So, it’s been a touch since I’ve updated the blog. What’s been up? Not much, really. Work is work – kind of a mix of fun, frustrating, interesting and stupid. I guess most jobs are, but whatever. FINALLY finished watching Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica (eh, it was alright), and starting to get through Heroes (which, as of maybe halfway through the season is awesome). Halo 3’s out, which is obviously pretty big news. It’s more Halo, which is more or less exactly what I wanted. Multiplayer’s super fun, single player’s more of the same, but much prettier.

People have been complaining about the graphics. It’s almost funny, except it’s also kind of tragic. Halo 3’s about as good as I can imagine Halo looking. The people’s faces and lipsync aren’t all that great, I’ll admit, but the environments, the scale, the textures and the Master Chief all look *spectacular*, and there’s a lot of really nice lighting effects that look *right*. They don’t look next-gen for next-gen’s sake. They don’t have random bloom. They aren’t brown. They’re very impressive, but remarkably natural, and subtle looking (even if they aren’t natural or subtle). The game looks great.

The sad thing is, what it really shows is that people aren’t thinking about graphics based on some absolute. The bar’s been raised by games like Gears of War, and it’s only getting higher. The problem is, there’s only a few companies that can deliver graphical quality like that. Most game developers simply don’t have the resources to even do half, or a third of what Bungie or Epic can do – and if gamer’s expectations are so high that something like Halo 3 can be classified as unattractive, it really speaks volumes about how difficult it is to keep up with the Joneses these days. Literally, I guess (and if you get the reference, you’re at least as big a nerd as me).