Hurry up and release footage Bungie because your fans/anti-fans have nothing to talk about in the realm of reality.

Thanks.

Less than a week away from having a whole new can of worms...

But yeah... if you don't think that progression effects Fallout 3 than I just don't know what to say. The game is definitely an RPG first and foremost.. shooters put far more emphasis on combat and balance.. or at least they used to before they all started to bleed into RPG territory with stupid, unbalancing bullshit like perks and unlocks. It actually boggles my mind that this stuff is even popular. It's a little (lot) like "extra" mode becoming popular in Soul Calibur. No one plays that shit for a reason! But I guess shooters skew more casual than fighters do, huh?

I like deployable equipment. I hope that Reach has both.

Yes and Yes.

I've a sincere question in regards to Reach...

Okay, so, Project Gotham Racing used to be my favourite racing game series with a pretty vast margin. PGR2 (together with Amped 2, incidentally) very much embodied what Xbox Live was about for me back on the original Xbox, and the same was true for PGR3 as a stunning launch title for the 360. As such it cemented itself as a constant presence on the platform, and being a creature of habit that too played into my enjoyment of it as a franchise. Kind of this promise of it being around and improving.

Now, when Bizarre was sold off to Activision, my number one concern was whether another developer could possibly pick up the gauntlet and make a meaningful new entry in PGR that retained its unique sense of style and its - to me - perfect blend of arcade and sim. Since then, Forza 3 has pretty much filled the void for me by covering all bases, but I still feel that the most important thing to come out of a new PGR project is the affirmation that the series is in good hands.

Now I'm sure this seems like a post about something that isn't Reach, but it really isn't. To me, the question right now, following the departure of Bungie, is whether Halo can exist without them. I mean sure, there'll be non-Bungie Halo games that's a given, but what will they be like? ODST seemed to me like a way for MS to say "heeeyyy, look over here, Bungie Halo people!" while they tinkered with a proper new Halo of their own, but at this point it's obvious that Reach is the next major Halo game.

Reach, by nature, could be percieved as a new start. It very much seems like the logical way to tell more stories in the Halo universe without coming up with some new foe for the Chief to float into, Fade to Black style (get that reference and you earn some cred :D) but the weird thing is that it's certainly no indication of what post-Bungie Halo will be like.

Do you think a "Halo 4" is being prepped for a 360 hardware successor? Do you think Reach will establish the template for another developer to follow? I'd really like to see what everyone thinks about the future and how you feel about the developers involved.

I can say this much; if Halo Reach was made by a different developer and that turned out to be great I would feel safer. With Bungie being their own entity now, there's no telling when they'll just want to pull out of the Halo stuff and leave MS with no established main series ground to stand on.

WW2 games' biggest source of identity comes from nazi imagery and constant retellings of historical events. The downfall of that entire sub genre has nothing to do with telling stories during world war 2, and everything to do with its actual exploration of that era being skin deep. You can set games during WW2 and have them be full of compelling characters, stories and gameplay. The era itself has nothing to do with the end result, it's just associated with it at this point.

I think you'd have a hard case arguing that The Saboteur's successes and/or failures has to do with being set during WW2.

Likewise, the covenant war is simply a backdrop, just like Star Wars is at its core about the Sith/Jedi conflict but manages to fill that container with tons of stories that don't necessarily even have to do with The Force. If there is one thing I have absolutely zero interest in, it's the isloated Master Chief himself as a character. The last thing I want is for Halo 4 to be "The Continued Zany Adventures of Master Chief".

And every single one of them apparently thinks the richest part of the Halo universe is this one.. guy.

Yeah, pretty much just don't understand them. :)