E3: Final Thoughts

So E3 2013 has finally come to a close and the show gave us a ton of games to gawk at and a new generation of consoles to look forward to. Overall the conference was a lot of fun and I think that the next generation of games will definitely be something to excite gamers and challenge them to play in new and unique ways. Here are my final thoughts about the show. Get ready, cause I have a lot to say.

-Sony Won E3 

Gamers love to decide who "won" each E3 and this year it seems like the core gaming audience is vehemently for the PlayStation 4 over the Xbox One or the Wii U. Sony's PR team did a fantastic job of spinning Microsoft's willingness to speak out first against it. Microsoft repeatedly came out and explained the way that things were going to be on the Xbox One and Sony just let them speak until they dug a hole. Sony then made that hole even bigger by jabbing its own "policies" (which are the exact same as the system in place right now) at its press conference.

Sony deserves a lot of credit for swaying gamers' opinion in its favor and I think that right now, the PlayStation 4 is receiving quite a boost from that favorable opinion among gamers. Gamers determine the winner of E3 and it seems like Sony has won over the vast majority of hardcore gamers (you know, the ones who actually pay attention to E3)

-Microsoft Is Not Really in That Much Trouble

As much as the internet and Sony fanboys would like to make you believe that Microsoft has somehow already lost the next generation, that really isn't the case. The Xbox One might be in a bit of a PR nightmare coming out of E3 but lets be honest, most people who buy the Xbox aren't really watching E3 anyway. Parents of young children and casual gamers have flocked to the Xbox 360 and are most likely not watching the coverage of E3.

The price point for the Xbox One is going to be a bit of a hurdle and that might hurt sales. The used game policies and the "always-online" (I put that in quotes for a reason) will definitely sway some gamers away from buying the console. But overall, the Xbox One is still going to sell well and we have a lot of time before these consoles actually ship.

Used game fees are up to the publishers on both consoles (though Microsoft has created a convoluted system that Sony does not have in place) so you have to think that each publisher will do the same thing across all consoles. The Xbox One needs to connect to the internet every 24 hours but for most people who are willing to shell out $500+ for a video game system they probably can manage a two second connection once a day. Even spotty internet works some of the time.

Policies aside, Microsoft has a Kinect that might actually do something useful (more on that later) and a plethora of exclusive titles that will entice gamers. Overall, the package is going to be impressive and I can see plenty of people choosing the Xbox One once we better understand some of these policies.

Will the Xbox One beat the PlayStation 4? No one can say but right now it appears that Sony has jumped out to a bit of an early lead. But this race hasn't really begun so it's kind of useless to call it one way or the other.

-Nintendo Had a Quietly Solid E3

Nintendo has become a bit of in enigma in the gaming world because of how the niche the audience for its games seems to be. "Hardcore" gamers usually don't even seen Nintendo as a viable competitor to Sony and Microsoft so the company tends to be ignored a lot. But Nintendo seems to be doing well by its fans and it could seriously help them out in this console cycle.

The Wii U has never been the graphics powerhouse of the generation (even before the other consoles are out we can say that) but Nintendo doesn't necessarily need that raw power as much. Nintendo has survived for a very long time with more cartoony and stylistic game franchises that look at art direction in games in a way other than "it needs to look real."

This has turned off many gamers but for Nintendo's franchises the system works well and leads to some really nice looking games. Nintendo's E3 showing was full of games from Super Mario 3D Land to the next incarnation in the wildly popular Smash series. And for the gamers who prefer the more realistic games, the Wii U has proven that it can handle third party titles like Assassin's Creed IV and Watch Dogs pretty well.

Many people at E3 have remarked that Nintendo's booth seemed to be buzzing the most as many people in attendance wanted to try out the new games and regardless of the fact that "hardcore" gamers might have left Nintendo behind, there are still a ton of people who care and are probably going to be thrilled with Nintendo in the coming months.

-Kinect 2.0 Might Actually Be Cool

The Kinect for the Xbox 360 was a gimmicky device that promised to immerse players in their games more and instead had them flailing their arms around and jumping up and down to play silly games. The implementation of the Kinect into more "mature" experiences (like shooters or RPGs) has not gone so well and it caused a rift with many gamers who were upset with Microsoft's insistence on using the device.

This was exacerbated by the fact that the Xbox One comes packaged with the new version of the Kinect and it has to be connected in order for the console to work. This also seems to have affected the price point, most likely being the reason that the Xbox One is $100 more than the PlayStation 4.

But if articles like this one on the Verge are to be believed, developers may have finally found a cool way to use the Kinect. Instead of replacing the controller with your voice and body, developers seem to be using your voice and body to enhance your experience while keeping the controller the main input method. Hearing about the voice commands in Ryse: Son of Rome or the Kinect interactivity in Dead Rising 3 have made me feel that it may be more than gimmick.

Will the Kinect revolutionize every game that we play? Most likely not, but the ability for it to enhance our experience in ways that are only limited by a developer's imagination is pretty cool and definitely something to keep an eye on.

-Connected Experiences Are the Way of the Future

As much as it pains me to say this seeing as I am usually a single player only kind of person, connected worlds and multiplayer experiences seem to be the way of the future for games. While many games at E3 2013 were either single player experiences or multiplayer experiences (or both), a good amount of the titles that generated a lot of interest were the always-evolving connected worlds.

Look at Tom Clancy's The Division, or Bungie's Destiny, or Titanfall, or Need for Speed: Rivals. These are just some examples of games that are basically grand multiplayer experiences that will call for a lot of interactivity between players and an almost "always online" component to function at full force.

While some games can be played completely solo (Need for Speed: Rivals doesn't require multiplayer interaction) many of these games are not meant to be tackled solo and some can't even be tackled solo at all. Titanfall is a multiplayer game, even Respawn confirmed that focus. Destiny is basically an MMO. The Division is also a completely connected experience that will depend greatly on the online community.

Game developers have been trying to find ways to make the internet work for the benefit of games as a whole for quite some time now and it seems like we are beginning the push towards a highly connected future. Does this mean all single player games are gone? Of course not, plenty of games at E3 were shown off as single player experiences and they will continue to make them in the future.

However, the fact remains that the huge titles of E3 were mostly centered around some form of connectivity and that seems to be the big way forward for developers to push the gaming experience and make the medium more mature.

-Murdered: Soul Suspect Deserves Our Attention

While there have been several new titles that have caught my eye at E3 (Ryse, The Division, etc) Murdered: Soul Suspect might be more of a surprise to many gamers who decide to take a look. The game begins with the murder of the main character (a detective named Ronan O'Connor) and you will need to solve this murder as Ronan.

Ronan now lives in a place called "The Dusk," a limbo-like stage where ghosts with unfinished business roam after they die. While you cannot directly interact with the environment, you can possess people to ascertain information and put the pieces together to solve the mystery of your murder.

But "The Dusk" is not exactly the friendliest place; certain spirits who never resolved their issues turn into demons who will try to attack Ronan and eat his soul (yikes). Ronan can fight back against these spirits but only by sneaking up on them and tearing them to pieces.

The non-traditional gameplay and the intrigue of a murder mystery could easily meld well with the supernatural elements to create a really fun game. Definitely check this game out if you are into supernatural games or action adventure mysteries.

-Mad Max Might Be Able to Tide Over Fallout Fans 

Fallout 4 has been on every single Fallout fan's mind since Fallout 3 was released. Even after New Vegas hit store shelves, the next installment from Bethesda proper (New Vegas was developed by Obsidian) has been the talk of fans worldwide. When Mad Max was unveiled at the Sony conference, I'm sure every Fallout fan was praying it was Fallout 4.

But now that we know it isn't, Mad Max might actually help make that wait for Fallout 4 more bearable. While Mad Max is set in a different universe with a different mythos, the basic premise of a post apocalyptic open world is there. Vehicle combat looks to be an important part of the game (possibly similar to RAGE) and the team that is making it is known for the massive open world playground of Just Cause 2.

Regardless of whether or not the game is phenomenal, we pretty much know that is will be an enormous open world to explore and that might help tide over Fallout fans while still providing a springboard for a new type of experience.

That's about all I have to say for now but I'm sure I will think of a ton of other things to comment on. If you would like to know my take on anything I haven't spoken about or if you would just like to sound off with your opinion, feel free to do so in the comments or tweet @jamespungello

More E3 Thoughts

I have finally caught up with a lot of the demos that I had missed out on (mostly following IGN Live but Gametrailers has some good coverage too) and I thought I'd share some E3 thoughts after a few hours of watching demos and listening to interviews.

-Quantum Break Gets Better by the Minute

I already thought that Quantum Break looked amazing when I saw it at the Xbox One reveal and then when we saw a little bit of it at the Microsoft press conference. However, when I saw two interviews with Sam Lake from Remedy and he explained more of the premise, I got even more hooked.

Quantum Break is going to be a single player experience that includes episodic content in the form of gameplay and a live action series. The live action series will follow different characters but the events will be the same, so you get to see two sides of many events. Your specific gameplay choices will not only affect the game, but the show as well.

As Sam Lake notes you will get your own "director's cut" live action series that responds to the choices you made in the game. This idea sounds really cool and much more manageable than the TV show/Game combo that is Defiance.

The idea that time itself has been broken can lead to an interesting storytelling and gameplay device and that fact that you will play as the main bad guy in key moments (determining how the story will continue forward) is interesting.

-Arkham Origins Looks Great

I saw the gameplay demo several times and heard two different developers from Warner Brothers Montreal go over the game and I am impressed. The graphics don't look all that much better than Arkham City but that is to be expected since it is not a next gen title.

What really impresses me is the fact that the game is taking a very interesting approach to a Batman "origin" story. Instead of seeing Batman turn from Bruce Wayne into a vigilante, we instead see a Batman who has dealt with vastly inferior foes (regular criminals) for a few years and is now finally being tested against some villains who can best him.

This means that the game centers around Batman being taken aback a bit by these new criminals and learning  something about himself in the process. I think this will help the storytelling immensely and is leaps and bounds better than rehashing the "my parents got shot so now I need to fight crime" story again.

Other than that, the changes to the combat (characters who can counter you) and the detective mode (the crime "recreation") all seem to be phenomenal while still maintaining everything that made the other games great. It will be a long wait until I can play this one.

-Need for Speed: Rivals Has my Attention

I can't say I'm the biggest fan of racing games but I do enjoy the occasional romp in  Burnout: Paradise. However, Need for Speed: Rivals has completely sold me on the concept of the game. The Frostbite 3 engine makes this game look so gorgeous and the idea of using the cops vs racers angle to give more than one experience in the game is pretty cool.

The sensation of speed, the graphics, the ability to seamlessly go from single player to multiplayer, and more  all had me excited to get my hands on the game and I think it is going to be a very solid racing title when it is launched.

-Ryse: Son of Rome is One of the Best Looking Games at the Conference

At this point I have seen quite a few game demos and many of them are absolutely stellar in graphical quality (Watch Dogs, inFamous, Quantum Break) but Ryse: Son of Rome is the one that sticks out in my head as the best looking game at the conference.

The facial animations, the environments, the character movement, and the whole package is just incredibly impressive. The combat itself seems to rely heavily on QTEs (though the developers vehemently disagree that it is a QTE) but that isn't a huge problem for me.

One thing I was impressed with was the idea that you are "a warrior with the controller and a general with your voice." Using the Kinect for general squad commands while you are engaged in combat (like asking for assistance from archers while you are in the middle of fighting) seems to be one of the most practical ways of integrating the Kinect into a game that hardcore gamers will want to play.

Ok that is probably enough for tonight, I will be sure to give my thoughts on some more games that are being showcased (and cover a few that I have already seen but neglected to talk about). Check VGU.TV for E3 coverage (we are planning on a lot of podcasts and some great feature pieces are on their way) and let me know what you thought of these games or anything at E3 in the comments or you can tweet @jamespungello.

E3 Press Conference Thoughts

So I thought I would update this blog for the first time in forever to give a basic overview of what I personally thought of the E3 press conferences now that the most hectic day of the year for me is over. These are just some thoughts with a lot of personal opinion so take them as such and be sure to let me know what your opinion is as well.

-Microsoft Had a Better Overall Conference than Sony

Sony won the E3 press conferences (more on that in a minute) but not because its conference was better. Microsoft hit the ground running with Metal Gear Solid V and never really took the foot off of the accelerator throughout the course of the show. Tons of exclusive games that looked awesome were shown off and even the multiplatform stuff had some exclusive angle (like Battlefield 4's first map pack coming to Xbox One first).

Microsoft also did a good job adding some value to Xbox Live Gold by giving members two free games per month and allowing account sharing with other members of your household. The conference skewed heavily towards games and exclusives like Ryse: Son of Rome, Quantum Break, and Halo were highlights of the show for me.

Even when the conference wasn't at its highest, it never dragged and I had a legitimately fun time watching it. Sony, on the other hand, was a bit of a chore to watch and cover. The conference moved along at a snail's pace as the PlayStation 3 and Vita were hammered into the ground for about 1/4 of the conference.

Even when the PlayStation 4 stuff began, it was slow and boring. Some games looked kind of cool but they were choppy and AC IV totally pooped out at the end of its presentation. Kingdom Hearts III was announced but there was barely anything there. It seems like every time I was about to go "all right, let's get into it" they moved on to the next game.

Sony did a good job of pricing the PlayStation 4 ($100 cheaper than Xbox One) and basically telling Microsoft to "shove it" when Jack Tretton came out and said PlayStation 4 plays used games just like PlayStation 3 and  it doesn't need to connect to the internet. But other than that the conference was just boring, and they masterfully slipped in the fact that online multiplayer is now a premium service on PlayStation without much groaning.

Sony's handing of the "hot button topics" for gamers is what won the company E3 but the showing from Sony was lackluster and I didn't enjoy watching it all that much. I was hoping for so much more.

-Quantum Break Blew Me Away

For a game that didn't show a ton of gameplay (the demo was in-engine but it was basically a cut scene) Quantum Break was SO amazing. I'm not sure if it is just bias because I know Remedy is making the game but it seems so interesting and I KNOW the gameplay possibilities will make it a fun experience.

The idea that "time" has been messed up and these weird "rifts" seem to be making certain people move slower than others (or maybe they are going faster) is an intriguing one and I can't wait to see it implemented in the game itself.

NBA Live 14 Might Actually be Really Good

I know many of colleagues at VGU.TV aren't that big into sports games (apologies to those who are) but I personally love sports titles and NBA Live 14 was not one that I was looking forward to.

But EA took the gloves off and really showed a cool mechanic in the new physics-based system to for ballhandling. The game looks like it may rival the NBA 2K series in quality and after having seen what 2K had at the Sony conference, this will be an interesting year for basketball games.

Overall, I think that Microsoft had a solid showing, Sony was lacking in most areas but found a way to beat Microsoft anyway, there were tons of cool games shown, and I think next gen gaming is going to be a lot of fun!

Check out VGU.TV for E3 coverage including news, reactions, analysis, and more!

I Want Free Microsoft Points!

http://vgutopia.com/earn-microsoft-points-for-playing-halo-4/

As you can see in that news article, Microsoft is giving out points for playing Halo 4 multiplayer until you literally drop in the month of November. I want my free Microsoft points so I have applied for a rewards membership and should get it all locked in by the end of the week.

So why am I telling you this? Because I want you guys to help me get there but playing multiplayer matches with me and making it even more enjoyable to run up my parent's electricity bill all month long. It will take a ton of dedication to make it to 140 hours but 70 seems like a reasonable goal for someone with as much time on my hands as me. If you want to play with me on Xbox Live my gamertag is Pungello1988. Follow me on Twitter @jamespungello to find out when I am playing or just let me know when you are going to be playing and I'll jump on with you.

I'll be posting gameplay videos, coordinating live streams for the site and doing all kinds of other cool stuff with the ridiculous amounts of multiplayer I'll be playing over the next few weeks so stay tuned. I hope to have another multiplayer madness edition up soon, with tons of Halo 4 stories.

Multiplayer Madness #1

So I have attempted to pick up my online (and overall) gaming over the past few days and I've had relatively good results. If you consider getting sniped over and over again Halo: Reach, hustled in NHL 13, and not being able to play Modern Warfare 3 online good results. I'll explain all of that as I give you all a rundown on my quest to become a better online game player.

The Custodians Use This?

The first game I decided to try out was Halo: Reach and I got the mixed bag that I was expecting. The first few matches proved just how out of touch I was with the game. Reloading, meleeing, and using armor abilities all seemed foreign to me and I didn't really get a handle on  the controls until I was a couple of matches in.

To make matters worse I continually got caught with the Team Snipers game mode, which I am horrible at. During one particularly gruesome match, where I got 3 kills and 20 deaths, I knew I wouldn't be competing so I figured I would take a look around to get a better feel for the scenery. I forgot the name of the map that I was on but it was the one with several large buildings and a half complete bridge in the center of the map. Anyway, I was in one of the buildings and I saw that the name of one of the lifts was called the "Custodian Lift."

The lift is a large fan that blows you up into the air (remember, you are an incredibly heavy Spartan not a normal human) so the question becomes "do they really make custodians use this?" I mean, imagine working for a place that basically made you use an indoor skydiving fan to go up to the next floor. It seemed a bit weird but I guess humanity works a little differently in Halo's future.

I eventually began to do better in matches and even began to get positive K/D spreads so the practice is helping out. Every now and again I got a bad matchup but skill does play into that and the skill of the opponents seems to change drastically every single match. 

Getting Hustled

So remember how I said that playing sports games online was a longshot for me? Well, I decided to take the plunge and play some NHL 13 online to see how I would do. The matchmaking process is pretty easy and I was in a game in no time. 

One thing that you need to learn if you want to play online is how to effectively pass and deke, something you don't really need to know how to do on easy mode. Defenders would fly at me more aggressively than usual and pokechecks are the norm, so you need to protect the puck. I lost my first few matches but stayed competitive. I wasn't doing great, but I wasn't getting blown out either.

Then came one of the most frustrating games I've ever played. It started with the team selection as I chose my New York Rangers but this guy decides to go for Team Canada. It's a bit of a jerk move to use an international all star team against a NHL team but whatever. We began to play and he played like a complete and utter fool; skating around in circles, airmailing the puck over my goaltender, and allowing me to get to the net. I took a 2-0 lead going into the third period and that is where it got weird. He suddenly turned on the skills and began to do crazy dekes, take accurate shots, and just began to destroy me. I got lucky and scored a goal after he had scored 3 so we went into OT tied at 3.

He messed around a bit in OT but I couldn't capitalize and he finally won the game with a wrist shot at the 4:53 mark of the OT (that's seven seconds to go, btw). It was demoralizing, this guy had been toying with me the whole time and I never had a chance. I eventually got some wins and even won my first shootout last night but the lingering feeling of being toyed with remained with me. At least I have a fun story to tell.

Modern Warfare 3?

The final game that I decided I would try online was Modern Warfare 3 but I never made it to multiplayer matchmaking. I couldn't access any of the playlists without some free DLC that I hadn't downloaded. I tried to download the pieces I needed but they just refused to start downloading. I gave up and played some Survival where I did pretty well and am approaching level 42 now. 

That's it for my first installment in the Multplayer Madness blog series. I had a decent amount of success in online gaming and was able to kill some valuable time that would have otherwise been occupied by things like working out, job searching, or other useless things like that. 

Back in the Saddle

It has been quite some time but I am back with a little more life experience and a new direction for this blog. When I started this blog back in 2008 I was looking to get some experience writing about video games and see where it took me throughout my college career. After I graduated from college I began to volunteer write at GamerGaia.com and this blog became an advertisement for that site.

I have since moved on from GamerGaia and am now the Editor in Chief for VGutopia.com. I have seen some great stuff in the past few weeks from a re surging site and am excited to see where VGutopia goes. However, I don't want this blog to turn into a big advertisement for my site, I want it to be its own thing. A place where I can vent out what I want to say in a less than formal setting.

Will I never link you guys to VGutopia stuff? Of course not, if I have a good opinion piece up or something I'll let you guys know but I would like to leave this as a general place to discuss my thoughts on trying to enter the video game journalism field, playing games as I get older, and anything else that enters my mind (exactly what a blog should be).

So I will begin by talking about how "out of shape" I felt while playing Halo tonight. I was bored around 11 o'clock or so (shortly after the Giants finished kicking the crap out of the Panthers) and decided to pop in a disc and play some Xbox. I mulled over a choice in game and landed on NHL 13 after a bit of deliberation but after destroying the Minnesota Wild 8-0 and then beating the Canadiens 4-3 in OT, I was looking for something different.

So I took another glance at my games and decided I'd give Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary a go. I decided against another roll through the campaign and instead decided to try something I hadn't done in a while; play online multiplayer. I'd been a big Halo online guy years ago but I had basically stopped playing online games (even though I still shell out the cash for Live every month). I quickly realized this was a mistake.

The first match was incredibly brutal, with the other team beating my four man crew 50-9 (I contributed one of those nine kills by the way). I began to wonder if maybe I had lost my touch. The second match turned out to be better with my team winning and me actually pulling out a +3 K/D ratio (usually I'm in the negatives) so that wasn't too bad but it didn't shake off the rusty feeling I had.

Atrophy is a term I only used to describe what happened to my biceps when I stopped working out but now I see its uses in my gaming life. My skills at Halo (and most likely any game online) have severely atrophied over the past few years of almost non-use. I see  this as a problem, especially if I am going to be a video game journalist for a living. How could I possibly have any credibility among my audience if I thoroughly sucked at the games I played?

So I've decided to change my fate and get my online gaming skills back up to snuff. It won't be easy; real life obligations, single-player RPGs, and laziness might get in the way but dammit I am going to try! I'll start with a healthy dose of Halo before moving on to titles like Call of Duty and then maybe I'll venture into the uncharted waters of sports games online but I wouldn't hold my breath on that. I'll keep you all posted and we'll see if I can get my "online legs" back under me.

Why I'm Looking Forward to a New Halo Trilogy

With the announcement of the new Halo trilogy of games that will feature the Master Chief and Cortana there are bound to be people who will either love the idea or hate it. Some will say that the franchise has grown stale, others will say Microsoft is trying to milk more money out of the franchise, and still others will enjoy the ability to go back into the universe of the Master Chief. So, are video game sequels like this a good thing or should the industry shy away from them? Will Halos 4, 5, and 6 be as good as the previous entries in the series? We will have to wait and see but I’m here to give my 2 cents on if these games are a good idea or not.

While I can’t say for sure if the game will be any good until I play it, I can say what I think about the idea. I personally love the story of the Master Chief and Cortana and would like to see a continuation, here is my reasoning. In any medium, we encounter characters that we know, love, and would like to see more of. Most of the time in movies, for example, we see a character that is engaging, funny, interesting, and we want to see more of him and his adventures. This is why sequels are popular in the first place in the movie business and why spin-offs are popular in television (because sometimes the main character isn’t the most popular or interesting) but something a little different happens in video games. Because games are interactive the gameplay element adds to the overall value of the game on top of the story telling, which is the most important aspect of film and TV.

So when a game series, like Halo, gets the gameplay right, we want more even if the story isn’t always the greatest. What usually determines a good game from a bad game is the gameplay. The story (and other, smaller factors) usually separates a good game from a great game. So the story takes a backseat to the gameplay and isn’t necessarily needed to create a good game. That’s one reason why game sequels can be tricky. Gameplay needs to be expanded for the game to be regarded as good because a rehash of gameplay is like a rehash of a movie plot. Plots can be rehashed in a game and be accepted more readily than gameplay. What we, as gamers, want is for the developers to keep what worked from previous titles and add in better elements in place of what didn’t work. This can cause the games to be much better and is why sequels have better luck in the video game world than in the film world, the gameplay and graphics are easier to enhance for a sequel but are non-existent in a movie.

So, in many cases, a game series will continue to get honed and better as time goes by whereas a film series will wither away without some kind of new spin. This is why I like to see game franchises last longer because the content might be getting better and better, at least from a gameplay standpoint. I don’t think films get better (with rare exceptions) but games do a whole lot more often.

So, why all the comparisons to movies and what is my point? Well movie sequels are the closest kind of sequels that I can think of to compare to for games. But the real reason I went through all that is because I wanted to show that if the gameplay is up to snuff then the games will be worth making. People have complained that the story will be dried up for Halo 4 but that really isn’t the central-most aspect of what will make the game. Granted, story is becoming much more important and it needs to be there, but I really want to see more action from the Halo franchise because of the gameplay. The Halo series has offered some of the most accessible and fun gameplay and that is what I am really looking forward to.

Continuing the story arc of Master Chief and Cortana will be exciting and I hope the writers are up to the task but I am really looking at 343 Studios to churn out the same level of gameplay that Bungie gave us and that we loved. Playing Halo online or offline with friends is awesome and I want to be able to continue that experience with even further expanded elements. 343 can take what Bungie did right and expand on it.

But, with all that said, this still seems like a cash-in and I am questionable about the quality considering Bungie isn’t at the helm. It is clear that a lot of love was put into Halo: Reach and it turned out fantastic. Can 343 give us that kind of game? No one can really know right now but suffice it to say I will be surprised if Halo 4 is as good as Reach. Sure the game is a cash-in but can you really blame Microsoft? Do you honestly think you wouldn’t want to milk that cash cow as long as you could if you were at the helm? Let’s just hope that Microsoft and 343 don’t see this as a cash-in while making it and the quality doesn’t suffer.

But, in general, I am more open to seeing more entries in the franchises that I love because it is a chance for the gameplay experience to get even better. It is more realistic to assume that the experience will get better on a AAA title than it is to assume that the gameplay will get worse because developers have the chance to get feedback and make the games better. The fact that 343 is behind the game is the real hiccup. Will they learn from what Bungie did right or will they go their own way and toss the dice? Time will tell but what do you all think? Are these new Halo games, or video game sequels in general, a good idea or something you will pass on?