Halo 360 Services Shut Down Preparation

This shouldn't be a surprise. Halo's first game on the Xbox 360 came in the fall of 2007 with Halo 3. After that were at least five more with the last one being Halo: Spartan Assault in 2013. These all have single player stuff, multiplayer that drives huge interest. Always has been since at least the second game. But plans have been set for the 360 games to be losing their servers. These will be taken off serves effective December 2021.

I've probably mentioned it in other blogs, but it bears repeating. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are consoles that still get a bit of play out of them. There's been updates for these two systems over the last two years or so. Beyond the games, some might still use them for Netflix machines. You got apps for certain products like YouTube and Amazon. With the exception of one PS3 game back in August, both haven't had games in about two years. You're still able to buy games through the digital stores. Over 1000 titles on 360 with mostly 360 and some original Xbox titles. PlayStation 3 is roughly the same number, maybe a little higher with a combo of games for that, PS2, and PS1. It's also the only way to buy PSP games digitally since you can't on a computer anymore.

People do still cling to older releases. That will never die out at any point. You'll have the followers who dedicate to playing an older title.  Think of some of the older Call of Duty games. That logic can be applied to Halo. Not everyone moves on to newer hardware and if some do, it might be well late into the generation. Even with backwards compatibility, that doesn't mean some were going to jump to Xbox One just to play certain 360 games along with the limited list of games.

The TL:DR of what I'm saying is, you have to get used to it. PlayStation has had over the course of the last couple of years, had servers shut off for a number of games. This is going to happen with 360 games if some of it hasn't happened already. The likelihood of 360 servers shutting down altogether, I don't know. There isn't a good prediction for it. I'd figure 2020 or 2021. I'm not sure anymore. But get your play out of it while you can for the online aspect. Inevitably, the two systems will be bowing out in terms of everything getting shut down. One day, it will happen. 

Why Id Software Had Balanced Hard Difficulty

If you have played a first person shooter that was released between 2004 and today, you will know of the choices in difficulty. Call of Duty is probably the most famous with veteran, the hardest single player difficulty. When some people say it is next to impossible, they don't exaggerate. About two to three shots and you're dead. Some games try to cheapen the experience by adding more damage required to kill an enemy like Duke Nukem Forever. If there is one game that did hard difficulty justice, it was Doom and Wolfenstein 3D.

Id Software knew how to deal with making a game worthy of picking up and playing, as well as making it a challenge without ruining the experience. What helped them with their early efforts was that there was no need to double an enemy's health or require more shots put into them. Taking down an imp with one shot from a shotgun will always be one shot. Or two depending on how far you are. There was always a strategy on how to defeat them and find a way to get through it unscathed. There was no cheap shots to them and you know what you were getting into.

It's a philosophy that has been largely ignored for a long time in favor of going the Call of Duty and Halo route of a couple shots and you're gone. Even Goldeneye, which came out long before those two, had that kind of cheap difficulty combined with a few other cheap factors. The closest to what Doom did was the early Medal of Honor games up until Frontline, Duke Nukem 3D, and maybe Half Life. At least that's what I can think of. Third person games kind of have that same mentality of Halo and Call of Duty, but they are not as bad as those two. And I say that as someone that has beaten a handful of the Call of Duty games on Veteran, and those have a lot of very cheap moments.

If developers want to know how to be pleasing to all audiences, Id's early games are a good indicator. There's a reason Wolfenstein 3D and Doom are considered some of the greatest games ever.