Grumpy Old Nerds

When I saw Halo CE on the list, I was hoping that I was to be reviewing a game called Halo: Cooking Exalted. The protagonist would be Master Chef Bobby Flay and his mission would be to rescue key leaders in the Catholic Church with his ability to cook divine meals. The whole thing would have played out as Diner Dash meets the Da Vinci Code. I WANTED it to be that. Anything, ANYTHING but another damn Halo game. If that was the case I was absolutely willing to go get ABBA: You Can Dance and review that just so I didn't have to deal with the ridiculous bullshit nonsense that comes with this franchise. But, NOOOOO. I am not lucky.

So instead of something new and different, we get yet another addition to the slew of toys, videos, books that cut into the shelf space of Star Wars literature at my local Barnes and Noble, oh yeah and all 7 (going on 8) video games. You remember when Halo 3 was supposedly the last we were going to see of the series? And then they put out what....2 others and have announced a 4th on the way? Glorious. Just glorious. So with these games, we are also getting a steady supply of Halo. And since Bungie is now owned by Activision...a name synonymous (NOT REALLY) with quality, we are likely to see at least 20-30 more, whether they are good or not. I'm going to go ahead and put my money on the whole....NOT thing. HOW EXCITING, Right?

Hell, even as I am writing up this review they are finishing up the storyboard for Halo 12: The Search for Spock. But hey, whatever, right? Let's just go ahead and review this sucker before that stroke I've been warned about finally kicks in.



The premise of the game is that you are a human cyborg or a cyborg human, I really wasn't paying that much attention to the particulars. Anyway, this Master Chief guy comes in and starts running around shooting people and yelling like one of those frat kids that you see in Revenge of the Nerds. (Quick little side bar here....playing just Madden and Halo does not make you a gamer. It makes you a douche.)

ANYWAY, Master whatsis saves the planet or the diamonds or the princess or whatever through the magical combination of running jumping climbing trees....and shooting things. I just thought of something though. Perhaps this Master guy is one of those action transvestites that Eddie Izzard was talking about all those years ago.

In all seriousness this game is the same as it was 10 damn years ago. They just improved the graphics and slapped it in a shiny new box. And you bought it. Congratulations Halo fan: you've just been George Lucased (See definition 1). I am sure most people in the business of reviewing games are going to give this a nice chunky score, but not me. Call me when you people do something new with the genre and we'll talk. Until then? Same old same old isn't it? But with that.... screw it, let's just go on to the Break Down.

THE GOOD

• It wasn't another Mario game....so there's that.
• The graphics are greatly improved so it DOES look nice.
• Controls are pretty much typical of your run of the mill shooter.
• It gives some people something to do before SWTOR comes out.

THE BAD

• The shooter genre is tired, lame, and RIDICULOUSLY redundant.
  
• Launching a remaster of a 10 year old game doesn't help either.
• Another in a long line of games that are absolutely irritating.
• The remaster job looks pretty, sure...but graphically it looks like crap compared to the last Halo game: Reach.
• This probably means we'll get hit with more books and movies. ...Great.

Numbspoon's Numeric Value: 5.0

A BIT OF A DISCLAIMER. I know we have been hard on the FPS games we have reviewed here, and it is easy to, based on that, draw the conclusion that we hate them. Not true. We have been fans since the original Wolfenstein. We just feel as though the genre has become over saturated and because of that, the products have suffered greatly. So...since no one else is going to say it we will. FIX IT!