Fable or Fantasy, how good was Fable 2?

Right, time for another blog post. Another video game review I'm afraid, but that's the theme lately.
I recently completed Fable 2, which took me less than a week of on and off playing. There will be spoilers below as usual, but at the bottom will be a recommendation in my usual format if you are interested in my opinion of whether or not to buy it.
First off, the plot.
The plot in Fable 2 is pretty simple. You start as generic orphan child #362, with your sister generic orphan child #361. You go around for the first bit doing some tasks for random people to earn some gold so you can buy a magical music box from a dodgey merchant since it apparently will grant one wish. You get the box eventually, either having done good or bad deeds, and then you activate it and it promptly magically disappears. Grumpy, you and 361 go to bed on the street. You are then summoned to the castle, and then promptly killed by Lucien. I forget why. Your sister dies instantly, crumpling to the ground. You however somehow manage to be flung out the nearby window and land onto the soft embrace of solid concrete.

Somehow you survive being both shot and falling far enough to shatter all the bones in your body, and then a cutscene happens and you're ten years older, having been living with Theresa and Gypsies. Theresa is basically the one who tells you what to do. All the time. She's kinda useless though. The gist of the rest of the game pretty much boils down to Lucien being the bad guy and is trying to rebuild 'The Spire' which is a massive tower that can summon enough will power to grant one wish to reshape the world and is an artifact from 'The Old Kingdom' or whatever. It's also in the middle of the ocean. Somehow he manages to recruit enough manpower to be guards to enslave enough manpower to rebuild the darn thing. Through his sheer evilness I guess. I'm not even going to bother going into how he feeds that many people.
As the hero you go around collecting the fabled hero of strength, will, and skill. Which are the names of the leveling up attributes. You get this massively muscled woman with a big hammer.. called Hammer. You get the wizard guy who you have to save from the tower, and you get the evil crackshot magnificent bastard type guy called Reaver. I'll go into characters later.

Once you get all three to help out, you gather on top the hall of fate.. and promptly get captured by the bad guys. Then you have some weird cutscene in a 'Perfect world' where you're with your sister doing some stuff in the nearby farmland. Even though you're -both- still wearing pauper clothes and are back to being children. At night you hear a music box playing, exit the gate exiting the perfect world, and then wander along some carnage filled paths, find the box, and teleport to the Spire. Wander up the steps, use the box, Lucien is foiled, then killed, either by you or Reaver. There is no final showdown. Which was a letdown. You then make a wish, either to revive everyone who died making the spire, revive your dog and family and sister that were killed by Lucien, or get a million gold. The last option is the most evil. Then the heroes disperse, and.. thats it. You've saved the world, hooray for you. It doesn't feel that gratifying to have finished the game. It gets repetitive.

Then we get the characters. The protaganist, Hammer, Garth, Reaver, Lucien, and Theresa. Oh, and every single generic npc clone wandering around. The hero is.. silent. You never say a word. You get moral choices.. that are so black and white it's not any fun. In Mass Effect 2, or Dragon Age, you really have to think about your choices. And even then what you think is right might turn out to be the evil choice, or have unforseen consequences. Here? Save person A or kill person A. Lead person B to safety or steal person B's personal belongings, wallet, left shoe, and leave a grenade in his possession. There is no grey area.
The heroes of leveling up, Hammer Garth and Reaver. Well.. Hammer is cliché and irritating. Garth is.. a mage.. I really have no idea what kind of guy he is. This lot have no character. Except.. Reaver. Reaver is fun. He is a bad guy that does things his way, is prepared for anything, and made a deal with shadows for immortality. He is also voiced by Stephen Fry, which helps, which  makes him even more fun. He is clearly having fun as Reaver, being a merciless bad guy. The first time you meet hima sculptor is doing his likeness in stone and he is posing. Wearing rather dashing clothes too. Once you leave you overhear him say "You really think my rear is that large?" And then a gunshot. He's the most fun you'll get. Lucien is.. generic badguy. He wants his family back I think, but frankly his descent into evil is so generic and unexplained I don't care.

That what games need to do. Make people feel emotionally connected to the cast.

Oh yeah, then there's Theresa.. who.. erm.. tells you what to do for the main plot.. vaguely.. buggers off at the end, then says the Spire is hers after you win.

And your dog. Which is pretty much a fluffy metal detector, since he finds dig spots and treasure.

I really didn't feel any connection to the cast, or any desire to revive anyone or do useful stuff.

Then there are still morals, leveling up system, and actual gameplay/combat to go. This'll be a long one.

Morals. Black and white. They're so simple its pitiful. You either go sheer saint or go sheer bastard.

Leveling up. You have strength, for close combat with swords, Skill, (Odd name choice) for ranged weapons, and Will, for magic. Strength makes you more buff, skill makes you taller, will makes you shiny with mana. It's simple and does the job as leveling up goes. It's not extensive, but, it works.

Gameplay and combat. Combat is a button mashing fest. It's sad and simple. You go the entire game mashing the same button depending on what you focused on. I went for Skill because I really like flintlock pistols, and they were fun. Early game, it was simply a case of press Y again and again and again until everything is dead. Then leveled up a bit, hold Y to target someone, -then- mash. Repeat. Eventually I could target the head with left trigger and up. Do that for everything and they're usually dead. Strength is no better. You mash X to hit people. Hold to block. Whilst holding, press a direction and you'll prepare a flourish for more damage. You'll either get hit and interrupted, or the enemy will back away. You can't move whilst prepping. Magic is annoyingly useless. Since late game most things take repeated attacks of level five spells to kill them. Spells work by charging them up from level one to level five, holding B. Level five AoE spells take eight years to charge up, by which time the enemy have taken several chunks out of you, and then they get hit, and don't even die. You're so vulnerable when charging it's near useless.

Gameplay and frills, well, you can buy clothes for your appearance, and hey, everyone wants to look good. They also change how attractive you are. You can buy new weapons, but there aren't many levels of weapon. Because it's kinda a short game. You can marry someone.. except it's so shallow and unfufilling it's pointless. It can take five minutes to get some stranger to fall in love and marry you. And you can have kids. and you can have sex, both marital and extra-marital. You can have multiple partners. You can buy houses and refurnish them. You can buy shops which earns money. You can buy every single house ever.
The story of this game frankly is 'You can... but why would you want to?' to borrow from Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation.
There is no point in buying everything except completionism. There's no point in refurbishing. I didn't and I finished the game just fine. You can have sex.. and get a black screen with a few moans and that's it. And frankly all the npcs are a bit weird anyway.

And that's my review. Bit of a ramble but oh well. Long and short of it is, either buy it cheap or borrow it. Replayability is low because unless you have the patience to mash through the entire game again, you're not gonna try being the opposite moral. It's a bit short, it's ungratifying, and it's not that well executed in some areas. It can be fun, but I find myself looking back and struggling to find specific points that made me go 'Hell yes!' with enthusiasm or tension. Maybe I'm just picky, but I look for more in my games.

Next, not sure.
Silver16

Cracking down on Crackdown 2.

Crackdown 2 is a sandbox game, with a slight change of pace for what I shall call the final showdown. That's the kind of variation you should expect here. I'll start with the story. The story is that you are a buff marine super soldier guy. You're superhuman, and made and work for an agency called the Agency. Which is the armed police type corporation that takes on any bad stuff within the city called Pacific City. (I think it's near the Pacific) And you, a member of the Agency, are referred to throughout the entire game by the name, Agent. And you combat the terrorist cell of people called The Cell in day time, and by night you take on the zombie mutated freaks called.. the Freaks. I am unimpressed by the names, to say the least. There are three main characters in this. And I use main character in the most generalistic of terms since for all intents and purposes all of these characters are one dimensional. You have yourself, the Agent. You can pick your face. Out of four. Male, faces. Except you go through the entire game (Except the very short tutorial at the beginning) Wearing a helmet. And you can pick a colour. Dark blue, black, grey, or white. You never speak. Your character has no emotions or choices whatsoever.
The second 'character' is the narrator who tells you what to do and where to do or how to do it. You never see him, but he is part of the Agency, and in charge of you. He is a faceless annoying voice. And at the end he leaves a not-vague-at-all cliffhanger to his intentions for world domination, now that you, his lackey, has just annhilated the Cell and the Freaks from the city.
Third character is the leader of Cell. She has a name, I'm sure, but given that for the entire game her only appearance is -during- the ending cutscene, and she speaks through radios in Cell strongholds to inspire them.. she's hardly an antagonist. You never see her or feel threatened by her. You just fight her masses of witless heavily armed lackeys.

The plot (What there is) is pretty much that the city is under siege by day from terrorists and night by mutants. No reason, it was on their list of things to do. Under 'Mutate another arm' and 'Get lunch' accordingly.

To remove freaks from plaguing sections of the city, you need to set off a beacon. From start to finish, this involves liberating three Absorption Units (Which absorb sunlight) from Cell per beacon. There's only four guys usually at a AU though. Then stand on a button for a few moments. Once all three are done, go to the beacon point. Go underground. Summon beacon. Defend beacon from angry mutants whilst beacon charges its sunlight attack. Sunlight boom. That's it. Do that nine times, and all freaks are gone. It's not even that difficult once you have decent weapons. The final ones get attacked by mutants the size of a house. Throw one cluster grenade and it's down. As well as everything else nearby.

The second part is 'Tactical Locations'. Aka, blocks of land Cell own. Again, go to the Cell symbol on the ground, activate, kill all Cell nearby, done. Repeat another 26 times.

I might add, after detonating beacons seven eight and nine, you are contacted by whats-her-name and she begs you to stop detonating them, pleading to your humanity and stuff, then gets cut off by Voice and he talks about communication problems, then cheerfully tells you to go detonate the next one. Do we get a moral choice to stop it and find her to see why it's so wrong? No. Detonate the things if you want to reach the end. No moral choice here.

Then go to agency tower, liberate the refinery from Cell for energy (Easy) defend the tower from mutants whilst it charges for a massive beacon blast, and that's it. Takes about five minutes, that last bit. Then you get a cutscene where whats-her-name attacks the power cores (That withstood the onslaught of -multiple- large mutants) with a single helicopter. Armed with two gatling guns. Alone. Voice then tells the Agent to take her out, and he jumps off a building, shoots her, and kamikazes the thing I think. End cutscene with the tower making a big boom. Credits. Then whats-her-name is shown in a lab with the hand of the agent that got cut off by the helicopter blades as she was falling.

It's just do the same stuff again and again. What takes the most time in the game is chasing the 500 agility orbs scattered on top of buildings throughout the city so you can level up your agility, so you can jump and run faster.
On that note, leveling. You have five stats. Agility, which affects running speed and jump height. Strength, and when higher lets you lift heavier things. Like lorries. Guns, unlocks better guns for deployment, explosives, ditto, and vehicles, again, better vehicle unlocked. All are raised from level one to five by simple practicing with it, except agility, where you have to get orbs. That is what takes up the game time.
I will admit though, leveling up my vehicle skill by drifting at speed in a super car through massive crowds of mutants swarming the highways and exploding their fragile bodies upon impact never gets old.

But once you're at level five agility you can reach the Agency heli-pad. And the rocket-choppers. Helicopters with overpowered rockets. My explosives went from three to five in no time just cruising along crowded roads of mutants blowing 'em up.

Sure, the leveling is okay. It's nice to have it. Sort of. Even though the tank is a letdown because it's flimsy.

Gameplay/Control
I don't like the controls. I'm used to them, but the damn thing is awkward. The targetting is awkward because it does what it likes and targets whatever is handy instead of maybe what you want to target, and the free running is picky. Sometimes you can run just fine, and then sometimes he decides he doesnt want to grab onto that ledge and just smear his face down the side of the building. The camera is a little clunky to use, being slow and unresponsive. The vehicle controls take a lot of getting used to, using right trigger for forwards and left trigger for backwards. And left button to fire. There's also one stronghold that you need to take from Cell where the game tries to be Assassin's Creed. And fails. It just ends up being highly irritating because of the camera going OH LOOK A BUTTERFLY.
Also, the helicopter is perilously fragile. To the point that even landing hurts it. Go slow, downwards, let it extend landing gear, slowly, slowly, land. Oh, but it still took a chunk of armour. Thanks.
Also, the civilians are pathetic. If you kill too many civilians/peacekeepers (Agency armed police that keep the peace) then the Agency will for a short time try to kill you. Which is highly irritating, given we're on the same side and have better things to do. It's not my fault if A) Civvies are stupid. I was -inching- my car fowards so slowly to get onto the main road past a line of civilians without running them over. They run in panic and fear. One steps infront of my car, I stop moving, and he dives terrified off to the side at speed landing on his side. Durr. B) Peacekeepers or Civilians are in the middle of massive crowds of Freaks. If there's a massive crowd, I'm going to use explosives. Obvious. C) Peacekeepers run into me. I had one point where I landed my chopper safely, wasn't moving at all, then a PK car rams into the side of me. Voice then scolds me for hurting them. Er. Yeah. And slightly unrelated D) Peacekeepers are allowed to run civvies over. I saw one speed past me and splatter multiple ones as I was trying to inch past without so many casualties.

Music
There is some. Honestly, it never leapt out at me and I can barely remember any music from the game.

Voice Acting
Voice is annoying. Agent has none. Civvies mostly go "AAAAHHHHH" Freaks mostly go "ARRGLLBLARGBLLARRG" And Cell mostly go "SHOOT THE AGENT". Oh, whats-her-name talks regularly on the radio. I listened once. She talked about laying down arms due to the freaks being a bigger threat and that they should work with the Agency. And then immediately after went on about rising up to tear down the Agency. Huh. Also, Voice mentions every achievement you get, in game, saying "You did such and such, well deserving of an achievement!" No but seriously he is annoying, constantly berating you. You die trying to take a tactical location because activating the attempt on the ground means you get pulverised by a bazillion guys with rocket launchers? He tells you "This mission has failed. Come back when you grow a pair!" Gee, thanks for motivating the recently dead guy.

Sandbox Elements
The city is a decent size, which is just as well. Buildings are usually tall and hard to get up due to controls, and 500 agility orbs are scattered around. Usually easy to find, until I expect you get to 450. It's mostly just one big game of doss about killing stuff. There is no storyline to go back to after spending some time buggering about powersliding through crowds of freaks.

Overall
Borrow it from a friend. Online is negligible now, and its replayability is okay given you can start a new campaign with your high level agent, but the only thing you'll want to do is kill stuff en masse. Once you're bored, it's shelved. The controls need improvement, the plot is near non existent, and there are barely any characters in the game, let alone to feel some connection to.

It's fun, ultimately. If you like explosions and killing stuff, it's fun. But only for a bit. When you want to get to proper gaming instead of dossing about.. there is none.

Silver16.

Who are we?

I regularly come across conversations where people wish things were different in their life, or they wish something in their past was different or had not happened. Which is understandable, bad stuff happens. But the thing is, we are the sum of the events of our life, and life is itself a journey of self discovery. Know the phrase "It's not the destination, its the journey that matters." Well that applies to life. Since nobody gets out alive. The destination in this case is death, the end. Now, I'm not going to delve into an afterlife topic, but for now we'll go with the fact that life is about discovering who we as a person, are. Are we just a bag of skin holding various squishy and actually quite unpleasant internal organs with functions controlled by an electrically powered synapse brain connection forming a sense of consciousness and self-awareness? Or are we a person with various hobbies, friends, thoughtful interactions, theories, and an attempt at self-betterment?
Putting aside that there are quite a number of people don't actually strive for self-betterment and only mope in self-misery and destruction, life is about finding out who you are, as well as deciding who you are and who you want to be. Aiming at what you want to achieve, what kind of person you want to emulate or meet the standards of, who you feel comfortable being, and ultimately, being happy in your own identity and figuring out who on Earth you are.
Some people don't get there for many years, and some get into a comfortable zone of contentment in knowing who they are. A phrase I've found myself thinking cheerfully for the past year is "I am me. I like being me."
Because for me, life is good. I'm rarely bored, and I have personal standards I try to meet, and generally think I do. So that puts me as happy with my identity.
However, I wouldn't be me and know what I know or act in situations the way I have had I not experienced various parts of my life. Family togetherness or lack thereof is an important part of the nurture process when someone is growing up, and can do a lot to shape their identity. However it is not always a given whether it will be a negative or positive effect, due to the nature of the person themselves, they may feel vindictive towards the world at how unfair their life is, or they may strive to do better and prove that they are better than their elders and set a good example for the next generation, should they have one.

Ultimately, the meaning of life can even be brought into this by the simple explanation that it is in fact about a journey of self-discovery. Every event shapes you be it big or small, and people learn things every day. I'm an Atheist, and I have a horrible suspicion (and suprisingly pessimistic for me) that what we have is what we've got. That we are just a bunch of incomprehensibly complicated synapses interacting with each other in a jelly-like noodle to form consciousness, and that when we die and it powers down, that's it. We're like a computer turned off. The hard drive will eventually fade away, and our legacy is what we left behind.
I'd love to believe I can spend eternity in a place of eternal glee and fluffyness with the woman I love, but.. I find it a little hard to believe. I will believe however, there is more in this world than what we see, and we shouldn't take our available spectrum of visibility for granted. But it may be the case that we are simply here as a result of evolution, and that looking for the meaning to existence can pretty much be answered like so.
"Why are we here?"
~Shrug~ "Why not?"
There's no argument against why we should be here.
But whatever the case, I strongly recommending taking each day as it comes and making the most of it, and best of all, leave something good in the world behind you. Don't hoard riches, you can't take it with you, but you can give it to those in need. Love trustingly and love openly, and maybe someone will love you back, and maybe, just maybe, it'll spread a bit more good in the world, because bloody hell there's far too much corruption and greed and evil than there should be. We are our own worst enemy. Because no other species on the planet has wars and commits genocide.

But, I'm going to stop there. It's gone into ramble mode and I've simply written down my thoughts as they've gone along. I hope you've managed to follow my train of thought, and if not, I hope it inspired a train of your own to ponder on. Goodnight.

Silver.

Reach for the sky.

So, Halo: Reach has been out for a week today. I pre-ordered it, so I had the joy of it arriving at my house on time, and thus playing it on the day it came out. The short, non-spoiler review/recommendation? If you have XBLA Gold, get it. Seriously. It's great fun, keeps you interested, and the multiplayer is good fun, but the multiplayer is the main component of the game, so if you only have Silver (Heehee) then.. I'd wait a while. £40 is not worth it for just campaign and single player firefight, to be honest.

With that out the way, now comes my segmented review of Reach. Spoilers will run rampant I'm afraid, so, you have been warned. First will be the Campaign, then Firefight, then Forgeworld, and finally Multiplayer Matchmaking.

The campaign is ten missions long, and of varying lengths and difficulties. Now, firstly, the plot. Personally, I think the plot is mostly entirely brilliant (The mostly will be explained presently) You go into the game, and in case you had no previous knowledge of the Halo Universe before the game, part of which is the fact that in the first game it is referenced that "Reach falls.", you see a visor-damaged helmet partly embedded in barren ground. Your helmet. So, the game makes it pretty clear right from the beginning, this planet falls. We lose this battle. You -start- knowing you've lost. For me, that means it's going to take some pretty good writing to prevent disappointment.
I was not disappointed. I think Bungie, or 343, depending on whichever it is now, did a very good job. It ties very neatly to the beginning of the first game, even giving a cameo shot of the Master Chief in his cryo-tube aboard the Pillar of Autumn, which you can see at the very end cutscene of it taking off by looking to the right. Noble team feels like a proper group of real people, instead of a bunch of faceless space marines. They have personality, style, customised armour, voices, and seem real. My only qualm is that we perhaps didn't get quite enough time to bond with the various members, and that when they were each killed off, there wasn't quite enough time put into the mourning and emotion of the loss of one of the team.
I felt Carter's demise was very salute worthy. He may not have firepower, but he certainly has jet power, and a whole Pelican transport worth of mass to use. Jorge's was well done as well, the simple picking you up, and chucking you off, saying you'll be needed. A later line definitely punctuates the emotion for that bit best, the fact that he died thinking he'd saved the planet. Sadly, his sacrifice was.. wasted. He destroyed one super-carrier, only for five more to jump in immediately after.
The planet definitely begins to feel like a planet under siege, and on the losing side, as the game progresses. Cities are under siege, civilians are being evacuated, and in some cases those evacuation ships are being shot down. People are dying. Thousands, probably millions. Reach is a high end civ planet for the humans as well, it's not some small colony, it's a fully fledged settled planet.
Personally, I think it suffers ever so slightly from 'Middle Game' syndrome, wherein it doesn't feel.. complete, simply because it's tying up to lead onto the next game neatly. Which in this case is the first one. The developers had to do it, so it's understandable entirely, I'm just observing.

The gameplay in the campaign is pretty much Halo, improved, neatened, and polished. It is a little vehicle heavy during the campaign, but I had no objection to this. Ammo is sometimes a slight issue, but then I wasn't really exploring much or using Covenenant weapons that were available all the time from the enemy, so it's my own fault. Most of the armour abilities get their turn during the campaign, and it is paced pretty well.
The final mission, Lone Wolf, made me sad. My character, who had been helping so much to get Reach through the battle, and give humanity -something- to work with, falls, just as everyone else did. Your final mission objective, is simply, "Survive." Which is an impossible task, because there are endless waves of Covenant coming for you. Limited ammunition. No vehicles. And as you take health damage, your visor gets scratches and cracks, the first crack damage causes you being unable to see your ammunition via your HUD, and the second one takes away the motion sensor, and partially obscures your grenades. And then you go down fighting.. but you still go down. I think the sad part though is the sheer impossibility your spartan would feel. The impossible odds, no hope of rescue, nothing left on the planet, nothing will help you, and just the sheer desolate nothingness left for you, other than death. But damnit you're going to take down as many of the bastards as you can, because you're a Spartan, and a Spartan goes down fighting.

Hm, I went back into the plot bit there. My apologies, I tend to simply write this as I think it, and go off on mental tangents... You'll live, I'm sure.

So, what was next? Oh yeah, Firefight. Firefight is a lot of fun in my opinion, as long as you don't simply overdo it. Doing it too much makes it dull. But there are fun aspects, like a custom game you can make yourself invincible with unlimited ammunition, just for a laugh (Or achievements). The main part of it is usually played online with other people, where you face off five waves of the Covenant attacking you. It's pretty simple, fun for ten minutes or so, and sometimes challenges require it. (More on them later)

Forgeworld is extensive, polished, and improved. Liked forge? You'll love Forgeworld. Everything is more accurate, precise, and polished to allow for easier construction, more interesting and involved construction, more tools, and it's overall pretty damn awesome and probably the best console editing tool out there in my opinion. I can't say much about it in detail due to having not actually done it that much myself, but the leeway left for creativity is extensive, and I liked that even in the Bungie ViDoc they commented how the community will likely hand their asses to them in Forgeworld creativity. Or something to that affect. I like companies that respond to suggestions for improvements, and are well aware of their community being more than just the people that pay you. They are the people you play side by side with, the community you help nourish and support. But gamer communities might be best left for another blog entry.

Multiplayer is the biggest section, they've done away with social and ranked playlists, and I approve. I hated being limited to just the social list on Halo 3 when I had friends round. Sure we could still play pretty much the same basic playlists, but it was more hassle than it was worth. Now they have Competitive, which has free for all Slayer or Objectives, Team Slayer, Team Objective, Big Team, Invasion, and I think there's one more.
Invasion is the most unusual one of the bunch, in that instead of two equal teams going up against each other to do run-of-the-mill killing and stuff, it's one team as the humans, one team as the Convenant, and one side is trying to 'Invade' the other. The invading team has to achieve a few objectives one after the other whilst the other team defends. They then swap after the timer runs out or the invaders win.
Before each match and after every death, you also get to choose what equipment you start out with. Your special ability, and your weapons. They vary, and I like being able to choose at the beginning. You can't in certain special modes, but that's to be expected. My only qualm is the fact you have three seconds to change equipment between death and respawning, but then to extend that one would have to wait longer to respawn. So, it's tricky either way.

Lastly, there is Arena, which I personally have not done, but as far as I am aware, you play a few times every day for a week, and your best three matches daily are taken and ranked, and then after a week you are placed somewhere in a division of a rank of skill. Then at the end of the season, the divisions are shown and how well people did and so forth. You get doubles, and teams of four. A great way for competitive skill-based players to prove their skill, effectively. Can't really comment much beyond that.

In addition to all this is the rank system, the armour upgrades commendations, and challenges.
Rank is determined by lifetime credits (As a pose to current credits) Which are gained by doing missions, playing games, doing Forge, and playing more games, and completing challenges. Credits can be used to buy armour upgrades, which are purely cosmetic, but hey, everyone likes upgrading stuff and customising their look, and the upgrades are extensive. More gets unlocked as you rank up, and there are lots of options. Helmet, Shoulders, Chest, Wrist, Thigh/Gadget, Kneeguards, Firefight voice, Visor Colour, Armour Effect, and armour colours. Colours are changed for free though. And there are many options, and variations on helmet base options, too.

Challenges are tasks that are set both daily and weekly which once completed award the player with extra credits. There are four daily challenges every day which last 24 hours (And change over at different times depending on timezone, but everyone has same amount of time at the same time) And one weekly which changes every sunday. These could be as simple as hit someone with a sticky grenade for three hundred credits, or kill thirty Elites in Firefight Matchmaking for fifteen hundred credits. Some are easier than others, and some just take a while to do instead of being challenging to achieve.

Speaking of achievements, Reach's achievements are almost all easily obtained. I'm not a Hunter like some are, but I have all but 9 within a week. The last of which require a high rank, or to complete the Campaign on Heroic (Hard) Legendary (Hardest) difficulties, potentially in Co-op (Which over XBLA can have multiple people participating) And Legendary.. Alone. On that note however, 'If they came to hear me beg' is the pickiest achievement I have ever had the misfortune to fail to get multiple times. You have to Assassinate an Elite, to save you from a fall that would otherwise be fatal. So, were it not there, you would die instantly on impact with ground. Except you assassinate the Elite instead, get the achievement. I got the Elite maybe ten times, and died 92 times, and did not get it. Aiming isn't hard. Timing the assassination is. And still no bleep bloop. Well, screw it, I get no credits for it, so.. I've more interesting things to do.

On the note, assassinations are a new thing too. Hold the melee button behind an enemy, and you perform a short but awesome animation of killing them by some means. It never gets old. I love assassinating. I will go out of my way to chase down that guy and stab him in the neck with a knife. It's not bloody or gory, just a short thing, but never gets old. Hehehehe.

And finally, commendations. These are extra credits awarded too, and like trophies, for when you do something a certain amount of times. Various actions are ranked by how many times they're done through No medal, Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and either gold is the top or I presume platinum follows. But it may not. I've not got that far yet. There are commendations separate for the Campaign, Firefight, and Multiplayer, each for different things, and multiple commendations to achieve. Not something you go out of your way to do, but nice for the credits, and good bragging rights. (Like, I have a silver 'Pinpoint' on campaign. Means I've headshot'ed over a thousand enemies. Go me.)

Also, did I mention the graphical and musical aspects yet? Well if I didn't, they're awesome. It's very pretty and very well detailed, there's attention to detail -everywhere-. And also, the music is pretty darn fine. My personal favourite is the main 'Going to battle' music, which I don't know the name of, but it rocks as far as building up the suspense goes.

In conclusion (And if you got this far, you really have lots of spare time. Or you like what I write. In either case, thanks for getting here :D) Halo: Reach is a brilliant send-off goodbye for the Halo franchise. It brings together all the best bits, polishes them, and is awesome. The campaign should have been longer and given us more time to bond with the characters, and in particular more time to mourn and get the emotion and significance of their deaths when appropriate, but I suppose you can't have everything. Best of all, it's good fun. And those challenges are darn clever, they keep me entertained for multiple games a day, because I have an objective that I'm building up to achieve, instead of tediously adding tidbits of credits to my stockpile to get a rank up. Personally, I love the game, money well spent.

I think I covered everything. If I didn't, the post is long enough to make up for it, so tough.
SilverStrike16, signing off on my very favourable and positive review of Halo: Reach.
Next post? Don't know. Likely a 'Food for thought' or 'Aspect of Life' post, just to even things out with the reviews.

Your lack of plot disturbs me.

Okay, so I just watched the second episode of the third season of Merlin. Had I started a blog during the first season, I could have given a review episode by episode. However, fans of the series wouldn't thank me for it, so perhaps it is best left as it is.

An introduction, perhaps would be most suitable. Merlin, in my opinion, follows Arthurian legend, in the same way a group of teenagers beg their teachers for more homework. It doesn't. There are names that are the same... and... that's about it. Now before I get flamed for 'Why do I watch it when I only hate about it' Well, I don't hate it. And why watch it? Because it's funny to take the piss out of it. I get entertainment out of the sheer amount of suspension of disbelief required to accept it as.. good.

Now, onto the recent episode, namely a two parter. Spoilers below, so ya know.
The Tears of Uther Pendragon consists of Morgana and Morgose teaming up with nameless king-guy to take down Pendragon, teaming his army with their magic, Morgana in particular since she is a trusted member of the court. So, to start their plan, Morgana puts a somewhat sticky mandrake under Uther's bed, causing him to go mad. As a side note, I think it's hilarious that the vegetable screams. See, eating vegetables -is- murder.
 Then Uther starts to go nuts, seeing the faces of the dead mages he's killed over the years. King-bloke then preps up to go to war against Pendragon. For one thing, I think it's stupid that they consider the kingdom completely crippled just because Uther is out of action. Regency anyone? Or the Council? It's not like Uther never gets a stomach ache and has to let everyone take care of things. Okay, sure, war is a little bigger on the requirement scale, but still. Regency, likely to Arthur. And he's not completely incapable of defending the city is he?

Well apparently he is, actually. Granted, some of my complaints about to be written could be down to the fact they had to fit this all in 40-80 minutes, but sod it, they could have MENTIONED it.
Arthur starts out by getting -everyone- inside the city to stay safe, regardless of homes and farms that will get crushed under KB (King-bloke). Granted, saving people is good, but, y'know.. he's coming from a direction. Unless your city was built against a cliff-face, why not just evacuate people to the other side of the city? As well as those farms being safe anyway. Unless the city falls, but in that case everyone is screwed anyway.

Second, they leave the gates open so the enemy can come through and they can fight them sword to sword. Where are the archers? Where are the cauldrons of boiling oil being sent over the side of the gates on the battering rams? And my biggest complaint is Arthur being on the frontlines -himself-. You're leading the battle, as a GENERAL, not literally you halfwit! Soldiers do the fighting, leaders doing the strategy.

Again, Merlin uses his garbled Latin to save the day in various means, Morgana goes around shifty-shifty without anyone batting an eyelid, and KB gets increasingly impatient. Dude, it's a siege. You're a king. You should know, setting siege on a castle, tends to take a while. Especially if you're trying to starve them out, which is why we spent all that time watching them get supplies. But no, the siege lasts all of.. half an hour apparently.

The skeletons were kinda silly. They didn't add much at all, there weren't very many of them, and they were mostly for intimidation purposes it would seem. I did like the one getting stabbed and then shrugging though. I might add though, wouldn't -blunt- weapons be more effective? ~Sigh~
Uther comes to mid-way, and.. rushes to the frontline to hit some people with a sword. Yes, this is the man who the entire kingdom was worried they were crippled about for his being out of the game. He didn't even try to contact any of his officers or Arthur to re-establish communication in the higher ranks for strategy.

Overall, extensive rant is extensive. Merlin has a sizable budget, and Anthony Head is a great actor (He was awesome in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) But the writing is just poor most of the time. It has little to no association to Arthurian legend, but it's still entertaining if you have an hour or so to kill and wanna make fun of something. Or are easily able to suspend your disbelief to go 'Ooh. Action. Ooh, Trebuchets! Ooh. Swordfighting.' Then enjoy.

SilverStrike16, reviewing Merlin Series 3, mostly the second part of the two parter.
Next time, probably Halo: Reach.
(Everyone else is probably doing it, and I have it, so why not.)