Halo: the Library

Next time I'm suffering from insomnia, remind me to go and play the Library on Halo.

This is where I'd got up to, and therefore this is where I started last night. Oddly, none of my friends (as in, none of my friends list) were online at all, which was a shame as I really wanted to play Outrun 2 online. I've played it offline rather a lot recently. So I put on Halo instead, given that my hands were too sore and I wasn't feeling energetic enough to play DK: Jungle Beat.

The Library is just a big, long repetitive level, which is seeming to go on forever. You go up the corridor, lots of Flood enemies come out, you backtrack while killing them. You go forward to the same place and more flood appear. And again. And again. Eventually you get to a room where the door's locked, and you have to wait there while this blue flying monitor thing unlocks the door. And unsurprisingly, more Flood appear. And more. And then you go up the corridor ...

I'd gone up two floors by the time I switched off, and had got to another security room. The trick with this one was that not only was the door in front locked, but the one behind also closed. I was so surprised by this variation that I promptly died.

Halo was great until this point, but I can forsee this going on for another fifteen floors, all exactly the same, just to lengthen the game. And I can't see the point in that - I'd actually prefer to have a game that was quicker to finish which I'd then want to play again. If I ever finish Halo, I'll be put off from restarting because I'll know to complete the game, you've got to get through the Library. Which is just getting rather dull.

Actually, it's made worse by the lack of tactics needed. With the Covenant, you had to think hard about your actions - could you kill a few of them from long distance without others noticing? Could you force them to attack you in a certain way? The Covenant AI was great, and meant you had to strategise constantly. The flood just run towards you to attack. You can't really plan how to take them on, you have to just go and shoot as many as you can as quickly as you can.

Oh, and try not to run out of ammo.

In other news, Mario 64 DS is still great, and I have 75 stars, with only a few minigames left locked. And the library in Boo's house is tiny.