Le 2004-12-18 08:41, Laurent a écrit:
Dans la salle des vaisseaux d'abordage (la 2e), j'arrive à exterminer la première vague, mais la deuxième, avec ses 4 Elites rouges et ses deux bleus, rien à faire : ils bougent tout le temps, ils se placent pour balayer toute la zone avec leurs tirs, il faut une surchauffe de fusil plasma pour leur enlever le bouclier alors que je meurs en deux ou trois impacts, ils encaissent 3 coups d'épée laser... Le plus marrant c'est quand j'ai essayé de prendre la tourelle plasma : je dirais qu'une dizaine de grenades me sont tombées dessus en même temps (c'était beau à voir !). Ninja Gaiden c'est pour les gonzesses à côté de ce truc !

Thing is, the higher difficulties on Halo are what gives the game its immersive quality. On legendary, each piece of cover takes on a significance. Each weapon lying on the floor is noted. Each enemy, what its carrying, who it's with and what it's doing becomes vitally important. The closest thing I can describe to it is something like a cross between Robotron and Tony Hawks' Pro Skater.

Bear with me. Robotron's great because it requires you to use your mind at full capacity- you literally can't think of anything else while you're playing it, or you're toast. It fills your brain.

Tony Hawks' is great because it makes you look at a game world in a completely different way. Instead of a series of unconnected obstacles, a level is a series of points to be progressed between. The game comes from the way in which you progress between these points, with the fun coming from the skill and style you utilise to forge your own path. Do you manual across this courtyard? Do you grind round the perimeter? Do you jump across the whole thing with a ramp?

Halo does the same thing as both these games, all at once. It's not that the game's hard (although it is)- it's the fact that victory isn't achieved through being more persistent or a better shot than the AI. You win at Halo by being smart and paying attention, and that's what makes it satisfying.

You see, that's where the immersion comes from. The game completely draws you in, in exactly the same way as Tetris- it seems to fit exactly inside the human mind, with no room to spare. You can only really appreciate the game on this level- you don't appreciate the sublime weapon balance, because you can kill everything with the assault rifle. You don't get the superb AI, because you can caulk everything within seconds of meeting it. You don't realise what a difference the recharging shield makes, because it never gets taken down.

Playing Halo on Legendary is battering your way to a checkpoint after a fifteen minute struggle, where you've plotted your route through the battle one second at a time, switched your way through five or six different weapons, and desperately plotted your movements between a dozen different pieces of cover. And all the while, you haven't thought about a single thing external to the game. That's immersion. More so than all the pretty graphics, stylistic tricks and cleverly thought-out settings in the world.

Halo on Legendary is hard, in the same way that reading James Joyce is hard. It doesn't so much require effort as reward it.