More on Halo Reach...quote on Industrygamers.com

I'm still playing Halo Reach though I haven't had time to play the MP component yet. I'm sure I'll get trounced at first but then start holding my own after a while, at which point I'll likely move onto another MP game on console just because I have to keep playing lots of games. That said, Halo Reach is by far my favorite Halo game. Without spoiling it much, I liked the small nod to Battlestar Galactica in one sequence where you fly the fighter in near Reach orbit defending capital ships. The voice chatter over the comm is pretty cool and borrows somewhat from BSG. I suppose that's more military common speak, but I'm not a military guy and the feel of it was just right. Anyway, another small reason to play the game.

Meanwhile, I was quoted recently on Industrygamers.com about whether the Halo franchise has peaked. Essentially the question is if another developer an step in and make future Halo games for Microsoft that will be as good or sell as well as Bungie's Halo games. My essential answer is no. It's going to be tough to fill those shoes and even another good developer will not be able to reproduce the exact same magic that went into Bungie's efforts.

I made a reference to Treyarch making Call of Duty games (CoD 3 and CoD: WaW) that weren't as good as Infinity Ward's games. That doesn't mean Treyarch is not a good developer. I didn't like CoD3 that much, perhaps because I was sick of WWII in Europe / France games by that time and I felt the game was a little too intense, i.e., it didn't have the right pacing that an Infinity Ward game has. However, I really liked World at War, Treyarch's second CoD game. It's really hard for another developer to come into a brand with super high quality that it did not originate and make something better. WaW used the much improved tech from CoD4:MW and the multiplayer was great.

Anyway the real point is that I'm looking forward to Black Ops due out Nov 9. Yes it is set in the Vietnam era (right?) and despite few shooter games in that setting and none getting it right, not even BF:Vietnam (it was basically BF:1942), I think this game is going to be good. Will it score in the 90s? Don't know. Don't care. I just think the potential for something like this is high and it's not a crawl-in-the-mud type Vietnam shooter. It appears to have at least a taste of the magic IW created in MW1&2 judging by some of the sequences I've seen, so I've got high hopes. I know there was a ton of controversy this year over Activision's handling of IW, but as far as Black Ops goes, I still hope that stuff didn't distract Treyarch's dev cycle on the game and that it comes out well.