: Firstly, my wording made things a bit too general. My fault.
: That Halo is being burnt out is my own personal feeling, and one that a few
: people have said they share.
: The fact is that I have progressively played the Halo campaigns less and less
: with each release.
: Now I could say this is because of story issues, level and encounter
: design... all these things degrading over time.
: But I don't think that alone is responsible for this.
: Going back to the original in HCEA did not have me thinking "this is so
: much better!"
: I'm also not a tricker when it comes to games, so things like kill barriers
: in Reach were not the major turn-off they were to others.

: That's why I feel the series is falling into the trap of "more of the
: same, too often."

Thanks for clarifying! I guess it feels like most people I play with frequently on Halo aren't feeling that they're burned out, and the same goes for me, but that there are too many things negatively impacting the games. I played the living daylights out of H1, H2, H3, and Reach, and on occasion I still pop back into H3 to co-op and Reach to do multiplayer (not a big fan of H4's multiplayer, as you know :P). There are just too many things not working in H4 to keep me coming back. Plenty of other people enjoy it, though, and that's great. Hopefully H5 learns from a lot of H4's mistakes and innovates or makes things more fun.

: So I'm not really talking about multiplayer or sales.
: Call of Duty, Halo, FIFA... all remain absolutely massive sellers, but that's
: not the point.
: I bought Call of Duty 4, World at War, 2 and then Modern Warfare 2 in that
: order.
: MW2 was the last I bought, because I got burnt out with it.
: That and I hated World at War, so flat out refused to buy Treyarch's
: Black-Ops. Something my 2 IRL friends later said was a good call on my
: part. None of us got MW3 or BO2.

: I was the same with DiRT and the F1 games. Been getting them all, but skipped
: 2012's DiRT Showdown and F1 2012 because it was too soon.

I can't really speak about DiRT or the F1 games, but yeah CoD is a great point. I got the first, which I absolutely loved, and I played the second but never purchased it (great game, though). I did not like the third, and didn't purchase that one. CoD4 was fantastic, and I absolutely bought MW2 because of it. Then Activision's drama with Infinity Ward went down and I refused to purchase MW3. I'm glad I didn't because it's awful. And Treyarch's games have never really impressed me.

: Weeeell, might have noticed I haven't even signed up for DBO.
: Right now, Destiny just doesn't really mean anything to me.
: I don't know enough to be hyped, nor do I know what's going to make it such a
: special FPS.
: The recent vidoc actually kind of turned me off... not because of the game
: perse (what little we saw) but how it mostly seemed to consist of floating
: Bungie faces telling me how awesome it is and patting themselves on the
: back.
: I got it when we would have a trailer, and then a vidoc to show a bit more
: behind the scenes but... meh. I'm sorry Bungie, but I'm afraid that is
: just not the way to make me excited.
: Basically, just because Bungie are making it, the game doesn't get a free
: pass of awesomeness with me.

Yep. I remember when the concept art first got leaked and everyone was talking about how they were sold, and take that money, and I'm so there! I'm pretty sure I replied to that thread saying, hey, it's just concept art. This game could suck, and suck hard. Hell, it could still suck. The PS4 reveal really helped get me more excited. Actual gameplay. The music. It just added to the concept that Bungie is trying to sell to me, and right now I'm really excited and intrigued. It could be the biggest letdown and disaster in gaming history for all we know, and if it is, well, sorry Bungie, you screwed up. But until that time, and considering Bungie's past series (which I absolutely love, not just referring to Halo), I have a good feeling about this.

: Yeah, it's a fantastic book. The Skyward Sword section is definitely a bit
: expansive, but its understandable since the book and game were developed
: at the same time (the book was released 2011 in Japan for the 25th
: anniversary).
: Being such an old series where so much of the old design work was actually
: done on paper , it's great to see just how much old content Nintendo have
: held onto that was able to be cleaned up and re-printed. Like the level
: designs for the original LoZ.
: I just wish art books like this could also be supplied with a CD of digital
: versions of the images for a better look.

That would be pretty awesome!