It's almost time people. The moment we've all (have we all, really?)been waiting for! SeptemberMFing25th! HALO 3 will finally be unveiled and ready for us to lovingly bring back to our humble homes where we can proceed to kill the shit out of everyone with covenant needlers.
But until then, what to do?
Yesterday I picked up Stranglehold, the new John Woo game. It's alright- a pumped up take on the 3rd person shooter, with some cool effects, like "Tequila Time." where you, playing the Chow Yun Fat character, get to leap and dive and shoot in Wachowski Brothers style slo mo, or perform "stylish kills" for extra points. In a feature that I have enjoyed the most, you can lock on targets and then watch your bullet's trajectory as it hits its targets. It definitely enhances your kill shots, but in the end, it can't really hide the fact that these flourishes are just just fancy distractions from the monotonous game play.
Yes, the physics applied in the game design are awesomely realistic. Yes, the super destructible environments are fun and well rendered. Unfortunately, the entire game is built upon shoot em up missions that are invariably the same. Kill everyone or dodge bullets/rpg fire/melee attacks. I was bored after the first 30 minutes. I'm going to give it another chance today, but most likely I'll be selling it at EB later today, and picking up Blue Dragon in its place.
Blue Dragon is being hailed as the first true "Japanese Style RPG for the 360". Designed by Toriyama and Sakaguchi of Final Fantasy fame. I love the FF series, and most of the Square RPG titles, and I have a lot of faith in the fact that Toriyama and Saguchi can put together a great RPG Japanese style. While the XBOX and the 360 have had some great RPG titles, like Morrowind:GoTY, FABLE(Where's FABLE II, already!), and Oblivion, there has yet to be a great game in the tradition of FF or Dragon Quest, so I have high hopes that Blue Dragon will come through. At this point in time, the 360 is my prefered choice of console, but the Play Station has had the RPG market on lock, and right now it seems that things will proceed along the same lines.
Now you know what I'm playing. What are you guys playing? What can you reccomend? What can you tell us to avoid? Have at it: