The 360 is already in its third generation of games (PDZ -1st generation, Gears of War- 2nd generation, Halo 3 – 3rd generation), and as its base gathers momentum by the second, let us not forgot those who laid down their Assault rifles and waged war so that humanity could see the random string of thoughts to articulate today.
As the generation of Marcus Fenix passed, the entire platform wars saw a significant change with the base of casual overtaking the hardcore in a definitive way. In the light of such events, the effect these two games have produced is not only phenomenal but crucial to the 360 success. Where do these games stand in today’s generation which is bustling up to see new degrees of interactivity, do they stand ground in a year which has seen the biggest influx of games?
Reader’s note: Since the article deals exclusively with the 360, the PC version of Gears of War is being ignored at the moment.
Gears Of War (2006)- “My name is Marcus Fenix, and I have not taken a bath since Emergence day”, Gears of War was the first 360 game that managed to topple off Halo 2 from Live. The very first game that utilized the much touted Unreal 3.0 engine and proved to be the very first killer app for Microsoft’s new console. Suddenly everyone including Kojima San started talking about the game and everybody wanted to ride into the shoes of Marcus Fenix and oust the locust horde from the planet. Some even went to the extent of calling the game an act of “pure sex”…whatever that’s supposed to mean.
A year later the game still provides insane levels of fun, a person who has not picked the game till now (although such an instance would be rare), will still have tons of fun rummaging through it. Those adrenaline packed acts provide the same levels of satisfaction as they did a year ago. After playing through most of the heavily anticipated action games on the 360 and other platform players would still not wean away from giving this title a miss (as if anybody did).
The game still establishes a fine playing experience as compared to Heavenly Sword and Uncharted or even BioShock, while Sony and Irrational’s titles provide a short lived gameplay experience. The story of Gears of War may have gotten old and is seemingly dull as compared to the storylines of all these games, but co-op play still rules over Live, which makes this a defining feature against its stiff competition for such an experience differs each time you step into playing the game and players forge loyal communities in telling stories of their own gameplay experience. Tales of Chainsaw bayonet remain filled with gore and sense of triumph to this day.
Visually though however Gears is obvious to fall when compared to the likes of the games mentioned above, the Unreal engine has come a long way since the game. But the design of destruction and sense of chaos and the feeling of war remain eminent to this day. A feeling only its successor or Killzone 2 may overcome. COD 4 and Orange Box are this year’s most critically received action games. But this title still provides quite a punch when stacked up against best of 2007 and is certainly not the one that should be gathering dust in your library of 360 games.
Halo 3 (2007): If hype was the longest word in the dictionary, it would directly apply to Halo, with over 4 million sales and counting, this game has proved to be Microsoft’s biggest asset till date. Playing through the wide expanse of Halo 3, the first thought that ensues is the fact that the game is not very deep. The developers have not tried to experiment around with any new innovations that are going to redefine the genre of first person shooters like it did with the original Halo, and why should anyone mess around with a successful formula. Instead they have given the community a game that refines the core mechanics of a shooter. Everything from gameplay to weapons and story is balanced in a very subtle way, which is why most reviewers who have given this game an 8+ score have not really noticed too many details in the game even in the “short” single player experience.
Visuals for instance are one of the biggest aspects in today’s games. Near levels of realism seem to be getting frightening with each passing day, but when Halo 3 came out it was criticized heavily on its visuals, most of these critics however failed to notice the fact that the game nearly loads half of the huge gameplay arena simultaneously along with the AI, 10 detailed enemies on screen, sound, physics.
The works in a nutshell and this fact can be proved with the theater mode, where anyone can actually look all the stuff that is going on in the game real-time, it’s phenomenal. All this at a consistent framerate. Most games even in this generation rely heavily on corridor to get the maximum out of any system. Corridors prevent memory constraints and given designers to concentrate on details on smaller level, HL2: EP 2, Cod 4, BioShock some the best looking games this generation also uses this technique of corridors in achieving visual excellence.
Kudos to the engineering team of Halo who has actually managed to break free of this mould and made this the best technical sound game on the 360.Only Crysis can oust this game in its outdoor visual splendor but again you need to have an equally powerful rig to pull something like Crysis off.
Gameplay as cited above is certainly not innovative. This is not the “mature” shooter that you can talk and gripe about for years to come. Gameplay is quite reminiscent to the days of GI JOE where sparks would fly here and there and a greater part of this popular Saturday morning show was combat based. The story was basically to destroy the Cobra, which gave what every kid in the ‘90s wanted – a healthy dose of non-gore action.
Halo 3 also has no frills attached to it. It’s a highly enjoyable game for all age groups, people can rant about the deep story line but I don’t give a damn about the story as long as I am shooting tons and tons of stuff and doing this in true Joe style.
The Forge Editor and Theater present in the game have been available to PC users for a really long time so it’s not exactly a thing to go hooting about. Sound although plays a huge role in the game, some of the best sound tracks in gaming history comes form Halo. No beating this game when it comes to sound. The Multiplayer aspect although has a huge fan following, it isn’t quite up to TF2 or COD 4’s standards.
As an entire package the entire game is good as it stands ground against most games released this season. Overall both Gears of War and Halo 3 were and are landmark “exclusive” games that the 360 needs. With MGS 4 and Killzone 2 hitting next season this genre is going to see another major upheaval. Hope the 360 has games to survive this blast for otherwise it’s going to quite a silent spring all right.
–Neelesh Mukherjee