- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
This is going to sound a bit ansurd, so let me make my thoughts implicitly clear.
I thought that the commercial was great. It made me *want* to see a Halo movie. I think that two hours of this kind of stuff would be epic. But this is ~not~ Halo 3. I can distinguish between the two, and I appreciate how Bungie isn't trying to pull a Guerilla Games and say that it's "Real Time" or "Actual Gameplay;" to the contrary, they've made it very clear that it is in fact pre-rendered.
So a game it is not, but that doesn't mean that *I* don't like it. It actually made my friend mad, though.
My friend is a tried and true graphics whore. He bought Gears of War, naturally, but found things to bicker at in that, and refuses to buy games that don't look "next gen." When he saw the commercial, he rightly was struck with disbelief "That ~can't~ be gameplay..."
I responded that of course it wasn't. What made him upset was that Bungie should even show that on TV without proclaiming it wasn't actual gameplay in big bold letters before it started. I asked if they had would it have mattered, and he said that no, because the game still won't look that good. He says the ad was showing something that doesn't exist, and it soured him on Halo 3, already. Especially when I suggested it might not come out 'til NEXT November. :-\
Well, again, I have no beef with it. If Bungie put up Alpha level graphics, the fanboys would riot. Placeholders? Why are the textures so flat? Is this what the final game will look like?
No, Bungie made the right call. They developed an ad that would make you want to take part in the Halo experience, and tonight, thousands of people bought it up, hook line and sinker.
Cheers, Bungie, and all you forum users. Pleasant dreams of saving the world from the apocalypse.
"*This* is the way the world ends."