Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Polpolion on March 22, 2008, 09:05:55 am
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Meh. Played the PC version. Massively overrated. The cutscenes and levels which were only there for style were kind of cool, but the rest of the actual game consisted of a spawn frenzy. Multiplayer was totally destroyed by maps designed for X360, low population servers.
COD4 isn't overrated. If anything, in this time where FPSs are as common as people's noses, it's underrated. If you want a game that is overrated, go see the original Halo. Level design at its worst, right there. Horrible gameplay, the story of a straight-to-DVD movie... Doesn't get much worse than that.
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Meh. Played the PC version. Massively overrated. The cutscenes and levels which were only there for style were kind of cool, but the rest of the actual game consisted of a spawn frenzy. Multiplayer was totally destroyed by maps designed for X360, low population servers.
COD4 isn't overrated. If anything, in this time where FPSs are as common as people's noses, it's underrated. If you want a game that is overrated, go see the original Halo. Level design at its worst, right there. Horrible gameplay, the story of a straight-to-DVD movie... Doesn't get much worse than that.
Halo was great. Guess you never played multiplayer huh (though I liked the main campaign too, especially co-op) ?
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Multiplayer Halo was just as good as any other console oriented multiplayer games. Not very, compared to computers.
Honestly, I don't play multi games much any more, much less buy a game just for the multi. And especially not games as mainstream as Halo, which tend to attract the worst crowds.
Tribes was probably the only multi FPS game I could actually get into. Sure, you got idiots here and there, but the levels are big enough for you to ignore them.
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COD4 isn't overrated. If anything, in this time where FPSs are as common as people's noses, it's underrated. If you want a game that is overrated, go see the original Halo. Level design at its worst, right there. Horrible gameplay, the story of a straight-to-DVD movie... Doesn't get much worse than that.
What are you smoking, and where can I get some?
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Meh. Played the PC version. Massively overrated. The cutscenes and levels which were only there for style were kind of cool, but the rest of the actual game consisted of a spawn frenzy. Multiplayer was totally destroyed by maps designed for X360, low population servers.
COD4 isn't overrated. If anything, in this time where FPSs are as common as people's noses, it's underrated. If you want a game that is overrated, go see the original Halo. Level design at its worst, right there. Horrible gameplay, the story of a straight-to-DVD movie... Doesn't get much worse than that.
Halo was great. Guess you never played multiplayer huh (though I liked the main campaign too, especially co-op) ?
Holy ****. What exactly infested your brain?
It's average AT MOST. There's absolutely nothing special on it. And I don't know why some fanboys keep *****ing about how it had it's revolutionary vehicles and how it was the first game to do so, because clearly it isn't.
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Holy ****. What exactly infested your brain?
It's average AT MOST. There's absolutely nothing special on it. And I don't know why some fanboys keep *****ing about how it had it's revolutionary vehicles and how it was the first game to do so, because clearly it isn't.
I'd ask the same question of you, tbqfh. :P You make decent points when you actually bother to make a supported point, though, which is rare.
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Meh. Played the PC version. Massively overrated. The cutscenes and levels which were only there for style were kind of cool, but the rest of the actual game consisted of a spawn frenzy. Multiplayer was totally destroyed by maps designed for X360, low population servers.
COD4 isn't overrated. If anything, in this time where FPSs are as common as people's noses, it's underrated. If you want a game that is overrated, go see the original Halo. Level design at its worst, right there. Horrible gameplay, the story of a straight-to-DVD movie... Doesn't get much worse than that.
Halo was great. Guess you never played multiplayer huh (though I liked the main campaign too, especially co-op) ?
Holy ****. What exactly infested your brain?
It's average AT MOST. There's absolutely nothing special on it. And I don't know why some fanboys keep *****ing about how it had it's revolutionary vehicles and how it was the first game to do so, because clearly it isn't.
I can hardly be arsed but here goes: It wasn't the first to intoduce certain features but it did have alot ie; seamless on-foot to vehicles (ground and air bourne), seamless indoor-outdoor, 2 weapon limit etc. These had been done before, ofcourse, but there weren't many games that had them all and used them as well. There was pretty damn good AI that could genuinly surprise, though it took legendary difficulty to really show this. Well balanced weapons with each retaining tactical value all the way through the game (unlike some which just make later weapons more powerful) though the pistol is probably an exception with it being too powerful.
The storyline (I reckon) is decent by FPS standards and Halo by far and away did Sci-Fi matinee better than any. Fact.
Sure the locations where repeated but honestly I didn't mind that.
And that's without mentioning multiplayer.
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Meh. Played the PC version. Massively overrated. The cutscenes and levels which were only there for style were kind of cool, but the rest of the actual game consisted of a spawn frenzy. Multiplayer was totally destroyed by maps designed for X360, low population servers.
COD4 isn't overrated. If anything, in this time where FPSs are as common as people's noses, it's underrated. If you want a game that is overrated, go see the original Halo. Level design at its worst, right there. Horrible gameplay, the story of a straight-to-DVD movie... Doesn't get much worse than that.
Halo was great. Guess you never played multiplayer huh (though I liked the main campaign too, especially co-op) ?
Holy ****. What exactly infested your brain?
It's average AT MOST. There's absolutely nothing special on it. And I don't know why some fanboys keep *****ing about how it had it's revolutionary vehicles and how it was the first game to do so, because clearly it isn't.
I can hardly be arsed but here goes: It wasn't the first to intoduce certain features but it did have alot ie; seamless on-foot to vehicles (ground and air bourne), seamless indoor-outdoor, 2 weapon limit etc. These had been done before, ofcourse, but there weren't many games that had them all and used them as well. There was pretty damn good AI that could genuinly surprise, though it took legendary difficulty to really show this. Well balanced weapons with each retaining tactical value all the way through the game (unlike some which just make later weapons more powerful) though the pistol is probably an exception with it being too powerful.
The storyline (I reckon) is decent by FPS standards and Halo by far and away did Sci-Fi matinee better than any. Fact.
Sure the locations where repeated but honestly I didn't mind that.
And that's without mentioning multiplayer.
1) Vehicles don't make a game. And Airbourne? You mean the Banshee? The Banshee is not an airplane. It is an over-glorified glider. IIRC, its only armament is like a machine gun, or whatever the alien equivalent was. Can't do CAS decently, can't do air superiority, can't do bomber escort. The only thing its even remotely suitable for is short range patrol. And it can even be hijacked in mid-flight from the ground for christ's sake. There are no airborne vehicles in Halo. When you can go up to 30,000 feet, fly for 100 miles without turning, and drop 1000 lb bombs, maybe I'll reconsider.
2) Seamless indoor to outdoor? What indoor? You mean pointless hallways to outdoor, right? Not once in Halo have I ever seen any indoor area with any tactical/practical significance whatsoever. It's all hallway. And even in the rooms that weren't hallway, what was there? Random symmetrical architecture and a button to get you to the next part was all. For goodness sake, Half-life 1 had more level detail than Halo. And outdoor? You mean a tiny little canyon that prevents you from going in more than two directions, right? And in the second level where you had to find all of the marines from their crashed dropships, I loved how there were little sections split off from the main are by little canyons! They were like little outdoor rooms! And how convenient that the ships crashed each in a different area!
3) I don't know anything about the AI on legendary, so I can't comment there.
4) A two weapon limit. Whoop-dee-doo. I'd pay an extra 50 dollars for a game with that! Less guns! Amazing! I love not having as many guns as possible!
5) The melee is way overpowered. How often can you pistol whip something and kill them in real life? And if those aliens really are that fragile, then why can't you just throw a rock or two at them and kill them?
6) A decent story by FPS standards is not good. Feces that aren't too disgusting compared to other feces are still disgusting, right?
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Battlezone 2 featured many (if not all) of those things... almost 3 years before Halo.
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Meh. Played the PC version. Massively overrated. The cutscenes and levels which were only there for style were kind of cool, but the rest of the actual game consisted of a spawn frenzy. Multiplayer was totally destroyed by maps designed for X360, low population servers.
COD4 isn't overrated. If anything, in this time where FPSs are as common as people's noses, it's underrated. If you want a game that is overrated, go see the original Halo. Level design at its worst, right there. Horrible gameplay, the story of a straight-to-DVD movie... Doesn't get much worse than that.
Halo was great. Guess you never played multiplayer huh (though I liked the main campaign too, especially co-op) ?
Holy ****. What exactly infested your brain?
It's average AT MOST. There's absolutely nothing special on it. And I don't know why some fanboys keep *****ing about how it had it's revolutionary vehicles and how it was the first game to do so, because clearly it isn't.
I can hardly be arsed but here goes: It wasn't the first to intoduce certain features but it did have alot ie; seamless on-foot to vehicles (ground and air bourne), seamless indoor-outdoor, 2 weapon limit etc. These had been done before, ofcourse, but there weren't many games that had them all and used them as well. There was pretty damn good AI that could genuinly surprise, though it took legendary difficulty to really show this. Well balanced weapons with each retaining tactical value all the way through the game (unlike some which just make later weapons more powerful) though the pistol is probably an exception with it being too powerful.
The storyline (I reckon) is decent by FPS standards and Halo by far and away did Sci-Fi matinee better than any. Fact.
Sure the locations where repeated but honestly I didn't mind that.
And that's without mentioning multiplayer.
1) Vehicles don't make a game. And Airbourne? You mean the Banshee? The Banshee is not an airplane. It is an over-glorified glider. IIRC, its only armament is like a machine gun, or whatever the alien equivalent was. Can't do CAS decently, can't do air superiority, can't do bomber escort. The only thing its even remotely suitable for is short range patrol. And it can even be hijacked in mid-flight from the ground for christ's sake. There are no airborne vehicles in Halo. When you can go up to 30,000 feet, fly for 100 miles without turning, and drop 1000 lb bombs, maybe I'll reconsider.
2) Seamless indoor to outdoor? What indoor? You mean pointless hallways to outdoor, right? Not once in Halo have I ever seen any indoor area with any tactical/practical significance whatsoever. It's all hallway. And even in the rooms that weren't hallway, what was there? Random symmetrical architecture and a button to get you to the next part was all. For goodness sake, Half-life 1 had more level detail than Halo. And outdoor? You mean a tiny little canyon that prevents you from going in more than two directions, right? And in the second level where you had to find all of the marines from their crashed dropships, I loved how there were little sections split off from the main are by little canyons! They were like little outdoor rooms! And how convenient that the ships crashed each in a different area!
3) I don't know anything about the AI on legendary, so I can't comment there.
4) A two weapon limit. Whoop-dee-doo. I'd pay an extra 50 dollars for a game with that! Less guns! Amazing! I love not having as many guns as possible!
5) The melee is way overpowered. How often can you pistol whip something and kill them in real life? And if those aliens really are that fragile, then why can't you just throw a rock or two at them and kill them?
6) A decent story by FPS standards is not good. Feces that aren't too disgusting compared to other feces are still disgusting, right?
Tell you what, never mind. Just pretend I never existed. :rolleyes:
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Why is it that certain people seem to think that when it comes to Halo everyone must think the same way they do about it? :rolleyes:
Actually, **** it. Next person to start a "Halo is ****" argument on a thread that isn't to do with the game can take a trip to HLP holiday land.
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Battlezone 2 featured many (if not all) of those things... almost 3 years before Halo.
Heck, Battlezone 2 was an RTS that made you enter the various buildings that controlled base functions so you can activate them, let you commandeer vehicles from your fellow soldiers, had semi-decent extra-vehicular combat (Jetpacks!) and was just all around a fairly awesome merge of vehicular/FPS/RTS gameplay. The only 2 games I've played that even remotely resembled that sort of fusion were Giants: Citizen Kabuto and Sacrifice, though they were more a 3rd person tactical action game with RTS base-building and a straight up RTS from the perspective of a battlefield participant in a duel of sorcerers.
Halo was highly mediocre, managing to distinguish itself by being the only semi-decent FPS for consoles at the time, thus making it the gold standard by default (for consoles). This is hardly an accomplishment. Citing the extremely primitive multi-player options as a redeeming quality doesn't really cut it either. Multi-player might very well be a hoot and a half, but it's nothing particularly special and it certainly isn't in any way groundbreaking. Games like Tribes have done everything Halo multi-player does (and a whole heck of a lot more), for WAY longer (Starsiege: Tribes came out in 1998).
I'm forced to wonder how many Halo fanboys have ever played Deus Ex (I also wonder that every time a video game reviewer makes the seemingly inevitable Half-Life comparison. It wasn't that great of a game, FPS titles just had a very long stretch of sucking completely prior to its release so it looked like pure genius. Seriously reviewers, it's time to move on.), I get the impression none of them have. Also, now I want to fire up Battlezone 2 again.
As the thread is titled Halo Nonsense, I'm operating under the assumption that ranting about Halo is par for the course.
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Halo's fun etc. Forge multi is quite novel although i don't HL2 on line so i can't say if garrysmod is online or not . . If so another black mark towards halo (series) although i love the capship design. And Cortana (halo 2) is hot hot hot. (Yep i'm a grown man and yep i have no shame :p)
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I always love it when people assume that just cause you like Halo it means you can't possibly have played any other FPSs. It's like they believe that the very act of playing the game must have automatically erased the memory of any other FPS from memory.
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I always love it when people assume that just cause you like Halo it means you can't possibly have played any other FPSs. It's like they believe that the very act of playing the game must have automatically erased the memory of any other FPS from memory.
The majority of the people who defend Halo so fervently are such fanboys that they indeed don't play other FPSs, much less games like Deus Ex.
I personally see Halo not as an absolutely crappy game, but more of one that's just below par (either that or I've gotten too used good games). I'd expect Halo to be a game you spend 10 USD on at a Wal-Mart bargain bin to pass time, not something you spend upwards $150 on getting the game, books, special Xbox cases, etc.
It's just that the afore mentioned fanboys that spend that $150 piss me off so much...
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...And especially not games as mainstream as Halo, which tend to attract the worst crowds...
Then tell me, if the game you describe as horrible "tends to attract the worst crowds," don't you think there is something attractive about it? Crowds of people don't play really crappy games.
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...And especially not games as mainstream as Halo, which tend to attract the worst crowds...
Then tell me, if the game you describe as horrible "tends to attract the worst crowds," don't you think there is something attractive about it? Crowds of people don't play really crappy games.
By "worst crowds" I meant American teens. And by American teens, I mean idiots.
And besides, just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it right. Look at what slavery was in the US south, look at smoking, look at Freespace, look at the US's citizen's attitude towards foreign cars, and a dozen other examples.
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Halo get's frequently bashed because all things that create such a hype also create a group of people that hate it feverishly out of spite over the hype. People bash Halo because bashing it was hip and trendy (3 years ago).
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...And especially not games as mainstream as Halo, which tend to attract the worst crowds...
Then tell me, if the game you describe as horrible "tends to attract the worst crowds," don't you think there is something attractive about it? Crowds of people don't play really crappy games.
Crowds of people play "cool" games with "cool" graphics "everyone" buys, thus making them passive and not active when choosing a new game.
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Halo get's frequently bashed because all things that create such a hype also create a group of people that hate it feverishly out of spite over the hype. People bash Halo because bashing it was hip and trendy (3 years ago).
Really? Very true. Although I'm not quite sure that bashing things is hip and/or trendy, I do know that as you said Halo is overrated. I guess I'm just appalled that people are giving so much appreciation to such a mediocre game, while games like Freespace have little to none (although that's not entirely the gameplayer's fault).
EDIT: Then again, why do I bother trying to change people's opinions? After all, this is the internet. It's not like debating was ever okay here.
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I always love it when people assume that just cause you like Halo it means you can't possibly have played any other FPSs. It's like they believe that the very act of playing the game must have automatically erased the memory of any other FPS from memory.
The majority of the people who defend Halo so fervently are such fanboys that they indeed don't play other FPSs, much less games like Deus Ex.
I personally see Halo not as an absolutely crappy game, but more of one that's just below par (either that or I've gotten too used good games). I'd expect Halo to be a game you spend 10 USD on at a Wal-Mart bargain bin to pass time, not something you spend upwards $150 on getting the game, books, special Xbox cases, etc.
It's just that the afore mentioned fanboys that spend that $150 piss me off so much...
How can you compaire Halo to DeusEx ? They're completely different games. You may as well be compairing FreeSpace to MS Combat Flight Simulator. GrandPrix Legends to Sega Rally.
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Halo was OK I guess...nothing special really..
When I compare it to other games I played, like Crysis, Half-Life2, Team Fortress, Tribes, etc, I can't really say it beats any of them in practice any segment.
Design is interesting - love the veichles and weapons design. But that's about it.
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How can you compaire Halo to DeusEx ? They're completely different games. You may as well be compairing FreeSpace to MS Combat Flight Simulator. GrandPrix Legends to Sega Rally.
In the end, they're all in competition for you money, so how could you not compare them?
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The majority of the people who defend Halo so fervently are such fanboys that they indeed don't play other FPSs, much less games like Deus Ex.
And you're basing that assumption on what?
Have you actually asked anyone on this forum which FPSs they have played? Or have you simply decided that because they don't have the same taste as you it must be that they can't have played the games you have played. :rolleyes:
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The majority of the people who defend Halo so fervently are such fanboys that they indeed don't play other FPSs, much less games like Deus Ex.
And you're basing that assumption on what?
Have you actually asked anyone on this forum which FPSs they have played? Or have you simply decided that because they don't have the same taste as you it must be that they can't have played the games you have played. :rolleyes:
I'm basing that assumption on all of the people who I've talked to at my school, which is quite a bit more than the people who are actively engaged in this discussion. But if you want to limit the data pool to only those here, fine; you win. None of said people have played games like Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Freespace, much less listened to me when I explained my reasons. Sure people can have different tastes than me, but if people don't bother attempting to change other's opinions there really is no purpose to discussions or debates.
Okay so: How many people here play both Halo 1, 2, or 3 and other first person shooters (keeping in mind that the definition of play in this situation involves seriously playing said game for a period of time, as opposed to pick it up on the spur of a moment with a few friends for a half an hour of multi)? Admittedly, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone here responded positively to this question, but no one here honestly strikes me as a crazy fanboy. The people who I have encountered at my school, on the other hand...
EDIT: Keep in mind that my high school is a lot more diverse and large than most schools.
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Everyone is definitely entitled to say "yes I like that game" or "no I do not like that game" so what I think is most important is that people do not berate others for liking something they don't. I don't get what all of the negativity about Halo is...it was successful, it wove a decent story in my mind, and it looked absolutely incredible while being fun at the same time. There wasn't anything specifically special about it...just that it did allot of things in a very polished manner. The people at Bungie are definitely what I'd call gaming artists...they know their craft and how to put together an entertaining title.
Obviously allot of people agreed with them by spending their cash on the series.
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Another thing that makes me laugh are the claims that Halo isn't special because it didn't introduce anything new. On a Freespace board! It's like people can't understand that you can like something just for doing something that has been done before very well.
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In answer to the question a few posts back i've played Halo+2+3, (i like the plot and it's fun in short bursts) halflife+2+eps, farcry, wolfenstein+rtcw, system shock+2, deus ex, (2 is pants) quake series (4 is pants) doom series (2 is best) perfect dark(both) Metroid prime series, Coded arms, metal gear solid series. (Metal gear on the nes is an artform and kids nowadays are nowhere ready to tackle it having been weaned on weak games like halo 1) but i still enjoyed it.
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Another thing that makes me laugh are the claims that Halo isn't special because it didn't introduce anything new. On a Freespace board! It's like people can't understand that you can like something just for doing something that has been done before very well.
No, it doesn't have to introduce anything new - in this you are right.
FS has a great story and atmosphere, great graphics & mission design and gameplay...and I'm saying this while trying to be as objective as possible (remember, I used to LOATHE freespace).
Some people say you don't discuss taste - to this I say "Bollocks!" The only people who say that IMHO, are those who don't want their tastes discussed.
You can find mesurable qualities in everything and come to pretty accurate ratings. However, since people generally can't agree on anything, even factual stuff, then you can't expect them to agree on simpler and less "solid" stuff. That doesn't mean however, that all people have good tastes. ;7
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@Icefire: I'm not trying to berate people for their opinions, but admitedly it's rather difficult discussing something so subjective as the quality of a game. My main argument against the game is its awkward level design, closely followed by its linearity (all regarding the physical linearity, story, and action), and finally its at most average plot. A bunch of assorted, finer points here and there complement that, but it all adds up to not a crappy game (from a gamer's standpoint, not a purely objective one), but a mediocre game. Thus, the main reason for my outrage is in fact how overrated it is.
Undoubtedly it was an excellent game from a publisher's standpoint. Three games, a few books, almost a movie, and a boatload of obsessed fans.
@Karajorma: That probably wasn't addressed to me, given as it's not any of my main ideas, but that is interesting point. In addition to gameplay, Freespace's plot (or general premise) wasn't even all that original. It must be noted, however, how mod-able FS is compared such games as Halo. And while its story isn't the most original, it certainly is good, and yet not common enough to be overly redundant. Then there's the atmosphere inspired (especially in FS2's latter levels), the beam cannons, the bombing runs, the dogfighting...
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Undoubtedly it was an excellent game from a publisher's standpoint. Three games, a few books, almost a movie...
That also means it was an excellent game to all the people who bought and created the sales that made sequels, books, and the possiblilty of a movie come to mind.
...and a boatload of obsessed fans.
The thing to remember is that there are a lot of unobsessed fans as well. I count myself as one of them: I do not proclaim Halo the "best game evah!!!!1111!one", nor am I blind to its faults. I also have had a ridiculous amount of fun with it, enough to make the flaws negligible. That's the mark of a great game.
I won't deny that there are obsessed fans out there, but FYI: the unobsessed fans hate them just as much as anyone else. They make people who are not fans stereotype the hell out of the fanbase.
I really REALLY wish people would STFU about how good a game is and just play the damn thing (or if they don't like it, just go play whatever games they do like), and not over-analyze it. One reason I despise game reviews... but who am I kidding? It'll never happen. :sigh:
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The thing to remember is that there are a lot of unobsessed fans as well.
But the problem is that the non-obsessed don't make any noise.
My beef isn't really with the games. I mean, the first one was pretty damn fun. I had a ball, you had a ball, we all had a ball. The second one wasn't too shabby, could of been better but could've been worse. The third one... I happen to utterly loathe because they neglected the single-player in favor pandering to the braying masses and focusing development time on the multi-player aspects. But regardless, it's a solid series in every sense of the phrase.
The problem is the fans. I mean, we - as in the gaming community as a whole - have seen the emergence of an entire subclass of n00b with the release of the Halo series. Loud and obnoxious fans are bad enough, but these people (and I hate to even use the term "people") are so loud and obnoxious that they are actually giving the entire gaming community a bad name in the eyes of the public. We all know it. Being a gamer is already something of a social stigma these days thanks to bad publicity, so the last thing we as a people need is Halo 'tards making it worse.
That is the reason I think Halo is one of the more detrimental things to happen to the gaming world in the past decade.
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Notice how I'm not even taking part in this thread? Funny, isn't it?
I'm not going to read one paragraph of anything said here. I'm just going to say this:
Halo appeals to some people, and not others. Why? Because Halo focused on story. How does this affect my statement? Because there are some gamers that prefer their games to be epic and played out like a story; others just want to shoot and blow **** up. Halo appealed to so many people because it offered, in my honest opinion, a very good blend of both. And since i love both of those traits in a game a lot, that's why I think Halo is the best FPS out there, stuck closely with Half-Life 2. Why do the people who don't like Halo, hate it so very much?
Let's get this straight. Halo is not much better then other games that operated similarly, such as Half-Life. Half-Life itself was also a revolution. It was the very first game to implement story in a noticeable fashion(IIRC). It immersed you in it; everything from the realistic AI (which shocked me extremely the first time i played half-life a month ago, considering how old that game is), to the talking suit that told you stuff like "fracture detected" and "minor lacerations detected", which is only naming 2. Count that with it's good level design (well, it was alright), and other epic moments like being chased by an apache helicopter, and finally blowing it out of the sky (another thing i found really awesome), Half-Life sealed the deal on story driven gameplay.
How does this relate to my point? The point is, Half-Life and Halo are both incredible games because they are driven by storyline. The reason why I think Halo is better is because it simply did everything so much better. The graphics were great, and still good by today's standards, the AI was smart (for those of you that played legendary, you'll know what I mean), and etc.
But the biggest element of Halo, obviously, was it's immersion as well. But I'm talking stuff like environments, music, casting, and characters. You actually feel like you're talking to somebody with Cortana; you hold mystery about chief's character, but you still think he's kick ass and you can trust him with a gun. The covenant are a huge religious alien alliance bent on destroying outsiders. You actually know you're walking on a huge floating ring with terrestrial ground on the inside (due to the fact you can see it arcing up from the horizon. Something that I found - coin of phrase- totally ****ing sweet.). Couple that with perfectly suiting music, good voice acting, and a story with a relative amount of originality and surprises, and you got one hell of a game.
So, yeah, if Halo is the biggest **** to come since sliced bread, how come not every single damned person in the world loves it as I do?
Duh. Because everybody is different. Some people just don't like to have to deal with a (to a sense) complicated story to fuel their game play. Maybe they don't give a **** about environments or music. I don't really know, but you know what? That's great. I respect those people for having their own opinions. If somebody doesn't like Halo, then that's pretty fine. And I'd fight for that poor sucker's right to have his own opinions, because Halo fanboys will hate them just because he doesn't sleep with a Halo CD in their hands(beilieve me. some of them do.). It's these people that would rather play something likeUT2004 (also a very sweet game) instead of Halo, or maybe not even an FPS at all. And they would probably love it that much too.
Halo has a bad vibe about from the people who don't play it cause most of the fan boys are just assholes. Yes, I'm talking about the *****ing stuck up punks that brutally hate everybody else that thinks twice about loving Halo. Personally, being a twelve-year-old-playing-halo-noob myself once, I'd love to skewer these guys to a wall with a rake. That's why I stay the hell away from Halo's multiplayer; Cause they're all a bunch of stuck-up cheating bastards that have no sense of recreation or fun- the very reason video games are around. They don't see Halo as a game; they just seem to treat it like it's the latest version of crack and they have to **** with others because they don't like it. Obviously, I'm not that kind of halo player, Even if my name suggests i love halo a lot (which i still do, by the way). And i especially hate those hypocritical bastards that call everybody twelve year olds. Those ****ers, i was one of those twelve year olds. They act like they are twelve just by insulting people because they are younger, or because they suck at something. It's people like them that invented cheats like "Suiciding", "Bridging" and this weird cheat called "staircase to heaven", which, i have no ****ing clue what that's about. These people just can't play halo like a fun and competitive game online, and like an epic experience offline.
So yeah. I think Halo is the best FPS ever. But that doesn't mean i'm going to start debates like this about it. You don't like it? That's great! Then might I recommend something else, UT2004? Don't like FPS? Then how about super mario galaxy? Don't like nintendo? how about Burnout: Paradise (another great game)?
See how friendly that was? Was it so hard? That's what people should say when someone says they don't like Halo. Those Halo fanboys should grow up, grab some balls, stop *****ing, and get Halo a half-decent reputation. Because right now, the way I see it, if you don't obsess over Halo, you think it's a totally overrated piece of **** game that total twelve year olds play to get orgasms. And you know what? You'd probably be right. Most people that play Halo earn it this rep. And that's because they act the way they do, discriminating others and starting wars about "Half-Life vs. Halo 3" stuff.
To summarize, I love Halo as much as any other fanboy, but i respect other people if they don't like it. But i still think they should play it if they don't like Halo because of it's rep. If you disagree with my statements about Halo and think that everything sucks, like how the melee is crap (which i agree that it sucks that you can't melee with dual weapons), or the dynamics, or whatever. That's fine! I'm a civilized person! It's good to hear your opinion! Now, if you want to argue about it, I'm only going to do it in a calm and rational manor. If you're going to act like some twelve year old ****, then I'm going to treat you like one. And personally, I like other games as well, such as Turok, Call Of Duty 4, or Half-Life 2. All are very signature games and can be just as good and better then Halo in someone's opinion.
This is funny. Because i only turn 14 next week, and this might be the most mature statement here. I wouldn't know, because i didn't read any of this thread. But judging from the title, this might be appropriate.
Goodnight, gents.
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Notice how I'm not even taking part in this thread? Funny, isn't it?
Not really. But other than that; tl, dr.
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@Icefire: I'm not trying to berate people for their opinions, but admitedly it's rather difficult discussing something so subjective as the quality of a game. My main argument against the game is its awkward level design, closely followed by its linearity (all regarding the physical linearity, story, and action), and finally its at most average plot. A bunch of assorted, finer points here and there complement that, but it all adds up to not a crappy game (from a gamer's standpoint, not a purely objective one), but a mediocre game. Thus, the main reason for my outrage is in fact how overrated it is.
But that is all your opinion. I've been playing FPS games almost as long as you've been alive and yet I like Halo. I'm not going to say your opinion is wrong but I can point to just as many reasons why from a gamer's standpoint it is a good game. I'm not going to cause it's idiotic to try to present a subjective opinion as if it were a fact.
That probably wasn't addressed to me, given as it's not any of my main ideas, but that is interesting point. In addition to gameplay, Freespace's plot (or general premise) wasn't even all that original. It must be noted, however, how mod-able FS is compared such games as Halo.
Since when did modability have anything to do with how good the game itself is? I suppose you could claim that you only play games that can be modded but that's a pretty desperate argument. I've played and enjoyed lots of games that weren't modable. It might affect the long term value of your purchase I suppose but beyond that I can't see why it should be a large factor in deciding whether a game is fun or not.
And that's before I point out that Halo is actually reasonably modable.
And while its story isn't the most original, it certainly is good, and yet not common enough to be overly redundant. Then there's the atmosphere inspired (especially in FS2's latter levels), the beam cannons, the bombing runs, the dogfighting...
And you think that people who like Halo didn't find that the game had atmosphere? Again you're assuming that your subjective view of the game should be held by everyone.
The problem is the fans. I mean, we - as in the gaming community as a whole - have seen the emergence of an entire subclass of n00b with the release of the Halo series. Loud and obnoxious fans are bad enough, but these people (and I hate to even use the term "people") are so loud and obnoxious that they are actually giving the entire gaming community a bad name in the eyes of the public. We all know it. Being a gamer is already something of a social stigma these days thanks to bad publicity, so the last thing we as a people need is Halo 'tards making it worse.
Yes but the Halo haters really aren't any better are they? To be honest I find them a worse problem than the halo fans. Unlike the 12 year old Halo fans these wankers are everywhere. It seems like on every board you can visit in the world someone only needs to mention Halo in passing for some idiot to pop up and explain in detail (no doubt for the umpteenth time) why they don't like Halo. In many cases they only do it cause they want to troll but others seem mentally incapable of allowing someone to have a different taste in games. The very act of mentioning Halo seems to be blasphemy to this pricks.
To be honest I suspect a lot of the Halo N00b syndrome would vanish if they didn't have to constantly defend their choice of game to the anti-halo n00b. Both sets of idiots feed off each other.
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Yes but the Halo haters really aren't any better are they? To be honest I find them a worse problem than the halo fans. Unlike the 12 year old Halo fans these wankers are everywhere. It seems like on every board you can visit in the world someone only needs to mention Halo in passing for some idiot to pop up and explain in detail (no doubt for the umpteenth time) why they don't like Halo. In many cases they only do it cause they want to troll but others seem mentally incapable of allowing someone to have a different taste in games. The very act of mentioning Halo seems to be blasphemy to this pricks.
To be honest I suspect a lot of the Halo N00b syndrome would vanish if they didn't have to constantly defend their choice of game to the anti-halo n00b. Both sets of idiots feed off each other.
Wow, I never thought of it like that. You make a really good point.
You have succeeded in changing my opinion. Prepare for imminent implosion of the internets.
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Halo appeals to some people, and not others. Why? Because Halo focused on story. How does this affect my statement? Because there are some gamers that prefer their games to be epic and played out like a story; others just want to shoot and blow **** up. Halo appealed to so many people because it offered, in my honest opinion, a very good blend of both. And since i love both of those traits in a game a lot, that's why I think Halo is the best FPS out there, stuck closely with Half-Life 2.
This is the main sticking point for me. I don't think Halo is a bad game, and I don't have a problem with people liking the hell out of it. I will, however, contest that it had a good story. The first game in particular.
Its narrative is sparse, generic, poorly written, and the characters are utterly one-dimensional. That's the difference between Halo and FS, to me: Freespace took a clichéd concept and built something grand out of it. I don't actually quite agree with the people who say its story is particularly unoriginal, because while the foundation is no different from any other 'EVIL ALIENS OH NO' story, it takes it in a somewhat more interesting direction than most. And in the case of FS2, featured Bosch - who I think is one of the most intruiging characters in SF gaming history.
Whereas I can't see any redeeming feature to the first Halo's story. I'd understand if it was just a bunch of SF clichés done especially well, but I don't think it even did that. Again, though, I don't have an issue with whether people enjoy that or not, but the fact that many people parade it as a shining example of storytelling in a game is what drives me to argument.
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I don't understand the big fuss over storylines too. I've been into games for best-part of 20yrs (8 and 16bit console eras I remember best, but also remember sinclairs, CPC464s etc). When the technology was crude the gameplay and the users imagination had to make up the difference. Nowadays we have glitzy graphics, THX and endles cutscenes, usually unskippable 'cos the devs spent 80% of their time on them and that's the game's reason de'tre (sp?), and an industry breeding apathy.
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I don't think anyone is saying Halo is a bad game - quite the contrary, it's a good game..but best FPS ever? Better than sliced bread?
Half-Life 2 and Cryisis beat it any day of the weak and twice on Sundays.
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A lot of Halo haters seem to forget that Halo was a 2001 game. The graphics were pretty good back for back then. level design was limited by the older engine and the fact that it was pretty much the first Xbox shooter. Look how much the resources of the Xbox were exploited in later years. Bungie had no previous Xbox work to base the game off which explains some of its simplicity. As for including already seen features, yeah thats true, but halo was the first (or second ) to do so in an impressive way. Only two guns had been seen before, but halo made all of its weapons fun to use, and the strategies for using each were balanced. The story integration, while preceeded by half life was still good. You have to look at halo as a whole and say that Bungie looked at all the features accepted by fans of FPS and tried to put them in one game. Thats why Halo is good, because they were able to do this.
By the way, I do not own an Xbox or halo, so don't think Im a diehard fan.
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Yes but the Halo haters really aren't any better are they? To be honest I find them a worse problem than the halo fans. Unlike the 12 year old Halo fans these wankers are everywhere. It seems like on every board you can visit in the world someone only needs to mention Halo in passing for some idiot to pop up and explain in detail (no doubt for the umpteenth time) why they don't like Halo. In many cases they only do it cause they want to troll but others seem mentally incapable of allowing someone to have a different taste in games. The very act of mentioning Halo seems to be blasphemy to this pricks.
To be honest I suspect a lot of the Halo N00b syndrome would vanish if they didn't have to constantly defend their choice of game to the anti-halo n00b. Both sets of idiots feed off each other.
That sums that up!
I never played Halo 1, my brother begged me to play Halo 2 after he had bought it... convinced I would have no fun because I didn't like how high they jumped among other things - I played regardless to spend some time with him. Contrary to what I assumed, I had a blast and had a-lot of fun with Halo 3 as-well... don't play it much but it was great when I did play. :)
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@Icefire: I'm not trying to berate people for their opinions, but admitedly it's rather difficult discussing something so subjective as the quality of a game. My main argument against the game is its awkward level design, closely followed by its linearity (all regarding the physical linearity, story, and action), and finally its at most average plot. A bunch of assorted, finer points here and there complement that, but it all adds up to not a crappy game (from a gamer's standpoint, not a purely objective one), but a mediocre game. Thus, the main reason for my outrage is in fact how overrated it is.
But that is all your opinion. I've been playing FPS games almost as long as you've been alive and yet I like Halo. I'm not going to say your opinion is wrong but I can point to just as many reasons why from a gamer's standpoint it is a good game. I'm not going to cause it's idiotic to try to present a subjective opinion as if it were a fact.
True. You've been playing FPSs since their evolution in the gaming world, and thus probably have a more refined viewpoint on the subject. But I must digress regarding your opinions... Well actually, you aren't really presenting many points on the game, you're more of saying that you can't argue about the quality of games. And on top of that, I don't care if people like Halo, as you do, it's just the ones that treat it as end-all god. The better person for me to argue with here is Haloboy, but his last post makes it look like he's not going to post again.
That probably wasn't addressed to me, given as it's not any of my main ideas, but that is interesting point. In addition to gameplay, Freespace's plot (or general premise) wasn't even all that original. It must be noted, however, how mod-able FS is compared such games as Halo.
Since when did modability have anything to do with how good the game itself is? I suppose you could claim that you only play games that can be modded but that's a pretty desperate argument. I've played and enjoyed lots of games that weren't modable. It might affect the long term value of your purchase I suppose but beyond that I can't see why it should be a large factor in deciding whether a game is fun or not.
And that's before I point out that Halo is actually reasonably modable.
Well given the fact that the Freespace community would probably be dead long ago if it wasn't so easy to mod, and I definitely would move through games much quicker, and given my lack of money and sporadic internet connection it's a very important feature. Sure I play games that aren't moddable, it's just I usually get bored of them within months, if not weeks, as opposed to years with Freespace. Modability (or lack thereof) isn't a reason to hate a game, it's more of just an added bonus to a game.
And while its story isn't the most original, it certainly is good, and yet not common enough to be overly redundant. Then there's the atmosphere inspired (especially in FS2's latter levels), the beam cannons, the bombing runs, the dogfighting...
And you think that people who like Halo didn't find that the game had atmosphere? Again you're assuming that your subjective view of the game should be held by everyone.
If I'm arguing against Halo then obviously I feel that my opinion should be shared. If it was shared I would stop, as there would be no purpose to arguing. Same as if I feel it shouldn't be shared.
The problem is the fans. I mean, we - as in the gaming community as a whole - have seen the emergence of an entire subclass of n00b with the release of the Halo series. Loud and obnoxious fans are bad enough, but these people (and I hate to even use the term "people") are so loud and obnoxious that they are actually giving the entire gaming community a bad name in the eyes of the public. We all know it. Being a gamer is already something of a social stigma these days thanks to bad publicity, so the last thing we as a people need is Halo 'tards making it worse.
Yes but the Halo haters really aren't any better are they? To be honest I find them a worse problem than the halo fans. Unlike the 12 year old Halo fans these wankers are everywhere. It seems like on every board you can visit in the world someone only needs to mention Halo in passing for some idiot to pop up and explain in detail (no doubt for the umpteenth time) why they don't like Halo. In many cases they only do it cause they want to troll but others seem mentally incapable of allowing someone to have a different taste in games. The very act of mentioning Halo seems to be blasphemy to this pricks.
To be honest I suspect a lot of the Halo N00b syndrome would vanish if they didn't have to constantly defend their choice of game to the anti-halo n00b. Both sets of idiots feed off each other.
There are plenty of things that you can debate about relating to Halo that aren't pure, subjective, opinions. I suppose quoted the wrong person when I posted here after the split, because rather than discussion specific aspects of Halo, the thread is bouncing down the branches of something less related to the game.
Admittedly, I did spark this tangent about Halo in the first place, but my view of Halo is probably more moderate than a lot of other people who aren't fans of Halo. I still feel that a worthwhile debate from the viewpoint of both sides could have branched from various points that assorted people made earlier in the thread.
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I'd like to point out that "having fun" is NOT what a great game makes...strange? Not really.
People can have fun doing everything. Especially in multi. Everything is fun with a group of people. And all console games have coop and multi.
A lot of games are fun (in multi), but for a game to be truly great it has to be more than that.
It also depends on the type of game. I for instance, rarely play adventures or sport managers. I rarely find them fun (with a few exceptions), but hat's because I am not generally into that type of games. How many people play "Bask Fisher 2007" here?
So bashing a game just because you didn't have much fun with it, or lifting it to the stars because you did is premature to say the least. One needs to step back and take a good look at everything.
FACT: Halo is average. Both the smitten fanboys and the compulsive haters will have to get that trough their thick skulls sooner or later.
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Given that playing games achieves nothing other than being a fun waste of time, what else is there ?
I've never heard of "Bask Fisher 2007" but the fishing game in Zelda 64 was great.
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Halo is a solid, user-friendly, shooter that had a huge marketing campaign for it's later releases.
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I always love it when people assume that just cause you like Halo it means you can't possibly have played any other FPSs. It's like they believe that the very act of playing the game must have automatically erased the memory of any other FPS from memory.
I agree. I played Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Tribes, Half-Life, Battlezone, Operation Flashpoint -- and still thought Halo was a superb game. A lot of my fondness for it lies in the little touches: art and sound design, music, AI behavior. It doesn't do any one thing excessively well, but the synergistic whole is superlative.
Trashman, I have to disagree. I think it's an opinion that it's merely average, not a fact.
I might add that it is very easy to get female gamers into, something which PC shooters have not been good for in my experience. There are six or seven girls in my college dorm who play Halo every night -- and it was their first FPS when I introduced them to it. Halo is uniquely accessible and intuitive.
In short, I think it's good for all the same reasons Freespace 2 is. Remember, please, this is my opinion; there is no imperative that compels you to convert me to your view.
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I don't think anyone is saying Halo is a bad game - quite the contrary, it's a good game..but best FPS ever? Better than sliced bread?
Half-Life 2 and Cryisis beat it any day of the weak and twice on Sundays.
I had Half-life 2. I installed it shortly before a Windows reinstall. I didn't install it again. It just didn't interest me. Perhaps that was cause I didn't play the original much. Or perhaps it wasn't. Couldn't really care at this point. So what, now you're going to tell me my opinion is wrong and yours is correct?
But the deeper question remains exactly what yardstick do you use to measure the greatness of a game? Critical acclaim, popularity? Cause I'd love to know what non-subjective value you can measure than Halo doesn't come out well from? Eventually it gets down to the fact that you don't think Halo is the best game and therefore it shouldn't be considered as such. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it but if lots of people happen to not agree with it well that's just tough luck on your part. :p They're just as entitled to say they prefer Halo.
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I don't think anyone is saying Halo is a bad game - quite the contrary, it's a good game..but best FPS ever? Better than sliced bread?
Half-Life 2 and Cryisis beat it any day of the weak and twice on Sundays.
Looking back upon Halo, i can almost agree. But Half-Life 2 and Crysis came after Halo, so it is unrealistic to compare those games to it, or at least, the original Halo, which started this whole damn n00b fest.
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I'd like to point out that "having fun" is NOT what a great game makes...strange? Not really.
People can have fun doing everything. Especially in multi. Everything is fun with a group of people. And all console games have coop and multi.
A lot of games are fun (in multi), but for a game to be truly great it has to be more than that.
It also depends on the type of game. I for instance, rarely play adventures or sport managers. I rarely find them fun (with a few exceptions), but hat's because I am not generally into that type of games. How many people play "Bask Fisher 2007" here?
So bashing a game just because you didn't have much fun with it, or lifting it to the stars because you did is premature to say the least. One needs to step back and take a good look at everything.
FACT: Halo is average. Both the smitten fanboys and the compulsive haters will have to get that trough their thick skulls sooner or later.
FACT: A statement loses lots of credibility when someone puts a sujective opinion as fact.
Trashman, I must seriously disagree with this post. By what other measure can you judge a game, a device whose sole purpose is to have fun with, but by how much fun you have with it?
FS2 is among my favorite games, and is one I consider great. Why? First and foremost: because it is fun to play. It certainly doesn't hurt that the graphics are good, that the music is awesome, but those are SECONDARY considerations in judging a game. If I have fun with it, in my mind it is a good game.
I think the real problem is that when someone (any gaming review site or magazine) decided to assign a number value to the "fun factor", they didn't realize it was an impossible task.
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While I do own an Xbox which I don't use anymore (not the 360 due to money and game-specific reasons), I didn't go for any of the Halo games. Call me a n00b-hater (my own term of sorts :lol:) if you may, i.e. dislike without solid reasons. By the time Halo 3 came around, I simply couldn't understand what the fuss was all about, people, kids and adults alike, suddenly just "blindly" rushing out to get the next big thing, which in any case didn't feel that "big" to me. (Though I am aware that, if you were to swap things around, I would be the one rushing for the next big thing while the people wouldn't be able to comprehend what was the big deal with what I did.)
I did play the first Halo on PC and while I did find the AI fairly interesting (even on the n00b-easy difficulty level that I played, back stabbars!!! :mad:) I didn't like the way control system worked, particularly with ground vehicles. No idea if the PC port of Halo 2 improves on it, never played it. I got bored of it fairly fast too, I uninstalled the game by the time I got to some funny cave level in a Gatling gun-equipped jeep.
I like story, but I guess I got turned off when I found out you could only carry 2 guns at a time. I probably got turned off even more when the Shivans still felt more villainous to me compared to those funny Covenant thingies that just felt like a lame comedy, failing miserably at making me laugh. Then there's always that feeling of a console port - that heavily-simplified feel, a certain "slowness" in movement speed and lack of moddability even though I'm not some crazy modeler/coder who can just grab an SDK can start tinkering. Maybe I'm the type who likes to blow stuff up, but still hope that the game has some story substance in it. Why the Battlefield series didn't appeal to me either... but that's a different case study for a different topic.
Just a banter of sorts, since the word Halo crossed these boards again. Hope no one minds me. And in any case I don't quite bother with gaming review sites either - the most I'll do is treat them as guidelines and suggestions. :) (Sheesh, that was a lot of thought. :warp:)
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No idea if the PC port of Halo 2 improves on it, never played it.
It's not called Halo 2 PC.
It's called Halo 2 Vista. 'nuff said.
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Nice nitpick. My bad. :lol:
Though technically I could've tried it over at a friend's on his 'Box, but whatever. :p
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I'd like to point out that "having fun" is NOT what a great game makes...strange? Not really.
People can have fun doing everything. Especially in multi. Everything is fun with a group of people. And all console games have coop and multi.
A lot of games are fun (in multi), but for a game to be truly great it has to be more than that.
It also depends on the type of game. I for instance, rarely play adventures or sport managers. I rarely find them fun (with a few exceptions), but hat's because I am not generally into that type of games. How many people play "Bask Fisher 2007" here?
So bashing a game just because you didn't have much fun with it, or lifting it to the stars because you did is premature to say the least. One needs to step back and take a good look at everything.
FACT: Halo is average. Both the smitten fanboys and the compulsive haters will have to get that trough their thick skulls sooner or later.
FACT: A statement loses lots of credibility when someone puts a sujective opinion as fact.
Trashman, I must seriously disagree with this post. By what other measure can you judge a game, a device whose sole purpose is to have fun with, but by how much fun you have with it?
FS2 is among my favorite games, and is one I consider great. Why? First and foremost: because it is fun to play. It certainly doesn't hurt that the graphics are good, that the music is awesome, but those are SECONDARY considerations in judging a game. If I have fun with it, in my mind it is a good game.
I think the real problem is that when someone (any gaming review site or magazine) decided to assign a number value to the "fun factor", they didn't realize it was an impossible task.
Neither of you are correct. I wouldn't say that System Shock 2 is "fun" when you're running terrified around the cargo bays with a glitch that makes the game a lot darker (but that itself makes the game great), but I can't say slaying a **** load of hybrids with a laser rapier isn't a fun thing that makes the game fun.
In reality, this too is subjective. It depends on what you're looking for in a game. I will say however, that a game by definition is fun.
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I don't understand the big fuss over storylines too. I've been into games for best-part of 20yrs (8 and 16bit console eras I remember best, but also remember sinclairs, CPC464s etc). When the technology was crude the gameplay and the users imagination had to make up the difference. Nowadays we have glitzy graphics, THX and endles cutscenes, usually unskippable 'cos the devs spent 80% of their time on them and that's the game's reason de'tre (sp?), and an industry breeding apathy.
I agree with this to some extent. A story is a lot like graphics to me. It can greatly contribute to the overall immersive feel of a game but won't make up for lackluster gameplay (in the context of FPSs, this means combat, level design, replayability, etc.). Some of my favorite games of all time have no story to speak of.
As far as Halo goes, I am not into console FPSs and haven't played any of the games. I highly doubt that they are the "best FPSs ever" but it's probably a decent enough series. A game doesn't have to be flawless or revolutionary to be fun.
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Who's saying that Halo is the best FPS evar? :wtf:
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Who's saying that Halo is the best FPS evar? :wtf:
Haloboy and a butt load of people who you, apparently, don't know who are.
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Halo 2 vista = freebie with my new rig.
Worst level editor ever. Ridiculously steep learning curve :(
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Worst level editor ever. Ridiculously steep learning curve :(
That's normal. Us Freespacers are really pampered. FRED is the single most useful, most flexible, and all around best level editor I've ever seen packaged with a game.
Except for maybe Re-volt's editor.
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That's normal. Us Freespacers are really pampered. FRED is the single most useful, most flexible, and all around best level editor I've ever seen packaged with a game.
This makes me wonder: we know :v: used FRED themselves to build the main campaign. So anybody with FRED is theoretically capable of duplicating their efforts. Did the devs of these other games use the same level editors as they give out to the public, or are they watered-down and limited versions?
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I had Half-life 2. I installed it shortly before a Windows reinstall. I didn't install it again. It just didn't interest me. Perhaps that was cause I didn't play the original much. Or perhaps it wasn't. Couldn't really care at this point. So what, now you're going to tell me my opinion is wrong and yours is correct?
As a matter of fact, yes. :p
F'course, people always have different oppinions..that doesn't mean all oppinions are equally valid (or equally true). That's why I'm trying not to bash or glorify a game - the truth is in most cases somewhere in between. but exceptions prove the rule.
But the deeper question remains exactly what yardstick do you use to measure the greatness of a game? Critical acclaim, popularity? Cause I'd love to know what non-subjective value you can measure than Halo doesn't come out well from? Eventually it gets down to the fact that you don't think Halo is the best game and therefore it shouldn't be considered as such. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it but if lots of people happen to not agree with it well that's just tough luck on your part. :p They're just as entitled to say they prefer Halo.
Engine quality, modability, requirements, user interface, learning curve, story, gameplay, small details, music, atmosphere, etc..
A lot of factors that are difficult to judge - best used in comparison.
FACT: A statement loses lots of credibility when someone puts a sujective opinion as fact.
Trashman, I must seriously disagree with this post. By what other measure can you judge a game, a device whose sole purpose is to have fun with, but by how much fun you have with it?
Perhaps I should have said "not only fun".
Being fun is what a good game must have, but truly great masterpieces must have more.
Like in music - you got a good number of really catchy tunes - but it takes a special composer to make something truly great. People like Mozart and Beethowen are few and far in between.
Like I said - game with a multi? If it's only reasonably good you'll have fun with your fiends. Everything is more fun in groups. There's nothing subjective about it - when you're with friend everything is more fun.
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Haloboy and a butt load of people who you, apparently, don't know who are.
Keep in mind that I know that's my opinion (which by the way is usually very different form everybody else's) and that I know other people think games like COD4 and Half-Life 2 are better instead. Which, I agree, they are both very great titles, but they don't beat the experience I had with Halo.
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Perhaps I should have said "not only fun".
Being fun is what a good game must have, but truly great masterpieces must have more.
Like in music - you got a good number of really catchy tunes - but it takes a special composer to make something truly great. People like Mozart and Beethowen are few and far in between.
I find it horribly ironic you chose one of Halo's strongest areas by the accounts of most people I've spoken to as your example.
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speaking of vehicles
red faction had them - who made that now :D
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Perhaps I should have said "not only fun".
Being fun is what a good game must have, but truly great masterpieces must have more.
Like in music - you got a good number of really catchy tunes - but it takes a special composer to make something truly great. People like Mozart and Beethowen are few and far in between.
I find it horribly ironic you chose one of Halo's strongest areas by the accounts of most people I've spoken to as your example.
Yeah, Halo's got some really nice music.
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Haloboy and a butt load of people who you, apparently, don't know who are.
Keep in mind that I know that's my opinion (which by the way is usually very different form everybody else's) and that I know other people think games like COD4 and Half-Life 2 are better instead. Which, I agree, they are both very great titles, but they don't beat the experience I had with Halo.
With all honesty, I don't see what's so great about Half-Life 2 either. :nervous: The original was much better.
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Operative word: like.
I mean other FPS in general. Such as Battlefield 2 and UT2004/3
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Halo itself was ok, I can't really comment on the others not having played them. I don't suppose any game will really match the novelty of the first few months of Blackstone/Wolfenstein/Doom, simply because the whole FPS experience is so commonplace now, but certainly, Halo wasn't the worst of the bunch by a long shot.
I think I'm more cynical these days though, they might be prettier, have better physics and a deep, contextual storyline, but, at their hearts, these games are all still clones of those original three semi-3D games.
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And every work of fiction has been drawn from a core set of original stories. The Hero's Journey, and so on. It doesn't really mean anything, and it certainly doesn't make further exploration of those archetypes any less valid.
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Engine quality, modability, requirements, user interface, learning curve, story, gameplay, small details, music, atmosphere, etc..
A lot of factors that are difficult to judge - best used in comparison.
I said non-subjective.
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And every work of fiction has been drawn from a core set of original stories. The Hero's Journey, and so on. It doesn't really mean anything, and it certainly doesn't make further exploration of those archetypes any less valid.
Even those stories, whilst based on the the archetypal 'stories' that have been with us for millennia, have changed presentation and approach and style, not simply described the locations a bit better. The overkill of 'First Person Shooters' on the market is one of my pet hates, we are told the market demands them because they are the biggest selling type, and yet it is a Chicken and Egg argument, since they are the biggest selling type because they are the most available.
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Halo itself was ok, I can't really comment on the others not having played them. I don't suppose any game will really match the novelty of the first few months of Blackstone/Wolfenstein/Doom, simply because the whole FPS experience is so commonplace now, but certainly, Halo wasn't the worst of the bunch by a long shot.
I think I'm more cynical these days though, they might be prettier, have better physics and a deep, contextual storyline, but, at their hearts, these games are all still clones of those original three semi-3D games.
Dude. You forgot Marathon.
Well, what can someone expect from Windowsers.
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Wolfenstein 3d is the first First Person Shooter. EVAR.
And people still mod it.
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Wolfenstein 3d is the first First Person Shooter. EVAR.
And people still mod it.
Yeah, and I've got it on my phone, and Doom!
Can't wait till there's a phone capable of playing FS2Open. :cool:
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Dude. You forgot Marathon.
Well, what can someone expect from Windowsers.
That game was incredible! There's a PC-port version you can get for free, which I recently played. The story is fantastic.
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Even those stories, whilst based on the the archetypal 'stories' that have been with us for millennia, have changed presentation and approach and style, not simply described the locations a bit better. The overkill of 'First Person Shooters' on the market is one of my pet hates, we are told the market demands them because they are the biggest selling type, and yet it is a Chicken and Egg argument, since they are the biggest selling type because they are the most available.
I'm not sure what your point is here. I mean, I guess I agree that there's an oversaturation in the FPS market, but come on. The majority of fiction is just as uninventive as most games are - and let's be honest, the problem is with all games, not just FPSes - but this is just a reality of mainstream entertainment. If you're trying to suggest that there's not a single FPS that has innovated on the foundation laid down by its predecessors, then I think you're being more than a little unreasonable.
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I find Doom, and it's various multiplayer source ports, more fan than any FPS on the market today.
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4 pages...
About a game that nobody likes...
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About a game that nobody likes...
A highly inaccurate statement.
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That would be called "sarcasm" you might have heard about it...
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Perhaps.
Or maybe text messaging is the worst place to convey sarcasm :doubt:
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Smilies can do that if used properly, in my opinion.
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No smiles in inquisitor's post anyway.
Anyway, get back on topic, as pointless as this debate is.
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That was kinda the point, in and of itself.
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I've both played Halo and Halo 2, and I can say they aren't bad. They are in fact quite good in some areas, but also very boring on some. But, as far as I seen it wasn't special by no means. Want vehicles? Get Operation Flashpoint. Want guns? Goldeneye is the best hands down there.Want realism? Go grab Rainbow Six(The first, Rogue Spear and Raven Shield, not the newer crap.) Want something in between? Go grab any of the CoD series.
As I said, I found both Halos to be quite fun, didn't last very long, but fun neverless. And if someone gave me a xbox360 and halo 3 I'd play it.
Personally, the two biggest flaws in Halo were the repetitive flood levels and the part most people say is the strongest part, the multiplayer. When I played the first two, it quickly came down to who could grab the tank first. But, most of the time, it would become a warthog head on fest to see who blew up first. Which actually was pretty fun. :p
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I've both played Halo and Halo 2, and I can say they aren't bad. They are in fact quite good in some areas, but also very boring on some. But, as far as I seen it wasn't special by no means. Want vehicles? Get Operation Flashpoint. Want guns? Goldeneye is the best hands down there.Want realism? Go grab Rainbow Six(The first, Rogue Spear and Raven Shield, not the newer crap.) Want something in between? Go grab any of the CoD series.
Want story action? Play Halo.
It's that simple to me.
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No, you play Deus Ex in that case. :p
If you want only story, FPSs aren't such a great choice in general (with only a handful of exceptions) and what you're looking for is an adventure game. I could recommend many good ones.
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Yeah, but adventure games almost always involve you carrying around loads of items which you need to rub in people's faces, and they also have horrible combat that requires no real skill. (zelda anyone?)
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Lol... i was actually gonna say KotOR
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At least the combat in KotOR looks awesome.
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KotOR fights don't need any skill if you don't consider character construction to require any skill.
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I've both played Halo and Halo 2, and I can say they aren't bad. They are in fact quite good in some areas, but also very boring on some. But, as far as I seen it wasn't special by no means. Want vehicles? Get Operation Flashpoint. Want guns? Goldeneye is the best hands down there.Want realism? Go grab Rainbow Six(The first, Rogue Spear and Raven Shield, not the newer crap.) Want something in between? Go grab any of the CoD series.
Want story action? Play Halo.
It's that simple to me.
The amount of story portrayed in games like Halo, Half-life, and CoD make the game Deus Ex look like a 1000+ page book. I take it you've never played it, or have you?
Seriously though, if you like games with story, I'd really recommend you at least try Deus Ex. :p
Honestly though, you have no idea how much your post made me laugh.
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Uhm.... riiiiigght.
In Halo it's all about Aliens who out of fun decide to slaughter humanity, after that they've got these flashy supercool green-suited marine (deus ex machina anyone?) who horribly murders hundreds of enemys without dying. In addition to that, they have personal shields and armor who can resist alien capital ship mounted weaponry but no energy weapons, hell, they even have some hyperspace drive designed by some crazy japanese moron, but 500 years into the future, NO ENERGY WEAPONS.
We've already got lasers in a semi-combat ready state now.
Furthermore, the Master Moron is abled to singlehandedly flip Tanks, but takes multiple hits to even kill these little, mentally retarded running douchebags whilst their heads should be compresses to molecular sizes.
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Uhm.... riiiiigght.
In Halo it's all about Aliens who out of fun decide to slaughter humanity, after that they've got these flashy supercool green-suited marine (deus ex machina anyone?) who horribly murders hundreds of enemys without dying. In addition to that, they have personal shields and armor who can resist alien capital ship mounted weaponry but no energy weapons, hell, they even have some hyperspace drive designed by some crazy japanese moron, but 500 years into the future, NO ENERGY WEAPONS.
We've already got lasers in a semi-combat ready state now.
Furthermore, the Master Moron is abled to singlehandedly flip Tanks, but takes multiple hits to even kill these little, mentally retarded running douchebags whilst their heads should be compresses to molecular sizes.
You can do that to almost any game.
Watch, I'll do it to Freespace: Okay so in FS2, you got these crazy rebels rambling about how they want Polaris to be Earth instead of Earth, and you got these crazy zods with weird space ships. The space ships somehow only go like 200mph, but can go through subspace to anywhere almost instantly (plot device, anyone?). THen the fighters have enough energy to generate a shield that can withstand several gigatons of explosives, yet the fighter can't generate enough power to melt through a ship's hull. Then there are these beam canons that shoot plasma or something at people, which can magically pass through shields unchanged. And then there are these crazy Shivans that have like 5 legs and can destroy a fighter by kicking it, but they never do that, instead they fly relatively weak ass fighters. And they decide to destroy humanity for absolutely no reason at all. Then there's this alpha one guys who for some reason is super ultra best pilot ever for no reason, while his wingmen are absolute morons. Come on, how isn't FS2 stupid?
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Gun please.
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Gun please.
/me hands Snail a M-16.
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/me hands Snail a M-16.
Got grenades for the grenade launcher?
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* Admiral_Stones hands Snail 40mm incendiary plasma fusion grenades
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(http://omglol.kerrolisaa.com/1/152.jpg)
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You can do that to almost any game.
Watch, I'll do it to Freespace: Okay so in FS2, you got these crazy rebels rambling about how they want Polaris to be Earth instead of Earth, and you got these crazy zods with weird space ships. The space ships somehow only go like 200mph, but can go through subspace to anywhere almost instantly (plot device, anyone?). THen the fighters have enough energy to generate a shield that can withstand several gigatons of explosives, yet the fighter can't generate enough power to melt through a ship's hull. Then there are these beam canons that shoot plasma or something at people, which can magically pass through shields unchanged. And then there are these crazy Shivans that have like 5 legs and can destroy a fighter by kicking it, but they never do that, instead they fly relatively weak ass fighters. And they decide to destroy humanity for absolutely no reason at all. Then there's this alpha one guys who for some reason is super ultra best pilot ever for no reason, while his wingmen are absolute morons. Come on, how isn't FS2 stupid?
Gun please.
That's what separates us from some other games. We fight for our fandoms :D
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Uhm.... riiiiigght.
In Halo it's all about Aliens who out of fun decide to slaughter humanity, after that they've got these flashy supercool green-suited marine (deus ex machina anyone?) who horribly murders hundreds of enemys without dying. In addition to that, they have personal shields and armor who can resist alien capital ship mounted weaponry but no energy weapons, hell, they even have some hyperspace drive designed by some crazy japanese moron, but 500 years into the future, NO ENERGY WEAPONS.
We've already got lasers in a semi-combat ready state now.
Furthermore, the Master Moron is abled to singlehandedly flip Tanks, but takes multiple hits to even kill these little, mentally retarded running douchebags whilst their heads should be compresses to molecular sizes.
You can do that to almost any game.
Watch, I'll do it to Freespace: Okay so in FS2, you got these crazy rebels rambling about how they want Polaris to be Earth instead of Earth, and you got these crazy zods with weird space ships. The space ships somehow only go like 200mph, but can go through subspace to anywhere almost instantly (plot device, anyone?). THen the fighters have enough energy to generate a shield that can withstand several gigatons of explosives, yet the fighter can't generate enough power to melt through a ship's hull. Then there are these beam canons that shoot plasma or something at people, which can magically pass through shields unchanged. And then there are these crazy Shivans that have like 5 legs and can destroy a fighter by kicking it, but they never do that, instead they fly relatively weak ass fighters. And they decide to destroy humanity for absolutely no reason at all. Then there's this alpha one guys who for some reason is super ultra best pilot ever for no reason, while his wingmen are absolute morons. Come on, how isn't FS2 stupid?
Great post. :D
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Great post. :D
Why are you on this forum?
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Aight. Go play with your fellow Halo console 'tards.
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You can do that to almost any game.
Watch, I'll do it to Freespace: Okay so in FS2, you got these crazy rebels rambling about how they want Polaris to be Earth instead of Earth, and you got these crazy zods with weird space ships. The space ships somehow only go like 200mph, but can go through subspace to anywhere almost instantly (plot device, anyone?). THen the fighters have enough energy to generate a shield that can withstand several gigatons of explosives, yet the fighter can't generate enough power to melt through a ship's hull. Then there are these beam canons that shoot plasma or something at people, which can magically pass through shields unchanged. And then there are these crazy Shivans that have like 5 legs and can destroy a fighter by kicking it, but they never do that, instead they fly relatively weak ass fighters. And they decide to destroy humanity for absolutely no reason at all. Then there's this alpha one guys who for some reason is super ultra best pilot ever for no reason, while his wingmen are absolute morons. Come on, how isn't FS2 stupid?
Maybe you can, but you sure as hell aren't doing it right. Most of your points have no sense whatsoever and are there just to be there or are plain wrong.
"crazy zods with strange ships" - how?..one should explain
Some form of FTL is mandatory for a good Sci-Fi and it's not a plot device by any streach of immagination.
Fighters CAN punch trough capship hulls (maxim anyone), alltough probably not trough the most heavily armored sections.
2+ km long warships with multiple reactors generating shield is weird? What's so weird about that?
Thing with shivans in fighters is - in a fighter they can control their movement and are faster. A shivan floating in space is no real danger to someone in a fighter - it can't catch you, and you certanly have far more firepower and shielding than him at your disposal.
not all wingmen are morons. Snipes is cool :)
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Most of your points have no sense whatsoever and are there just to be there or are plain wrong.
That's the point. :rolleyes:
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Aight. Go play with your fellow Halo console 'tards.
Who, me? :(
I said nuffin about Halo!
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Some of you guys need to get new sarcasm meters. :p
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Some of you guys need to get new sarcasm meters. :p
No sarcasm there?
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At least be glad that this convo is in off topic. least it fill boards with crap
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At least be glad that this convo is in off topic. least it fill boards with crap
Which leads me to these questions: 1) Are you one of those "halo fanboys" and 2) Have you played Deus Ex.
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Some of you guys need to get new sarcasm meters. :p
No sarcasm there?
I was referring to Trashman and Stones.
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Great post. :D
Why are you on this forum?
One may recognize an excellent point that does not support one's argument, in case you didn't know that.
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Uhm.... riiiiigght.
In Halo it's all about Aliens who out of fun decide to slaughter humanity, after that they've got these flashy supercool green-suited marine (deus ex machina anyone?) who horribly murders hundreds of enemys without dying. In addition to that, they have personal shields and armor who can resist alien capital ship mounted weaponry but no energy weapons, hell, they even have some hyperspace drive designed by some crazy japanese moron, but 500 years into the future, NO ENERGY WEAPONS.
We've already got lasers in a semi-combat ready state now.
Furthermore, the Master Moron is abled to singlehandedly flip Tanks, but takes multiple hits to even kill these little, mentally retarded running douchebags whilst their heads should be compresses to molecular sizes.
Aight. Go play with your fellow Halo console 'tards.
Wow, dude, that's a lot of bile. What happened?
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Halo's the best FPS multiplayer I've played in years. And I'm speaking of this as playing with 3 friends on a small TV, splitscreen.
All the PC FPS I've played multiplayer have been pretty damn boring . . . FEAR, Half Life, Team Fortress (both versions), Unreal 3 and especially Counterstrike. . . why do people play this game??? It sucks balls. I buy them for the single player, and that's fun . .. but multiplayer? I played Unreal 3 on a friend's computer (since mine's not good enough), and man, the players are just bouncing around like pinballs. Halo physics are a lot better. Even if perhaps they're designed for a console, that's okay. I used to play the original UT all the time, and it was fun, but since then . . . nothing I've played has been all that fun.
But yeah, Halo 2 gave me many wonderful hours playing with 2 or 3 friends for that's for sure. As for Halo 2's story, it's nothing exciting . . it takes itself far too seriously. But it's entertaining enough. I mean, most FPS end up with: fight the aliens (Half Life, Prey, Duke Nukem), fight the demons (Doom, Painkiller), or fight the inhuman bad guys (FEAR, Half-Life) or sometimes just fight the bad guys (Wolfenstein3d, Sin). So really, they're all the same.
As for Xbox live, well . . I played Halo 3 for a few hours with a friend of mine on there a few months ago, it was okay. Though for some reason all the maps are new (the Halo2 DM maps were so much better), and all the weapons are kinda wierd . . . but it's still fun throwing a sticky bomb on someone's ass. Or better yet, on someone's face. I love doing that. Some big glowing blob on their screen, and they know they're gonna die. Hell those sticky bombs are my favourite weapon.
All this being said, I don't own a console, and don't plan to get one any time soon. I did think about picking up Halo for the PC, but when Halo 2 came out as being Vista only, it was pretty clear what Microsoft was selling and I can tell you that it wasn't Halo 2 so I thought screw that.
If ya'll want to be haters, go no further than Steam. Man I hate that fricken thing. If I buy a copy of the Half Life Anthology in a store, it should be the Half Life Anthology, period. I should not need Steam and an internet connection, to download the last 5% of the fricken game. Talk about over-bearing copyright protection. And how they get off, selling INCOMPLETE games in a store, is beyond me. Would people buy a car without a ****ing steering wheel? I don't think so. But that's what they're selling basically. Last Valve product I'm going to buy that's for damn sure.
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Uhm.... riiiiigght.
In Halo it's all about Aliens who out of fun decide to slaughter humanity, after that they've got these flashy supercool green-suited marine (deus ex machina anyone?) who horribly murders hundreds of enemys without dying. In addition to that, they have personal shields and armor who can resist alien capital ship mounted weaponry but no energy weapons, hell, they even have some hyperspace drive designed by some crazy japanese moron, but 500 years into the future, NO ENERGY WEAPONS.
We've already got lasers in a semi-combat ready state now.
Furthermore, the Master Moron is abled to singlehandedly flip Tanks, but takes multiple hits to even kill these little, mentally retarded running douchebags whilst their heads should be compresses to molecular sizes.
Aight. Go play with your fellow Halo console 'tards.
Wow, dude, that's a lot of bile. What happened?
Generally I view console FPSes as 'tarded, as they are even more extremely simplified as normal FPSes. Besides, if your into any gaming, you don't get a console, you get a PC (Well, sorry Mac, but I can't defend you on this territory :().
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Thing with shivans in fighters is - in a fighter they can control their movement and are faster. A shivan floating in space is no real danger to someone in a fighter - it can't catch you, and you certanly have far more firepower and shielding than him at your disposal.
Watch the bonus movies on the Silent Threat CD, Someone here has them hosted. I forget who though.......
Shivan Vs Thoth, Thoth loses :ick:
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Generally I view console FPSes as 'tarded, as they are even more extremely simplified as normal FPSes. Besides, if your into any gaming, you don't get a console, you get a PC (Well, sorry Mac, but I can't defend you on this territory :().
Hmm, I think I have to disagree with you there. I was a PC gamer for ten years and then switched, and I've never looked back.
However, it's personal opinion and I am not much interested in a debate.
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Well, I played Deus Ex... ON THE PLAYSTATION 2!
What a tweest!
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I like my PC, not that I have any problem with consoles, but I grew up on Consoles like the Atari 2600, the Binatone and the NES, so it's kind of hard for me to get my head out of the idea that consoles are anything other than game-playing systems, whereas now you can watch movies, listen to music etc on them.
I suppose the thing I always liked about the PC is that I don't just game, I do rendering, modelling, coding, printing documents, Web-Page creation etc, etc and for that, you really need a PC.
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Personally, I feel PCs are actually worth the money you spend on them, because in addition to being able to play pretty much every good game available, you can do other stuff too. I'm not gonna bother listing off examples because I'm lazy and everyone here should know what you can do on a computer.
However, on a console, sure it's a bit cheaper, but you can't do 90% of the things you can do on a PC. Plus all of the input devices (gamepads, etc) piss me off.
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There are some, mostly kids, who only want to play.
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Even for only playing I would get a PC. Mostly because I can't cope with simplified gameplay and controls, but PC games also tend to have superior graphics.
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Uhm.... riiiiigght.
In Halo it's all about Aliens who out of fun decide to slaughter humanity, after that they've got these flashy supercool green-suited marine (deus ex machina anyone?) who horribly murders hundreds of enemys without dying. In addition to that, they have personal shields and armor who can resist alien capital ship mounted weaponry but no energy weapons, hell, they even have some hyperspace drive designed by some crazy japanese moron, but 500 years into the future, NO ENERGY WEAPONS.
We've already got lasers in a semi-combat ready state now.
Furthermore, the Master Moron is abled to singlehandedly flip Tanks, but takes multiple hits to even kill these little, mentally retarded running douchebags whilst their heads should be compresses to molecular sizes.
Aight. Go play with your fellow Halo console 'tards.
Wow, dude, that's a lot of bile. What happened?
Generally I view console FPSes as 'tarded, as they are even more extremely simplified as normal FPSes. Besides, if your into any gaming, you don't get a console, you get a PC (Well, sorry Mac, but I can't defend you on this territory :().
you do realise that, strictly speaking, Freespace is a FPS right ?
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Similar to Marathon, FreeSpace is a shiny gloryful example of FPSes, like... uh... swiss chocolate on the **** food market.
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you do realise that, strictly speaking, Freespace is a FPS right ?
I thought it's a simulator game. :wtf:
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It's a shoot 'em up. With a 1st person perspective (unless you use chase view ofcourse).
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you do realise that, strictly speaking, Freespace is a FPS right ?
I thought it's a simulator game. :wtf:
You're both wrong. Freespace is as much a FPS as Halo is a flight simulator. Similarly, Freespace is as much a simulator as Adventure was a book.
Freespace is of the "space combat" genre. Unless you're speaking technically, which then has less to do with what a game is like than with what kind of cardboard the game box is made.
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I thought it was "Space combat simulator" :wtf:
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In order to be a simulator, it would have to simulate something, Freespace takes too many physics 'shortcuts' to be a simulator really. IWar is closer to a simulator, and even that had to be 'dumbed down' for fear of making the game too hard to play.
It's a game first and foremost.
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Technically speaking it IS a FPS. It's a shooter with a First Person perspective, therefore it IS a First Person Shooter or FPS! :P
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Space Combat Simulator, (albiet diluted) but with a First Person element, you can play it in third person by pressing the Keypad * if you chose to, that would make FS2 a third person shooter would it? :p
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Yeah but you can do that with some FPS's as well, and make them Third Person. But the primary view, (and default setting) is First Person.
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I think as far as Halo is concerned, or any other game that creates massive hype that some folks don't think it necessarily deserves...
...they have to shout about it loudly, denouncing it as the great game that the PR campaign makes it out to be, because said PR campaign and the praise of the folks who blindly buy stuff is so loud that there has to be a loud group of people calling it out as not great, because they wouldn't be heard against the background noise of praise otherwise.
Also, there are probably several different reasons to dislike a game. Because disliking what everyone else likes gets you attention... because you actually simply don't like the game... because you're annoyed that other titles out there don't get as much praise because everyone is focussing on the giants like Halo instead of the "little man".
And while I'd love to say "at the end of the day, just play what you enjoy and get on with it", it should be noted that if the likes of EA can get away with squeezing out more and more titles that are clones of eachother with mediocre changes and high prices - and everyone buys them because they're the "big titles" then games in general may end up declining in quality as developers get lasy and only the giants of publishing remain.... similar to the music industry I suppose!
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Hey kal, how come your name is switched back? and how come your avatar is cropped?
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and how come your avatar is cropped?
Because HAL is squinting, duh! :rolleyes:
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Budget cuts.
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Credit Crunch got HLP as well huh?
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Rocks.
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I've both played Halo and Halo 2, and I can say they aren't bad. They are in fact quite good in some areas, but also very boring on some. But, as far as I seen it wasn't special by no means. Want vehicles? Get Operation Flashpoint. Want guns? Goldeneye is the best hands down there.Want realism? Go grab Rainbow Six(The first, Rogue Spear and Raven Shield, not the newer crap.) Want something in between? Go grab any of the CoD series.
Want story action? Play Halo.
It's that simple to me.
It's difficult to comprehend just how ridiculous that statement is. Rather then just shout "Go play Deus Ex!" ad infinitum*, I'll list a few titles that are in fact primarily shooters (unlike Deus Ex**, which is more of an FPS/RPG hybrid, same thing goes for System Shock 2 (only more so)) which you really should play before saying silly things like that.
A game that doesn't have to rip off Aliens because it IS Aliens: Aliens vs Predator 2 (http://pc.ign.com/articles/165/165121p1.html). Playing as the Marines is harrowing, playing as the predator is a blast, and playing as an alien is one of the more unique FPS moments as you can literally walk on the walls....or the ceiling. All 3 campaigns have a good story that interweaves with the others.
The game with Clive Barker's name in the title that doesn't suck: Clive Barker's Undying (http://pc.ign.com/articles/164/164693p1.html). Scary is an understatement. Story is excellent.
What you get when you mix elite paramilitary groups with creepy japanese horror movie elements: F.E.A.R. (http://pc.ign.com/articles/657/657310p1.html). Note that I'm not talking about the substandard expansion packs, just the original game. The firefights in F.E.A.R. are a thing of wonder, and the atmosphere is creepy to the extreme. My brother would play this and be freaked out and on edge for hours afterwards.
A hilarious send up/homage to the 60s spy movie genre: No One Lives Forever (http://pc.ign.com/articles/161/161704p1.html). Awesome firefights, hilarious gadgets, great cinematics, and dialog that would have me bent over laughing so hard it hurt. Picture the Austin Powers movies, only actually funny instead of an embarrassing morass of stupid. By recent standards it's an incredibly long game, and unlike the original Halo the developers didn't achieve that by making you run down long identical alien hallways. Instead you'd infiltrate and shoot your way out of beatnik-infested night clubs, escape sinking ships, fight in/jump out of airplanes (without a parachute!), break into vaults, or visit 60s style space stations...and blow them up. And that's just a handful of the locales you'll visit as you try to stop the nefarious plot of H.A.R.M. (they never actually explain what that acronym stands for). The sequel is also a very good game, though much shorter and not as hilarious as the original (but with better graphics, and of course the level in a trailer park during a tornado where you fight ninjas).
A good Star Trek game and its sequel: Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/pc/star_trek_voyager_elite_force) and Star Trek: Elite Force 2 (http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/pc/star_trek_elite_force_ii). While the first one has to overcome the fact it's part of the Voyager setting (which may or may not make you hate it), the sequel has Picard (huzzah!) and is set in the good old Alpha quadrant. If you like Star Trek at all then you'll doubtless enjoy the story, which enfolds as the action is taking place for the most part, so it's like being in an episode (or a bunch really) of the show. Plus the sequel has some nifty set piece battles. Even if you aren't a trekkie they are worth playing.
A video-game sequel to the 1982 nerdy classic: Tron 2.0 (http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/pc/tron_20) It's entirely possible some of you have never even heard of Tron before, and that's a crying shame. The game just oozes style, and settings and mechanics defy my ability to describe just how cool they are, and it's jam packed with things that make nerds smile.
One of the more unusual FPS adaptations in recent memory: The Wheel of Time (http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/pc/the_wheel_of_time). Turning Robert Jordan's fantasy epic into an FPS is one of those bizarre ideas that actually works.
As for why people like to gang up on Halo, I present you with this Zero Punctuation article on the new Turok game which also critiques the FPS genre itself and recent design trends (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/3040-Zero-Punctuation-Turok), where Yahtzee boils down most of the recent problems with FPS games to their designers saying "Lets be like Halo" which he refers to as "that inexplicably popular festival of mediocrity".
*Not that it's a bad idea, because you really should.
**Deus Ex was technically the second FPS I ever owned***, though Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight really stopped being an FPS once you could use the lightsaber, as the 3rd person perspective was so much more useful for that. This made it the first FPS I played through, endowing me with rather high standards as a result.
***The first game I ever purchased was actually Descent, which I realize is played from the FPS perspective, but is not really an FPS. Starting out with Descent biased**** me against ground-pounders for years to come (I originally played Jedi Knight because one of my relatives brought it to my house to see if it would work on my PC, years after the original release. I pretty much skipped the Quake era entirely.), and my devotion to that series is one of the reasons I tried out the Freespace universe in the first place (as Descent's development team had split into Outrage and Volition).
****I have played classic Doom era titles like Heretic, I just found them annoyingly primitive when compared the the holy grail that was Descent. It was fun turning people into a chicken in multi-player though, back in the good old days of serial port network gaming and DOS. I just craved my 360 degrees of freedom.
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Oh yeah!
Yahtzee makes the best reviews I've ever seen.
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Ironically, Marcus, I played every one of those titles you cited (with the exception of the Wheel of Time game, never heard of that), and yet I preferred Halo to all of them.
I really think it's a matter of taste. Even for Yahtzee.
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I'd much rather player the original AvP to the sequel. Or, I would if it worked with my new-ish GPU :doubt:
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Really? How was AvP 1 better? I'm genuinely curious, not skeptical.
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and everyone buys them because they're the "big titles" then games in general may end up declining in quality as developers get lasy and only the giants of publishing remain.... similar to the music industry I suppose!
Thats my main issue in fact. I wont say that I didnt enjoy Halo... I did, both 1 and 2 on coop. But that's it. Halo was a mediocre game, which gained with good PR, not necessarily good design. The story and setting was decent, but not good. The gameplay had its moments but that's it.
But as far as I'm concerned, Halo is just a simbol of how gaming industry is nowadays: do a massive hype, give shiny graphics and u make money. That means no one even cares to invest on taking the industry forward, which results in every year you getting a bazillion unoriginal, "more of the same" titles.
Deus Ex was an excellent game, so was System Shock, and the same goes for Bioshock (which isnt original and is, again, watered down for the masses, but still with an excellent story and setting to be an excellent game. And original in the way that you didn't see anything of the likes of it for some years already)... Those while still being labelled as FPS's tried to bring games forward in many ways. And thats just in the FPS side of things of course.
Alsothey had great settings and stories that could almost go rival the likes of the veteran sci-fi writhers. Unlike the idiotic plots you see nowadays in games that makes everyone and their mother go "omg so deep!!"
What did Halo do amazingly? Nothing... absolutely nothing. And thats my gripe with it. It got heavilly selled not because it was an excellent game, but because it was publicized to death which made the mindless masses buy it, lacking any known alternative (not that there is any nowadays really).
And its over hyped games like Halo that are making games go downhill more and more. Ultimately its the costumers who are to blame, because they buy the same crap after crap every year, making devs happy. From my part I cant remember the last time I bought a game. Nowadays I get them at the... erm... "specialty stores", play them, and if I find them really something (which I havent in quite some time) I'll buy them.
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Ironically, Marcus, I played every one of those titles you cited (with the exception of the Wheel of Time game, never heard of that), and yet I preferred Halo to all of them.
I really think it's a matter of taste. Even for Yahtzee.
1) That's not ironic.
2) You're the first person I've seen say that. Ever.
3) There are outliers in every group.
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It's a matter of opinion, I think that's all that is really needed to end this argument, though continuing it is always fun.
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Ironically, Marcus, I played every one of those titles you cited (with the exception of the Wheel of Time game, never heard of that), and yet I preferred Halo to all of them.
I really think it's a matter of taste. Even for Yahtzee.
1) That's not ironic.
2) You're the first person I've seen say that. Ever.
3) There are outliers in every group.
Snail's right, though, it really is a matter of opinion. I don't think I'm an outlier. *shrug* I know I'm a very intelligent, well-read, and creative person, and I don't think that the fact that I love Halo somehow deprecates that.
I'm not part of a mindless herd, as was suggested above. I think it's a great game. I have all sorts of brilliant credentials suggesting that I am in fact a savvy fellow, and I still think so.
It's a bit weird to be told that my tastes are the result of crass marketing and lowbrow least-common-denominator game design, but it doesn't bother me that much because I know it's wrong. It's just that people's tastes and reactions differ.
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Ironically, Marcus, I played every one of those titles you cited (with the exception of the Wheel of Time game, never heard of that), and yet I preferred Halo to all of them.
I really think it's a matter of taste. Even for Yahtzee.
1) That's not ironic.
2) You're the first person I've seen say that. Ever.
3) There are outliers in every group.
Yay statistics. Anyways that list of games was just me looking through my list of stuff I own (http://club.ign.com/b/list/custom?&owner=Eclecticchimpanzee&mode=view&&lid=100018) up on IGN* and finding decent examples of things firmly in the FPS genre. Halo was actually almost on that list for a while, as I'd been contemplating purchasing the PC version idly for a while. I don't own it now because stores nearby my house just wouldn't put the darn thing on sale, and I wasn't going to pay 50 dollars for it. Hearing that the port performed poorly, and of course Microsoft's stupid "Halo 2 requires Vista"** antics ensuring I'd probably never play the sequel also helped cement that decision.
It's rather glad that I didn't, as I hadn't really read up on all the myriad ways Halo was mediocre back then, and I find it highly credulous that a PC port of an FPS designed for consoles*** would compare favorably with the ones actually designed for the PC. Having played it on my relatives X-Box I found that everything I'd heard about it (or assumed since it was an FPS designed for a bloody console) was in fact entirely true.
I don't hate Halo, and I certainly don't think it's a bad game. It's just nothing particularly special, and thus the highly unwarranted and misplaced enthusiasm people have for it gets on my nerves, as much more interesting or better executed titles get overlooked as a result. It doesn't really help that the stereotypical Halo enthusiast is such an easy target for mockery (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/20/) either.
*If you happen to look at my game collection and wonder why I have some relatively crappy titles mixed in with all the excellent ones, they were either a gift from some well meaning but uninformed relative, something my brother purchased originally, or something I found in a bargain bin for 5 bucks.
**This is of course a flat out LIE, as anyone with half a brain knew that the X-Box wasn't running DirectX 10, which would be the only reason a title couldn't be run in XP. Of course every other developer on the planet doesn't use DX10 exclusively because that would be shooting their sales figures in the proverbial foot, so Microsoft tried to artificially drive demand for the Vista upgrade by crippling Shadowrun and Halo 2 so they wouldn't run on XP. Telling PC gamers that Halo 2, which was ALREADY 3 YEARS OLD when it finally came out for their platform, was somehow a Vista-only game.......didn't really make them a lot of friends.
***Think "The Special Olympics" for my mental image of the FPS console market.
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Hmm, I happen to disagree. I think that Halo is a better designed game than most of the other shooters that have been listed here, and I do think it's something really special. It comes from a long and hallowed lineage, too, stretching all the way back to Marathon.
It's just my opinion, though.
Here's something I think is interesting: people who get a lot of pro-Halo buzz seem to really hate the game, because the human instinct for contrarianism is strong and it drives them to see the flaws. Conversely, people who didn't get pushed towards Halo by every screaming preteen on the planet are a bit more likely to find it intriguing.
I'm not saying that the Halo detractors are biased, I'm saying that everybody is biased, which is what creates these seemingly enormous rifts between, say, me and thesizzler. We're both liable to think we're objective and the other party is crazy -- for example, thesizzler probably rolled his eyes when I said I thought Halo was such a great game -- but we're both equally nuts here.
That's why I don't want to argue too strongly. I don't feel much of a need to assert my intellectual hegemony over others when it's founded on such shaky ground. I'm mostly just concerned with what I enjoy.
I got into Halo by reading strategy guides in stores. I was absolutely enthralled by the art design and the environment of the Halo ring itself -- it had an impact on me that no previous game had ever matched. The Covenant Elites were a particular point of admiration, as I recall.
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Okay, now I officially think you're crazy.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/82/Sm_OXM-SpecOpsEliteRender-0.jpg)
I really don't see how that impressed you.
Also the "better executed" was probably a poor word choice, as one thing I won't deny about the Halo games is that they are polished. I probably meant "more innovative" or something along those lines, I kept having to get up and do other things while writing that so I got distracted.
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Yep, I'd agree, Halo was not innovative. It is something like Freespace in that respect.
That's a Halo 3 elite. I agree, not very impressive. The Halo 1 versions were the intriguing ones.
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It's a matter of opinion, I think that's all that is really needed to end this argument...
I do believe this is the most intelligent statement I've seen in this thread yet...
...though continuing it is always fun.
...or it would be but for that part. :rolleyes:
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Hmm, I happen to disagree. I think that Halo is a better designed game than most of the other shooters that have been listed here, and I do think it's something really special. It comes from a long and hallowed lineage, too, stretching all the way back to Marathon.
It's just my opinion, though.
Here's something I think is interesting: people who get a lot of pro-Halo buzz seem to really hate the game, because the human instinct for contrarianism is strong and it drives them to see the flaws. Conversely, people who didn't get pushed towards Halo by every screaming preteen on the planet are a bit more likely to find it intriguing.
I'm not saying that the Halo detractors are biased, I'm saying that everybody is biased, which is what creates these seemingly enormous rifts between, say, me and thesizzler. We're both liable to think we're objective and the other party is crazy -- for example, thesizzler probably rolled his eyes when I said I thought Halo was such a great game -- but we're both equally nuts here.
That's why I don't want to argue too strongly. I don't feel much of a need to assert my intellectual hegemony over others when it's founded on such shaky ground. I'm mostly just concerned with what I enjoy.
I got into Halo by reading strategy guides in stores. I was absolutely enthralled by the art design and the environment of the Halo ring itself -- it had an impact on me that no previous game had ever matched. The Covenant Elites were a particular point of admiration, as I recall.
For ****'s sake, we know that that's your opinion. Rather than simply shouting that, please give some facts that you base that opinion on so we can actually do something in this thread. If you base your opinions on nothing but pure arbitrariness, then I doubt your opinions are valid enough to be counted towards anything.
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For ****'s sake, we know that that's your opinion.
EXACTLY
It's a matter of opinion, I think that's all that is really needed to end this argument, though continuing it is always fun.
This entire thing is all about opinion. No one person's opinion is any more valid then any other person's, because we are all equal, and no one is more equal then anyone else because of the number of games they've played. I tout Halo 1 as one of my favorite games, not because of its innovative gameplay, or level design, or graphics. No, I list it as one of my favorite games because its fun, goddamn it. Its a game. Its job is to be fun. It did that. Why the hell is this argument continuing? Or are you seriously living up to Snail's ending clause there and *****ing about this for your own entertainment?
Its a matter of opinion, people.
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:nervous: Aw, sorry. I didn't realize I would come across that way -- I was actually aiming to be a bit meek. I was worried that if I did voice any opinions I'd just be shot down, thesizzler, but it appears I erred too far in the other direction.
I thought the stuff about human psychology was kind of interesting. I have a weakness for those kind of cognitive-hacks things. I read a lot of research by a guy named Boaz Keysar, on the topic of egocentric communication, and thought it applicable.
I can, however, tie that into Halo. There is a concept in psychology called 'flow'. You might think of it as a sort of Zen state. Bear with me, please, this is really cool!
Flow is the state you enter when you're 'in a groove', when you feel a kind of exhilaration, as if you there's momentum behind every one of your actions. You you can make the right decisions without deliberation or conscious thought. You've probably felt this quite a bit when playing Freespace. I think it's what really makes Halo great.
Halo, as a game, is highly elegant. The designers integrated three aspects of combat - melee, grenades, and gunfire -- in a way that no prior game had accomplished quite as well. As a result, every single encounter in Halo is a fluid, holistic dance. The shield bar serves as a kind of timer, keeping the beat -- once it's depleted, you need to take a brief rest and then launch into another stanza.
Do you see what I'm saying? The combat is continuous rather than discrete, as opposed to a title like, say, Gears of War, which consists of punctuated bursts of violence while moving between cover, or System Shock, which is more atmospheric than balletic. In Halo, when your gun runs dry, you throw grenades, or you melee, or you go for cover, or you move to allow a friend to cover you. As a player, you move through a continuous network of actions -- a kind of enormous flowchart.
What Halo does, and the reason it's a masterpiece, is build a better flowchart than other games, even superlative games like Far Cry, Call of Duty 4, or Battlefield. It's more seamless. It sucks you into the flow state more successfully, and it has fewer flaws that might knock you free of it.
There are two other aspects I'd like to highlight.
The first is design. Particularly in Halo 1 and 3, the art style is gorgeous and elegant, and each enemy comes with a distinct set of behaviors that gives them a real personality. The AI is superlative -- the Elites in Halo 1 are, along with the Replica soldiers from FEAR, the game enemies that I most respect as opponents. The game physics do exactly as much as they need to in order to enhance the combat, and nothing more; they don't distract or overpower it. Halo 1's physics engine was particularly notable for its phenomenal handling of vehicles and collisions.
The second is atmosphere. The Halo story is beautiful in its minimalism. On the surface it appears to appeal only to testosterone-infused prepubescent males, but it goes deeeep. There are layers and layers of clues that are intentionally aimed (by Bungie) at a more mature audience, namely the older fans they grabbed with Marathon and who have remained interested for more than a decade. The story's enhanced by a masterful soundtrack (slightly overblown towards the Halo 3 end, I think).
So, er.
I know you're probably already picking out areas to criticize, possibly even some gaping, humiliating holes, thesizzler. But I think that Halo's genius isn't resident in any one place. It's an emergent phenomenon, a kind of polished magic. Halo is an elegant shooter because it focuses entirely on combat, nothing more; there are no puzzles or RPG elements. It always puts fun before realism.
There are plenty of weaknesses in the game which probably spoil the magic for some people. For others, everything clicks, and it's one of the greatest games ever made.
I guess that's my nutshell answer: Halo is the shooter which best makes everything click together.
I will also note, as I did earlier in the thread, that it's really accessible and addictive. There's a small group of girls in my dorm who get together to play Halo every week, particularly cooperative campaign mode. They won't touch other games. Of course, you may just say that's because it's too simple?
This really isn't meant as an assault on other games (which I love dearly). I definitely understand the points other people make. But I also think Halo can stand on its own and earn some respect alongside other games; it doesn't need to be torn down.
Now, if people are ignoring other games in favor of Halo, that's a separate issue, but not a reason to tear into Halo itself.
Does that all seem reasonable, or am I accidentally seeming somehow rabid again?
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Yep, I'd agree, Halo was not innovative. It is something like Freespace in that respect.
Am I the only one who played games before 2003? Halo was innovative FOR ITS TIME. Now it no longer is. Kinda the point of innovative is that its innovative, games pick up the innovative element(s), and it becomes cliche. Halo had way advanced graphics for the age and also introduced the two-weapon limit. I dare you to find a game before Halo that has a limit like that. Now, I'm not saying that it's God's gift to gamers (that was Half-Life 2) but Halo was innovative for its time, and unfortunately none of its sequels have been innovative. As far as I'm concerned both of Halo's sequels piggybacked on their predecessor's success and didn't come anywhere close to revolutionizing the genre, but that's a story for another time.
EDIT: General Battuta, I thank you for posting so elaborately and concisely, but please post AFTER I do... (jk)
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For ****'s sake, we know that that's your opinion. Rather than simply shouting that, please give some facts that you base that opinion on so we can actually do something in this thread. If you base your opinions on nothing but pure arbitrariness, then I doubt your opinions are valid enough to be counted towards anything.
I agree with that to some extent. True, it is all a matter of personal preferences in the end, but at the same time there is no point in discussing anything if your opinions are not backed by any objective standards at all. I'm sure there are people out there who think Big Rigs is genuinely a great game just because it's fun. :p
Also, in my case, I can and do make a distinction between games that I personally enjoyed a lot or spent a lot of time with, and those that I consider to be great (in the sense that I would recommend them to others). As I said earlier, you can have a lot of fun with just about any game, and that in itself is not very meaningful for purposes of comparison.
Am I the only one who played games before 2003? Halo was innovative FOR ITS TIME. Now it no longer is. Kinda the point of innovative is that its innovative, games pick up the innovative element(s), and it becomes cliche. Halo had way advanced graphics for the age and also introduced the two-weapon limit. I dare you to find a game before Halo that has a limit like that. Now, I'm not saying that it's God's gift to gamers (that was Half-Life 2) but Halo was innovative for its time, and unfortunately none of its sequels have been innovative. As far as I'm concerned both of Halo's sequels piggybacked on their predecessor's success and didn't come anywhere close to revolutionizing the genre, but that's a story for another time.
If Halo was a 2003 game (which I'm not sure is correct), I can certainly think of some PC titles from the same period that had comparable or better graphics. There were earlier games that had similar weapon limits (007: Nightfire for example, and if I remember right MOH:AA did too, at least in multiplayer), and of course, there were also games like Deus Ex that put the limit on your overall inventory, with different weapons taking up different amounts of space.
As for the comment about Half Life 2, the less said the better. :p
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The second is atmosphere. The Halo story is beautiful in its minimalism. On the surface it appears to appeal only to testosterone-infused prepubescent males, but it goes deeeep. There are layers and layers of clues that are intentionally aimed (by Bungie) at a more mature audience, namely the older fans they grabbed with Marathon and who have remained interested for more than a decade.
I've heard this more than once, and I'd really like to see some evidence of it.
But if there is some deep story here, I'm not sure I agree that it excuses the trash on the surface. Unless I'm very mistaken there's no good reason to bury something clever under one-dimensional characters, flimsy dialogue and deus ex machinas. Oh, but are we talking about the first Halo here? Because it must be said I actually enjoyed Halo 2's story and I haven't played Halo 3 at all. So my criticisms of Halo's story are mostly limited to the first game.
But the gameplay, that's fair enough. I can't say I felt the same flow you (and apparently countless others) did, but I can see where you're coming from. It certainly helps explain why people seem to like it so much.
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IMO, Halo's good at providing a distraction to RL just like FS is, both do it in different ways, people have different gaming palettes. Mine is happy with both flavoUrs of game :D
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But if there is some deep story here, I'm not sure I agree that it excuses the trash on the surface. Unless I'm very mistaken there's no good reason to bury something clever under one-dimensional characters, flimsy dialogue and deus ex machinas. Oh, but are we talking about the first Halo here? Because it must be said I actually enjoyed Halo 2's story and I haven't played Halo 3 at all. So my criticisms of Halo's story are mostly limited to the first game.
But the gameplay, that's fair enough. I can't say I felt the same flow you (and apparently countless others) did, but I can see where you're coming from. It certainly helps explain why people seem to like it so much.
Halo 3 really fell down in the story department.
The transition from Halo to Halo 2 was relatively smooth. Master Chief escaped, Halo was destroyed. The opening cinematic picked up pretty much where the game ended. Apparently, that was too much to expect from Halo 3, which began a good while after the conclusion of Halo 2 and stoically refused to help the player fill in the gaps. Better we just do what the game tells us, and don't ask questions later.
Everything sort of spirals downward from that inauspicious beginning. Ignoring the innumerable smaller issues, the biggest problem with Halo 3's storyline was that it took itself way, way too seriously. It aimed for complex, and hit confusing. It aimed for poignant, and scored laughable. I went in at the start expecting to be blown away by new revelations and having the mysteries and complexities of Halo revealed to me. By the half-way point, I had resolved that I would be happy just to have a few loose ends tied complete with a nice ending. By the finale I had totally lost any interest I had in the storyline, I just wanted to get it over with so I could give the multiplayer a half-assed go.
If you're like me and actually felt immersed and interested in the Haloverse story by the end of Halo 2, don't bother looking any further. You'll find nothing but overwhelming disappointment. Such a promising new sci-fi universe, such a ****ing waste.
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Not enough Cortana for my liking, (in a healthy non perverted way) The banter of that bird chirping in you ear and hacking the covenant net made Halo 1 and 2 quite fun. (also if you've read the fall of reach you can relate more to their relationship) She was made for the Spartan Programme :nod: :o
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The transition from Halo to Halo 2 was relatively smooth. Master Chief escaped, Halo was destroyed. The opening cinematic picked up pretty much where the game ended. Apparently, that was too much to expect from Halo 3, which began a good while after the conclusion of Halo 2 and stoically refused to help the player fill in the gaps. Better we just do what the game tells us, and don't ask questions later.
Everything sort of spirals downward from that inauspicious beginning. Ignoring the innumerable smaller issues, the biggest problem with Halo 3's storyline was that it took itself way, way too seriously. It aimed for complex, and hit confusing. It aimed for poignant, and scored laughable. I went in at the start expecting to be blown away by new revelations and having the mysteries and complexities of Halo revealed to me. By the half-way point, I had resolved that I would be happy just to have a few loose ends tied complete with a nice ending. By the finale I had totally lost any interest I had in the storyline, I just wanted to get it over with so I could give the multiplayer a half-assed go.
If you're like me and actually felt immersed and interested in the Haloverse story by the end of Halo 2, don't bother looking any further. You'll find nothing but overwhelming disappointment. Such a promising new sci-fi universe, such a ****ing waste.
To be honest, this was my reaction at first, but the Terminals hidden in Halo 3 provided a story that actually was complex and poignant. I agree, though, it was a disappointing conclusion in many respects.
Halo 3 suffered from some awful writing. A couple lines -- particularly from Miranda Keyes -- made me cringe.
Ransom Arceihn, if you're interested in the Halo story, check out the Halo story page on halo.bungie.org. There was once a time when story analysis was the primary focus of the Halo fanbase; this was before multiplayer became so bloody important.
Perhaps this is where some of the division over Halo comes from? If people tend to react against the multiplayer-focused prats, then yes, I can understand strong feelings. I miss the days when the Halo community was more thoughtful and more story-oriented.
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Like I mentioned, I dont dislike Halo at all, but some things you said struck a bit on me, especially because you are talking about my area of trade:
Halo, as a game, is highly elegant. The designers integrated three aspects of combat - melee, grenades, and gunfire -- in a way that no prior game had accomplished quite as well. As a result, every single encounter in Halo is a fluid, holistic dance. The shield bar serves as a kind of timer, keeping the beat -- once it's depleted, you need to take a brief rest and then launch into another stanza.
Do you see what I'm saying? The combat is continuous rather than discrete, as opposed to a title like, say, Gears of War, which consists of punctuated bursts of violence while moving between cover, or System Shock, which is more atmospheric than balletic. In Halo, when your gun runs dry, you throw grenades, or you melee, or you go for cover, or you move to allow a friend to cover you. As a player, you move through a continuous network of actions -- a kind of enormous flowchart.
About the flow thing, no problem there, its subjective. You get flow playing Halo, yet Fallout fans find that flow in their TB combat.
Elegant in design? Simplistic you mean, not that it is a bad thing. Chess is simple in design, yet it is a good game. Then a again, chess is not a video game, and video games have much more potential.
Still simplistic is actually a good thing for the mass market, it is not a good thing for the advance in gaming industry.
But Halo is not elegant in the slightest, and the main reason for that will be explained when I cover the storyline.
The first is design. Particularly in Halo 1 and 3, the art style is gorgeous and elegant, and each enemy comes with a distinct set of behaviors that gives them a real personality. The AI is superlative -- the Elites in Halo 1 are, along with the Replica soldiers from FEAR, the game enemies that I most respect as opponents. The game physics do exactly as much as they need to in order to enhance the combat, and nothing more; they don't distract or overpower it. Halo 1's physics engine was particularly notable for its phenomenal handling of vehicles and collisions.
I dont think the design is anything to shout about to be honest. On the contrary. Look at the covenant. They are supposed to be a coalition of aliens, yet due to the design of their different species, they give me no reason to believe that they belong toghether, there's absolutely nothing that bonds them visually (except the weapons for obvious reasons). And that's bad design, not in my opinion, but in every designer's in the world.
The physics engine? you ever crashed with a warthog at full speed? Or when you fall from a cliff with the same vehicle, the way it behaves? Not to talk about the way everyone flies around each time a grenade detonates. I find Halo's physics extremely... unphysical
The second is atmosphere. The Halo story is beautiful in its minimalism. On the surface it appears to appeal only to testosterone-infused prepubescent males, but it goes deeeep. There are layers and layers of clues that are intentionally aimed (by Bungie) at a more mature audience, namely the older fans they grabbed with Marathon and who have remained interested for more than a decade. The story's enhanced by a masterful soundtrack (slightly overblown towards the Halo 3 end, I think).
So the story goes deep because of what exactly? Of the forerunner logs? Thats not story, thats flavour to enhance the universe. Universe which isnt that great actually. Ill try to break down the elements as best as I can:
The actual story (that is, the game plot) atleast in the first two games is poor atleast: no faction shows real conviction for their beliefs, the way most of the story is presented to you is done in the most old fashion and worst manner possible for a game: cutscenes. Every now and then, when you are enjoying your "flow", it all breaks to another ridiculous cutscene.
Remember when I said the design was not elegant, that was it.
Refer to Bioshock for an instance of a good way of presenting story and universe in games: You see what happens trough the "ghosts", audio logs, the few characters that talk to you, also clues in the environment (Who is Atlas?). Also you almost dont have non interactive sequences in there. And even one those was well executed (the "would you kindly" thing when you kill Andrew Ryan). So except for those 2 or 3 non interactive cutscenes, the rest of the story is presented to you in an interactive way, the result being that your play flow actually doesnt get broken. THAT is elegant design. Cutscenes every level to show you the story is not.
That also happens in Deus Ex, in System Shock, and others that I cant recall.
The same happens, to an extenct, in Freespace, because most of the story and plot developments are presented to you in mission, while you are playing.
Non cutscene storytelling is a big deal in games, because YOU are there living the story, you are not just an assed expectator.
The story itself is rather poor and mainstreamed as well... refer to Schismatrix (a book) for example, to get a taste of a well written story.
If the story is good or not is a matter of preference, however. As far as im concerned it was all good on the first one (although, again poorly presented), but after that it was rather meh.
But if there is some deep story here, I'm not sure I agree that it excuses the trash on the surface. Unless I'm very mistaken there's no good reason to bury something clever under one-dimensional characters, flimsy dialogue and deus ex machinas. Oh, but are we talking about the first Halo here? Because it must be said I actually enjoyed Halo 2's story and I haven't played Halo 3 at all. So my criticisms of Halo's story are mostly limited to the first game.
What he said
What Halo does, and the reason it's a masterpiece, is build a better flowchart than other games, even superlative games like Far Cry, Call of Duty 4, or Battlefield. It's more seamless. It sucks you into the flow state more successfully, and it has fewer flaws that might knock you free of it.
So lets get this straight, as objectively as possible:
Graphics and eyecandy asside (those dont make a game). The story and the way it is presented are poor and simple, the design elements are lacking in choesiveness (cool looking or not, again that's subjective) against a well executed combat gameplay (it is)... thats a masterpiece??
And on a side note its not difficult to be better than all those games you mentioned... they suffer from the same mainstream syndrome as Halo.
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Calling Far Cry superlative is actually pretty funny, it's an engine with a game attached. Sure the seemingly open ended level designs and the mercs with their group tactics make it rather fun for a while, but then the cliched sci-fi monsters start showing up and the interest is lost. The plot is pretty ridiculous as well. (I own it because it was on sale)
CoD 4 is primarily a multi-player title where the single-player campaign's main innovation is not being set in bloody WW2, Battlefield is nothing BUT a multi-player title. And quite frankly multi-player can take a flying leap for all I care, that's not why I play games and is at best an amusing diversion. Games where the single-player campaign feels like an afterthought are games I don't buy.
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Yep, I'd agree, Halo was not innovative. It is something like Freespace in that respect.
Am I the only one who played games before 2003? Halo was innovative FOR ITS TIME. Now it no longer is. Kinda the point of innovative is that its innovative, games pick up the innovative element(s), and it becomes cliche. Halo had way advanced graphics for the age and also introduced the two-weapon limit. I dare you to find a game before Halo that has a limit like that. Now, I'm not saying that it's God's gift to gamers (that was Half-Life 2) but Halo was innovative for its time, and unfortunately none of its sequels have been innovative. As far as I'm concerned both of Halo's sequels piggybacked on their predecessor's success and didn't come anywhere close to revolutionizing the genre, but that's a story for another time.
EDIT: General Battuta, I thank you for posting so elaborately and concisely, but please post AFTER I do... (jk)
I agree. :yes:
Calling Far Cry superlative is actually pretty funny, it's an engine with a game attached. Sure the seemingly open ended level designs and the mercs with their group tactics make it rather fun for a while, but then the cliched sci-fi monsters start showing up and the interest is lost. The plot is pretty ridiculous as well. (I own it because it was on sale)
Far Cry Instincts: Evolution was much better in those respects. Cliched, volcano-top mansion with drugged zombies Vs Georgous Mountain Top Shrine Complex with Guerilla/Tribal Warriors.
So lets get this straight, as objectively as possible:
Graphics and eyecandy asside (those dont make a game). The story and the way it is presented are poor and simple, the design elements are lacking in choesiveness (cool looking or not, again that's subjective) against a well executed combat gameplay (it is)... thats a masterpiece??
And on a side note its not difficult to be better than all those games you mentioned... they suffer from the same mainstream syndrome as Halo.
I'm curious what you would consider a well executed combat game, especially one that was executed better than Halo. I've yet to find something better than the beach battle at the start of the Silent Cartographer (sp ?).
Really? How was AvP 1 better? I'm genuinely curious, not skeptical.
Hard to explain, it just felt purer. They didn't attempt to attach some meaningless storyline and generic marine banter. Probably nostalgia as it was one of the first games I got when I went from PS1/N64 to PC.
Plus, AvP1 got the Pulse rifle s/fx right. So many games get it wrong and it's such a cool sound.
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I hate Marmite. I think it doesn't taste very nice. Yet there is on the shelves of every supermarket taking up space which could be spent on other products I do like. Quite often I see a new line come out but get withdrawn again afterwards. Yet ****ing Marmite is still there.
Now it's obvious no one could actually like that stuff enough to want to buy it! Maybe they'd eat it if someone gave a piece of bread with it on but I can't believe that anyone would want to spend money on black goop if they'd ever tried crab paste or jam sandwiches. Yet if you sit the people down who actually like it they'll tell you that it actually tastes good! That it actually goes with whatever they're eating it with! People must be buying it cause they like the adverts. I think they're funny too but I wouldn't buy Marmite just cause of an advert.
People need to accept that Halo is like Marmite in that some people just love it while others can't see what the fuss is about.
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Y'know, it drives me crazy when people bash games like Halo (or Half-Life) on points like story, depth, and design.
Let me first just say that my favorite games, ever, are Deus Ex and System Shock 2, and I can never decide between them.
Halo followed in the much-emulated-never-equaled footsteps of the original Half-Life - a game type which caters to combat and the story and design decisions are made to complement it. Half-Life was rated as one of the best games ever when it was released - and it was little more than a formulaic follow-up of every FPS that came before it. So WHY was Half-Life so critically acclaimed? Because it was the first FPS to dispense with cutscene storytelling, and because it used story to complete its level design. Think about it - the clues you actually gain throughout the game are pretty basic - it's a linear progression of detail. But, it sucks you in because you are fed a plot tidbit every so often that ties what you're doing into an overall story.
Halo CE was an evolution of that formula. It brought you the same type of gameplay - story built around combat rather than the other way around with added technology. As for design critiques, I disagree entirely. Halo was extremely well crafted - the Covenant species are widely diverse in tactics and demeanor as enemies, held together loosely by the same technology. And that is precisely how they are presented to you in the story. Where Halo fell short is in sections where the combat became repetitive, and the story pieces fell short (The Library, anyone?). Moreover, Halo did not feed you enough story within combat sequences to keep the player immersed. The lack of the damned quicksave was also irritating because some sections became unnecessarily frustrating.
That said, while simple in execution Halo was a well-designed game for its time. It lacked plot complexity, but it followed in the footsteps of predecessors like Half-Life, which was an evolution on the original Doom/Duke Nukem/Quake shooter style.
Half-Life 2 took the criticisms of its predecessor and of Halo and switched the formula - they started with the story and built the combat around it. In that sense, the intelligent shooter has started to take lessons from the RPG-esque stylings of System Shock and Deus Ex. That said, the game still retains the primary mandate of combat.
Comparing games like Deus Ex and System Shock to Halo and Half-Life is an exercise in futility because they are games designed to do different things. DX/SS cater to a story-driven audience who like combat for a challenge and to mix things up. Halo/HL cater to the combat-oriented audience who crave a little story to prevent things from becoming boring. HL2 and its episodes are arguably the first mainstream attempt to fuse the two styles to present equal parts of story and combat without making it tedious or overly manufacturered. Even Deus Ex, which sits at the top of the pile, has some serious flaws in overall design as far as its combat elements go (e.g. it is far too easy to fall into a combat-oriented model), where System Shock makes everything so difficult (including combat) that you want to crush the disc in your bare hands. Halo, by contrast, has the interminable corridors, rooms, and endless enemies that make any half-ways intelligent gamer have a moment of serious weakness and contemplate taking up Myst.
No matter what, it's all about what the individual prefers. But like I said, don't compare entirely different game styles because they have totally different purposes to begin with.
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You know one thing I don't get with most "enemies" in FPS like Fear or Half Life or Halo . . . I mean, the AI is pretty good in those games. But why do they talk? If you watch like a squad of marines in popular media (ie TV), you see them use hand gestures for commands. Yet the Covenant Elites and the Replicants and the bad Marines all open their gobs and tell the player exactly what they're about to do. I realize it's for gameplay purposes, but I mean . . . it's kinda dumb. I mean if they shout "grenade" or curse when they get mowed down, cool . . . but having just foot steps when they attack would be a LOT more intense imo.
One thing that struck me about Halo 2 . . is that even though the AI was good, it was also extremely limited. I mean, there's one place early on where the Convenant is boarding the station. And basically there's a bunch of marines, and some of them get killed . . . and eventually, when some double blaster elites come in there the player is in some pretty serious trouble. But it doesnt matter . . because a lot of times, the AI seems limited by some imaginary boundary. You get shot, your run behind a box, and the alien doesnt follow. Because there's some "imaginary line" blocking their movement . . .sometimes they'll pursue you, but most of the time. They just sit in this little box instead of pursuing. So in some of those games, the AI is good . . . but for various reasons, it's also completely stupid.
And I'd agree that Halo 3 took itself way too seriously . . .one of the last levels I played was against some zombie hordes and this AI girl kept coming up on your HUD and saying some random garbage every 10 seconds and I just thought "STFU already, I'm killing zombies". And honestly, I didn't play H1 or finish H2 but playing H3 I didn't know what the hell was going on. Some AI girl got captured, she was super annoying, and that's about it.
As for the combat . . . . well, someone said its sorta lame that the physical attack in Halo is one of the top dogs. Well, anyone played FEAR? Playing multiplayer I often unloaded a shotgun at point blank into another player and didn't kill them, then in return they did some pansy kick and killed me outright. So is this "problem" unique to Halo? Don't think so. (incidentally, in ref to another post FEAR:EP was a LOT creepier than the original).
The problem with the gaming industry as I understand it today is not necessarily that mega-company are ****ting out crappy games. It's that people are so obsessed with Graphics. I mean, the games today are pretty much the same games everyone played 5 years ago but with better graphics. Some of my korean friends (yeah, funny I know) were drooling over screens from Starcraft 2 and I thought "Yeah, okay, it looks like SC1 with better graphics and a few new units . . . whatever". Or my friend was showing me LotR: BfME2 and I watched as Legolas destroyed a stone fortress with his bow and arrow and I thought "oh, so games are still just melee and ranged attacks with better graphics. Wow, really innovative. :rolleyes:"
And I mean, sometimes that's not really a problem . . Doom3 was basically a remake of Doom1 with better graphics, but I still loved it. But even so . . is that all games are these days? If Freespace 3 came out would it basically be the FS:SCP? Same game, some tweaks, and better graphics? (not to take anything away from SCP, they're probably doing more than a professional company would do . . .helps when you don't have a deadline).
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As for the combat . . . . well, someone said its sorta lame that the physical attack in Halo is one of the top dogs. Well, anyone played FEAR? Playing multiplayer I often unloaded a shotgun at point blank into another player and didn't kill them, then in return they did some pansy kick and killed me outright. So is this "problem" unique to Halo? Don't think so. (incidentally, in ref to another post FEAR:EP was a LOT creepier than the original).
Actually it kills in one hit in the back, and it takes about 3-4 hits to kill anywhere else. And then you usually get killed before you get close...
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Doom3 was basically a remake of Doom1 with better graphics,
No painkiller was a remake of doom with better graphics
doom3 was a remake of avp with better graphics, but less suspense :D
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As for the combat . . . . well, someone said its sorta lame that the physical attack in Halo is one of the top dogs. Well, anyone played FEAR? Playing multiplayer I often unloaded a shotgun at point blank into another player and didn't kill them, then in return they did some pansy kick and killed me outright. So is this "problem" unique to Halo? Don't think so. (incidentally, in ref to another post FEAR:EP was a LOT creepier than the original).
Actually it kills in one hit in the back, and it takes about 3-4 hits to kill anywhere else. And then you usually get killed before you get close...
Yeah it's only good if you catch someone unawares or after a badguy has taken a magazine or two. It's great for a laugh in Multi, ofcourse.
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Doom3 was basically a remake of Doom1 with better graphics,
No painkiller was a remake of doom with better graphics
doom3 was a remake of avp with better graphics, but less suspense :D
Well, never played AVP but I know the Hell-levels of Doom 3 were pretty fricken awesome the first time around.
I wasn't so much referring to gameplay with Doom 3, but rather storyline. The combat in D3 is certainly different than D1+2.
As an aside, people were also complaining about the cutscenes of Halo2. When I know when I played Doom 3, the little in-game cutscenes to introduce each creature were pretty damn cool imo (though why no Cacodemo intro? boooo). It was a cut-scene, but it went well with the gameplay, and often ended with sort of merging with the FP view. Whereas the plot information on the other hand, gathered from PDAs and stuff was kinda . . . less exciting.
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I hate Marmite. I think it doesn't taste very nice. Yet there is on the shelves of every supermarket taking up space which could be spent on other products I do like. Quite often I see a new line come out but get withdrawn again afterwards. Yet ****ing Marmite is still there.
Now it's obvious no one could actually like that stuff enough to want to buy it! Maybe they'd eat it if someone gave a piece of bread with it on but I can't believe that anyone would want to spend money on black goop if they'd ever tried crab paste or jam sandwiches. Yet if you sit the people down who actually like it they'll tell you that it actually tastes good! That it actually goes with whatever they're eating it with! People must be buying it cause they like the adverts. I think they're funny too but I wouldn't buy Marmite just cause of an advert.
People need to accept that Halo is like Marmite in that some people just love it while others can't see what the fuss is about.
Good comparison, alltough not 100% accurate.
When judging food, we rely on our sense of taste - and it varries very much from person to person. My tounge can be much more sensitive to salty than yours. Constantly eating a specific variety of food makes your tounge accustomed to it more, and reacts less harshly to it.
When playing games, we all see the very same thing. Granted, people have different preferences to what they want, but we all see and get the same (mostly. Some games are not that linear and some are more buggy on specific rigs).
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I like FPS games, but hate RTS games. I can't play them. My opinions are bad, wrong, horrible, inaccurate and I must mold my opinions to your needs.
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Well, never played AVP
try the marine demo
avp_d2ma.exe - Playable demo (Marine) 22mb
http://www.3dgamers.com/games/alienspredator/downloads/
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Well, never played AVP
try the marine demo
avp_d2ma.exe - Playable demo (Marine) 22mb
http://www.3dgamers.com/games/alienspredator/downloads/
Cool thanks I'll check it out. I think I did actually play the demo . . . or tried to, but my compute r wasn't up to spec at the time. May be another game I pick up off ebay/amazon. Just bought HW1+2 off Ebay, though it's yet to arrive :D
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So lets get this straight, as objectively as possible:
Graphics and eyecandy asside (those dont make a game). The story and the way it is presented are poor and simple, the design elements are lacking in choesiveness (cool looking or not, again that's subjective) against a well executed combat gameplay (it is)... thats a masterpiece??
And on a side note its not difficult to be better than all those games you mentioned... they suffer from the same mainstream syndrome as Halo.
I'm curious what you would consider a well executed combat game, especially one that was executed better than Halo. I've yet to find something better than the beach battle at the start of the Silent Cartographer (sp ?).
I'm curious did you read the and thought the whole sentence I wrote? I said that a well executed combat game play was the ONLY thing Halo had well done.
And for better executed combat? Half-Life comes to mind, both 1 and 2 (for their respective times), FEAR as well.
So WHY was Half-Life so critically acclaimed? Because it was the first FPS to dispense with cutscene storytelling, and because it used story to complete its level design. Think about it - the clues you actually gain throughout the game are pretty basic - it's a linear progression of detail. But, it sucks you in because you are fed a plot tidbit every so often that ties what you're doing into an overall story.
Halo CE was an evolution of that formula. It brought you the same type of gameplay - story built around combat rather than the other way around with added technology.
That said, while simple in execution Halo was a well-designed game for its time. It lacked plot complexity, but it followed in the footsteps of predecessors like Half-Life, which was an evolution on the original Doom/Duke Nukem/Quake shooter style.
Right and wrong. Half-Life (and consequently HL2) did have those qualities indeed, and they deserve their spots in being highly praised games, no matter what genre.
However, Halo has got nothing to do with Half-Life: the story isnt tied to the gameplay, on the contrary. Most of the story you get is on non-interactive cutscenes (its lame and amateur nowadays IMO), not to mention Half-Life's story is much better crafted (whether you like the story itself or not).
Yes they both retain their combat centrism, but then again, a bazillion games do :P
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Hmm, I was a big Half-Life 1 fan, but I thought the underwhelming soldier AI in Half-Life 2 and the highly inaccurate weapons made the combat a bit frustrating.
As for story, one thing I really prefer about Halo is the way the fundamental mysteries of the series are hinted at from the very first game onwards. Half-Life's writers clearly didn't have a full picture of where the story was going when they began the first one.
That said, I think the execution of the story in the Half-Life episodes has been a big step forward, and Portal was (mostly) a masterpiece of game writing.
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Halo had way advanced graphics for the age and also introduced the two-weapon limit. I dare you to find a game before Halo that has a limit like that.
For the nth time, Battlezone 2. And I believe it's not the first to do that either.
Battlezone 2 featured many (if not all) of those things... almost 3 years before Halo.
PS. I'd like to know where this argument about the weapons limit started. It's not the first or the second (or even the third...) time I've encountered this argument about Halo's "innovation". Seriously!
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Right and wrong. Half-Life (and consequently HL2) did have those qualities indeed, and they deserve their spots in being highly praised games, no matter what genre.
However, Halo has got nothing to do with Half-Life: the story isnt tied to the gameplay, on the contrary. Most of the story you get is on non-interactive cutscenes (its lame and amateur nowadays IMO), not to mention Half-Life's story is much better crafted (whether you like the story itself or not).
Yes they both retain their combat centrism, but then again, a bazillion games do :P
I don't know which version of Halo CE you played, but I recall a significant amount of plot revelation during the gameplay. Cortana's in-game narration was the main source of course. Yes, Halo still made use of cutscenes but before you critique them too heavily you have to keep the following in mind:
Microsoft turned Halo into a console game.
Console games love their cutscenes. That's where the damn checkpoint system came from too. Halo cannot readily be compared to other combat-oriented PC games because they are constructed for the PC and don't have to deal with the same sort of audience. For some reason, it has long been tradition in console games to use cutscenes to present story pieces... and it's a stupid convention.
Ironically, if you look at other PC combat games released around the same time as Halo, you actually find that few if any of them adopted the Half-Life model of combat storytelling and instead intersperse the game with cutscene sequences. Unreal 2 comes to mind particularly.
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I don't know which version of Halo CE you played, but I recall a significant amount of plot revelation during the gameplay. Cortana's in-game narration was the main source of course. Yes, Halo still made use of cutscenes but before you critique them too heavily you have to keep the following in mind:
Microsoft turned Halo into a console game.
Console games love their cutscenes. That's where the damn checkpoint system came from too. Halo cannot readily be compared to other combat-oriented PC games because they are constructed for the PC and don't have to deal with the same sort of audience. For some reason, it has long been tradition in console games to use cutscenes to present story pieces... and it's a stupid convention.
I played Halo 1 and 2 for the XBox.
I really don't care if its because its a console game or not. Its still, to put in your own words, a "stupid convention" (a wording I do admire, it couldnt be more true), about which, apparently, Microsoft and Bungie didn't have the balls to change. That same stupid convention was (and still is to a point) present on the PC, yet developers had hte nerve to start changing it... I didnt hear anyone complaining by then... on the contrary.
Besides, Bioshock was also made originally for console, and yet I havent heard no one complain about how the story was presented... in fact so far I've only read about someone complaining about Bioshock having 2 cutscenes, instead of having those story elements told in a real-time interactive way.
Just using dialogue is an old way of telling a story in a game as well. If I want a "narrator" to tell me whats going on I'll read a book. In the same way, if I want to sit back and watch the action unfold, I'll go see a movie.
In the end, saying those methods are used because of the audience is a kind of phalacie (sp?), because we all know the majority of the console audience are mostly looking for instant gratification (hence the huge amount of FPS's and other "simplistic" games) and shiny graphics. If you feed them a game without any kind of story they wont even blink, so :P
Ironically, if you look at other PC combat games released around the same time as Halo, you actually find that few if any of them adopted the Half-Life model of combat storytelling and instead intersperse the game with cutscene sequences. Unreal 2 comes to mind particularly.
Thats all true. And that's exactly why Halo doesn't deserve to be so highly acclaimed. Just because other games already did something doesn't magically give Halo (or any other game) the right to be innovative and poor.
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In the end, saying those methods are used because of the audience is a kind of phalacie (sp?), because we all know the majority of the console audience are mostly looking for instant gratification (hence the huge amount of FPS's and other "simplistic" games) and shiny graphics. If you feed them a game without any kind of story they wont even blink, so :P
"fallacy"
Hmmn, I don't think it's fair to paint console players in such a large brush. Something that's fairly big on consoles is still RPGs I would guess (ie Final Fantasy X+17/2 or whatever it is now). The biggest draw for me personally to consoles is the ability to play with your friends . . . but since I don't have too many friends, I don't have a console ;) plus my TV sucks and I waste too much money on miniature games to afford another line of games.
I certainly prefer computer games . . . but if it's about hanging with friends, you have to go for the console. LAN parties, while fun I think are too much of a pain in the ass for most people. And if it's multiplayer, what's the fun in beating down some 12 year old 3000 miles away when you can beat down your friend instead and laugh as they swear for five seconds until they respawn.
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As for the combat . . . . well, someone said its sorta lame that the physical attack in Halo is one of the top dogs. Well, anyone played FEAR? Playing multiplayer I often unloaded a shotgun at point blank into another player and didn't kill them, then in return they did some pansy kick and killed me outright. So is this "problem" unique to Halo? Don't think so. (incidentally, in ref to another post FEAR:EP was a LOT creepier than the original).
As I pointed out to them privately:
However in another and very important point, the Master Chief is a genetically engineered partial cyborg supersoldier in powered armor that it would kill a normal human to attempt to use.
So you don't see the Marines pistol-whipping anybody, and that makes perfect sense! But as for the MC doing it and killing them, any complaint about that is extremely goddamn silly. A MJOLNIR suit weighs nearly a ton and can flip a tank with its bare hands. Don't tell me you can't snap a neck or smash a skull with that kind of raw strength. The wonder isn't that the MC can kill people in melee so easily, but why he can't do it more easily. Getting hit by the Master Chief like he means it damn well ought to send you flying.
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So lets get this straight, as objectively as possible:
Graphics and eyecandy asside (those dont make a game). The story and the way it is presented are poor and simple, the design elements are lacking in choesiveness (cool looking or not, again that's subjective) against a well executed combat gameplay (it is)... thats a masterpiece??
And on a side note its not difficult to be better than all those games you mentioned... they suffer from the same mainstream syndrome as Halo.
I'm curious what you would consider a well executed combat game, especially one that was executed better than Halo. I've yet to find something better than the beach battle at the start of the Silent Cartographer (sp ?).
I'm curious did you read the and thought the whole sentence I wrote? I said that a well executed combat game play was the ONLY thing Halo had well done.
And for better executed combat? Half-Life comes to mind, both 1 and 2 (for their respective times), FEAR as well.
So WHY was Half-Life so critically acclaimed? Because it was the first FPS to dispense with cutscene storytelling, and because it used story to complete its level design. Think about it - the clues you actually gain throughout the game are pretty basic - it's a linear progression of detail. But, it sucks you in because you are fed a plot tidbit every so often that ties what you're doing into an overall story.
Halo CE was an evolution of that formula. It brought you the same type of gameplay - story built around combat rather than the other way around with added technology.
That said, while simple in execution Halo was a well-designed game for its time. It lacked plot complexity, but it followed in the footsteps of predecessors like Half-Life, which was an evolution on the original Doom/Duke Nukem/Quake shooter style.
Right and wrong. Half-Life (and consequently HL2) did have those qualities indeed, and they deserve their spots in being highly praised games, no matter what genre.
However, Halo has got nothing to do with Half-Life: the story isnt tied to the gameplay, on the contrary. Most of the story you get is on non-interactive cutscenes (its lame and amateur nowadays IMO), not to mention Half-Life's story is much better crafted (whether you like the story itself or not).
Yes they both retain their combat centrism, but then again, a bazillion games do :P
whoops sorry misread your post, my fault. :yes:
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No prob mate ;)
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In the end, saying those methods are used because of the audience is a kind of phalacie (sp?), because we all know the majority of the console audience are mostly looking for instant gratification (hence the huge amount of FPS's and other "simplistic" games) and shiny graphics. If you feed them a game without any kind of story they wont even blink, so :P
"fallacy"
Hmmn, I don't think it's fair to paint console players in such a large brush. Something that's fairly big on consoles is still RPGs I would guess (ie Final Fantasy X+17/2 or whatever it is now). The biggest draw for me personally to consoles is the ability to play with your friends . . . but since I don't have too many friends, I don't have a console ;) plus my TV sucks and I waste too much money on miniature games to afford another line of games.
I certainly prefer computer games . . . but if it's about hanging with friends, you have to go for the console. LAN parties, while fun I think are too much of a pain in the ass for most people. And if it's multiplayer, what's the fun in beating down some 12 year old 3000 miles away when you can beat down your friend instead and laugh as they swear for five seconds until they respawn.
I'm not going to completely agree with the broad characterization of console gamers and whether they would even notice if you took the story out, I'll just tell you a story about my relatives who are all console gamers (2 sets of cousins, so you can't just say it was their household).
They never ever ever bother to actually watch cutscenes, read the manual, or in any way pay the slightest iota of attention to the story and the setting. While watching them play Resistance: Fall of Man (or whatever that PS3 launch title was called, I can't be bothered to check) the point came up that none of them knew what was going on, why they were shooting things, or even what they were supposed to do in the level. I'd thought at first the cousin who owned it was skipping all that because he'd already seen it, but it turns out he'd actually NEVER seen them.
They play every game they own that way. It makes my brain hurt to watch them, as every fiber in my being is screaming out "You're doing it wrong, you fools!!!" So I can see why the console crowd and their plot non-dependence might seem feasible.
Also, just to clear something up: JRPGs aren't really RPGs. Listen to the beginning of this Zero Punctuation review for my opinion of the entire genre. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2738-Zero-Punctuation-Mass-Effect) Yahtzee manages to quickly enumerate all the things I loathe from that entire mutant sub-genre with delusions of being a real Role Playing Game. Also there's a Penny Arcade strip (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/10/07/) that illustrates even JRPG players skip cutscenes and dialog to get right back to the killing.
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I think the only thing that tended to annoy me about Halo, as a game, was that about halfway through, if any of your own troops survived, they generated a nasty habit of mowing you down with Ghosts.
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In which case my friends will tend to just headshot them.
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Awaiting Halo 3 Pc. And no I will not get a 360 to play it. I don't have that kind of money to buy a console for just one game.
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Awaiting Halo 3 Pc. And no I will not get a 360 to play it. I don't have that kind of money to buy a console for just one game.
I hope you like waiting, Microsoft waited 3 years before porting #2.
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Ya know, Vista wasn't ready sooner... Perhaps H3 will come out for the next OS :P
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The second is atmosphere. The Halo story is beautiful in its minimalism. On the surface it appears to appeal only to testosterone-infused prepubescent males, but it goes deeeep. There are layers and layers of clues that are intentionally aimed (by Bungie) at a more mature audience, namely the older fans they grabbed with Marathon and who have remained interested for more than a decade. The story's enhanced by a masterful soundtrack (slightly overblown towards the Halo 3 end, I think).
So the story goes deep because of what exactly? Of the forerunner logs? Thats not story, thats flavour to enhance the universe. Universe which isnt that great actually. Ill try to break down the elements as best as I can:
The actual story (that is, the game plot) atleast in the first two games is poor atleast: no faction shows real conviction for their beliefs, the way most of the story is presented to you is done in the most old fashion and worst manner possible for a game: cutscenes. Every now and then, when you are enjoying your "flow", it all breaks to another ridiculous cutscene.
Remember when I said the design was not elegant, that was it.
Refer to Bioshock for an instance of a good way of presenting story and universe in games: You see what happens trough the "ghosts", audio logs, the few characters that talk to you, also clues in the environment (Who is Atlas?). Also you almost dont have non interactive sequences in there. And even one those was well executed (the "would you kindly" thing when you kill Andrew Ryan). So except for those 2 or 3 non interactive cutscenes, the rest of the story is presented to you in an interactive way, the result being that your play flow actually doesnt get broken. THAT is elegant design. Cutscenes every level to show you the story is not.
That also happens in Deus Ex, in System Shock, and others that I cant recall.
The same happens, to an extenct, in Freespace, because most of the story and plot developments are presented to you in mission, while you are playing.
Non cutscene storytelling is a big deal in games, because YOU are there living the story, you are not just an assed expectator.
I've been thinking about this specific point and I think it's not so much cutscenes per-say but the fact they have become an easy "filler" and their lazy use that grates. So many games include them but to no real benefit when they could add so much.
Freespace's movies were awesome IMHO. The Bosch monologues were exceptional, giving both an insight into Bosch's psychie and showing him to be a normal, flawd human in extraordinary circumstances. Or the intro giving a teaser glimpse to the Colossus (firing point clangers aside).
Or Thief2, with it's signiture warm look, Garret's musings and the Mechanist scripture. The fact T3 reduced them to loading screen fodder did it no favours.
Even Farcry brought a new twist by retaining the first-person perspective and Carver's dry humour.
TBH I usually skip cutscenes. Especially GTA, even when Itry to follow the story I always end-up skipping past.
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I've been thinking about this specific point and I think it's not so much cutscenes per-say but the fact they have become an easy "filler" and their lazy use that grates. So many games include them but to no real benefit when they could add so much.
Freespace's movies were awesome IMHO. The Bosch monologues were exceptional, giving both an insight into Bosch's psychie and showing him to be a normal, flawd human in extraordinary circumstances. Or the intro giving a teaser glimpse to the Colossus (firing point clangers aside).
Or Thief2, with it's signiture warm look, Garret's musings and the Mechanist scripture. The fact T3 reduced them to loading screen fodder did it no favours.
Even Farcry brought a new twist by retaining the first-person perspective and Carver's dry humour.
TBH I usually skip cutscenes. Especially GTA, even when Itry to follow the story I always end-up skipping past.
You do know that cutscenes are actually harder than in-game dialog? Often times the cutscenes are rendered in much higher detail than the game and require far more intricate animation, as the cutscenes also tend to be more life-like, the characters move more fluidly, aliens' various strides must be continually touched up, and most annoyingly, cropping between various body parts must be avoided at all costs. Cutscenes are in no way a lazy alternative.
Also, in Half-Life 2 and its consecutive Episodes I was often frustrated that I could not proceed when characters were interacting. The exception is when you're in Eli's Lab at Black Mesa East where he has a few gadgets for you to play with here and there. Otherwise, I was often shoved aside by moving characters, couldn't get a good look at whatever screen the main characters were looking at, and couldn't interact with the environment to the degree they could. I prefer a good spiel with even better graphics, a gripping story, and watching characters develop their personalities.
In Halo's case, there was very little plot exposition during the cutscenes. Often times I skipped them, surveyed the surroundings for hostile threats and likely ambush positions, and slaughtered many, many Covenant soldiers. It was my experience that each of the end of level cutscenes quickly picked up the Master Chief, and in the start of level cutscenes the cutscenes displayed the next battlefield and casually dumped the Master Chief on the front lines. The only cutscene I know that actually showed the slightest hint of plot was the end of Halo: Combat Evolved, "No, I think we're just getting started."
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Wait, really? The plot conveyed in the Halo 1 cutscenes was pretty crucial, particularly the details of Halo's function and purpose.
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Wait, really? The plot conveyed in the Halo 1 cutscenes was pretty crucial, particularly the details of Halo's function and purpose.
Hmm. Edit: There were two cutscenes that revealed plot.
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Well, three, if you count the one at the end of Assault on the Control Room and the one at the beginning of Two Betrayals, plus the final cutscene on the Maw, which you already mentioned. And it's probably safe to add in the cutscene on 343 Guilty Spark that introduces the Flood, and the cutscene in the middle of The Maw that sets up the engine room scenario, and -- for the sake of completion -- the cutscene in the middle of the level 'Keyes', just for its emotional impact.
Objections to any of those? (Er, I guess I'm being kinda nitpicky, so I'll add the caveat that I'm not much emotionally invested in how many cutscenes are actually relevant, and you can feel free to disagree; I am definitely interested in hearing objections, and not merely so I can take fanboyish potshots at them.)
Aside from those, a lot of the game's plot seems to be advanced during gameplay, mostly with Cortana's dialogues.
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Well, three, if you count the one at the end of Assault on the Control Room and the one at the beginning of Two Betrayals, plus the final cutscene on the Maw, which you already mentioned. And it's probably safe to add in the cutscene on 343 Guilty Spark that introduces the Flood, and the cutscene in the middle of The Maw that sets up the engine room scenario, and -- for the sake of completion -- the cutscene in the middle of the level 'Keyes', just for its emotional impact.
Objections to any of those? (Er, I guess I'm being kinda nitpicky, so I'll add the caveat that I'm not much emotionally invested in how many cutscenes are actually relevant, and you can feel free to disagree; I am definitely interested in hearing objections, and not merely so I can take fanboyish potshots at them.)
Aside from those, a lot of the game's plot seems to be advanced during gameplay, mostly with Cortana's dialogues.
Nah, most of those are:
1. Assault on Control Room: Erm, why didn't we just keep Keyes next to the Master Chief? Erm, we'll explain it to you as you proceed down into the Forerunner containment building.
2. Two Betrayals: Good job on almost blowing up the Galaxy, let's go disable the generators even though I have the Index, kthxbai.
3. 343 Guilty Spark: Mmm, yeah, we have a parasite that almost destroyed the galaxy being kept cozy here in a lab (Does no one remember the Spanish Flu). Kill the parasite.
4. Keyes: Yeah, go figure. The Captain is on a flood-infested vessel, and ode to his lack of combat skills (T and R anyone?) probably got captured by Flood. Hey, whaddya know, he's Flood now, let's take his implants that are somehow necessary to active the PoA (:wtf: ...) and go back.
All of the above are explained in much further detail via Cortana, as you mentioned, when the player was controlling the Chief.
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All very good points.
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My big problem with Halo 1's story is: why the **** did the Captain have to go on that mission personally? He's hardly a soldier (his expertise is in spaceship command), and as the commander of the entire operation, shouldn't he be back at the "Alpha Base" (mentioned in Halo: The Flood as the human encampment on Halo), where it is safe (well, more safe anyway)?
Why did he endanger himself on that mission? This I do not understand at all.
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A plothole needed to be filled.
Maybe they had Uwe Boll as script writer.
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My big problem with Halo 1's story is: why the **** did the Captain have to go on that mission personally? He's hardly a soldier (his expertise is in spaceship command), and as the commander of the entire operation, shouldn't he be back at the "Alpha Base" (mentioned in Halo: The Flood as the human encampment on Halo), where it is safe (well, more safe anyway)?
Why did he endanger himself on that mission? This I do not understand at all.
[A plothole needed to be filled.
Maybe they had Uwe Boll as script writer.
You haven't actually played the game, have you, Stones?
Anyway, the reason Keyes was along was because there was supposedly a weapons cache (maybe a Forerunner weapons cache?) in the swamp, and I'd guess he wanted to handle decisions about the use of the weapons himself. Remember, at this point in the plot, the humans still believed Halo was an incredibly powerful weapon.
It would've been easier to remain at the base and just make decisions from there, but this is a science fiction story, and commanders usually do important things in person. As a writer, it would've been very clumsy to explain the existence of Alpha Base in the narrative when it wasn't an element that was ever revisited or used.
I think it was a good writing decision.
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Well, I did play through Halo 1 like three times, although the human brain tends to forget and push away traumatic events.
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So you went and traumatized yourself three times? :rolleyes: :doubt:
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Everytime, I forgot how painful it was and started again.
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Your posts get more and more stupid for some reason.
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Everytime, I forgot how painful it was and started again.
And then played it through to the end? :rolleyes:
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Your posts get more and more stupid for some reason.
Quite shamefully, QFT. So I decided to SU for a while.
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You do know that cutscenes are actually harder than in-game dialog? Often times the cutscenes are rendered in much higher detail than the game and require far more intricate animation, as the cutscenes also tend to be more life-like, the characters move more fluidly, aliens' various strides must be continually touched up, and most annoyingly, cropping between various body parts must be avoided at all costs. Cutscenes are in no way a lazy alternative.
Actually they are a lazy alternative, from a design standpoint. When designers have no idea how to implement plot elements during gameplay efficiently or in an interesting manner, they just go on and think "hey, lets do a cutscene".
Good cutscenes are more complicated to produce and indeed they can be visually better, and there is a place for them in games (say, for some reason you want the player to witness something which happens on another location, or something).
However in Halo neither are the case. Most of the cutscenes involve the Master Chief, and they are rendered using the in-game engine, with the in-game models.
Well, three, if you count the one at the end of Assault on the Control Room and the one at the beginning of Two Betrayals, plus the final cutscene on the Maw, which you already mentioned. And it's probably safe to add in the cutscene on 343 Guilty Spark that introduces the Flood, and the cutscene in the middle of The Maw that sets up the engine room scenario, and -- for the sake of completion -- the cutscene in the middle of the level 'Keyes', just for its emotional impact.
Objections to any of those? (Er, I guess I'm being kinda nitpicky, so I'll add the caveat that I'm not much emotionally invested in how many cutscenes are actually relevant, and you can feel free to disagree; I am definitely interested in hearing objections, and not merely so I can take fanboyish potshots at them.)
Aside from those, a lot of the game's plot seems to be advanced during gameplay, mostly with Cortana's dialogues.
Nah, most of those are:
1. Assault on Control Room: Erm, why didn't we just keep Keyes next to the Master Chief? Erm, we'll explain it to you as you proceed down into the Forerunner containment building.
2. Two Betrayals: Good job on almost blowing up the Galaxy, let's go disable the generators even though I have the Index, kthxbai.
3. 343 Guilty Spark: Mmm, yeah, we have a parasite that almost destroyed the galaxy being kept cozy here in a lab (Does no one remember the Spanish Flu). Kill the parasite.
4. Keyes: Yeah, go figure. The Captain is on a flood-infested vessel, and ode to his lack of combat skills (T and R anyone?) probably got captured by Flood. Hey, whaddya know, he's Flood now, let's take his implants that are somehow necessary to active the PoA (:wtf: ...) and go back.
And from these summaries, it further proves my point. Why do we have to have cutscenes 1, 2, 3, 4, when it could be much more interesting being part of those cutscenes personally?
Oh and right, many plot elements are revelealed in-game via cortanas dialogue... its almost the same thing: I'm blasting Covenant when all of the sudden an invisible chick speaks to me, again and again.
I've been thinking about this specific point and I think it's not so much cutscenes per-say but the fact they have become an easy "filler" and their lazy use that grates. So many games include them but to no real benefit when they could add so much.
Freespace's movies were awesome IMHO. The Bosch monologues were exceptional, giving both an insight into Bosch's psychie and showing him to be a normal, flawd human in extraordinary circumstances. Or the intro giving a teaser glimpse to the Colossus (firing point clangers aside).
Or Thief2, with it's signiture warm look, Garret's musings and the Mechanist scripture. The fact T3 reduced them to loading screen fodder did it no favours.
Even Farcry brought a new twist by retaining the first-person perspective and Carver's dry humour.
TBH I usually skip cutscenes. Especially GTA, even when Itry to follow the story I always end-up skipping past.
Dunno about the other games, but in Freespace's case thats one of those games where cutscenes are well used. Also notice this clever thing: During the supernova, you witness it in real time, interactively until you either die or depart, and only then do you have a pre-rendered cutscene to have a "gods view" on the event. The nova cutscene could've been easily left out, and was only there as a bonus. That was clever design.
On a similar note, in Freelancer you have a mix: those really needed cutscenes to advance the story (its a space sim, so you need cutscenes to know what happens inside the space stations, etc), and then you have those in-game cutscenes which could easily been left out.
Also, in Half-Life 2 and its consecutive Episodes I was often frustrated that I could not proceed when characters were interacting. The exception is when you're in Eli's Lab at Black Mesa East where he has a few gadgets for you to play with here and there. Otherwise, I was often shoved aside by moving characters, couldn't get a good look at whatever screen the main characters were looking at, and couldn't interact with the environment to the degree they could. I prefer a good spiel with even better graphics, a gripping story, and watching characters develop their personalities.
Well of course you couldnt proceed. Were you supposed to just leave Kleiners lad without the suit, for example? (in a free roam game you should be able to, but Half-Life is a linear story game). However the point remains that those ways of giving story are interactive. You can still move around and see the room you're in while things happen (unless you are strapped or whatever the story needs you to be). Also you witness everything in first person, interactively in Half-Life, and thats the main point.
A similar good plot exposition happens in Quake 4 when you're being "Stroggified". Sure you're slaved to what's going to happen. But you are there moving your eyes around, having your legs cut off, being pierced in the chest, etc. If a similar situation happened in Halo, you can be sure you were gonna watch another inpersonated cutscene. Guess which of them has more impact.
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I really dislike the use of ingame engines to generate cutscenes. Oh for some old school FMV!
Everytime, I forgot how painful it was and started again.
And then played it through to the end? :rolleyes:
I think that everytime I try Truth and Reconciliation but I keep trying (and keep getting wasted).
I could use my completed profile and just skip the mission but where's the fun in that ?
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It's silly to say that cutcenes are somehow the 'lazy' man's option. They're the only option if you want to force the player's attention away from gameplay to some sort of cinematic event. Also, in an FPS you can't show the player interacting with something or someone through the first person. And believe it or not, players actually LIKE to take a break from intense action and be rewarded with a cinematic every once in a while. I would agree that doing everything inside the game while not removing the abilities of the player to walk around etc takes a lot more skill and planning to make sure that the actions of the player don't interfere with the story. But it's not always an option.
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No they aren't the only option to force a players attention. I already gave various examples of "cinematic" sequences that you witness in-game. It is, like you rightly said, a matter of design skill and planning.
Not having cutscenes isn't the same as not having a break from intense action.
You can have the dialogue sequences in game (happens in alot of games), you can also have your character interacting with others in first person (see how Juni awakes Trent with a slap after he gets stunned in Liberty, in Freelancer. It wasn't an FPS, but something like that could happen in an FPS. Or watch as you "kindly" beat the crap out of Andrew Ryan).
And yeah its not always an option, depending on the nature of the game. Like I said, in a space sim you really need those cinematics some times).
But in an FPS its always an option. And a good one IMO
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It's silly to say that cutcenes are somehow the 'lazy' man's option. They're the only option if you want to force the player's attention away from gameplay to some sort of cinematic event. Also, in an FPS you can't show the player interacting with something or someone through the first person. And believe it or not, players actually LIKE to take a break from intense action and be rewarded with a cinematic every once in a while. I would agree that doing everything inside the game while not removing the abilities of the player to walk around etc takes a lot more skill and planning to make sure that the actions of the player don't interfere with the story. But it's not always an option.
I'd say that Crysis cinematics were awesome..You always stayed in first person..and they were short and sweet. :yes:
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If one's going to talk about in-engine cutscenes, one should definitely mention those in Resident Evil 4. "PRESS A MOTHER****ER!!!"
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Here is a stupid question but im unsure but does Halo 2 actualy end with the whole cortana gravemind thing? You know whe the big ugly alien dude asks something and coratana seems like she really doesnt have the mood for a discusion but the big ugly dude tells something along the lines of :"Then why dont you tell me ?" Or was it teach me??? Nevermind is that actualy the last lvl? And the last cinematic or did my gam just went and id something wierd and ended up in the main menu again.
Dont scream at me you FS junkies im just asking . (oh yeah and for the record i consider miself a FS junkie miself :P )
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There should be a post-credits scene where Gravemind is like "I will ask and YOU will answer -- " and then Cortana says "All right, shoot."
That's the end of Halo 2. It's a notorious cliffhanger.
The last actual playable level should conclude with the fight against Tartarus (big hammer-wielding monkey) and Miranda Keyes aborting the Halo firing sequence. Then the Chief gets his 'finishing this fight' line, then the credits, and then the aforementioned Cortana/Gravemind scene.
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I just finished another Halo1 playthrough. Pretty awesome still.
Still can't really do Truth and Reconciliation. Nailed The Libary no probs. Had a real laugh in Two Betrayls with the flood and Covies fighting one another.
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The Banshee fights in the snowstorm on that level are poetry. The way the contrails hiss off the wingtips when you turn -- beautiful.
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I just finished another Halo1 playthrough. Pretty awesome still.
Still can't really do Truth and Reconciliation. Nailed The Libary no probs. Had a real laugh in Two Betrayls with the flood and Covies fighting one another.
I find the key to Truth and Reconciliation is conserving sniper ammo. You don't get refills, but you do have a ton of clips. Very handy for catching Elites unawares inside the ship. I can get up to the third level of the hangar before running out if I play conservatively.
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I just finished another Halo1 playthrough. Pretty awesome still.
Still can't really do Truth and Reconciliation. Nailed The Libary no probs. Had a real laugh in Two Betrayls with the flood and Covies fighting one another.
That's still the only bit I couldn't do on Legendary. Just couldn't get past the sword elites when you get into the ship.
I'll have to try again one day but my new hobby is trying to speed run the Pillar of Autumn level on easy whenever I've got a few minutes to kill. I've got it down to 4:20 from the moment Keyes gives me the gun to triggering the final cutscene. I think I might start bumping the difficulty up next since I'm not seeing much improvement in the time now. :)
I'm still impressed by the video I saw of someone beating Silent Cartographer on Legendary in under 4 minutes. :D
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I'm wondering if I could make it through the whole game on legendary using only the Assault Rifle :doubt:
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Hmmmmm. You're going to have real trouble against both the elites and the flood with that weapon.
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It's quite possible, except for the whole running-out-of-ammunition bit. I did most of Legendary using the AR, but Elites got the pink needles of doom mostly.
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How on earth did you deal with large numbers of Flood then? You could very quickly run out of grenades and the AR isn't going to hold them back.
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I always dump the AR ASAP.
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Yeah, oddly, I usually find myself gravitating to the plasma pistol as my default utility weapon. (And the human pistol, naturally, though it's not so widely available.) I like the perfect accuracy, the high rate of fire, and the slight stun effect on Elites.
Kara -- Dark Hunter is right; the key to the T&R sword elite room is the sniper rifle. Keep a few dozen rounds handy and practice your no-scopes. I can usually do it first try.
And, yes, I usually ditch the AR as soon as possible, in spite of its pleasant aesthetics. (Even in Halo 3 I'll usually grab something else.)
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Kara -- Dark Hunter is right; the key to the T&R sword elite room is the sniper rifle. Keep a few dozen rounds handy and practice your no-scopes. I can usually do it first try.
Yeah, I had the snipers rifle with me for it's 2-3 shot elite killing ability and I still got murderlized every time. I'll go back to it one day though. :)
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How on earth did you deal with large numbers of Flood then? You could very quickly run out of grenades and the AR isn't going to hold them back.
I backed up, quickly. And I had a shotgun for when I ran out of room or time to do that. The AR's high rate of fire, deep magazine, and moderate mid-range accuracy made it ideal for dealing with clumps of Flood forms from a distance; you could almost invariably get the carrier forms to fratricide a few of everything else, and then you could take out individual warrior forms with the most dangerous weapons before they got to you.
Also, I've found it remarkably hard to run out of grenades. :p
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I somehow never run out of grenades in Halo.
Maybe that's because they're as powerful as bunny farts I never use them.
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Really? My Legendary technique largely consisted of
Wort Wort Wo---Fizz -ARRRGGGGHHHHHH
:D
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I somehow never run out of grenades in Halo.
Maybe that's because they're as powerful as bunny farts I never use them.
Only if you use them wrong (read: you suck at throwing). :p
Kara's right. Plasma grenades are the second-best anti-Elite weapon.
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"get it off me! get it off me!" as he runs back towards where his mates are hiding....awesome stuff.
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Yeah, the Grunts have some great lines. :) "Why me?" and "Not again" are always cool but I especially like hearing "Leader Dead! Run Away!" :D
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Some of the rarer lines are priceless too:
"Can't... run... with... thing... on... back..."
"Can I have his helmet?" (upon MC's death)
But nothing beats the Elites' lines. Nothing.
"Ahhhh, noba-la!" (<-- not sure about this one. It's kind of garbled.)
"Noooooooooo!"
And of course:
"Wort wort wort!"
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From Halo 2:
"I've been punctured!!!"
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Apparently all the Elite dialogue in Halo 1 is just Sergeant Johnson's voice actor, with his words reversed.
As for the comment about grenades -- are you on space crack!? Halo 1 grenades were so powerful you couldn't actually avoid a frag (in multiplayer) if it was tossed properly. You had to predict where the enemy would throw and try to get out of the way.
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Compare their splash radius to the grenades in a game like, say, battlefield 2, or the potato mashers in even MOH...
Then again, the grenades in Halo one were very powerful. The ones in Halo 2 sucked.
Just like everything else;
(http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/mm285/flyboy142_bucket/1191261906025.jpg)
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Opinions differ. I thought that after the 1.1 patch the grenades were perfect. (And nobody likes grenades in Battlefield 2 or MoH for just that reason...)
Let's not get into a 1 vs. 2 debate here.
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Yeah, the Grunts have some great lines. :) "Why me?" and "Not again" are always cool but I especially like hearing "Leader Dead! Run Away!" :D
Having some little grunt say "die devil!" as he fires a couple of needler rounds at me always makes me laugh.
Never understood the "not again" line though.....Some of the rarer lines are priceless too:
"Can I have his helmet?" (upon MC's death)
Don't recall ever hearing that one but I hear new stuff every time I play. Especially Halo2.
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Yeah, I always found it hilarious when a grunt yells "Not again!" when I stick them with a plasma grenade :wakka:
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"Whew! Man! I hope the food nipple's waiting when we get back to the starship, because, boy, have I worked up a big, Grunty thirst!"
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Some of the rarer lines are priceless too:
"Can I have his helmet?" (upon MC's death)
Don't recall ever hearing that one but I hear new stuff every time I play. Especially Halo2.
Only occurs when a Grunt kills you... which, if you're a good player, is a rare occurence.
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If a grunt kills you on Legendary, IIRC.
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Just had a quick go on Halo2 and it was just euw! Don't really describe it but it almost feels like the TV screen is too small. Like the perspective isn't right. Almost claustraphobic and that's without duel-weilding and having the screen full of gun.
Not to mention dumping the shield gauge down in the left corner where I forget about it. :doubt:
I played Oddworld:Stranger's Wrath instead. Damn fine gameage.
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There are plenty of things to dislike about Halo 2 in comparison with 1, and I agree -- it did always provke a kind of 'euwl' feeling. Somehow...gritty, dirty, unpleasant, as if the newly bump-mapped graphics were grating on the eye.
Still, worth plowing through to get you into Halo 3, and it has its moments.
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oh I've played through it in the past but never directly after Halo(1).
Plus I'm not in any rush to get a '360...
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There are plenty of things to dislike about Halo 2 in comparison with 1, and I agree -- it did always provke a kind of 'euwl' feeling. Somehow...gritty, dirty, unpleasant, as if the newly bump-mapped graphics were grating on the eye.
Still, worth plowing through to get you into Halo 3, and it has its moments.
My thoughts exactly! I could never quite figure it out but I always felt like that!!!
The original Halo was a gem, the second Halo was okay still but hardly worthy of the first and the third is an improvement over the second by far, just not quite as good as the first.
In all seriousness, they're well made games by a very good company, their worst game (Halo 2) was actually developed almost entirely in the last year so that shows something! Unfortunately, legions of screaming fanbois give the series a bad name and hype it up to be like Jesus in video game form. Then, there are the black sheep who instinctively hate it because it's popular and rag on it and call it **** without even playing it.
Really, there's too much controversy and way too many retarded standards (high and low) held up to it, that stop people from appreciating what it is. It's not the gaming messiah, it's not something that will change the way we play forever, it is a remarkably fun, well thought out, highly polished and incredibly re playable shooter that was lucky enough to have a $3,000,000 hype train plow into it.
Really people, it's just a game :blah:
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...shooter that was lucky enough to have a $3,000,000 hype train plow into it.
Lucky? I'd say all this proves that hype trains are distinctively unlucky.
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That is why, when I get $1,000,000, I'm going to set up a lab of 16 X-Box 360's all connected via lan, with a copy of Halo3 each, and have have each one set up with a projector, and DD 5.1