An Interview with Halo: Reach
This morning, Bungie’s latest game in its long-running franchise, Halo: Reach, dropped by the Thumbemployed couch for a quick chat. Here’s how it went…
Thumbemployed: Thanks for coming.
Halo Reach (into headset): Noble team, this is Big Pappa One, we are locked and loaded at interview. Ready to light it up! Let’s DO THIS!!…Please acknowledge, over.
Thumbemployed: Do you always talk like that?
Reach: Like what? Over.
Thumbemployed: Like that. As if you just dropped out of Modern Warfare 2.
I’ve had this feeling before. Back in 2008, EA released Mirror’s Edge (I wrote about it here) by Swedish developer, DICE; a game that was at times only marginally less frustrating than trying to steer a car using nothing but a bag of cats. And yet, and yet, it was a thrilling experience – an almost critically flawed but stupidly brave step in a new direction that sucked me in like a Dyson and held me in its thrall for days. Yes, there were times when I wanted to murder the designers one by one with a large hammer, blow-torch the disc and call my parents to complain about the serial deaths I’d experienced trying to, say, jump onto a moving train or even (ahem) open a door…
But it was still a brilliant game. Ambitious. Atmospheric. Beautiful.
Movie review: The Expendables
Stallone: Acting with all his might.
Necks are clearly optional in The Expendables gang, and the only one that has one is Jet Li. Stallone got rid of his years ago, perhaps at the behest of his mullet, which was clearly tired of waving around so much and just wanted a nice, settled existence on his shoulders. Mickey Rourke, looking here like a gigantic animatronic version of Little Big Planet’s Sackboy, has no use of one either. Lundgren might have one, but he’s too tall and too scary to ask, and Statham might have one too, but it’s certainly on the endangered species list. And it will surprise no-one that the MMA fighter (Randy Couture) and the football star (Terry Crews) eschew anything attaching head to shoulders that isn’t wider than both.
But that’s enough about necks. Let’s move up a bit and talk about the important stuff: Heads.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Gameplay Diary (Day 1)
I’m in a cell, then, nanoseconds later, I’m escaping. Although, all I’m actually doing is what I’m going to be doing for the next twenty-five minutes: Running along behind a bunch of dudes killing scores of other dudes until the game tells me to stop. Or flashing-forward back to my 24-meets-Saw-trailer cut-scene. I can’t go left or right, only the way they’re going. I can’t go my own way. If I die, when I re-spawn, the bad guys appear in exactly the same way they did before I died, and they’re just as predictable. Everything looks pretty damn great (though not quite as good as Modern Warfare, for some reason) and every time I do my Pavlov’s-dog impression and blow up the right thing when the game tells me to, I’m rewarded with one giant explosion after another. Good boy! Sit, roll-over. Play dead.
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