Nov

16

Many 30 second moments…

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Halo: Combat Evolved (Halo 1) released on November 14, 2001. Three
years have passed (minus a day or two) and Halo2 has been the game de
jour for many Xbox owners. Heck, First Person Shooter (FPS) fans have
even bought Xboxes just to play Halo - the original was that good. But
does Halo 2 live up to the very high expectations placed on it by fans,
fuelled by the Microsoft marketing machine?

For me, right now, the short is no. Here’s why¦ Read more

Nov

1

On Co-operative gaming…

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One of the things that my wife and I do together is play games. Yep, we both enjoy them. I’m lucky, I guess.

Halo (the original) was one of the first for Xbox that we both could play the campaign game supportively, co-operatively. This is very important - as our First Person Shooter (FPS) skill levels differ, so we can both play to our strengths - covering each others weaknesses.

As well, there’s something about having a shared in a virtual world - something you can talk about over breakfast, plan strategy on the drive to buy groceries, whatever. It’s a way to share this predominantly male hobby with your significant other.

So, Halo is . Playing Halo campaign with your mate (especially if one of her favourite movies is Aliens) is more . Anticipating Halo 2, discussing it, about it, drooling at the screenshots - you got it - even funner(TM).

Then over the weekend, I’d read that Halo 2 will not support co-op campaign play over the system link, or .

Major Disappointment. We were looking forward to:

Sigh - what will be included with the released version of Halo 2 will be co-op campaign mode playable on a single Xbox - same as the original. After all this time, they’re basically giving us a slightly improved game, but no real benefit to those who enjoy
playing the game with others - rather than against others.

The competitive FPS folk out there will not really miss this feature, but as someone who does enjoy co-op , Halo 2 is already disappointing. We’ll still buy it, still play it, and likely still love it, but this one feature would have made it gold.