Runescape.

I, Like most people who read this, (Hopefully) had a Runescape account that I would play religiously on most nights after school. Before, during and after my homework.

Now, to the average internet user, Runescape has long since passed it's prime and is quite quickly becoming that weird stain on the carpet that you're not exactly sure how it got there, all you know is it won't go away. What with our sidebars being filled with 'Click to play' ads, and even YouTube has started hosing it's trailer... "Wait, it has a trailer??"

Well, I gave into the nostalgia and decided to not just give it a shot again, but to create a new character (They have integrated it with Facebook meaning  to create a character, all you have to do is click 'Link with Facebook' and everything is done.

Bloody hell this game has changed while I've been away.

For one, the graphics have had a pretty major overhaul (Still nothing groundbreaking, but taken into context it's a pretty monumental change)

Two, there seem to just be a metric crap-load of new things for you to do (As a free user) they've changed the layouts of most of the areas, and just added in a couple of sweet little Easter egg style thing for you to find.

Cut-scenes. I don't think I need to elaborate on it any more, there are now cut-scenes.

Finally, the combat has had a total revamp, which gives you 'special' moves you can use, you also have this weird ... 'agro bar' (I'll call it that as I've actually forgotten it's name) which builds up during combat, allowing you to use stronger and deadlier moves!

These aren't the only updates to it, but I wouldn't want to spoil all the fun of discovery ;)

Oh, and as if that wasn't awesome enough.

Tutorial Island has gone!

I feel like a kid during Christmas all over again.

So, if you fancy re-connecting with the ol' Scape, hit me up.

Seddon235 (I play world 81)

Dwarf Fortress

I figured I would take this time, to tell you about my favorite game.

Dwarf Fortress.

For those of you that have not played this game, it is a masterfully crafted piece of artwork. The graphics may not be much to look at, as it uses ACSII in place of sprites, but it's the coding that really makes this game what it is. There are various texture packs available which make the game a lot easier to follow, I would highly recommend acquiring one of these as soon as possible.

You start off with seven dwarfs. Each one has their own name, personality, stretching from what Gods they follow and their political party they are associated with, right down to their preference in food, and even what type of weather they prefer. 

You are not in direct control of these little guys though, instead you give work orders and the dwarfs get around to it as and when they feel like it. Sometimes starting work off of their own accord if their God decides to give them an order. This is known as a 'strange mood', the God in question has given them an image of something that they need to build, and that is the only thing they will do until the task is complete. This can cause problems if you do not have the right materials for the job as the dwarf can go crazy and attempt to kill everything in the fort.

This brings me onto my next point about the military. At first, the military seems like an incredibly complicated mess of options... which is exactly what it is. However, once you get the hang of it, the simplicity of it all shines through, you can create areas for the Dwarven military to patrol, train, sleep and eat. You can also set specific areas that activate during enemy attacks, which can be as simple as a thief trying to break in, or a whole siege consisting of a full army complete with war dogs, bears, rhinos and even elephants.

These areas will 'herd' your dwarfs into them, making it impossible for them to leave till the alert has been lifted. You can set a zone specific for your peasants to flee to during an attack, and a separate one for your military, meaning that your non-combat dwarfs are well out of harms reach. You can even set different zones for each of your squads meaning you can have different sections of your fort defended by different squads and so on and so forth.

The main thing you will take away from this game, is that losing is fun.

It's a strange concept, but losing a fort is not the end of the world. For you can chose to start a new fort, somewhere else in the game world, (which is completely randomly generated when you start a new game) or, you can take a squad of highly trained soldiers in an attempt to retake your old fort.

I once tried to reclaim an old fort, (which had been killed by a goblin raid.) only to find out a 'Forgotten Beast' had taken it as it's home. There are the usual types of enemies, goblins, wild animals, Dragons...

Dragons fall under the 'legendary' category, meaning that your fort probably isn't their first rodeo. 'Legendary' creatures can be anything that has killed a lot of things throughout it's very, very long life. Everything from Minotaur's, to a really really pissed semi immortal bear. 'Forgotten Beasts' though, fall under a whole different class, these things have been dwelling under the earth since the dawn of time, and are generally just there to fuck your shit up.

The beast that had claimed my fort, had no eyes, and muscle pretty much everywhere... it was pretty much a walking muscle, covered in rock, and spikes. Why? Because fuck you that's why.

Needless to say, the fort still belongs to the beast.

Fortress mode is not the only option available. there is also 'Adventure' mode, where you can chose to play as a character from one of the many kingdoms that populate the game, you can be a dwarf, elf or a human. Each comes with their own pro's and con's. 

The object of being an adventurer is to travel around killing things for towns folk, getting gold and building a bad-ass crew of monster killers. you can also visit your forts in adventure mode, which I plan to do once I get a large enough team together to kill that bloody 'Rock Muscle' thing.

Once you have got the hang of this beautiful game, you will find yourself sinking quite a few hours into it without even realizing. The level of micromanagement that is available is astonishing, and quite overwhelming for a new player. Hell it's even overwhelming for me. I tried creating a fancy defense system that would pump lava to the top of my fort cutting off any attackers from reaching my peasants. 

Sadly this did not go to plan and I ended up drowning my entire populace in a fiery cocktail of Lava and Alcohol.

For those of you that wish to play, I have included some links in the description, provided by a helpful chap on the /VG/ section of 4Chan.

Helpful beginner material

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ •>The game. Current version is Dwarf Fortress 2012 (34.11)

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php •>The official forums.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page •>Wiki for all your dwarfly needs, down to every last mineral.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Quickstart_guide •>The fastest way to get ready to strike the earth. Concise and simple text + images.

youtube.com/51ppycup and youtube.com/captnduck •>Great tutorial/LP. Hugely entertaining, and very informative, highly recommended for someone wanting to get into Dwarf Fortress. 

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0 one of the most useful downloads you can get, this has the entire game, complete with a set of texture packs to chose from, and a handy set of utilities to help you run your fort. Highly recommended.

Strike the earth!

Seddon

Things Learned in Hitman Absolution

Hitman Absolution.

A whole lot of blood.

(spoiler alert)

My Flatmate Will recently got a copy of 'Hitman Absolution' for the Xbox 360, and needless to say, I've been playing a fair bit of it. Which has taught me some very harsh lessons about myself, but before I get to that, I suppose I should review the actual game a little bit.

Camera

'Hitman' is made by 'IO-Interactive', which I know in the past (Kane and Lynch Dead Men) has brought certain problems with it, however I can say with a certain degree of confidence that 'Hitman' has solved all the old issues of view. They've thankfully kept in the 'click switch' basically meaning that by clicking the left thumb stick in, you change the camera from being over your left shoulder, to your right shoulder. A very handy thing for shooting round corners. 

Gunplay

Obviously, a large part of 'Hitman' is to do with finding men of a questionable moral disposition and shooting them. (I for one prefer the good old tactic of firing as many bullets in their general direction and hoping I hit) The Aiming system is relatively smooth for the most part, only catching, for instance when you shoot round corners, but as a whole it is an incredibly smooth and enjoyable experience.

Stealth

Now for the Important part. The main focus of 'Hitman' is trying to kill your enemies in fascinatingly quiet ways, be it using a fish to poison more fish, or even poisoning a line of cocaine  The ways you can kill your enemies are endless, I once pulled a man out of a window just after he had learned he did not have Prostate Cancer, I even waited till just after he told his doctor over the phone that "no-one can shit on this day" ... I'm still not sure how I feel about about my actions at that point.
The stealth mechanics in the game are by far some of the best I have seen, alongside such games as 'Splinter Cell', or The 'Assasins Creed' series and many many more. And by rights, they should be as this is the fifth installment to the 'Hitman' saga, so they've well and truly nailed it down.
Disguises are also a major (albeit optional) part of your mission, allowing you to sneak past enemies using you 'instinct ability' to trick them into believing you are among their ranks. When you are in a disguise, ordinary citizens will not look twice at you, even if you are in a 'restricted' or 'hostile' area, enemies and police (yes, these are two different categories, which is a refreshing light in the world of cop killing games) however will take notice of you so it's best to keep your distance.

Story

Without giving too much away, the story follows the infamous 'Agent 47' as he tracks down various targets for his contractors, all while trying to protect another contact from being eliminated. It is quite heart warming in parts where you get to see '47s' human side, and I for one felt a much stronger connection to him than I have in the previous games. The story flows pretty seamlessly from one mission to the next all the while hurtling towards what I can only assume will be a climactic conclusion. 

It really feels like everyone is out to get you.  

Lessons Learned

1. I am a terrible assassin. On a certain mission (which I shall not name) the anit-hero inside me decided that everyone in this area decided to die. So instead of using my usual method of hiding among the shadows and avoiding contact with the enemies as much as possible, I went through the level guns blazing. What made me feel even more bad-ass was the fact that I was dressed as a priest, and the level had some pretty dramatic classical music blaring out to accompany my hail of justice.
2. When possible, I will find the most extravagant way of eliminating my enemies, when given the chance, i will opt for blowing them up with a remote explosive to silently eliminating them when no-one is looking.
3. I myself have a very questionable moral stance. Actually, I learned this is the 'Army of Two games', but given the chance, I would kill a target instead of letting them live, as it means one less person I need to worry about.
4. Finally, when given the option, i will toy with my prey, rather than giving them a clean death. In one of the missions, a character shoots a nun out of frustration, and once given the option to either kill him cleanly, I decided to chase him around an old Hackney carriage with a hatchet in one hand... for about 10 minutes, imagining that '47' was reciting the Verse;

"Cursed is the ground because of you;

through painful toil you will eat of it

all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return.”

Before finally laying him to rest with said hatchet.

I guess that concludes my little review, i would highly advise anyone out there to purchase this gem as you will get many hours of enjoyment out of it.

Leave a comment on your views of the game, and subscribe for more reviews.

Till the next time Internet.

Seddon

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Where to start with this one?
Well, I suppose a short apology for the lack of posting recently, things have ... to say the least been hectic. The beginning of this year seems like a nightmare but it's all getting better now.
So back to the blog ;)

Star Wars Battlefront 2 or SWB2 as I'll refer to it from now on, is reaching it's sixth birthday, which is incredible considering this week alone I have sunk maybe ... 30 hours into it? and over it's whole lifetime ... well too many hours to still be considered a 'recreational' gamer.
But for now we'll stick to the core essentials of the game.
For those of you that have played SWB1, you will find that the core layout is more or less the same, you have to capture certain control points while defending your own with a variety of weapons and vehicles at your disposal. On paper this may seem like a concept that starts fun but gets boring very quickly, but I assure you it somehow manages to remain fun and entertaining all the way through.
The game itself was released in October of 2005, while it's predecessor SWB1 was released only a year earlier in September 2004 (If Wikipedia is to be trusted, as my memory isn't). The advancement from number 1 to number 2 is quite obvious, to begin with they have added a number of new units to the game including dark troopers for the empire and Bothan spies for the rebels as well as a whole host of other goodies for you to play around with.
It may be a strange thing to mention, but I have to admit that I fell in love with the menu from the get go. There is something strangely comforting about the Imperial March ... or is that just me? Either way, when that music starts blaring out with scenes from the original films in the background, my heart did kind of melt slightly. Another cool feature is that it will show game play footage if you leave the menu idle for about a minute or two, what makes this even more beautiful is that not only is the footage slow motion, it is also backed by some pretty epic fight music. Imagine 'Carmina Burana', but with lasers and other cool battle stuff.
The size of the game itself is something of a marvel compared to the first one. The original galactic conquest consisted of ... 5, maybe six planets? However each planet did have two maps which made up for it. But you couldn't move command ships around a galaxy biding your time till you struck their home planet in a fiery rage that would make the heavens tremble! - back to my point, the CIS campaign consists of no less than 13 planets, and ... 30? space battle points, hell you can even have space battles over planets before you go on to pillage the surface and take all the booty and women as treasure.
Each campaign, Empire, Republic, Rebels and CIS have their own planetary layout with different routs you can take which is a pretty cool thing in my books. Calling them campaigns though would be a bit misleading as I usually assume a set storyline with a campaign. With these though, it's more of a 'you make the story line'. SWB2 leaves you to wage war on whatever planet looked wrong at you today (so long as it is in the Star Wars galaxy) You can build the Empire and crush the Rebel scum or even overthrow the Republic as the CIS, you can literally change Star Wars history as we know it.
Unlike SWB1, you do not start off with all the troops at your disposal, instead you start off with just one type, the marine ... or assault ... or whatever you wish to call them, they have an assault laser rifle and that's enough for me. You then use the money you just earned from pillaging some 'helpless' planet to buy more troop types and combat bonuses. Oh yeah, that's also new, you no longer get planetary bonuses, you now need to buy them ... and they only last for one battle which makes using them a lot more tactical.
as well as these new combat bonuses, you also get cool troop upgrades. These sadly only last for as long as your soldier does and you really have to earn them. For instance as I'm playing right now, my assault trooper has an upgraded gun that shoots in bursts of purple(?) lasers that pretty much kills what it hits first time round. It's a game that rewards you for being a good killer, then rewards you for being good at living by letting you keep your rewards ... till the end of the round. But I suppose they needed to have some form of stopper on it otherwise you would quickly become too awesome for the game to handle.
The upgrades are also interchangeable should you wish to change troop class, Lord knows you've earned it you little killing machine you.
Space battles are almost too fun ... and difficult at the same time, each time I get into a space battle I'm still amazed by just how much is going on around me considering this game came out in 2005, upon leaving the ship, you find yourself surrounded by lasers, asteroids and death, usually in that order. Should you be luck enough to land in the enemy ship, you best hope you brought a landing craft otherwise it will be a lonely fight that should you lose, will result in you having to fly back over from your ship.
There is more to the game than just galactic conquest though, there is also Training, Space overview, Rise of the Empire and instant action. Training and Space overview are more or less the same, although Space overview is more of a short video about the do's and do nots of space combat. Rise of the Empire is More of a campaign than Galactic conquest and could even double up as a long tutorial because it slowly teaches you through the entire thing. this is an interesting take on the empire as you see it through the perspective of the 501st or Vader's fist, a branch of the Republic army.
Instant action acts as a skirmish mode allowing you to fight any battle as any army that you wish, there are also some special game modes but I will let you discover those for yourself.
So before I sign off for tonight I'll leave you with one final question, do you have what it takes to fight off a droid invasion of kashyyyk along side an army of Wookies all the while not knowing how long your little garrison of troops will hold out against the relentless onslaught?
If you answered "give me the rifle and watch them try to take me" I believe you are truly ready to embrace SWB2 ... on another thought, if you haven't played it yet, the game is six years old so you really have no excuse to not own it, shame on you.

Luke Seddon.

Undead Nightmare

One big cup of OHWHATTHEHELL.

Where to begin with this one?

I would start at the beginning … but that is a spoiler in itself for those who haven’t played this anyway. All I can really say about the beginning is that within the first five to ten minutes, all my theories about how the pack was going to turn out, where swept aside through a tide of awesome.

            The story line is a fairly straightforward one, ‘Kill the zombies while trying to find a cure’, Straightforward yes, simple … not so much. You see, the only way to kill one of these undead bas- beings is with a headshot and while this might sound like an easy task for any experienced dead eye user, trust me it is not.

            I even checked to see if Rockstar had skimped out and done a certain amount of damage to the body before death … they haven’t, and I can’t explain how amazing it feels to unload all six shells of a semi-auto shotgun into a Zombies chest, then finishing it off with one revolver round to the brain.

            Okay, I might not have been telling the truth when I said there was only one way to kill them, there are in fact a few ways. My personal favourite has to be setting them alight with a torch. Yes you did just read that correctly, a torch, like the burning kind they used to hunt Vampires with. The first time I used the torch was against quite a large group or rotters and … well it didn’t go quite to plan, for some reason I thought it would kill them fairly quickly. It didn’t. So for the next twenty – thirty seconds, I found myself being chased by no less than seven burning zombies, and as they say “The only thing worse than a zombie, I a burning zombie”.

            As much as I love zombies, I have to admit that I got a little nervous at the prospect of Redemption having zombies introduced into it, one wrong move and the whole thing could go up in flames. However Rockstar seem to have crafted a fine balance between the Undead and the Wild West.

            The actual story line of Undead Nightmare will take you just about everywhere, from Blackwater where you start, all the way to a brand new location in Mexico. I’m sure all of you will be happy to know that it features almost all the original cast and will take about six-nine hours if you decide to complete all the side missions and all the challenges.

            The game play has stayed pretty similar to Red Dead Redemption with only a few changes, the first and most notable change, is that the whole camping system has disappeared, which oddly works perfectly. Instead of camping to fast travel you now have to liberate towns from the undead menace in order to use them. Once liberated, you can save or fast travel from there, and sadly there are no shops in the game which means you will have to loot corpses and make sure every shot counts.

            Once I actually got over the awesomeness that were zombies, I decided to have a ride around to see what else was out there and I have to tell you, it was eerie. I just couldn’t place my finger on what made the whole experience so damn creepy. It wasn’t the zombies; I love zombies, nothing creepy about them. There was something else … something all together stranger. There was an absolute lack of people, I must have ridden around for a good hour and only heard a few shots in the distance, unless you count those hungry zombies trying to kill me. It really did feel like the world had ended which was an incredibly beautiful experience.

            Aside from the gameplay, Undead Nightmare actually feels a lot like a B-movie Which works very well for the whole experience. I’m not sure who they got to be the narrator for the game, but the did a good job in casting him.

            Once you finally decide to save one of the many ‘helpless’ towns, you are greeted by a number of armed survivors on the rooftops taking pot-shots into the undead horde. There are then two things you can do, you can either run around dispensing ammo to them, or keep all the ammo for yourself and decide to Rambo those zombies asses. Whichever way you decided to handle the situation, you almost always get a new … or old gun out of it, which I think is Rockstars way of saying “sorry there are no shops”.

            Another interesting thing to do once you have obtained some brand new guns, is to go and cleanse a graveyard. What this involves is burning a number of coffins, then holding off against the Undead till the ‘Boss Zombie’ rises, who is usually a character you met once in game. Once you have killed those the Graveyard is clean, rewarding you with new ammo and various other interesting gadgets.

            Before I move onto the multiplayer, I have to talk about the wildlife. OH MY GOD it is pretty damn awesome, never have I experienced true terror before until I was being chased from tall trees by a large mob of zombies (I had ran out of ammo) only to be joined by FIVE zombie bears and three zombie wolves. Infact I don’t think you have lived unless in a situation like that, that is the sheer level of ‘Oh dear god what now?’. Yes, you would be right in thinking that that is in fact a Zombie cougar … Where is your lord now?

            Well I suppose it is time to talk about the multiplayer, which I will be honest am a little disappointed with. Not because it’s bad, I just feel that there could have been more done with it, more game types involving zombies … hell even a zombie free roam, but I’ll stop before I start ranting about how I have the perfect idea for a zombie game, as they did deliver one awesomely fun thing called ‘Undead Onslaught’. The whole idea of U.O is to survive as many rounds as possible, while more and more zombies keep poring in. Sounds simple right? Wrong, you see every wave the Zombies get a little bit more difficult to kill, and you have to kill them all within a certain amount of time and just to add a little salt to that wound, if you don’t pop them all, you are stuck in limbo with a never ending wave of zombies till you die, you don’t even get any new ammo.

   Well, I guess that is all from me for this review. I would tell you more but that really takes the fun away from playing. I hope you have enjoyed reading it, and remember if this has peaked your interest you can just purchase it from your console.

Luke Seddon

Metro 2033

Hello all my beautiful internet readers out there, this is my second review, so I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed making it.

Stalker in the tunnels?

            Trying to sit down to play Metro has been almost as much of a challenge as writing it. This week has been absolutely jam packed with coursework and various other commitments. However when I finally managed to grab some time for myself, I was not disappointed.

            Metro is a game that is quite heavily story driven, but the beauty of this is that the player (you) always feels compelled to continue and unlock the next part. Another interesting thing about Metro is that it has a number of loading screens.

Normally I don’t enjoy loading screens all that much as it takes me out of the ‘flow’ of the game. This was until I came across metro’s loading screens; each loading screen is handled in a very special way. When ever the game is forced to load, THQ in their infinite wisdom have put in a small narrative from Artyom, this helps in two ways. The first thing it does, is take away the idea of the silent hero, which has always annoyed me, and the second thing it does, is it gives a small insight into the story, and how Artyom is feeling/coping with it. I feel this helps bond the player to character that little bit more.

I think now is probably the right time to try and tackle that giant elephant standing in the corner of the room … Stalker. I know that a lot of people are worried that this is essentially ‘Stalker in the tunnels?’ Even though there are stalkers in the game, you will thankfully find that in terms of game play and even story, Metro differs greatly.

I’ll start by listing similarities… and then crushing them completely. Metro has a number of similarities to Stalker, the main one being that both of them are set after some catastrophic atomic event. However the way that Metro goes beyond stalker, is the simple yet effective addition of Gas masks.

Gas masks are a blessing and a curse in Metro. Each time you head above ground … and even the few odd times underground, your character will randomly begin to choke and splutter, signalling the need for you to don your gas mask. The only downside to them is that if you get smashed up enough in combat, there is a chance the sacred mask of life will break … killing you. Another thing that will kill you is running out of filters. If you have not yet played metro, you will not know the sheer terror of checking your watch, and realizing you only have two filters left … especially when there is no metro tunnel in sight.

While above ground, you are exposed to almost anything the game wants to throw at you, from ‘demons’ to strange hairless ape abominations that quite frankly had me wading through irradiated water just so I didn’t have to fight them. But that is the beauty of Metro. Whereas in stalker where once you got an alright gun you felt invincible, the difference is that even with a heavy automatic shotgun, I still found myself sticking to the shadows and trying my best to avoid gunfights.

Another trait that Metro shares with Stalker, are anomalies, these deadly forces of nature can kill pretty much anything that they come into contact with. Sadly though in Metro, the only anomalies that I saw were scripted events relevant to the story, this doesn’t mean it didn’t scare me witless.

I will admit that I was slightly disappointed with the anomalies in metro, as there were only one type, I won’t reveal the type to you, as it is a beautiful moment when you first experience it. But I just feel there was room for a few more.

The final thing that Metro and Stalker share is their use of mutated creatures. The simple difference with Metro is that none of their creatures have strange psychic powers, which while being cool, personally seem a bit bizarre. Metro’s monsters seem a little bit more how I would imagine mutated killing machines; Big scary and a hell of a lot of fun to be chased by.

Speaking of hell, there were a few moments in Metro where I actually felt like Artyom had died and gone to hell, namely when I was faced with killing an enemy, which at the best of times can withstand multiple headshots, with my combat knife. It’s moments like this in metro that remind you Artyom is not invincible and that you the player should realty tread carefully instead of running in guns blazing … as that usually leaves you splattered all over the floor.

A particularly beautiful thing that Metro does is it makes you crave the underground. In no other game have I found myself actively seeking a way to get back underground and away from the sky. Metro manages this in a number of ways, the use of gasmasks as I mentioned earlier, but they use a particularly terrifying creature, dubbed the demon. These beasts fly quick and high, and you only know there is one in the area when it has its claws firmly planted in your spine.

I’ll end the review on one final note. Metro 2033 is not just a first person shooter/horror; it is so much more than that. Sure on the surface with all its nice and dirty guns, it looks like just another gun runner, but pretty early on in the game, you realize it’s not just about killing monsters and trying to stay alive; it’s about how people react in the aftermath of the apocalypse. It is also a look inside the player and how they would react during situations like this. During multiple times in Metro it causes you to choose between self preservation and seemingly great acts of charity.

So go ahead and pick up a copy … if you think you are ready for it.

Seddon

Reach Report

This is my very first internet blog post/Games review ... so bare with me.

G’day all you Lovely internet people out there. Today I will be reviewing the one and only Halo Reach. Now I know what you’re thinking, Reach … The fifth instalment into the halo games, how can Bungie have made any improvements … I mean, just look at the cod games…

            Through sheer skill, that’s how.

Somehow the Good people at Bungie have secured their fifth title as more than a mere re-hash. They have created a fine fitting prequel that their fans have long been hungry for. After the somewhat disappointing ‘Halo: ODST’, Bungie had to do something to please their fan base. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying ODST was a bad game; it’s just that there was so much more that bungie could and should have done.

            Reach however goes a step above and beyond what we were all expecting with a whole host of new features for us to play around with.

Forge

            The first improvements I’ll discuss are the ones made to Forge. Forge for a long time has been my Favourite feature of the Halo Games, as it has allowed me to really let my creativity loose. So imagine my surprise when I no longer need to go through obscenely long measures just to get two walls to create a ‘cross’, all you avid Forgers out there will know of this frustration.

            The way that Bungie have counters this, is by allowing items/objects to have three states of existence. The State that has allowed me to crate without limitations, is ‘Phased’ this means that the object will not react to any other objects until placed, where it fixes itself into the map. Long gone are the days or setting spawn times just to merge objects.

            Another new thing that they have done is allowed us to forge on the Campaign maps, which I understand has got certain members of the community complaining about how ‘Bungie are too lazy to create Separate Multi-player maps’, However this is exactly what I have been looking and waiting for. Finally I can create an infection map on one of the ‘main’ levels.

            Bungie have also created the mother of all Forging maps, dubbed ‘Forge World’ this monster of a map allows you to create almost anything on it. I personally have created a number of levels on this, and am still finding out new things to do. The possibilities on Forge world really are endless.

            One final feature they have added to forge that really interests me, is the ability to colour certain pieces of scenery. You want that set of forerunner blocks over there to belong to the red team? No problem, just bring up the menu and change their colour to red. Problem solved, as simply as that.

            The controls feel much smoother on the whole as well, allowing players to do a whole lot more with their ideas. There is one criticism I have with Forge however, and that is the lack of ‘object zooming’, that’s right, the ability to move the object closer to the camera and vice versa. Instead this has been changed with the ability to ... move the camera closer to the object, which sort of ruins the whole aspect of the ‘Object zoom.’ Never the less, Forge has still managed to remain my all time Favourite part of the Halo Franchise.

Multiplayer

            Multiplayer itself has always been a large part of the Halo games, be it blasting each other with shotguns on the fabled Blood Gulch, or mowing each other down in warthogs on Zanzibar. The halo games have always delivered with Barrels of fun.

            Halo Reach is no exception to this and with the added ability to customize your Spartan with Armour that you have bought using the Credits you earned for simply being awesome, allows the player to feel more connected with the character, as they have built them up from scratch.

            There are a number of new multiplayer game types up for Grabs on Reach, including interesting variations of old classics, such as king of the hill. One G.T in particular has grabbed and held my attention off all others, this is Invasion. I think that part of its charm comes from the fact that you start off with quite useless weapons, then as your team progresses, you unlock new and incredibly awesome Armaments of Death and Doom.

            Invasion involves capturing territories in order to advance through the game. I know that this just sounds like a re-make of territories, but the point of Invasion, is that you cannot actually progress until you have captured the objective, be it blowing up a generator, or stealing a power core; This instils a kind of unity as your team, because you no longer split up to go after separate territories, you all band together in order to complete the objective and proceed.

            There have been criticisms about Matchmaking recently, as you cannot search for individual game types, only the categories they fall into (Rumble pit, Big team etc etc) However, I feel that this adds a nice little charm to the Halo online experience, as you have no idea what they next game type will be until you have a chance to vote. Again the whole voting proves could be viewed as a bad thing if you are the only one who wants to play Invasion, when the rest of the team all want Swat, but this just creates more variety in the game types, by throwing players out of their comfort zone which is not done very often in online games.

Campaign

            I’m sure you can all remember that beautiful moment from Combat Evolved when you stepped out of those tight corridors and into that lush green valley that seemed to stretch on for miles. If there is one thing that has remained memorable to the Halo campaign, it was how the player felt small in comparison to the chaos of the war. In no other Franchise, have I needed to fight off the Equivalent of three wraiths and a metric Shiz Ton of enemies.

            As with the last few Halo games, this one promises to pack a punch in terms of its campaign, what with a great story and great characters. Sadly there will be no Johnson … or Buck. Instead Bungie have made up for that fact with the delightful personas of Noble team. During my Time with noble team, I truly felt connected to them and (even though they are invincible, as with every campaign character in almost every game I know of) wanted to keep them safe and protect them.

            Sadly though, this campaign is not all that long, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in strength and determination. The story that Follows Reach is one of Comradeship, survival and hope.

            If you are one of those people crazy enough to own an Xbox 360 or not yet own Reach, I highly suggest heading over to the link at the top and picking up a copy, I hope you enjoy your time on reach as much as I did. 

                                                         Seddon