Well here are my thoughts on Halo Lampion, I know you are a big Halo fan, you will love it.
Xavier: Yes january, and you and Oddipus can come over and play all you want in Brugge, and in Aalst.
Well here I go, I'll try and explain my thoughts and experience as clear as possible. If things get a bit jumbled bare with me, I'll just start speaking of all my thoughts as they come to me. I made no notes so try and understand my thoughts the best you can.
Well to begin with I watched the World series and my Be-loved Lakers. But the whole time I itched and was going crazy to play the games on my Debugger, but I knew that if I started I would miss the Lakers, no one could break me from the controller, no one.........
Well at about 10:30 Lakers did there usual thing, Win, now it was game time, XBOX style. I fired up the old extra large HDTV, got the old 5.1 Dolby surround sound humming and leaned back in my totally plush leather recliner and got to gaming, XBOX style. When I die and go to Heaven that's where I will be, plus a total babe on my lap as well. It just does not get better.
There were four games I had a chance to play. One a 3rd person action adventure game that is a year away from compleation. Beautiful game, but only 10 minutes playable. A lot like the Malice game, but darker, more Matrix like. No name yet, but a publisher will be selected this Spring, I'll keep you posted on it at the right time, I'll just say that if it were out now I would be wanting it as much as Halo, it's that good, and it still has a year of dev time, really something. More on it this Spring.
The other two are Project Gotham and 24 Automatons. I'll get into PG later today or tommorow, and 24 Automatons as well. I played PG for 2 hours and 24 Automatons for another 2, a brilliant game, I'll get into it deep later, but now it's Halo time.
So I had 5 and half hours with Halo, extra large HDTV and 5.1 Dolby surround sound blasting all around me, total bliss.
Well to begin with here are my thoughts, excuse me if my thoughts are a bit jumbled, It was a lot to grasp and then now to explain in a perfect way. Plus I only got 2 hours sleep, but it was worth it.
Halo is beautiful, it is sooooooooooo very perfect, in all aspects it is the true next gen "GEM" of games, here is why:
You are the Master Chief, a super human soldier produced from an experimental military program, the only human the Convenant actually fear. The Convenant are the evil alien antagonists you are up against. You the Master Chief are one real " BADARSE", chemically and bionically enhanced bones and musculature, rewritten neural links - the works, Convenant watch out.
You begin by going through a few preliminary drills to get you oriented to the game’s controls. I am not going to give away the games secrets, I'll try and keep things spoiler free.
You are in a ship the "Pillar of Autumn", you have led the Covenant away from Earth, to a random location in the opposite direction of the home system, you see they want to take over Earth. So you find yourself near a giant ring construct floating between the two objects, which is about 10,000 miles in diameter. You are inbetween a Gas giant and a small moon.
But you find that the entire Covenant battle fleet had followed you and are still on your tail.
Now I must also state that the the opening sequence of the game should be watched many times over, the best I have ever seen.
The first level of the game takes place on the Pillar of Autumn your command ship, a beautiful sight in itself. It is utter chaos, the ship is being totally ripped into by the invading Convenant, fire fights are all over the place, over 25 characters on screen at any given time, ( NO SLOW DOWN ) even then. You must abandon ship. You and surviving crew members make your escape attempt, however as you are escaping from the crazed Covenant at your heels the very escape route you are taking is full of even more Convenant beasties up ahead. The opening game sequences are very much 'Private Ryun like" opening sequence, just totally frantic and with a ton of adrenaline, and pure energy. By far the best opening of any game ever made.
I'm not going to give away more, to play through the game's opening sequence cannot be described in mere words, it has to be played to be believed. Amazing.
Some more impressions are: Particle effects of a top standard, dramatic lighting effects, textures, all done very well, facial textures done in a top level manner, even down to the pores in the faces, models too are done with a lot of care, and high poly counts.
Surround mode is a definite plus in Halo, because you will hear the action from all sides, and you will react to sounds depending on where they seem to be coming from.
I love the soundtrack, a very moody ambiant sound that works perfectly with the games overall feel. Cannot be beat either, it adds to the mood and atmosphere perfectly.
The other characters are very vocal, they will react to anything happening at that moment perfectly, not one slip up. I was making my way to a location this one time to get a better view and one of my crew was coming up from behind yelling for me to haul ass because Convenant were hot on our heels, perfect A.I. No way has the A.I. ever been better in any game I have ever played, and I have played all the best. And I mean by far.
The first vehicle you come across is the 4 wheeled combat rover. Perfect physics, you just have to drive it to believe it. And many more vehicles and transports are available that give this 1st person gem even more "GOD LIKE STATUS".
Multiplayer features. There are various ways to play with a group of friends, I played co-op for a while and it is just bliss, talking to each other and shouting out instructions, just brilliant fun. Example: My Bro told me to cover him while he went around some rocks to ambush some Convenant, I shot off some rounds and the Convenant went into cover, my Bro found higher ground, he then covered me, I then got to higher ground, and we communicated and covered ground like this for quite some time, and finally took out some pesky "sniper like" Convenant this way. Otherwise they would have picked us off like stealing candy away from a baby.
The most beautiful lighting and reflection effects in a game to date as well. It just is astounding, I knew it was going to be great, but this is beyond great, and I am very picky with my games, I'm talking as picky as a gamer can get.
Another nice detail I noticed was the jeeps wheels, each wheel moves independently on the terrain. The gravel even kicks up with a perfect particle effect, all details are in this game, nothing has been overlooked, and this is first gen XBOX gaming? Wow what's next, I for one cannot wait.
Another thing I noticed is that while the game does have missions, you do have a great deal of freedom. For example you can use vehichles for attack purposes or just settle yourself in a perfect location and become a sniper, or go on attack in a ground assault style. The world is vast, it is wide open, and it is your playground, take out enemy boats in sniper mood, while perched high above a riverbed. just name it and you can do it. Total freedom.
Great weapons, I don't want to spoil the surprise so I'll name just a couple: anti-armor rocket, the pistol with laser designator, flame thrower, and the alien weapons have a iridescent shine , just great looking, you'll see soon enough. All with such great effects, and real thunder to them, you can feel the power as well as see and hear it. Perfect.
The epic sense of both story and visual presentation are unsurpassed, it really feels lke an interactive movie. I was hiding this one time, pinned in actually, and they smoked me out with flares, fun as can be, these NPC's think baby, they are very far from all the mindless drones from yesteryear, this I believe to be the biggest advantage of the XBOX'S power, even more so then the great graphics.
Mutiplayer games too will add even more to this already extra sweet package. One I loved was a multiplayer game titled "OGRE", where one player suits up in a very heavy armored suit loaded to the hilt with weapons while the other three try to kill him. Whoever kills the OGRE gets to be the OGRE. I played this for only 30 minutes. My Bro and our girlfriends went to bed at like 4 in the morning, they are not gamers, but were really loving it as well.
Lampion just get the game. Stay cool.
Tons of next gen XBOX games and MUNCH on MONDAY
Congrats! You lucky punk you... 
