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> > I didn’t buy Reach expecting to get a new take on FPS Halo gameplay (and I didn’t get one either), I bought it to get new stories and maps with the gameplay I’ve got to know (albeit with some variations, which I didn’t happen to like), and that’s exactly what I received. This is in contrast to ODST, which I bought expecting completely different gameplay, and received exactly that.
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> Seeing as I have a completely different opinion on that topic, might I ask how you came to have these expectations? Especially with respect to ODST? Seeing as it was originally marketed as a DLC, a small extension to Halo 3’s campaign, then later as a standalone-addon, after they exceeded their initially planned campaign length, I pretty much expected exactly what I got: Halo 3 gameplay with miniscule tweaks to make you feel more human.
> As for Reach, if anything I was expecting the gameplay to be even further from the original trilogy, with Bungie advertising “Squad Gameplay”. As it turned out, this was based on a misunderstanding; when I think of “squad gameplay”, I think of Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon or SWAT 4, whereas this obviously means something else to Bungie. But even so, it was still very recognizable as a spinoff to me. It (somewhat) looked like Halo, but it certainly didn’t play like it. The difference is, in contrast to 343’s later games, it didn’t pretend to be…
Well, first I should probably clarify that these were the expectations I had once I already had a reasonable idea of what the games were going to be like. These were the expectations I went in to play the games with. When we still knew very little about the games, I didn’t yet have well-adjusted expectations of what I was going to get.
When it comes to ODST, when I actually got to play the game, while I was clearly playing a game derived from Halo 3, your character was significantly weaker in many ways: health, movement, jump height, grenade throws. Considering it was built on Halo 3 with limited development time, which probably limited the amount of changes that could be made, it did try to distance itself from that gameplay. When it comes to Reach, sure it had new mechanics because it was actually a fully fledged game with a standard development time, but with that in mind, I think it does very little to actually distance itself from Halo 3. You’re still playing a Spartan, so the basic mechanics are about the same with marginally smaller movement speed and jump height. The health system is noticeably different, but it’s still directly inspired by CE. The movement and basic weapon mechanics are roughly the same, and therefore feel instantly familiar to me. And because of that, I see it more as direct evolution of Halo 3 than as an attempt to make something different.
None of that is to say that Reach plays like Halo 3, but that it might as well be an adaptation of the traditional Halo gameplay to the gaming landscape of 2010. If Bungie had wanted to make a spin-off that’s truly a departure from traditional Halo, they could’ve done it with Reach. They could’ve made the Spartan IIIs genuinely weaker and had the game be much more like a stealth-based shooter. But they didn’t, because the multiplayer still needed to attract the same audience that was playing Halo 3.
So, in short, I think ODST does much more to depart itself from the traditional gameplay within the constraints it has than Reach does with all the freedom it has. ODST feels like it tries to sell me the promise of being an ODST, even if it’s a bit afraid to do it as much as it could. Reach, on the other hand, feels like an adaptation of Halo CE’s gameplay to the trends of 2010, where I only happen to be a Spartan III because that gave more freedom for the writers than Spartan IIs. Consequently, I move slightly slower and jump slightly lower, but not enough for it to make meaningful difference in gameplay.