LTdaz

So much wasted potent. It's obvious that BIS intended ARMA 3 to be more of a platform for the community than a game. But without solid content on its own, it won't draw many new comers and the higher system requirement will prevent some ARMA2 community from transitioning. As a result, ARMA 3 will be slow going. 0 as it is now. Potentially a 8 or 9 a year or two down the road, when contents are there and the price drops.

I'm actually really surprised at how much work Blizzard put into the console version of this game. A lot of aspects in D3 have been reworked from the pc version to make game feels native to the consoles and gamepad controls. The much talked about change from the pc version are the addition of a local coop mode and the removal of a constant online requirement and auction house. But Blizzard was nice enough to bring back LAN capability as well, something that was obviously not possible with the online requirement of the pc version. Among other changes, instead of controlling player character via mouse clicks ala RTS fashion, player now has direct control over the character. Blizzard also added a fairly responsive dodge move that is mapped to right analog stick. As a result, fights are a lot more arcade-y (in a good way) and you feel more involved in the thick of it. The combat now resemble something like a fighter where you zoom in to deliver the hits and evade out of the way of any enemy attacks as oppose to standing toe-to-toe with baddies and hacking it out like traditional Diablo combat (of course you can still play D3 like that but the evade feature just adds to your combat repertoire). The camera and FOV are also closer to the action compared to the pc version, partly for technical reason and partly to emphasize the action more. To accommodate for speedier play and lack of mouse control, looting is now automatic for gold and bodies; player walk over to collect gold and check loot on bodies. That's something I personally really like. You still have to press buttons for item pickups. Blizzard also introduced a quick inventory management system that allows players to quickly compare, equip and drop items without pausing and going into the inventory screen. You just press up on the D-pad and recent picked up items are displayed relative to your current setup with the choice to equip or drop. This is obviously added for local 4 players but I also found it to be very useful for on the fly loot management in SP. Inventory has been adjusted for console control as well, but that's one change that's not necessarily for the better as I still prefer having simplicity of mouse drag and drop for inventory management. Speaking of items, loot drops have been massively adjusted for the console version. One of the many complaints about the pc version is how many junk items there are in game. According to Blizzard, they've addressed this by scaling back the rate at which items are dropped but have made the items more "useful" in general. And to their credit, I have noticed A LOT less item drops compare to the pc version during my playthrough of the 360 version. Rumor is Blizzard will be making a similar adjustment to the pc version in an upcoming patch. Due to the limitations of the aging hardware, there are some expected technical compromises with the console version. The visual fidelity is scaled back compared to the pc version and the resolution is native sub-720p to maintain a steady 50-60 framerate. It's jarring at first especially if you are used to the much higher resolution of the pc version but once you get going that's quickly forgotten (at least for me it was).

I don't understand why the "professional" reviewers have been so critical of this game. Yes, the game is a little rough around the edges but given enough time it really starts to shine on its own. If you are a RPG fan and willing to keep an open mind, you shouldn't miss this. No, I don't really think the game is deserving of 10, more like high 8 in my book. However I gave a 10 anyways to offset the ridiculous amount of 0 from users who judge this gem purely on its production value or worse, never gave it the chance.

You can get a pretty good idea of what Halo Reach generally has to offer from reviews by both customers and professional critics available, but I'd like to focus this review on certain aspect of Reach that I found particularly worthy of praise, namely the combat. For me, Bungies Halo series (not counting Ensemble's still excellent Halo Wars) have always had distinctive, varied and free flowing combat I love, but Reach is really the pinnacle of that Bungie unique brand of FPS combat. It's hard to find faults in a system that Bungie invented and perfected through almost two decades of developing FPS. In a lot of other FPSs, there's usually couple of selected weapons I tend to gravitate toward after familiarizing myself with what's available in the game. However, players would be hard pressed to find such "Swiss Army knife" of guns in Reach. The weapons library and availability are well balanced; the perfect weapon is very much dependent on the various elements of any given situation and environment. While the basic combination of energy arms to wear the shield down and kinetic ones to kill still provide the basis of your weapon selection consideration, increase in variety of open and close environments and types of enemy encountered add complicity and weightier consequences to decisions made on what firearms to bring into the next battle. This by no means strictly limits each weapon into specific categories of engagements. On the contrary I found most weapons to be flexible enough to serve in all situation but choosing the right ones to match your skill sets and circumstances is absolutely critical in surviving higher difficulties in the game. The levels themselves are excellently designed and provide the perfect backdrops to both small and large scale battles. Placement of enemy troops seems to be pre-scripted limiting battles to specific locale on the map, but the movement of those enemies are not as restricted and helps to retain dynamic flow of the battle. While the maps are fairly linear, the areas of each encounter are open (horizontally and vertically, I might add) and offer great amount of flexibility in tactical approaches and executions, especially with other live players. During a coop campaign mission, I found myself going back to a perch from an earlier point in the game that overlook the area we were suppose to defend and provided effective stand off support from a distance for my teammates. Speaking of teammates, AI of your computer controlled allies have not changed all that much from the previous games, which isn't necessary a bad thing. I like the fact that Halo friendly AI can act independent of players' action. In combat, they are not hiding behind the player character expecting he/her to push the front line forward like other FPS (CoD). But some sense of self preservation in friendly teammates like Covenant grunts often display would go a long way to immerse the player. On the other hand, enemy AI have improved drastically. Players no longer have their sole attention like I've seen in many other FPS. Covenant troops seem to react to other Spartans or human soldiers as well, depending on the level of threat they present at that instant. Since player is never alone in any mission, this effectively makes flanking a viable and necessary tactic in SP campaign. When I drop back to recharge shield, it's an opportunity to approach the enemy from the side while they are focused on my teammates. It isn't an sure fire technique as enemy AI sometimes will utilize their advantage and pursue when when you're recharging especially if you are overly aggressive and advance too far behind the line. Enemy AI will now recognize and use force multiplier in field like turrets (even gun turrets on abandoned warhogs which was something I didn't see them doing in previous games) and unoccupied vehicles. Overall, they seem "smarter" than before at gauging the situation and player intent then reacting accordingly; for example they throw grenades to flush out players in defensible positions, move to a safe distance before firing explosive weapon when players are close, deploy armor lock-down when players try to run them over, disable player vehicle with plasma overcharge to counter zoom and boom tactic etc. The only real complaint I have is the fact that drop ship deployment are almost instantaneous and in static locations often invulnerable to fire from ground. The instant enemy reinforcement really work against my usual tactics of wearing the enemy strength down from medium and long range then seizing the momentum and charging at the weaken remaining troops. In Reach such combination of tactics would get me sandwiched between the remaining enemies and fresh reinforcement dropping behind me. But that's more of a personal preference than a legitimate gripe toward the game.