Aeronautica Imperialis: review

After some time of chasing and locating this rulebook I have succeeded. Despite being made in now long gone 2006 and not supported any more by GW, it still an interesting game. Aeronautica Imperialis have in many ways influenced many of following “hits” of gaming industry. X-wing is one of them. How to summarize the overall impression if this game in brief sentence?

Peculiar dogfight.

Lets try to break it down in smaller points and elaborate on high and low point of this definitely interesting game.

1. Stand alone game.
2. Dogfight
3. Peculiar details
4. Juicy extras and balance

Stand alone game.

Aeronautica Imperialis is a Warhammer 40k spin-off specifically dedicated to aerial dogfights. Period. It ignores the huge amount of 40k inconsistencies and “holy bolter” of its game system WS and BS. It simply puts us in the sky and gives some flying lessons in style of World War 2. As it was written prior to modern Storm Talons and Sunsharks it has relatively small, but balanced amount of aircraft for each race, but our main workhorse/opponent is Imperial Navy Thunderbolt. Fighters and Bombers are the only types, but these classes have small influence on the gameplay. Flyers characteristics are much more important. Addition of Advanced rules makes for more in-depth games, but at the same time makes it even slower. Things like limited ammo, pilots skill, weather, terrain do affect combat, but if you mastered this relatively complicated game it will make it more tactically challenging.

Dogfight.

Well... put it this way, Imperium of Man is dying and backwards, just for the sake of Space Marines being cool dudes of entire setting. In case of Aeronautica Imperialis this put an emphasize onto close aerial fighting, without Space marines on a main roles. Instead Imperial players fly with Navy. On a technical side, in time of Imperium, Thunderbolt fighters can fly to the orbit of the planet but they have no radar and heat-seeking missiles have less firepower than autocannon. So pilots main activity is to get on enemy's tail and pepper it with bullets. All other missions like Bombing raids, troop insertion, Air patrols are added on top that sweet adrenaline of “dakka-dakka”.

Peculiar details.

The sweet sound of “dakka-dakka” comes at a price. Main idea of game is to predict position of enemy's aircraft, put your plane into firing range and roll 5+ or 6+ if you are higher or lower than target. To do so, you change following: Speed, Altitude, Thrust, then you play Manoeuvre cards to do Barrel rolls, High-g turns, Dives, Climbs and Turns. For each plane! Then you have 3 set ranges for weapons with variable effect on firepower. Book states that game with 2 planes may take an hour to complete and game with up to 12 planes several hours. In my small experience dogfight of 2 vs 2 planes took approximately 40 minutes.

Luckily we were not using advanced rules, but still some small things like overshooting enemy because your speed is higher than his, firing loads of shots and not scoring anything because you needed 6+, hitting but not damaging plane (similar to roll to wound), makes Aeronautica Imperialis a very detailed game. This in my opinion is both strong and weak point of it.

On a strong side: it really delivers a shot-by-shot dogfight experience.

On the other side: the very complexity of it slows it down.

Game system written by Games Workshop veteran Warwick Kindrade is as simple as it gets for a aerial combat simulator (though book insists that it is not a simulator). But to make it's gameplay faster and even more easier to grasp and master it would have to lose many of its detail which make it so rich. For example 4 vs 4 game of X-wing takes an hour to complete, Axis and Allies: Wings of Victory is similar in speed.

Juicy extras

On top of well-tested and balanced game book contains colour schemes for all aircraft, technical specifications, fluffy descriptions, in-game data sheets, “historical” missions, campaign rules (which are easy and based on 3 tables), some special rules, couple of pages dedicated to painting and terrain.

Overall book is high quality hard back with typical Forgeworld glossy paper. Currently sold together with supplement for 40k games for £30. Probably while stock lasts. Since GW discontinued its Specialist games in 2012, this book would be a collectors, not gamers buy. For now there are much faster and more competitive games on a market. But of coarse, they are not in Warhammer 40000 universe. 

Nilin.

"... lets play another game, Colonel. but this time, the hunted will become the hunter!"
Nilin. Memory hunter.
"Remember Me"

I really wanted to love this game. It had such promise, such potential, such nice views on both Neo-Paris and Nilin. Media hype have spilled an incredible journal of Antoun, Memorize creator filled with both personal and political history of our world circa 2054. But. It's empty and lacks many essential things. On top of everything else, Nilin, her memory loss, quest for rediscovery of herself, had-to-hand combat with arrogant bosses reminded me what "Remember Me" was trying to be: a version of Japanese manga: Alita: Battle Angel . Well, at least we got to see how powerful memory mixes could be.

Thunderbolt vs X-wing.

For almost a month I've been playing with idea of RPG / flight simulator crossbreed game. I know. It even sounds weird, but I've learnt to trust even craziest idea which came into the head of mine. This one was inspired by this particular plane:

Imperial Navy Thunderbolt

Despite the being an obvious product of Games Workshop's approach towards aerodynamics (flying brick in other words), I love that plane. It has heroic vibe, lots of guns, unique appearance and style of World War 2 dogfighter. Warhammer 40k setting easily transfers players into grim and gritty warzone, and Dark Heresy book would provide enough background and rules for detective storyline enveloping the flying missions. As a point of reference I took Korean War (1950-53). That conflict provided more than enough information on planes, combat, pilots, their living conditions, attitude to war and people. (Russians, Chinese and Koreans would be replaced by Orks, eventually :-)  

But before I began fleshing out main characters as Inquisitor, Squadron Leader, Commissar, Naval Intelligence officers, Adeptus Mechanicus Magos (somebody had to upgrade and refit the planes) I stumbled upon some serious problems.

The first one is: rules for simulating air combat.
Obviously you'd look at Aeronautica Imperialis, game produced by Forgeworld. The result was frustrating. Not only the game is discontinued along all other Specialist games of GW, the rules have a very steep learning curve and require a lot of bookkeeping. In addition games tend to be quite long and overloaded with unnecessary and irritating rules like limited ammo or fuel consumption. For example: Thunderbolt may fire only 4 times per battle hitting on 5+ or 6+. Different altitudes of planes, positions, speeds and manoeuvres add to the complexity of it. After careful consideration, this game would not do the job of quick air combat between the ground missions. Well, the greed factor is still there. Its £30 for 16 pages of rules, while rest of hundred or so pages are fluff and pretty pictures.

The second one is: absence of models.
Well, as I've mentioned before Aeronautica Imperialis, along Epic: 40k and other titles have been discontinued. Aftermarket is expensive as models become rarity and slow to offer. I completely accept my fault and responsibility for NOT buying any of those model before. Sorry, GW. Next time I will be faster and clutter all my living space with your products. In the mean time I'll learn how to scratch build the tiny plane from paper.

The outcome of this sketch was discovery of very interesting set of rules by David Child-Dennis, a game designer and historical wargaming enthusiast from New Zealand.  Thanks to http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/ I can share this outstanding work here:

• Airwar Korea 
• Airwar Vietnam
• Typhoon (modern aircombat)

Ironically, as well as Aeronautica Imperialis I've came across another relic of long forgotten past: Crimson Skies! The incredible and crazy creation of FASA Corporation, people behind the myth of giant walking robots. In Crimson skies they managed to cross breed table-top aerial dogfighting, bravado of 30-s, zeppelins and piracy. Rules are relatively easy to grasp and free to download. See for yourself:

Crimson Skies rulebook

Last but not least, came X-wing with incredibly easy, fun and balanced rules. Which are available for download for free.

X-Wing miniatures game rulebook 

The X-wing ironically have taken my attention away from 40k. Not only this game consumed quite a bit of time and money, it inspired set of new ideas for other project I'm working on. (sci-fi of coarse :). It also showed that time of over complicated games is coming to an end.

In short time, from the moment idea of Thunderbolt campaign was born, it grew, flew on the high hopes, hit the wall of reality, died and opened the the whole new areas and approaches for future projects as well as finding some rare the jewels.

So, I guess thank you, Thunderbolt.

Sincerely yours,
Mark-Paul Severn. 
(the wanna-be-designer with megalomaniac ambitions)
     

10 Commandments of Imperial Guard Drop Trooper

1. Everyone jumps – none quits! Thus you shall conquer fear and inflict it upon enemy.

2. Everyone jumps – no exceptions! Only those who jump are your brothers in arms.

3. Everyone jumps to win, or die trying!

4. Battle is Drop Trooper’s fulfillment. Train yourself, endure hardship and seek victory.

5. First my weapon – then myself. If weapons are in good order you shall prevail.

6. Support your brothers in arms. By the spirit and aid of your comrades you shall prevail.

7. Grasp the plan and purpose of every enterprise. It’s you who makes the difference.

8. Aim carefully – shoot sharply. Wasted shots are unacceptable gifts to your enemy.

9. Respect abilities of your enemies. Fight with courage, valor and all of your might.

10. Be alert, be prepared, be tough and be fast. Thus you shall be the Emperor’s finest.


Written by
Mark-Paul Severn
Elysian Talons codex.

Conflicting logic

"Never ask for anything. 

Especially from those who are stronger and 

more powerful than you are. 

When they find you worthy 

they will offer anything you need." 

That's how I have been taught. That is how it should be. But real life is not the book.


I recollect one of the conversations while i was looking for a way into design studio of one of major gaming companies. My question was "how do you recruit new designers? How do get influx of new ideas?"

The answer was a roundabout conversation about getting into the company, sending huge amount of CV, making it through the ranks of publishing industry or just being lucky. The latest addition to that design studio was a "random guy who knew our product inside out", and I was reminded again that getting a job is matter of skill and determination. You don't actually have to be "the game designer" to design our games, that was an overall impression of that encounter.

I have promised to build up my portfolio and come back later on. Then I got hooked on the freelance with other set of skills, not involving dice, rulers and book writing. (I was doing an interpreting, should you ask. ) As a result, my confidence and understanding of doing the skilled job have increased dramatically. You don't have to be a paper pusher and beg for a chance to enjoy doing what you really good at.

That of coarse leads towards to freelancer in the crowd. It is demanding, just because the product of your sleepless nights have a great chance to get lost in hundreds of other titles. Unless of coarse you will take a path of business and try to make money on the set of rules you made. Some do.

But there is a certain pride in that. You've done it yourself. Your way.
No begging. But you are open to the offers.

Sincerely yours,
Mark-Paul.

Dice Tower's 10 tip to a game designer.

These guys are really funny, but surprise surprise they are correct in their tips. :))

Triss Merigold

Triss Merigold. Wizard.
Witcher 2: Assassin of the kings

RPG rant

Some facts of life to begin with;
1) an average person with belly, wife, kids and mortgage would be scared to death in the middle of firefight. 
2) Hollywood logic ignores reality for the sake of giving viewer a false sense of superiority.
3) D&D is a curse, as it is designed to give player aforementioned cocky superiority.
4) Real life conflicts rarely solved by games logic. 

So what are you talking about, man? I'm talking about fun of role playing games, what kind of feeling they are designed or intended to give player and game master. It not a secret that over-educated, under-sexed and less than well adjusted to rules of life people need something (including me). 

They need a feeling of importance, of success, of belonging to a group with similar interest and ideal and most of all - achievement. RPG's have provided all of it long before arrival of computers and social networks, by pen, paper and bunch of friends sharing same vision. Chemically speaking our brain does not distinguish between fear of imagined monster and sudden fear of drunk driver coming at you. So naturally, when you apply you imagination with a help of friends and GM to the scene of defeating a horrible world-eating monster level of you bravado goes up on a chemical level. 

It works. RPG takes off the boredom of mundane life and makes it easier to muddle through job, ridiculous bosses, kids, winging women, irritating classmates, lack of cash, long ques, traffic jams and so on. You remember that you are a monster slayer, THE Savior of the Universe or whoever who is really cool. Painful realisation that its only an imagination is taken into account, but who cares? 

That is where Hollywood logic takes over. "If truth stands in a way of a good story - publish a lie", as someone famous and American said. And here we go:  one bloke standing in the spotlight under fire and giving a porcelain smile while fencing off bullets and ugly villains. But we spent our cash and lifetime on that. Then, as culture and business repeats and multiples both heroes and villains we getting use to the same fake image. On some point, going against this trend becomes even refreshing and new. (Yes, I am talking about Deadpool.)  

But where is D&D here? 

An average street fight or pub fight last from 6 seconds to 4 minutes according to police estimation. Modern platoon size firefight with similar sized opponent may last from 10 minutes to an hour depending on terrain and other factors. In order for party of D&D heroes to get from one room to another and exchange couple of blows with an enemy they have to make a bunch of rolls, identify and use skills and spend approximately 30 minutes. 

But when you finally managed to hit something the process is even more painful. There are people who are much more agile in calculating the amount of damage, soak, resistance, extra special rule than me, I openly admit. But they probably spend good chunk if life doing just that.However on the final result player's ego is overblown by the math. You just made a gazillion damage to million hit points enemy! Monster is roaring in anger and falls to your noble feet asking for forgiveness. The hit like that would take out a battle tank, and you did it with a sword or a fist. But player grins in the manner of the Universe Savior and crawl to the next boss fight. Cool? Awesome! 

But after a while it becomes a habit, as you casually chop, talk, sing and roll your way through just another "mystery" with grotesque idiot trying to conquer the world. What is more scary player lose the ability to see relevance to what they do and impact on the fantasy world they are saving. Their role is assigned as Savior's, but do they care for mukes? No. They are here to provide fun and hit points.

Psychologically speaking, this creates an "comfort zone", where you easily guess what to expect and well aware of what you are capable of. Something not so common in the real life. As you progress with a character this comfort zone gets bigger and more comfortable, even GM are forced to make an adventure where every role would have a time to shine. So adventure becomes a grid of talking, stealing, fighting and casting spells. But does it provide a challenge or achievement? In the terms of game, yes. There are always bigger bosses and more hit points. 

In terms of thinking out of the box? Doubt that. The "comfort zone" of Savior is sturdy. That's where GM's talent really shines, if he or she manages to overcome the rules which are bigger than Bible. 

How to make players care for the team? How to give motivation other than prescribed adventure for money? How to keep them unsure of what happens next? How to make a right balance between heroic action and story? How to keep players focused on the game rather than socialisation? How to reward or punish players who just managed to blow the whole plot into oblivion? And most important, how give a feeling of achievement not by lucky roll but by taking decisions and making them happen?   

I'm not giving the answers, but just asking the right questions is helpful.

Sincerely yours,       

Mark.
     



         

Ada Wong

..still has not got a clue what going on.
Hmmm. So cute to watch.
Ada Wong.
Resident Evil 6.

 

Reflect and rewind: Lessons learned from this blog

So I have left my blog for sometime in order to rethink and analyse what have been done, achieved and what mistakes I've made during this journey so far.

First and obvious success is that this blog allowed me to show other people my Elysian Drop troops codex. The biggest difficulty at the moment is get a feedback on it. I consider a full scale column dedicated to brave Drop troopers of the Imperium. It might be an interesting project but it might take me away from other priorities.

Second odd achievement is unexpected popularity if femme fatales. It started simply as a joke and mean to relax after writing a "profound" article or two, but visitations show that Cortana and Sarah Kerrigan are more popular than half a page of text mumbled out by your truly. Perhaps this shows that my blog does not have a certain audience in mind, plan, product if you like. Yes. This blog is truly is an experiment and attempt to find out how it works. Setting a goal, working out search engine optimisation and spreading my "incredible" creations is not currently a priority or a plan for world dominance. Perhaps it should?

Third biggest realisation is that blogging is simpler than it looks. Blogging in order to get into the top 10 - is not. Its business wich demands a lot of effort, time, skill and investment. After all, you sell to people meaning of life, answer to their needs and generally take their lifetime by creating something out of words, cultural and psychological tricks.

Well whats next?

Rethinking of what this blog is going to be.
Learning on how to make this blog useful in one or another way.
Making it work.

In the meantime I will post some more girls from the games :)
 
    

Naomi.

Naomi Hunter.
You must complete your destiny... 

In the land of gun-totting, ass kicking, hard boiled heroines with a face of fashion model, Naomi is a surprisingly gentle and vulnerable. What else do player could want from a damsel on distress scientist?

     

Revelation of the Day: Corporate culture matters

It happened again! After a prolonged internal work i spit out a short article about game designers way to glory and riches and then couple of hours later I find that it all been know before and even published. Sad face, but at least i understand that my search has its reasons and meaningful answers. I found an incredible article about birth, growth and fall of Wizards of the Coast written by John Tynes. If you my reader, knew who is it, you knew more than i did.

The article itself is here : http://www.salon.com/2001/03/23/wizards/
and its second part here http://www.salon.com/2001/03/26/wizards_part2/  

John Tynes however is described by wikipedia in following article:

John Tynes (born 1971) is a writer best known for his work on role-playing games such as Unknown Armies, Delta Green, Puppetland, and for his company Tynes Cowan Corporation. Under its imprint Pagan Publishing, Tynes Cowan Corp. produces third-party books for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game under license from Chaosium as well as fiction and non-fiction books under its imprint Armitage House.

Following the end of Unknown Armies in 2003,^[1] Tynes withdrew from the tabletop gaming industry in order to pursue other interests, particularly film^[2] and videogames.^[3] He was the producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea, a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Flying Lab Software and published in 2008 by Sony Online Entertainment. After the launch of PotBS, he joinedMicrosoft Game Studios to work on various Xbox Live Arcade titles including South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!,^[4] Toy Soldiers,^[5] and Full House Poker^[6] as a producer and game designer. 

But my God, his style of write up is brilliant! That's the no-nosense, objective truth in your face without the corporate politeness and glamour. Geeks are geeks, and money making is money making. The hard reality is there and you can actually see how different approaches to same business clash and create another evil Mega-Corporation from a very different idea.

We were young, overeducated and underemployed. Wizards was my first job in the real world — if you can call it that — and I was hardly alone.Above all, we were equals. Peter Adkison told us so. He had left Boeing with a sacrament of buzzwords and platitudes that he transmuted into full-bore Utopian evangelicalism. We would work in organic cross-departmental teams, study the esoteric principles of “Continuous Quality Improvement,” and always strive toward the paramount goal of consensus, the magical process that somehow replaced old-school hierarchical decision making. 

I guess today is my day of revelation.

Yours,
Mark-Paul Severn
An Enlightened Megalomaniac with Corporate ambitions.
(muhahaha)

Path to glory of Game Designer

I have a confession to make. I believed that becoming game designer is similar to becoming a pop star. Not because you automatically become rich, famous and can pull any Blondie with your picture in latest gaming magazine. But because you have a chance to become one of the few whose job is to do something they love.

I've been following Jake Thorton's blog  for some time now, as well as pushing my research of game rules and game designers. He wrote quite brilliant descriptions on game design ABC as well as some hidden psychological obstacles in this creative process. Perhaps Murder Your Darlings  is one my favorites. 

However more I look at the industry the more down-to-earth my point of view becomes. There are loads of gifted people, there are hundreds of already tested and played game systems. Those few giants who manged to build their name thanks to GW or Boardgame geek website are few, and they are hardly rich and famous of this world. The amount of rules, both fan-made and pro-made is demonstrated here: http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/. 

Number of companies that started their journey to success in gaming industry is growing day by day, as well as number of gonners from this business. In short, its a highly competitive area, with quite limited demand and unpredictable return of time and money investment. So where do the game designer finds his employment and becomes one of those geeky icons? What paths takes those people to the cave full of glory and riches? How does one makes it from humble dreamer of fan of certain game to next Father-of-all-gaming? 

1. Servant of Evil Mega-Corporation. 

Yes, my friends. You have to get a job in the Mega-Corporation which has been on this market before you were born. You have to sell your creative soul for their dirty money, crawl through the rank of other puny mortals, get to design studio and then do their marketing department bidding. Then you can quit, tell the whole world about unjust and greedy MegaCorp and how you fought for your creative freedom. Now you have some street-cred, as well as backing of well respected experience in the business. If you are lucky enough to save some of your creative soul you may even start freelancing and blogging. Thus you ultimately become the Master of Rules and Dice for all those puny mortals who did not get the job or were born too late.   

2. Street Fighter.

Those chaps like the thrill of one-shot assignments. The started somewhere in the shed of their house, torturing their pets, friends and family members with their incredible inventions. They don't really care about money, they love the thrill of pulling off next big thing, making this idea work in someones plan. Street Fighters are always waiting  to be carried away by next Big Idea or paycheck from next employment. There is many of them, few want fame, but most hunger for achievement. When occasionally their Idea takes over the world they become the Masters of Rules and their blog so far visited by robots and occasional friend rival major news channel. In the end, your portfolio is stained with blood of your Achievements, which makes any Servant of MegaCorps shiver from envy. But forget about safe pension if you take this path. 

3. Empire Builder. 

As game designers they are not exactly in the same league as most. Empire Builders take theirs or someone else idea and make it profitable. If they are lucky enough, their Empire will grow into Mega Corporation, if not they at least make enough money to break even. With the arrival of Kickstarter and Lulu there will be more and more of them, less adventurous but practical, calculating and dream-driven at the same time. The Universes and Galaxies they spawn will hardly be totally new and incredible, but they will sell. Then with addition of zombies, superheros, starfleets, comic books and growing fan base they will make someone rich. Empire Builder may not have the creative energy, but they will have the Endurance. Few of the Servants and Street Fighters would  understand this path, for it takes the game out of pocket reality into the real world around us.     

4. Universal Soldier.  

The choice made those who took this path was simple: career. Universal Soldier studies his craft in University, makes first games or programs as part of group assignment, graduates (or not in some cases), but his skill is good enough for immediate employment. As they progress, Universal Soldiers pick up extra programming languages, side skills, and connections within industry. One company is not different from another but pay is better and free pool is there. You have seen them on numerous promotional videos as part of highly creative group of people who are so happy to do their job and bring you the next big thing. Sometimes Universal Soldiers appear next to the Masters of Rules providing necessary fire support on topics of technical issues and patches. The most ambitious ones even take the role of Leading Game Designer and thanks to marketing bombardment are counted as Masters of Rules. 

5. Prophet of Game.

There are people who don't create game - they give birth to entire Universes. Prophets usually are great writers, directors and thinkers. Their reflection on the world around us are melted into the text and then into the game. Those creation are then visited by countless day dreamers and they make it grow and evolve. Prophets may not be great on writing the rules but those rules make sense thanks to meaning put into them and narrative supporting it.  But as soon as money rolls in every Prophet faces a great challenge: the sale must go on. If that would be a Daniela Steel, this question would not be even asked, if that would be Andzei Sapkowski or Frank Herbert I'd struggle to define the answer. Unlike anyone else in this business, Prophet of Game does not create the game itself, he catches the essence of our desires and gives it a form which could be translated  into game by others. How to become one? Just be one and let the Universe decide whether you are Prophet of Regret or Prophet of Truth.         

Yours,
Mark-Paul Severn.

1000 views of my blog. Ironic achievement

Today 01 May 2013 my blog statistic told me that it has been seen for 1000 times.
Hurraay! Yuppi! Or whatever you say on such great occasion. To celebrate it, I'm going to put here a speech:

Thank you! Thank you all! Thanks to all of my unknown visitors for popping in and having a quick look at what is posted here. I do understand that thanks to excessive amount of letters and broken English i use to express my thoughts it is a strange source to read from. Thank you all for looking at my harem of femme fatales, I do hope their real equivalents are at least as stunning as pictures. Thank you all for downloading my Elysian Drop Troopers Codex. It might not be a big achievement but it is important for me. Thank you for NOT posting any feedback on Elysian Codex, that means its either absolute crap or I'm genius (insane megalomaniac laughter) and my ideas will conquer the world to make me its ruler, owner and pimp. Muhahaha! (insane megalomaniac laughter even louder). 

Well and since 1000 vies is such a great occasion We are going to open a can of Fosters to celebrate it. May be even two... or three. Cheers!

The delicate magic of Halo

-Sir! I think we lost Master Chief!
-"no you didn't..."

From the day my friend told me the story about Halo: Combat Evolved until its recent incarnation at number "4" I loved this game. How original, huh? I'm definitely not the only one. Today however, after a long time I decided to take a look at what components actually made Halo series a cultural phenomena rather than just good game. Perhaps, to make my journey and your reading a bit shorter and easier I'll state them in short order:

1. Rhythm of game play
2. Well defined characters 
3. Balanced  weapon line-up
4. Varied opposition 
5. Enveloping story

1. Rhythm of game play.

Probably the most difficult to achieve in any FPS is balance of adrenaline rush, interesting story and what RPG players call "rail-roading". Second to that comes the question of how to avoid player being distracted by surrounding world of game from fighting. How Bungie and now 343 Industries approached it?

They created a perfect illusion of huge world around player but actually kept the player most of the time in confined space. In its core Halo is a corridor shooter, where we are confined by surroundings and forced to shoot our way through waves of enemies. This makes our heart beat rate goes up, adrenaline rush in, and we desperately dashing for cover. All of this is enough to make us forget to enjoy the big world around us. Not to mention that while we fight through locations, Bungie delivers a graceful views of planets, stars, huge spaceships and sunny horizon in a very delicate matter: enough to give us an impression of freedom, but not enough distract player from combat.

This line is really thin, give too much combat, and player starts to complain about "repetitive process", give too much of free world and player starts yawning because "nothing is happening" or "these huge open spaces are boring". Even when we are fighting in the open air maps, with a lot of opposition Halo manages to pass between those extremes (most of the times) by either rushing us towards objectives on limited time, so we must avoid excessive fighting, or by cutting opposition into manageable portions. A a result keeping us busy and poised for next portion of baddies.

2. Well defined characters

Here we have the classic archetypes: quiet and confident Warrior, smart, caring and emotional Girl, all-knowing Mother Halsey, animals aliens under religious leadership (big boo from out secular society), monstrous Hive mind, disgusting parasites (even bigger boo from cleaning-concerned housewives), and ever-loyal and heroic Soldiers of Democracy with cigar smoking Sergeant. Add a cyber-enhanced Forerunners with glowing light, which as we all know is a sign of superior technology.

We have seen all that in different variations from Hollywood trash to Medal of Honor. Where is the BIG difference is that in Halo all of them are forced to "make" choices as world's picture changes during the game. What is also important: they have position towards player, and we respond to that. Most complex character of entire series IMHO was Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum, who in a matter of one campaign went through loyalist in need for redemption to human ally and major actor in Covenant's fate. Well established and played characters are believable and understandable, even if their motifs are world domination.

3. Balanced weapon layout

Less is more, and each weapon has it niche and drawbacks. Most importantly we are still restricted to our 3 weapon slots. Simple and elegant solution which denies some pleasure of hoarding loads of guns. At the same time forcing players to think and try all possible load outs even with the useless Needler. High speed of most firefights also overshadows the secondary weapons like under-slung grenade launcher or dual wielding pistols.  It does exist in real world and in Crysis but absent in the whole Halo universe. Simply put: one gun - one trigger. No time and place for fancy show-off tricks or customization. Is it comfortable? Sometimes. Is it playable? Of coarse! Is it fun? Yes.  

4. Varied opposition. 

FPS games are obviously all about killing the enemies. However, anyone will get tired of shooting the very same baddie even if given loads of different weapons and scenarios. In FPS games simulating modern conflicts this is solved by changing the scenery and mumbling about importance of the mission against the baddies. Sometimes we get to customize out gun as a game in itself. Halo is free from our politically correct world and allows us to kill anything that is bigger and does not speak our language. However the curve of difficulty is constantly  growing up: more Elites, Knights or Brutes as well increased number of hit points and resilience will make a game challenging and interesting even after first play through. Here is one of the main advantages of background work of Halo: all characters are incredibly believable and have unique "natural" behavior. Elites roar, Brutes charge in, Grunts love plasma grenades and chatter, Knights express anger by glowing orange and Flood is simply desperate for a hug.

5. Enveloping story.

Simply put from the very first game to latest one - we save the world. There is not much choice for player, except to aim and shoot those who desperately want to destroy it. The brilliant trick of Halo  is that world we are saving is not a distant propagandistic picture, on every turn of the game  this world has both personal touch and grand design properties. What is more important, those are interconnected on both logical and emotional levels. In addition every major objective takes us further on  the curve of storyline.  Let me elaborate on that. 

In Combat Evolved we started in desperate situation, where Cortana needed to be rescued. Even if she would only be an witty half-naked girl, that would be enough for male gamers to have fun. But as story progresses, saving Cortana and Earth from Covenenant invasion becomes a minor job. Now we are in charge of saving the Universe, because someone, sometime, somewhere have left a doomsday devices. Typical story of hero's job? Yes. But there is still room for saving the Captain, escape the trap filled with Flood, finding common language with AI of Halo and shooting lots of bullets. And every step of the way, there is gorgeous girl helping us. 

As series progressed stakes are even higher, the very heart and soul and reason for our heroics is trapped by Gravemind. This makes even invasion of Earth a minor problem, now player must save Universe in order to get to the girl. This is where Halo storyline get very close to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, one of the greatest pieces of literature describing similar subject. Luckily we have a secondary points of view, a Covenant and ODST. This lets us see a bit more of the Universe and its internal struggles, without stopping for a lunch break in combat.  Following the internal logic of any conflict the main baddie must be defeated in the last sequence. Victory is hard fought, but rewarded with kiss from a damsel on distress, reunion with Cortana. Who manages to save our hero from exploding Halo thanks to her AI abilities.

Halo Reach, was an interesting side step: it revolved around what will happen with Master-Chief and Cortana and gave insight into military aspects, political unrest of UNSC, gave refreshment to old Human-Covenant conflict and generally stepped aside from formula of 3-side conflict, which fueled the previous games. It retained the formulas of speed engagements and weapon balance, but added the teamwork as main factor to the gameplay and storyline. Kat, may not be Cortana, but she is still a smart girl, who's death will be avenged many times over.   

   

Finally, Halo 4 brought us back into the boots of Savior in power armour. For more than decade Halo refined its success formulas and they all are here: 3-way conflict between Humans, Covenant and Forerunners, dramatic crashes and escapes from one conflict into another, silent and strong hero with emotional and vulnerable girl, team of super-soldiers on a mission, internal intrigues which release our hero from military routine, weird and varied aliens, doomsday weapon which was unleashed and mighty Mr. Evil who took away Cortana. In the end of all that, Master-Chief takes off his helmet and armour leaving us sad for his personal loss and defiant glory. Every high and low point of series was reinserted into the 4-th Halo and it still works pretty well. 

Halo 4 leaves us with a lot of question as well as new ways of answering them. Will the Forerunners help us or be utterly defeated? What will happen with remains of Covenant? How humanity re-take legacy of the Forerunners? Is Flood completely eradicated?  How Spartans will evolve humankind? Will Master-Chief meet Cortana again? 

The Reclaimer Saga is the answer.    

Yours,
Mark-Paul Severn @2013