Anyone else read Penny Arcade today? See www.penny-arcade.com. They gave, without a doubt, the first negative review of Halo that has been voiced to date. Done with a great amount of respect [to Marathon especially], their argument is that little exists behind the gorgeous front that the Halo engine provides. The sad thing is, I am *almost* inclined to agree with them...
For Thanksgiving, I rented an xbox and played Halo all the way through. By only interrupting gameplay for Thanksgiving dinner and few potty breaks I was able to beat Halo in somewhere around 15 hours (playing on the "normal" level of difficulty). That alone disappointed me.
I remember many occasions when playing [insert any Marathon game here] for such extended periods of time only got me partway through the story - not to mention the number of times I went back through each level to re-read the terminals and find hidden or less accessible areas.
Halo's replay value rests mainly in killing your enemies a different way or approaching the level differently. Because of the absence of terminals and other such mediums which perpetuate the story, Halo also lacks the incredible depth that all three Marathon games provided us.
When you view Halo as its own entity these aren't bad things, but when you realize the context that we Marathon fans have been led into - to believe that Halo would continue the Marathon legacy - I just can't help but feel that Halo does the Marathon universe an injustice. I know that I am going to be burned at the stake for this and I know that if I want a story I should just go buy the Halo book, but something tells me that we aren't going to still be drinking from the Halo story 7 years from now as we are still from Marathon.
