…if you buy it second hand, or around £9 if you buy it new. And it’s…
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Okay, it’s not actually *for* the 360 but Bungie’s tweaked the graphics via the 360’s backwards compatibility and I reckon it looks much better than, say, Perfect Dark Zero. There are a few bugs, but not too many and not too often (you get the odd ghosting on the screen when textures don’t disappear, but at least you don’t get permanently trapped under vehicles like you do in the 360 version of Far Cry Predator). I’m currently playing through it again from scratch and I’m consistently surprised by how good it is.
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0 responses to “The best Xbox 360 game is £4.25”
Personally I preferred the first one. There is a lot more stuff in the second one, but the essence of the game is still the tense stand off fire-fights. I think these are more fun in the first one than the second. I mean the brutes don’t really add anything except a reason to use the needler (no sheild = cannon fodder), and depite all the other kinds of troops a one on one battle with a tough elite is still the best it’s got. The two gun thing may add a little to it, but not so much that I’d care.
The fighting may be the core of it but you can’t ignore that the plot of halo 2 is straight from the Phantom Menace school of boring, tangetial, political nonsense. I only just avoids an actual tax dispute. Or liam neeson. Oh and halo 1 has the sense to put it’s badly designed levels about half way through and right at the end. Instead of sticking one right at the start (“when do I get off this damn boring space station!”).
How much is halo nowadays?
Oh and I should point out that the level of these critisms point out just how good a game it is under it all – after all I’ve played plenty of games so bad the the plot or the balancing of a particular fight didn’t matter. I just prefer the first one.
>>How much is Halo
about the same. £10 new, £4 used.
2 things about Halo 2, 1 good and one bad.
Good – the OH F********!!! moment when you walk into 2 hunters but then realise that they’re on your side.
Bad – there were quite a few bits where you just didn’t have a hope in hell and just ran for it. Mibbe that was just me.
I suspect that alcohol was involved the first time I played Halo 2 all the way through, because on replaying it there’s loads of stuff I don’t remember playing before.
The flood really get on my nerves, btw.
Tom, if it weren’t for the twin gun thing I don’t think I’d have got beyond the first checkpoint… I like the variety of 2, particularly the various vehicle-based bits. I don’t actually have Halo 1 any more (gave it to a friend when I gave away my Xbox) but I’m seriously considering buying it again.
> Mibbe that was just me.
No, me too. Particularly in the arbiter/flood bits, where you’d hit the invisibility button and run like the clappers.
But against the original bad guys the twin gun combo isn’t really any more powerful that the gun/plasma granade combo. Sure against the brutes a twin needler setup will make it a cakewalk, especially if you keep the distance open, but against the elites it’s very much an alternative rather than a neccesity (which of course they actually force on you a bit by having fewer grenades around…)
I must agree with TM, I much prefer the first Halo to the second. But I don’t have a 360 because my husband is a big old meanie so I’ll just have to put up with inferior graphics on my old black thing.
I take it you got past Graznei Bridge then? ;-)
amazon are selling the core system (wired controller – no hard disk although these can be added) for £180. £30 off.
I got across the bridge and then got so bored with the game I haven’t played it since :)
Actually if you sign up for the correct mobile phone/internet supplier/car washing service (I forget what exactly) you can get one for free.
BTW, I notice you refer to perfect dark zero. Does this mean you actually played some of it? I went throught the intro level and so dull and by the numbers was it that I have never felt even slightly inclined to put the disk back in the drive ever again. I’m always faintly suprised when I notice that david or someone has actually played enough of it to accumlate some point thingys. How did you stay awake?
I played Marilyn Manson at silly volumes :)
It really does suck, but in my defence I bought it because IT WAS THE ONLY SODDING FPS AVAILABLE AT LAUNCH. But yeah, it’s dull. Feels like a bad FPS from a decade back.
The demo of chromehounds is quite nifty though – although of course every screenshot that’s been printed so far has been from the pre-rendered cut scenes rather than the game itself, which is something of a rotten swizz.
To be honest I thought PDZ sucked and the first few levels do. I kinda got into it later on.
I thought chromehounds was pretty dull. For a game that’s going for photorealism I thought it was a bit lazy to have explosion look like a cut and paste job. ;-) Lost Planet looks more interesting.
>>ONLY SODDING FPS AVAILABLE AT LAUNCH
What about the rather good COD2?
Reviews banging on about realism put me off, to be honest. I don’t like realism; I like big dumb fun…
I know – it’s just that was what they appeared to be aiming for and it doesn’t work. That wasn’t why I didn’t like it anyway. Bit dull though.
Prey’s out soon.
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/06/29/joystiq-hands-on-playing-prey-on-the-360/
Yeah, I fancy that too. Still no sign of the demo though. Was originally supposed to appear on Live on Friday.
In Chromehounds’ defence, you can waste lots of time blowing up buildings. That’s always a laugh.
Buty COD and COD2 (and indeed medal of honour) don’t do ‘realism’. Sure they have a realistic background – that halftrack really is a SPW/251 auwkflaerung with the right size wing mirrors or whatever, and yes there really was a war in north africa – we didn’t have to make up the desert level. But it is still just a blast – one hero saves the day. You get to shoot just about everything.
It is, of course, not a game that is a realistic simulation of world war 2, but a game that is a realiatsic simualtion of sitting through a (pretty decent, action oriented) world war 2 film, whilst getting to do the shooting yourself. But then I’m not the first person to point *that* out.
COD2 is probably the best example of this ‘genre’.
>>live on Friday.
MS never release live content on a friday. In case something goes wrong there is nobody there on the weekend. There are apparently certification issues with Prey.
As for realism in COD – I never said it was. The only thing about realism is when games claim to be going for that and screw it up (like Chromehounds). I though COD2 was pretty fun. More than PDZ anyway.
If I buy COD2 and hate it, it’s all your fault.
Download the demo from live. The game is the same as the demo.
And I didn’t accuse you of saying it was. Gary said the reviews about it put him off. I was just pointing out that they are talking rubbish. Of course if you find the whole world war 2 *setting* in itself dull (and that is the bit that is realistic) then there is a bigger issue.
But does it matter that much if you just want to shoot stuff? Do you car if that helment on the guy you just shot is realistic? Halo 2 is great, even when saddled with the plot from hell and a story about as interesting as the pension calculations I’m writing just at this moment…
So yeah, Download the demo.
Prey demo is now Sunday apparently.
Should be on Live now, according to Major Nelson.
Oh, I tried COD2… s’alright. Good atmosphere but the aiming sucks no matter what gun you’ve got.
>Oh, I tried COD2… s’alright. Good atmosphere but the aiming sucks no matter what gun you’ve got.
I think that may be an attempt at ‘realsim’ after all most real weapons do not hit very often…
That and you’re probably spoiled by Halo’s very good console friendly auto-aiming correction. COD is a PC game at heart of course.
You’re right, I’m probably spoilt by halo. COD2 would be better with a mouse, I think.
Prey isn’t bad, btw. Goes on a bit at first but when it finally gets going, it’s like a less boring Doom 3.