Whoa, tried to watch a bit of Halo: Legends a bit ago and found it entirely unwatchable. Must just be my inability to appreciate anime.
xhonzi said:
Likewise, the Spartan design in what I've seen of Reach puts me off in almost the same way. Spartans are supposed to be 8 or 9 feet tall and it makes them look a little thin... The Reach Spartans totally looked to have that bulked up Gears of War look to me.
Yeah, from Master Chief in the game and the Spartans in the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach (the only of the books I have read), I got the impression Spartans are suppose to be extremely utilitarian, the ultimate boy scouts. Instead, Halo Reach's Spartans seem the opposite of utilitarian, more like frat boys than boy scouts.
I was watching the Reach ViDoc "Into the Breach" and it had lots of people gushing over Halo CE and how its some kind of highwater mark that they're constantly trying to get back to. I think the games have only gotten better since CE, but I seem to be in a minority.
Well, I think the significance of Halo:CE was the ground it covered regarding gameplay. It truly was a high water mark for the FPS genre, especially in regards to the console FPS (prior to Halo, the words console and FPS in the same sentence where synonyms for "worthless"). From a story telling standpoint, Halo:CE really has nothing going for it. It didn't have an original idea in it, it was extremely linear, and it lacked any character depth whatsoever.
But one thing that rings true for games and not for many other forms of art, is that developers must always strive to surpass them. Dark Forces was very impressive for its time, great fun, and had advantages over its contemporary FPS games, advantages that other games borrowed and improved on. No one today would say, "Hey, what we really need to do is make a game that plays like Dark Forces!", it is too archaic today. Halo:CE is the same way, it may have been the first to tread certain ground, but in the time since its release that ground has been trampled on by just about every other FPS in some way or another, and some have far surpassed it.