Can Activision Save Halo?

So the PSP promised console-like power anywhere, anytime, and it largely delivered on that promise.

Now, despite the power of a home console in your pocket, there was seemingly, at least in... from what I've been noticing, a design philosophy that many devs applied to their PSP titles that they did not apply to their PS2 or 3 titles.

So as I go through my backlog on PSP, I've noticed that many games are designed for short, bite-sized sessions of gameplay, and they achieve this through many means.

Common ones are quick modes like quick race in racing games, uh, shorter mission design just out of the get- out of the gate, unique design choice.

So for example, Dynasty Warrior State of War, what they do is they break up large battles into small objectives on a turn-based map so you could easily kinda do a turn, do a quick little like, I'm gonna call it a mini game, do a quick little mini game action pack thing, and then back to the, back to the main screen and you can kinda, you know, put your PSP on hold or save or whatever there.

And this philosophy wasn't just with third-party titles.

Even first-party titles adopted this design idea.

Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops uses a development ma- or excuse me, a deployment map and i- and individual missions alongside recruitment and squad management.

So instead of continuous infiltration of an adversary's facility or organization, the game focused on short and immediate encounters.

And then there was a bit of an evolution of this with Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker.

Now, this game separates play into two things: main ops and extra ops with replayable objectives and mother base development between deployments.

You can complete smaller assignments that contribute to a much larger game, while some story sequences and difficult battles can take much longer than a short-form battle.

So this kind of played a bit of like a hybrid role, this game did.

Now, SOCOM really kind of e- embraced this, specifically SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo.

It has an instant action mode that revisits completed mission, uh, areas with changes, uh, with- with changes to objectives, um, and enemy object and placement for what is seemingly infinite replayability quote, unquote.

Now, this mode was actually described by Sony themselves in a press release as a mode where players could hop into, uh, hop into quick little 10-minute missions.

So you can see where I'm going with this, right? You have your PSP, you're on the go, you're like, "Hey, you know, I'm at the, I'm at the, the bus stop," or I'm, you know, wherever.

These commercials d- showing these handhelds, DSes and other things, they'd be like, "Oh, you're at...

You're, you're waiting at the doctor's office.

You're at the dental office.

You're at the bus stop.

You're at the train stop.

You're on a train commuting.

You're a passenger in a car.

You know, you have 10 minutes here, five minutes here, 50 minutes here." And so this console that had the power of home, of- of a home console-