought Halo to the RTS universe, and Halo: ODST brought Firefight. While I will still continue to have problems with the way the damage system works in this game, there’s too many good things going on in the series now that I can look past my personal issues.

2nd Impressions on the Campaign
cmfl3x played through the campaign a bit earlier, and his review on it can be found here. I personally thought it was among the better, if not the best campaign of all the Halo games. I couldn’t beat either campaign in Halo 1 or Halo 2 because I kept falling asleep, but starting with Halo 3, I felt that the campaigns have continued to get a bit more varied and interesting.

The Halo: Reach campaign is a prequel to Halo 1, so we see more Spartans and how the storyline unfolds leading up to Halo 1. We know from Halo 1 that Master Chief is the last Spartan, so it is not difficult to figure out the events transpire during Halo: Reach. Like cmfl3x, I would have loved seeing more Spartans going in an all-out war against the Covenant – basically, anything a lot more epic and team-oriented than what we got in the Halo: Reach campaign. Instead, most missions revolve around you and one other Spartan making your way through a level in covert ops type fashion.

The campaign is a good length in comparison to other FPS games these days. I’m guessing each of the 10 missions is about 45 minutes to an hour on a Normal or Heroic playthrough since it took me nearly 20 hours soloing the campaign on Legendary and dying a lot. The Halo checkpoint system can still be frustrating, since it doesn’t always checkpoint you at the most ideal time but this is nothing new to the series. I’ve been checkpointed in the middle of a dying animation, which sucked since I was already halfway through a campaign level and then I had to go back and replay it.

In summary – I enjoyed the campaign. I don’t have any real issues with it, and it has a nice lead into Halo 1 like any good prequel should. It’s not as epic as I expected, but it gets the job done. The campaign can also be replayed multiple times with several campaign hallmarks the series is known for: a variety of skull modifiers to up the challenge, co-op with friends, scoring on for bragging rights, etc.

Firefight
The best thing about Halo: ODST was the introduction of a new gameplay mode called Firefight. In this mode, up to 4 players could take on unending waves of enemies, so the team could see how far they could get as well as how high they could score. Unfortunately, the biggest issue with this mode in Halo: ODST was the lack of Matchmaking. You could not play Firefight with other random players in Halo: ODST – you had to manually invite players on your friends list.

Halo: Reach fixes that major annoyance by now providing Matchmaking support for Halo: Reach’s Firefight mode. Also new I think to Halo: Reach’s Firefight mode is the ability to play custom maps with custom settings, so players can really goof off with unlimited rockets and such. In short, the way Halo: Reach implemented Firefight is the way Halo: ODST should have implemented it. Now it’s simply better!

Multiplayer
With Halo: ODST’s multiplayer simply the complete Halo 3 multiplayer experience, Halo: Reach’s multiplayer is the next genuine level of multiplayer. Halo: Reach introduces several new multiplayer modes including: Invasion, HeadHunter, and Generator Defense.

My favorite of the new game types is Invasion. Invasion revolves around two teams playing offense and defense as Spartans and Elites. This is the first objective-based multiplayer mode in the Halo series, and it plays similarly to the Battlefield: Bad Company games’ primary multiplayer mode (Gold Rush). Halo: Reach’s Invasion mode takes place across 3 phases. The first phase has the attacking team tasked with securing one of two possible locations on the map by holding it for a certain amount of time. Once the attackers are successful, the team is presented with two new possible locations to hold, generally further into the map. If the attacking team is successful in securing a location in this second phase, the match moves into the final phase where the attackers need to grab an item (might as well call it a flag), and carry it to an evac location. For each of the three phases the attackers can complete within a set amount of time, they get that many points before the two teams switch sides.

The subtle addition of classes to all multiplayer modes really adds to the multiplayer game. These classes and loadouts are nowhere near as different as what we’d find in games like Modern Warfare 2 or Bad Company, but just the ability to select whether you want a jet pack, cloaking, invulnerability, etc. is fantastic. It still keeps Halo: Reach in line with the way the Halo series plays, but it gives players more options to play more specific to their preferred playstyle. Halo 3 introduced the items, but the “class system” that Halo: Reach introduces is better since it eliminates the worry of using up items.

While it’s also been present in Halo 3 multiplayer, I’ve discovered the Team SWAT mode in Halo: Reach. This mode has allowed me to play Halo in the way I enjoy most: no shields, and everyone starts with the DMR or a Magnum. This mode allows for headshot one-hit kills right off the bat, and on indoor maps where everyone only spawns with a Magnum, it takes me back to N64′s Goldeneye. I’m also digging Halo: Reach’s Big Team Battle mode. I wish there was a Big Team Battle + Team SWAT mode, but for now I still enjoy playing each one depending on my mood.

Achievements, cP, and Challenges
The lengthy campaign, the fixed Firefight matchmaking, and the subtle tweaks and additions to Halo: Reach’s multiplayer were enough for me to really feel that the game was the entire package. But Bungie has gone even further and added a new metagame that I find so ingenious that I must gush about it. First off, I am happy with the design of the Achievements, as they are actually very reasonable to get, and the number of Multiplayer-oriented Achievements is minimal.

The thing that completely rocks out Halo: Reach is the cP system. In Halo: Reach, any gametype or mode you play earns you cP. cP is like a combination of experience points and currency in the game. As you accumulate more cP from playing Halo: Reach, your rank increases. The cP you earn can be used to buy all sorts of gear for your multiplayer character. If you’ve ever wanted to see the teenage boy equivalent to Barbie Dolls, this is it. Personally, I think it’s a great way to reward players who continue putting more time into any of the game’s modes, and I believe Call of Duty: Black Ops is also implementing a currency system to buy equipment/unlocks. Providing players with choice over what they want to unlock is really the best way to go so I’m glad to see choice playing a feature in what players can unlock first.

The cherry-on-top to this entire cP layer of goodness is the Challenges feature that Bungie has implemented. A Challenge is basically a Halo: Reach specific Achievement – but instead of “Achievement Unlocked”, players earn a bonus number of cP ranging anywhere from 500 cP to 5000 cP. Each day, Bungie posts 4 Daily Challenges and each week Bungie posts 1 new Weekly Challenge. These Challenges all range through a variety of the game’s modes: often times one of the Daily Challenges will be from the Campaign, one will be from Firefight, and one will be from Multiplayer. In short, these Challenges are great incentive to continue going back to play all aspects of the game. I find myself going back to play the Campaign and Firefight almost daily now because I want to complete the Daily Challenges whenever I can.

Final Thoughts
Like I said at the beginning of this review – I never considered myself a fan of the Halo franchise. However, Halo: Reach really is the total package: a lengthy and enjoyable campaign, more co-op options than any other FPS game out there, multiplayer modes that run the gamut with loaded features and stat-tracking, and finally, the entire cP and Challenge system placed right on top of it all. The only thing reason you could potentially not enjoy Halo: Reach is simply if you hate Halo to begin with. Even for someone like me, who isn’t on the Halo bandwagon, realizes how good of a package Halo: Reach is. I have issues with the damage system but I still have to admit that Halo: Reach is the best Halo game ever made.

Final Grade: A

Every few months forces conspire against me and I execute an “impulse buy.” Though these purchases aren’t always accompanied with a side of regret, they still happen more often than they should and usually for silly reasons. They also generally occur after 11 PM.

Forces, they do conspire. For one thing, Starcraft 2 absolutely refuses to promote me out of the Gold League in 3v3 RT. I’ve been playing so much that I’ve exhausted my bonus pool. Unbelievably frustrating (I’m winning more than I am losing for the record). Secondly, Halo Reach’s multiplayer hasn’t gripped me as much as I thought – although it has established a foothold, see below. While all this has been happening, the sirens of Civilization V have been calling my name but my lack of a good PC has served as my metaphorical earplugs. Since convincing my wife to buy me a new PC as a combined Christmas/birthday present is futile, it looks like I won’t be getting Civilization V for the foreseeable future.

So I did the next best thing: I downloaded Civilization IV to get my turn based strategy fix. The problem with the internet is that I just need to enter my credit card number and I’ll be out $20. Anyway, I am now a proud owner of Civilization IV, a four year old game. Of course, Montezuma and his Aztecs proceeded to destroy my civilization before we even reached the birth of Christ. I think I needed more Vespene Gas or something. Anyway, Civ IV is completely different from Starcraft, in a wonderful way. Civilization is like the anti-Starcraft, but it’s just as addicting. Here we go.

On the console side, I think I need a strategy for getting some more time in Reach’s multiplayer. There are some pretty cool Firefight and custom games that you can download via Bungie’s fileshare system, which really is a fine piece of work and a brilliant idea. I highly recommend that people check it out. Bungie’s customization and personalizing options are insane – you can play Halo any way you want to. It’s pretty awesome, I just wish I enjoyed the core game a bit more. But I think it definitely deserves more time than I’ve been giving it.

14 days until I enter New Vegas. Get your bottlecaps ready.

Remember Reach. Although Halo has always been a multiplayer focused game, the series has also created a plethora of lore and fiction over the past decade. Since Master Chief’s “trilogy” ended, Bungie has extended the Halo lore with Halo Wars, Halo ODST, and now Halo: Reach. The question has always been, will people care about a Halo story without Master Chief? Will Bungie be able to tell any stories worth remembering? Or will Reach go out with a whimper, not a bang. Hit the jump for my Halo Reach campaign impressions (ONLY campaign, no multiplayer to be found in this article), and see whether Reach is a story worth remembering. Slight spoilers ahead, but only if you don’t have any common sense or have absolutely no idea what The Fall of Reach or 300 are.

This. Is. SPARTA. This is also a Halo game. Profit?
Halo Reach is a modern (or future) retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, aka “300″. A bunch of Spartans sacrifice their lives in an attempt to save their civilization. Glory ensues. You’ve heard this tale before.

But in case you haven’t, just know that you are a member of Noble Team, a crack group of Spartans who are assigned various missions around the planet of Reach as it falls to the Covenant. You run through the standard Halo mission types – take out an antiaircraft gun, take out a shield generator, fly from building to building saving people, etc. etc. If you can’t tell from my tone, it’s a little bit less than thrilling. About 10 minutes into the campaign I said to myself, “Yep, this is a Halo game,” which is a good or bad thing (or both) depending on your perspective.

Before I get to the gameplay, let me discuss my impressions on the story in the campaign. I came into the campaign with great expectations – Reach had the potential to be EPIC. I was expecting 300 in the future. Unfortunately, Reach didn’t really meet my (admittedly high) expectations. There are a couple of reasons of this.

First of all, I never got to know my team as much as I might have liked. Why do I feel more attached to Master Chief, Cortana, Sgt. Johnson, and even to some extent Miranda Keyes and the Arbiter? Continuity. I was able to get to know those characters over the course of two or three games, and thus when some of them meant their untimely ends it struck more of a chord. With Noble Team, however, you only have a short campaign in which to get to know them, and before you know it, you are saying goodbye. There was no time to really build any connections with them. Making matters worse is the fact that after the first mission you’re never really together as a TEAM anymore. You would think that Noble Team would work together as, you know, a team, but that rarely happens. You are generally splitting up in pairs or trios to do work. Half the time the rest of the team is just sitting around doing who knows what. Can’t you get some ODSTs to handle the other stuff? Noble Team should work together as a TEAM! I understand one person running operations and the other five working together, but not two at a time. COME ON.

Secondly, I was expecting epic battles in the fall of Reach. One mission starts out with an INCREDIBLY epic cutscene which was awesome. It got me totally pumped up to take part in a large scale attack. Of course, after the cutscene ended, somehow I was left in a warthog with two or three allies and all of the other FIVE HUNDRED warthogs and falcons (the new hornets) that I saw had disappeared or were like 3 miles away in the distance. Huh? And of course, I had to go take out some anti aircraft guns after that. Not epic.

Those things being said, the story is good – not great. There is a lot of fan service to longtime fans of the series, and although I wasn’t completely satisfied with the ending, it was solid nonetheless. There are some genuinely shocking moments, and although you don’t get to take part in any epic battles, you still feel as if the missions you are undertaking are important, so that’s a good thing. It’s not that I think Halo Reach’s campaign is bad, it’s pretty well done, but it’s just it could have been so much more. They could have helped me care about the characters more, they could have made me feel more connected to the battle at large, or they could have explained things a little more clearly. They also could have enabled subtitles for gameplay, and not just cutscenes, so that I don’t have to rewatch in mission cutscenes to figure out what the heck is going on. Then again, as I said, this is a Halo game.

There will be anti air guns, and you will destroy them. This is indeed a Halo game.

S.S.D.D.
Gameplay wise, Halo Reach feels a lot like Halos of the past. There are some noteworthy additions though. First, like all serialized games, Halo features a bunch of new weapons, some of which are pretty awesome. I definitely prefer the DMR to the old Battle Rifle, mainly because I could never land 3 burst shots. The new Covenant Needler/Battle Rifle hybrid gun is also pretty awesome. There are also new vehicles, like the Falcon which feels like a Hornet, and the Sab-ray (just kidding, it’s Sabre) which is used in a fun outerspace dog fighting sequence. Another nice and politically correct addition is the ability to play as a female Spartan. There are also new armor abilities which can change the way you play, but I found myself mostly using sprint to make Halo feel more “modern.” They are a nice addition, though. Finally, Bungie introduced a small degree of “openness” to the missions, although that basically entails you deciding which order to do objectives in.

My problem with the gameplay lies in the fact that I just feel like Halo isn’t keeping up with the times. You still lose your save if you forget to “save and quit”. Achievements get screwed up if you switch between playing solo and co-op. You can’t replay a mission without losing all your progress (although Modern Warfare stupidly does that as well). You can’t even play co-op if you don’t have a hard drive. I don’t need everything updated, but just some things. I shouldn’t have to throw my controller due to stupid save and Achievement issues, I should only have to throw my controller due to getting killed needlessly!

Speaking of which, I think it’s an indictment on the game that in the last few missions I just decided to try to run from checkpoint to checkpoint rather than attempting to kill all the enemies. I’m not sure if that’s how Halo was meant to be played, but I just didn’t feel like going through the same encounters that I’ve been having for 10 years. Plasma charge, headshot, bought the t-shirt, next. It’s not bad by any means, but you’ve seen these things before.

Or have you? There is one addition to the gameplay that I absolutely love – Firefight encounters in the campaign. You’ve had to hold down positions in Halo before, but for some reason in Reach Bungie seems to have really taken the feel of the amazing Firefight mode from ODST and transferred it to the campaign. There are automatic turrets to activate in one particularly fun mission, and when they go inactive you have to decide whether to run out to reactivate them or whether to stay at home with your allies. It’s exhilarating and I can’t wait to play it on Legendary.

Finish the Fight
It may sound like I don’t like Halo Reach, but that’s not true. I enjoyed the campaign, although it was kind of short (about 5-10 hours) depending on difficulty. I just wish Bungie could have taken the formula a little further. But Reach is also Bungie’s love letter to the fans: a thank you for 10 years of loyal support. Bungie is moving on to bigger and better things, and Microsoft is going to find someone else to take care of the franchise. It’s time for both Bungie and Halo to move on, but it’s been a good run, and Halo Reach’s campaign is a solid entry in the series. I’d give it a solid B.

I can’t stop playing Starcraft 2. It’s an addiction. There were all these games for Xbox that I wanted to try out, but I haven’t turned my Xbox on for almost a month. Limbo is still in limbo, Death Spank has no life, and Final Fantasy is a fantasy. There’s only one game that has a chance to get me away from my mouse and keyboard, and that’s Halo: Reach, so I figured I’d take a look at why.

For those who have been living under a rock, Halo is basically the reason that the Xbox brand still exists today. It was a revolution in first person shooters on the FPS, but the series has been showing signs of age in recent years. Halo: ODST sold a ton of copies but didn’t achieve the staying power of previous entries. I’m cautiously optimistic that Halo: Reach can buck the trend (or at least take me away from Starcraft 2 for a little while) – here’s why.

Epic Story
Spoiler alert: Everybody dies.

At least I’m pretty sure they do. If I have my Halo lore correct, Reach is the planet on which Spartans were trained and it fell to the Covenant in the big war – leading to the death of many Spartans (and the reason why Master Chief is the only Spartan left during the events of Halo). It seems Reach is going to be similar to ODST in the sense that you are following a squad throughout the game. The difference is, instead of ODSTs, you are following Spartans – Noble Team. Amongst the team you have your standard characters – heavy guy, sniper, etc. You assume the rule of a new member of the team (another rookie), but who knows, maybe you’ll get to play as the other guys as well.

I am pretty excited at the stories Reach could present. It’s kind of like 300 – you know the good guys eventually lose, but there is tons of room for EPICNESS along the way. Maybe Reach falls, but I’m looking forward to taking down hordes of Covenant along the way. There is ample opportunity for tie ins to the other Halo games as well which fans of the forwards can look forward to. The nice thing about knowing the end of a story is that the joy is finding out how you get there – I am hoping that Reach can deliver that.

Reworked Multiplayer
I’m not sure if Bungie is going to do a complete working of the multiplayer, but it’s definitely going to be different as players of the beta can attest. Although I thought the new classes added didn’t seem as deep as I’d like, it still provides an interesting twist on the gameplay that I think can revitalize the series. I also wrote during the beta about my disappointment with some of the new gametypes, but I still think they can be a lot of fun.

Classes will be a good way to customize gameplay as well – I’m definitely looking forward to using the different items. Overall, Reach’s multiplayer is definitely going to feel like Halo, but with a new twist. I think it’ll be good for the series and the community.

Swan Song
Last but not least, I’m looking forward to Halo: Reach because it’s Bungie’s Halo swan song. Like the Spartans, Halo: Reach is Bungie’s last stand – they are ending their partnership with Microsoft after this and will be working on new IPs. Although I have no evidence to support this, this leads me to believe that Bungie is going to pull out all the stops. They’ve always been great to the fans and I think with this being the last Bungie entry in the Halo series they are going to make it awesome. EPIC.

So on September 14th, I will be taking at least one day off from Starcraft 2. It’ll be interesting to figure out how to split time after Reach comes out, I’m sure espion4ge and I will be torn. We’ll find out in two weeks!

Hi – my name is cmfl3x. And I’m an achievaholic.

Things didn’t start this way. I bought my Xbox 360 and started playing games just like I always had. I think one of the first Achievements I remember receiving was in Call of Duty 2. I had just completed the game: I heard a little beep-boop and saw a little icon. Achievement unlocked. Hmm, what could that mean? I didn’t think much of it, and for almost a year, continued to pay those little notifications no mind.

And then, something happened. I’m not sure if it was Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4. Or both. But suddenly, I found myself going out of the way to look for skulls. Or upping the difficulty to Veteran. Or shooting pigeons. Before I knew it, I was doubling, tripling, even quadrupling the time investment I’d put into a game. I told myself that I was just getting maximum value from the game. But deep down, I knew the truth. I knew why I was doing it. Beep-boop.

I started spiraling further and further down. Those two tones were changing the way I played games. No longer did I care about spoilers, I just wanted to know if there were Achievements I was going to miss. I started keeping elaborate files to help me keep track of what was going on. Assassin’s Creed 2? 1000 points. Brutal Legend? Found all the statues. Modern Warfare 2? All your laptops are belong to us. And then I started spending a lot of time beating time challenges, like Portal and Mirror’s Edge. I was sinking hours and hours into these games. But was I having fun?

Everything came to a head while playing Half Life 2. I needed my wife to direct me to all the Lambda caches. It was faster that way. She was patient at first, but eventually got fed up and told me to do it myself. She hates Achievements. She wants me to stop. So I’m trying to stop. But it’s so difficult! I started playing Half Life 2 Episode 2 the other day. I promised myself I’d just play through the game, without consulting an Achievement guide. But then…there are so many antlion grubs. That must be killed. For………….beep-boop.

I’m trying not to care, but as long as those lyrical, dulcet tones are there, I’m not sure I can stop. I’m carrying a garden gnome throughout my playthrough. I’m mapping out the best way to play through Final Fantasy XIII to maximize Achievement efficiency. WILL THE MADNESS END!?

I will try my best to play games without Achievements in mind. I just don’t have the time for it anymore. I love it, but it’s ruining my gaming life. I just want to enjoy games again. I just want my experience to be pure – I just want to experience the thrill of experiencing a GAME, not a chore. Can I ever kick the habit? Can I break this iron grip on my gaming soul?

Beep-boop.