It can be tempting to lump all first-person shooters together, such is the genre's ubiquity.
Battlefield? I think you mean "Call of Duty with more scope wobble, dear".
Call of Duty? Why, that's basically DOOM plus sprint and the ability to go prone.
Halo? Medal of Honor for Babylon 5 fans, innit.
Skim the surface of each specimen, and you'll miss the many intricacies that distinguish them.
But get properly to grips with one, and those intricacies will make themselves felt via dismal leaderboard placings and a general team-mate unwillingness to have anything to do with you.
On a totally unrelated note, I've started playing Halo: Reach again.
Halo 4's coming out in November - key need-to-knows here, multiplayer video blow-out here - and my Spartan instincts have grown decidedly rusty.
Put it this way: at one point last Friday night I threw a grenade at somebody directly below me, leapt after it and died in mid-air when the bomb rebounded into my enthusiastically descending face.
A period of rigorous training is due, to be captured later in the form of a montage accompanied by AC/DC's "Let's Get it Up" or Abba's "Super Trouper".
But what form should this rehab process take? That's for you to decide. Perhaps I could recreate the D-Day landings in Forge World, with OXM comrades filling in as bullet fodder.
Perhaps I could just try for a ridiculously high match K/D. Perhaps I could revive Halo 2 and start a petition for an HD upgrade. Perhaps I could aim to steal all the Skulls in a bout of Headhunter and simply hold onto them, stubbornly refusing to let anybody else score.
Perhaps I could make a pyramid out of Phantoms. Post a suggestion, and we'll see if we can't put together a feature or blog post to suit.
In the meantime, here are some Initial Relearnings from my resumed Reach career.
1. Oh Christ, where's my hit feedback
Firing up Reach's online component, I elected to get back into the swing of things with a round of Big Team Battle on Canyon in Forge World.
The reasoning? Well, Canyon is very big and I probably won't be noticed in the crowds. "Greetings and salutations, comrades!" I said to the world at large shortly after we spawned, whereupon literally everybody climbed into Warthogs and drove away. "Fine," I told their retreating backs.
"Be like that. I'll snipe from the base instead." And that's when the trouble started.
I'm used to Battlefield-style sniping, you see, and in Battlefield, every positive impact is accompanied by an understated, oddly more-ish reticle flicker and a muffled "thunk", regardless of distance to target.
In Halo, it's all about shield flash and a teensy flinching animation. If you're a patent noob such as I, these things are easy to miss up close. From hundreds of metres off? You might as well throw bits of torn-up paper.
2. Oh Christ, the snipers
Needless to say, my opponents on Canyon wasted no time paying me off with interest.
In theory Battlefield is the sniper's mainstream FPS of choice, with its bazillions of different rifles, prone stance and capacious maps.
Call of Duty also amuses, providing your idea of sniping involves exploiting the ironsights zoom for idiot-proof midrange infamy. But Halo? My God.
When a Halo: Reach match devolves to sniping, the fallout can be heavy.
Jetpack, Sprint and Active Camo armour abilities allow distance players to get into position quickly, and get out of position just as fast.
There's no bullet drop to interfere with the carnage, and no scope flash or killcam to clue you in on who, exactly, has just drilled you a new nostril.
The second stage of my Reach comeback career occurred on Spire, where I was immediately shot through the ear by a player hundreds of metres up, who proceeded to do it again and again and again wherever I appeared, whatever action I took to defend myself.
3. Oh Christ, the shields
Every Halo shoot-out is a two-part affair. Before you can get to the meat, you'll need to divest your target of his crackling energy jumpsuit, often changing weapons the second you've achieved this so there's no window for escape while you reload.
It's a great antidote to Call of Duty's rapid cycle of death and respawn, prolonging firefights into the tens of seconds - but not so great if your one, sole and only means of obtaining victory is the element of surprise.
4. Oh Christ, the grenades
There's a highly specialised echelon of Hell which consists solely of Halo sound effects, and in particular, the dreadful little tinkle of a UNSC grenade touching down nearby, or the gooey click of a Plasma grenade adhering to your unguarded rear.
With their enormous blast radii and short detonation times, Halo grenades are enormous fun till you run into somebody who's also realised that Halo grenades are enormous fun. Whereupon you realise that they're utterly, utterly evil.
5. Oh Christ, the weapon drops
The idea of customisable load-outs in Halo 4 is a slim, dusty ray of hope for those of us whose Halo experiences to date consist of discovering that all the other guys are packing Fuel Rod Guns, obtained from secret recesses.
Perhaps next time, those vaunted weapon drops won't be quite so devastatingly key. Perhaps next time, I'll be able to pick up a new gun without getting elbowed in the back of the head by an ally player.
I know I'm not fit to wield this rocket launcher, LeanSlay3r1X. But won't you at least grant me the honour of getting killed by our mutual enemies, the way Bungie intended?
The only way is up. What's next?
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