Oh, the game I was watching had to have been played on easy, otherwise I would never consider picking Resistance up (if that was a higher difficulty). And you can definitely do the exact same thing on Halo/2 easy/normal. Obviously on the higher difficulties you're grenading choke points, ensuring your advantage by keeping enemies in a certain area rather than all around you, and so on. You probably wouldn't run out into the Hangar from Truth and Reconciliation, all the way through on Legendary and triggering as many enemies as you can to come out at once; at least, not if you're looking for the best/easiest way of handling that zone.
So, I think that most run and gun games, on easy, (or one of the non-"intelligent" run and gun shooters) are pretty brainless (in the sense that it's very, very forgiving of being stupid rather than, as you say, controlling the battlefield or using the right weapons for the right situations). And I think many casual gamers play (on easy/normal) like this all the time, which is what reinforces the perception that run and gun is stupid, no matter what. I agree that run and gun shooters are pretty far from brainless on higher difficulties (and aren't inferior to tactical shooters), or in the better games with less variation in difficulty. Meanwhile, of the tactical shooters I've played, I wouldn't do this on any difficulty (possibly skewed by GRAW: when I decided to play through normal again and just "blast my way through"--I'd forgotten how unforgiving it can be if you're stupid--I found myself asking why I thought I could just act like a shooting god and not get blown apart). In Halo 2, on the level Regret (I believe) when you're in the large room with hunters, honor guard, drones, and snipers, I've never tried going through one side alone on Legendary/possibly Heroic. It's always clearing out the two most immediate threats (honor guard on that side of the hall, snipers in that area, and then snipers along the other side of the hall), then moving forward if possible until you have to deal with the swarm of drones (which prompts retreating or rushing for the closest thing to a safe location). Or something like that, it's been a while since I've played Legendary on either of those. I don't think the Resistance tactic I saw would work there nearly as well as it had for that guy.
Perhaps to flesh it out more than I did earlier, a tactical game is based more on creating a solid plan beforehand, and quickly executing. It's over fairly quickly and you don't have to worry too much about the enemies messing with the plan. In a (/an excellent) run and gun game, it's more like a set of plans for different variations (dependant upon what course of action the enemy takes), woven together on the fly. Sometimes those pieces involve a specific location, sometimes it's more like move in a general direction and find the closest thing to good cover for the moment, etc. Certain sets of plans can carry over to future scenarios and work fairly well without developing a new one.
Or perhaps I'm trying to create a big difference for the sake of the argument where one doesn't exist. :smile:
May be I'll give Resistance a try.
