- JFKES
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"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me"
- Batman
Introduction
It is a dark time for the Xbox franchise. WHen Halo CE first busted onto shelf's the Xbox's instatantly took the spot above the Playstation. The Playstation 2 came out but Halo 2 was realised drawing still more new members towards the Xbox. At the end of 2006 the Xbox dominated the compotation. It had best graphics, best games, best Live. Jump foward to the end of 2009, the Playstation has best graphics, argubly best games, and although Xbox Live is better than the Playstation 3's, the Playstation can connect to the Internet. Even though the Playstation isn't selling well, the WII, another Xbox competitor is.
For the Xbox to retake its stand as best gaming platform it must do several things:
1. Bring Natal out soon
This would remove hte gap between the WII and the Xbox. The casual gamer holds a huge part of the market, and project Natal would reel in this section withough scaring off serious gamers.
2. Start making games with better graphics
This is really needed, good graphics, whatever any one says makes people like the game far more. In all trailers for games (or at least most) use gameplay from the Playstation 3. The Xbox 360 needs to push graphics to the limit just to keep up. The better the graphics are the more you belive the world that is being presented to you, and the more you are immersed the more you will enjoy the game. If the graphics don't improve then the Xbox is going to slowly slip down the market and the PS3 will stole into the single top spot.
3. Have an 'Only for Xbox' win game of the year
This is the main point that I will be making thought out the rest of my post, and it will be the focus of this whole thread. In the glory days of the Xbox, Halo 2 won game of the year, this and Halo 2's great Live feature made the Xbox the best for almost two years.
Each of these things are achievable, Natal is scheduled to be released 2010, which is just about soon enough. Better graphics is a problem considering the limitations that the Xbox possesses, but seeing as how the graphics even on the Xbox are always improving, with enough research and time, a graphically spectacular game could be made. The final point is the hardest one. Two game franchises most likely to be able to achieve this are Gears of War and Halo. Gears of War could do it, but thanks to the intense level of gore slowing down the frame rate, it wouldn't be able to do what I have intended. That leaves us with Halo. Halo, which launched the original Xbox franchise, Halo, the second of which fought back he arrival of the PS2, Halo, the third of which sold over 3 million copies before the realise day. Halo my friends, is where the future lays.
Chronicles of Harvest
The Name
The choice of name is important, make it too Halo'e' (such as ODST, which most of my Xbox Live friends think is just a word that doesn't stand for anything) and you will scare off peple unfamiliar with the universe. Make it not Halo'e' enough and you wont attract the fans. A Halo game, being a Halo game, does two things. Firstly it attracts a large number of fans who buy everything with Halo in its name. Don't belive me? Look at Halo Wars, although a great game it had barely any publicity yet because of the name 'Halo' it sold well. Then again, there are those who lost faith in Halo a long time ago. They are the few who will never touch anything Halo becaue they know they won't like it. By removing 'Halo' from the games name I m allowing that part of the market to get involved. The fans will probably still call it 'Halo: Chronicles of Harvist' so you wont lose those customers either.
Of course, judging by the name a few of you reading this will know that Harvest was the first human planet to be attacked. Chronicles means two things about this game, first it is a link back to Peter Jacksons, never to be, Halo: Chronicles which would have been an episodic game which would have been the most 'film like' gane yet. Chronicles is also showing that the story will play a huge part in this game as your charicter fights for survival in an alien invasion, takinng his city by force.
The Story
You play as a Sparan I who was kicked out because of fighting other Spatan I's. When you join him you have one day before the invasion begins. You will have no warning and then suddenly you are fighting off The Covenent with anything you can get your hands on. For the next five days your character is choosing weather he will try to help suvivors get out of the city, to try and re-take the city, or just to try and stay alive.
The Gameplay
The game will be a RTRPG {Real Time Role Play Game), for the first day it is almost like a Sims game, you can go to work if you want money, go and pick a fight if you want respect, go shopping or do whatever you like. Then, once you have been playing for 20 hours, no matter what you are doing the screen will start to shake a little bit; your controller will start to vibrate. If you look outside you can see coming in through the sky, huge alien ships. Your character can then do whatever he wanns, be that run as far away as possible or go home and find the shotgun he stores on top of his wardrobe. For the next 120 hours of playing time, your character will be living in an invaded city, as I said earlier, doing whatever the player wants him to do.
This being a human city, your character will be able to get into any car he breaks into, or owns. The machinism for doing this will be similer to that in the Bourne game. THe actual car driving mechanism will be almost exactly the same as Need For Speed: Shift, apart from the fact that all other cars arn't racing you (untill they are fleeing the city of course). The open world will be similar to GTA's but you will play in first person. The weaponry will be re-designed because this isn't army issue any more; this is weaponry you find in the streets, or from gun shops. The wya the HUD works will be different and be a lot more like Call of Duty. The way you speak to characters will be similar to Fallout 3.
The game would also come with Forge, Theatre, Custom Games, Matchmaking, Firefight, Race (where you race online in cars), Invasion (like matchmaking, but you are playing against amazing Ai enemies, this would include game types like One Bomb or King of the Hill, as well as Slayer). This game woud come with two discs. One for Campaign and the other for everything else.
How To Make It
Microsoft would need to hire Bungie, Orange Box, Rockstar Games and Infinity Ward. BUngie would make the AI of enemies and build in a story that fits the Halo world. Orange Box to do the driving engine and the AI of other drivers. ROckstar Games to make the huge open world, filled with people. Finaly Infinity Ward to create the graphics and come up with new balenced guns and how to display the HUD.
The game would be one of the most expencive games to produce, but, withough a doubt, it would be the best selling game of all time. It would win every award, bring in billions. It would be more of a revolution than Halo CE, and with a campaign over three times as long would be the most revolutionary game of all time.. The multiplayer would be an advancement on normal Halo Matchmaking, hopefully (if Reach's multiplayer is good), just a build on classic Halo. The PS3 would bend under the power of such a game and the Playstation fan boys would not have anything on the Xbox'ers'
The games price would be about $75.00 (or about £60.00). Sure its expensive, but who wouldn't get such a game?
Closing Comments
I hope you have enjoye reading my post and pushing through such a 'wall 'o' text'. If you like this idea and want to see this happening then tell your friends about it, send messages to Microssoft about it. I want to see the Xbox as it once was, and I hope you do too.
Yes, I know. It was a cool story bro.
Q&A
Here I will try to answer your questions as best as I can
Is this based off the official book Contact Harvest?
No
Why a RTRPG?
Because it would make you build a conection with the people in the story, I dont think any one was sad when they though Cheif was dead
Why on Havest
Havest was the first world that came to mind, it doesn't need to be harvest, it could be another planet.
Microsoft will never hire Rockstar Games, Bungie, Invinity Ward ect.
I know that 99% chance they wont, but you can always hope ;)
[Edited on 10.29.2009 10:01 AM PDT]