Halo and Halo2

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Do any of you play it? Do any of you have accounts at

http://www.bungie.net

My account name is Deathuponyou

[Azi Tohak]

...I don't know there buddy. Most of the people here are a little higher on the gaming totem poll than shooting people. With guns even! ~;)

I'd like to think so anyway.

Azi

[Taurus]

I play Halo, not online though unfortunatly.

[Drisos]

I loved halo 1 for the Xbox... probably the 2nd best game I ever played... (after shogun) if I only had a new computer I'd buy it

[jeffreyLebowski]

it's funny to see people's judgemental reactions to this post. halo 2 is a pretty brilliantly balanced fps that requires a good deal of skill to be even remotely good at. the fact that both melee and ranged combat are major factors already gives it a unique feel.

co-op'ing the campaign on legendary is so absurdly difficult in that fun kind of way... my friends and i have spent hours playing and trying out various tactics. the enemy ai is quite impressive and produces a different experience every time you play. it's good fun.

a solid match of team slayer between two good teams is all about tactics. you'll find that online, you can only get so good before you hit the ceiling. what seperates the good teams from the excellent teams is not the quality of each individual's skills, but managing weapon control, using teamwork, and using the terrain to your team's advantage.

the above posters should really not talk about games they clearly have never played. (or at least, not on more than a cursory level). i've played quite a bit of halo 2, as well as countless pc fps's. call of duty or it's expansion (while both amazing games) don't do anything more creative or innovative than halo 2 or just about any other fps. what makes an fps enjoyable is polished, balanced gameplay. halo 2 has both in spades.

/nerd rant concluded.

[Sjakihata]

...I don't know there buddy. Most of the people here are a little higher on the gaming totem poll than shooting people. With guns even! ~;)

I'd like to think so anyway.

Azi

Think again!

[AntiochusIII]

halo 2 is a pretty brilliantly balanced fps that requires a good deal of skill to be even remotely good at.Ha! Halo 2 fades under the shining light of the real FPS king: UT2004, worthy successor of multiplayer FPS god: Unreal Tournament (the original). The AI's are among the best I've seen in any games, and can rip you apart in seconds, or even help you as a team rip apart their foes.

[GoreBag]

Ha! Halo 2 fades under the shining light of the real FPS king: UT2004, worthy successor of multiplayer FPS god: Unreal Tournament (the original). The AI's are among the best I've seen in any games, and can rip you apart in seconds, or even help you as a team rip apart their foes.

I second this. The original Unreal Tournament is a blast on a LAN, AI players or no.

[Drisos]

Sorry to bump a very old thread... but I've just gotten back in touch with this game(s)!

My brother brought his xbox here for the summer, with halo 2, and I loved it! superb game. in a few weeks I practised quite a lot and now I got to a point where I could win the campaign along on Heroic. Legendary is a different story though. When you walk out of cover for one second you're like, almost dead already so you don't have time to fire at all it seems.. while at heroic I didn't find it really hard actually.. hmmm. even together with my brother who has more experience and wins heroic more easily we couldn't finish level one on legendary. we got pretty far though, but because it took lots of attempts we couldn't finish the level before college etc was going to start again.

I'm wondering.. is there anyone around that has completed the campaign on legendary? it must be hard. I think my brother and I would maybe take it far(if not all the way,) when I'd get the chance to practice some more, we'd look for some more tips online and just used lots and lots of tries.

:book:

[Out]

Halo 2's Legendary is a joke. No offense to the games, I love them for what they are, but compare Halo 1's Campaign on Legendary difficulty and Halo 2's Campaign on Legendary and the first game points out everything wrong with the second. :wall:

Let's just hope they took the time to properly balance all of the difficulty settings this time around, instead of simply bumping up the damage they do and decreasing how much you do.

Beyond this - to each his own, I've found that you either like the more realistic FPS-es, such as Call of Duty, or you go for the generally easier to play and more arcade-ish games like Halo. I've only met a few that like 'em all, and senseless bashing of preference is silly.

Of course, I just bashed the preference of bashing preference, so did I just enter a hypocritical time loop of doom?

[Kekvit Irae]

I never had an original Xbox. My PS2 was good enough for me. So when Halo was ported to the PC, I decided to take a look at the game and see what the buzz was all about. I was not impressed.
Halo, at the time, had several things going for it. Most of all, it was leaps and bounds better than most console FPS games of the time. Keyword: console. Once it was ported to PC, however, you soon see that it is a very mediocre game when stacked up against others of the same genre (like FarCry). The campaign itself was pretty boring. I never did complete the game. Walk twenty feet and fight the Flood until that stupid floating robot told you to continue on. Walk another twenty feet and fight the Flood until that stupid floating robot told you to continue on. Walk another twenty feet and fight the Flood until that stupid floating robot told you to continue on. You get the idea.
Now, it seems like nobody really cares about Halo 1/2 unless it's on Xbox LIVE. Want a great campaign? Go play Gears of War or wait for Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat. I do not envision great things for Halo 3.

[Geoffrey S]

Two highly overhyped games, neither particularly good. In particular Halo 2 showed its shabbiness when ported to the PC.

[Kekvit Irae]

I was hoping to try Halo 2, but Vista required? No thanks. I don't feel like getting a BA in Information Systems just to figure out how to run my computer, much less play a game.

[Husar]

I was hoping to try Halo 2, but Vista required? No thanks. I don't feel like getting a BA in Information Systems just to figure out how to run my computer, much less play a game.
Wouldn't that be a BSc?:inquisitive:

[Kekvit Irae]

Wouldn't that be a BSc?:inquisitive:

/offtopic
Depends on where you get your degree. Where I go to, it's a Bachelor of Arts - Information Technology.

[Geoffrey S]

I was hoping to try Halo 2, but Vista required? No thanks. I don't feel like getting a BA in Information Systems just to figure out how to run my computer, much less play a game.
Last I checked, it's been cracked to run just fine on XP.

[Kekvit Irae]

I still don't feel the urge to play a mediocre campaign. :tongueg:

[Fragony]

Didn't care for the second, but the first is excellent in short bursts. Still the best combat, the design is one of great elegance; perfect AI and perfect mix of shooting and melee tactics. If only the level design was better.

[Craterus]

I've always wondered about this. So much praise for a game where the was absolutely no story. :huh:

[caravel]

Ha! Halo 2 fades under the shining light of the real FPS king: UT2004, worthy successor of multiplayer FPS god: Unreal Tournament (the original). The AI's are among the best I've seen in any games, and can rip you apart in seconds, or even help you as a team rip apart their foes.
Thirded... after 2 years.

-edit: BTW When resurrecting threads please ensure that you have the correct amount of chicken blood and have drawn the circle anti clockwise...

[Fragony]

I've always wondered about this. So much praise for a game where the was absolutely no story. :huh:

Well play it on heroic or legendary, and ask again :yes:

[Incongruous]

I've always wondered about this. So much praise for a game where the was absolutely no story. :huh:
Whaaaaaaaat!
The game has so much story it makes damn good story sites and books. It has also warranted a movie, which is being made about half an hour away from where I live.
yeah!

p.s
I am deeply sorry for being a Halo fanboy at times.:shame:

[Ice]

Good games. I don't know why they are receiving bad reviews here. I loved both.

I beat both on Heroic and then half the first game on legendary. It was damn hard, so I eventually just got bored and moved on.

My buddy has an xbox 360 so when halo 3 comes out, I won't be doing much of anything else.

[Fragony]

The game is close to impossible on legendary in single player, you really need a buddy there. First levels can be done but dear god. Heroic is hard enough, especially once the flood kicks in, hell on halo.

[Ramses II CP]

I haven't played Halo 2, but the original Halo on PC is an excellent gaming experience on legendary. Except for the notoriously boring Library levels it's some of the most interesting solo play I've ever gotten out of an FPS. It is still my default time filler game when I've got just a few minutes somewhere. The key to beating legendary is aggression IMHO, just attack, attack, attack. If you spawn a group of the Covvie AI and give them time they'll take pretty decent positions around you and pin you down, so take the fight to them and stick a grenade down their throats.

If you don't enjoy Halo on leg. you probably don't like solo FPS games in general.

:egypt:

[Fragony]

Ya if you give the AI too much time they will rip you to bits, by far the most agressive and capable AI to ever grace a shooter. What makes Halo so good is the many ways you can kill them, I love stripping elites of their armor and sneaking behind them for a stealthkill. Or whacking them on their head to stun them and slapping a sticky on them. Or just old fashioned shooting but god are they hard to beat that way.

LOL! Just found this on other site, sony sony sony........... they changed Halo's 3 description on wikimedia but got busted;

Halo 3, the third game in the best-selling Xbox game franchise Halo, is a highly anticipated first-person shooter video game under development by Bungie Studios for the Xbox 360 and is expected to "set a new high water mark" for next-generation games, Although it wont look any better than Halo 2.

[Drisos]

Ah Fragony I agree there, so many ways to kill, so many tacticks to try in the different stages in levels, so many different combinations of weapons to try, an unknown shortcut here and there, things that make the game cool. And, I simply love the action. Now and then, like in good movies, I started thinking I was the main charactere (spartan) and it was not just annoying to see another big monster appear but it was simply terrifying.

[Avicenna]

If "big monster" means hunters, they're actually pretty easy to kill once you know how :P

[Drisos]

no I didn't mean hunters, and indeed they're pretty easy to kill. it's probably one of my favourite opponents. I dislike elites with plasma rifles, especially when a few team up, I like anything that can fly and I dislike jackals with shields. simple - they are the opponents that I can't kill easily in certain circumstances. hunters usually seem to appear when there's no other enemies around, and their defense is weak.. so.. easy kills. :egypt:

I kind of meant any monster.. it's just that sometimes it was like being in a scary movie instead of playing a computer game. ~;)

:balloon2:

[shlin28]

I remember the level in Halo 1 when you first met the Flood... scared the hell out of me :sweatdrop:

[ThePianist]

first of all, Call of Duty is not a realistic game. Not with a "HALO shield".
The "HALO" shield was invented to make FPS playable on console.
FPS are terrible on console, because you can't use a mouse, so you have to first move the vertical, then move the horizontal. It's difficult to aim.
You can compare the experience of playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on PC, and playing Medal of Honor: Frontline on XBOX. Terrible on console.
You can compare the experience of playing Rainbow Six III: Raven Shield on PC, and playing Rainbow Six: Black Arrow on XBOX. Terrible on console.

Why? Because the player is so slow at aiming, due to the handicap of the console controllers.
Therefore, the AI in the console FPS was also dumbed down, in aiming, in reaction speed. In Medal of Honor on PC, you would get shot the moment you poked your head out. In Medal of Honor on console, you could stand five feet in front of the AI, and wait to get shot, and the AI would shoot around you, the aim is so bad.

Then came HALO.

HALO was the first console game to have a rechargeable shield, thus infinite health when managed well.
This is how HALO was the first FPS success on console. Because the AI no longer needed to be dumbed down in movement and aiming.

The problem, is that the game publishers always preferred selling console games to selling PC games. Why? Because there are now 4 different consoles: XBOX, XBOX 360, Playstation 3, Wii. The disc for each of these are unreadable by the others (though there is some compatibility between XBOX and the XBOX 360). This potentially allows a game-publisher to re-sell one game 4 times, by putting it in different data-disc format.

It's really a huge scam, the console game market.

The console games always have less buttons, compared to all the keys on the keyboard. Therefore the console games can only be good to a point, they must be kept simplistic, and can never match to well-made PC games.


Microsoft owns XBOX and XBOX 360.
SONY owns Playstation 3 and Nintendo (which makes the Wii).

These are huge trans-national Corporations, always wanting to make huge profits, which usually involve scamming people one way or other.

With their huge amount of wealth, they are always seeking to acquire, absorb and control smaller enterprises, like giant octopuses extending tentacles everywhere, and absorbing other creatures into itself, increasing its size and control.

Microsoft and SONY bribed or otherwise controlled EA Games and Ubisoft enough so that these game publishers are pushing for all games to be on console. They even seek to disappear the PC game market (which will never happen, because as long as there will be computers, there will be games on computers. And the computer is the best platform for gaming. It is absolutely impossible to play RTS and good FPS on console.)

Because of this huge scheme to have everything on console, the game publishers decided to import the "HALO shield" into every console FPS (even those in World War II!).
And that ruined gameplay.

You can compare the gameplay of Splinter Cell 1, 2, 3, with the gameplay of Splinter Cell 4 (utterly terrible). 1, 2 and 3 had a life-bar, which decreased (and remain decreased) when the character is hit. You have to find a medpack to re-increase the life bar. There are only a few medpacks per level, so you don't have infinite health, so you essentially risk your (virtual) life when you are doing game actions. That element of risk makes you try to be careful, and introduces challenges, which is the fun of gaming.

In Splinter Cell 4, the character has the "HALO shield". As long as he isn't hit too many times, he can go hide and his health would magically go to 100% in a few seconds. This can be done as many times as you like. So, the character has infinite health, as long as it's well-managed. This completely destroyed the gameplay of Splinter Cell 4. Splinter Cell was made to be a sneak-around game, so that you have to sneak around and avoid detection and avoid fighting. The difficulty of this (like sneaking through places with lights and guards walking around) makes the game fun. And usually alerting the guards means you are dead, or end up nearly dead. So there is the added element of risk (and reward, when you successively sneak around).

The infinite health totally destroyed the gameplay. Now you can get shot at infinite times, and there is no need to sneak around anymore.

Splinter Cell 4 had terrible reaction from the fans.


(and, stupidly, the development team of Splinter Cell 5 decided to make it even more of a shooter, and less of a sneaking-game. That's what set the Splinter Cell series apart, to be original.)


Now, Call of Duty.
In the first Call of Duty (Call of Duty 1), you had a life-bar. There were limited medpacks per level, so you couldn't have infinite health. Therefore, if there is a machinegun around the corner, you were careful to try to fire back, without getting shot, because the next medpack may be far away.

But, starting with Call of Duty 2, the series was made for console. You no longer have a life-bar. You have a HALO shield (in World War II !?) from the future year 2500, but you still wear a World War II uniform of cloth, you aren't wearing that green heavy titanium armor of Master Chief in HALO.
Now, if there is a machinegun around the corner, you can time yourself to run in the open, as long as you get shot at no more than 5 times in a row, you can always re-charge your health to 100% by merely waiting a few seconds.
That's not World War II.
That's sci-fi, without a sci-fi environment and storyline!

It completely ruins the risk-taking that a World War II FPS would simulate. Too bad if they have accurate replica of equipments (rifles, tanks, grenades), too bad if they have accurate place-names, and accurate uniforms, the gameplay is not World War II.

What's worse, the PC version of Call of Duty 2 is exactly the same as the console version! It had a HALO shield.
You'd think that the developers would have been nice enough to include a med-pack life-bar version, for the PC player to have limited life, to make the game more challenging, because not everyone is a 5-year-old. But no, the PC version is exactly the same as the console version.

Being a great fan of World War II games, I didn't even bother finishing the Call of Duty 2 campaign, even though I got it for free.
The HALO shield made the FPS unplayable. There is no fun in a war-simulation, when there is no risk. And there is no risk, when you have infinite health. Even on the hardest setting, you have infinite health.
The "shortness of breath" and the "heart thumping thumping" and the "vision going red" when you are hit 5 times and "about to die", makes the game even more fake, because you wait a few seconds and you go to 100% health again.
Wow, where was the 5 bullets that just smashed into your body?
What happened in the healing process?
At least a medpack or a medic makes it more believable (especially, only a few medpacks per map).

So the reminder that the player's character is a human being, combined with the instant-healing ad infinitum, makes the game even worse.

It is the same with Call of Duty 3. Except, Call of Duty 3 was so horribly made, that white American soldiers in World War II were gangster-walking (shoulders swinging this way and that way) and gangster-talking like Snoop Dogg. Those were WHITE PEOPLE in 1942 ! They certainly did not walk and talk like African Americans on MTV.
In real life, the men in WWII called each other "Mac", because most of them were Scottish or Irish. Their expressions were absolutely different from MTV. They walked like people, not like cavemen.
But, whoever made Call of Duty 3 made it only for console, and the World War II soldiers talked and walked like MTV in the year 2000!
That's the most stupid thing I have ever seen!
And what's worse, they had the HALO shield!

It is the same with Call of Duty 4. They have the HALO shield! Infinite health! You could fight in Iraq, and when you get shot, all you have to do is go hide, and you have 100% health magically!

I think it's some Hitler-type of propaganda campaign directed at young kids, to make them think war has no risks involved.


War definitely should have risks involved (except in sci-fi or fantasy).
So when people get shot, they should have decreased life-bar until they find a medpack. People's health should not regenerate by itself!

The game developers make the PC version and the console version the same, because they are ashamed at how much better (and more fun) the games are when they are on PC, with the life-bar med-pack system, and how much more ridiculous the games are on console, with the HALO shield system (in non-sci-fi situations).

To avoid this comparison, they hide it. So they pretend that the HALO-shield is the only way to portray damage/lifepoints in FPS.

But this treacherous cabal is undone by the likes of Half Life series (and all its mods), and Battlefield Series (and all its mods), and Splinter Cell 1, 2, 3. And Rainbow Six 1, 2, 3 (in this serie, you die with one shot, at most two, and no medpacks).

That said, I don't mind the HALO shield in HALO (or, in obviously sci-fi games like Crysis, where the character has a futuristic armor suit).

But it totally undoes the fun of gaming when it's put in non-sci-fi FPS.

Really, this "HALO shield" was a crutch introduced to help prop up the handicap of consoles, because the aiming is so much slower with controllers. And the "HALO shield" helps the console gameplay, by overpowering the player.


However, on PC, where the keyboard/mouse is the best combination of user-interface, where the player has no slowness handicap from console controllers, the "HALO shield" needs to disappear (or, at least be made into an option, like a cheat that the player can activate) because it ruins the fun of gaming.

It's too bad that consoles are handicapped in their control, compared to keyboard and mouse.
But don't handicap the PC games, deliberately, by bringing down the PC games quality, in order to hide the flaw of consoles!

The FPS on PC need to have the life-bar/med-pack system by default.
And the HALO shield as a cheat, perhaps, when people are unskilled, or when they are 5-year-olds, and need ridiculous extra over-compensation of in-game abilities.

And, Microsoft/SONY need not imagine that they can make the PC games disappear. Even if Microsoft/SONY can force major game publishers to only make console games (because it scams more profit), independent developers can still make excellent games, such as Mount and Blade. The Forgotten Hope mods of Battlefield series, the Red Orchestra mod (now a standalone game) were independently developed by average people.

[Hooahguy]

dude calm down its a game, the halo shield was obviously done for gameplay reasons.
most gamers are casual, and dont play seriously, obviously unlike you. maybe the halo shield should be standard and an option for the really hardcore like you to play with a limited healthbar.

[ThePianist]

OK, now about HALO CE and HALO 2.

Severe lack in mapping skill in HALO 2, perhaps because the Microsoft people did it, and not Bungie.
HALO CE had several open terrain maps, with great maneuverability:
level 2 Halo
level 4 The Silent Cartographer
level 5 Assault on the Control Room
(partly) level 6 343 Guilty Spark
(partly) level 8 The Two Betrayals

HALO 2 had no open terrain maps, except partly in Quarantine Zone, when you could use a Scorpion while playing the Arbiter.

Otherwise, Outskirts was so linear. The ride on the warthog was totally different from the second level of HALO CE. This one is so scripted and ... linear. Then it was inside an underground highway, which is of course linear.

Metropolis was so linear. The Scorpion just drove along a highway, like some pre-Sega shooting gallery. That was totally lame compared to the Scorpion level in HALO CE.

Arbiter's level on the mining station could be compared to 343 Guilty Spark. It was OK in its design, but the Banshee flying was so lame. The Banshee flying in level 8 of HALO CE was fun. It has strange geography. The Banshee flying in HALO 2, even with better graphics, was just lame. Also, the HALO 2 Banshees are brittle. Get hit a few times and you fly something with mangled arms. That's no fun. In fact the vehicle damage model of HALO 1 is so much better. All the vehicles in HALO 2 sound like they are made of glass.

Delta Halo, the vehicle level was again, a linear shooting gallery.
Delta Halo's on-foot fighting was rather well designed, with great landscape, especially the floating nacelles/gondolas.

The library levels (the Sacred Icon, Quarantine Zone) with the Arbiter are lacking compared to the library level in HALO CE. I guess the mystery (and fighting by yourself) of HALO CE was missing. The tension from HALO CE was also missing. Why? Because the health-bar was removed. The HALO CE health-bar meant you still had to go look for med-packs. But with the HALO 2 system, you are assumed to always have some health, after the shield runs out.

The good part, in the Quarantine Zone, was when you could ride/drive the Specter, and hijack a Scorpion.

The battles of Master Chief on the Covenant planet, were also linear.
Terrible.
You could have designed something on the level of Sidewinder (it's a multiplayer HALO CE map). Or, some room design that have multi-paths.
But instead, there were just rooms one after another, with only one way. The rare open terrain occurrences were merely a "room with the sky as the ceiling" in the same linear path. It was like a sidescroller in 3-dimension. But even Mario could choose to go overland or by another path through secret passages.

The battles of the Arbiter on the Delta Halo, were also linear.


The weapons:

plasma pistol was so reduced in power, it sounds like a water gun, and the effect is nearly so, as well.

same with the human pistol (and the name "Magnum" doesn't compensate, when the sounds is like a water gun, and it barely does anything. And when Hunters are present, the pistol is never present...)

The assault rifle was gone. It has a shape that looked nothing like any current rifle, and that's how HALO CE felt futuristic. Instead, that assault rifle was removed. Replacing it was a bull-pup HK G36K. And it fires only triple burst. There is only one other gun that does that: the M-16. Merchants of Pentagon. Trying to make HALO into a recruiting series.

The rocket launcher in HALO 2 has tracking ability. So no need to aim anymore. Gone also was the fun of using rocket launchers, because of the risk of missing the shot when you fire at targets faraway, and the excitement when you do get something that is faraway (and moving), like the Wraith tanks at the end of level 8 in HALO CE, or every Banshee that you shoot down in HALO CE, with careful aim. There is always a bit of excitement as you bring one down. But with the tracking ability, you just fire and forget, and the rocket goes spiralling and somehow hit the target anyway. And it's no fun bringing down Banshees without aiming, and they sound like crumpling paper when hit, not like anything dangerous and heavy, anything worth bringing down.

the plasma grenade was reduced in look (in explosion).
The needler was reduced in sound (in HALO 2 it sounds like sipping soda), and the grenade-like explosion in HALO CE, which was so cool about the needler, was removed. That totally took away the fun of using the needler.

The plasma cannon was reduced in sound. In HALO CE it sounded like an explosion, and when it hits, it is loud, with the earth shaking. In HALO 2, it sounds like bouncing a spring, and it makes nearly no sound when it hits, and the earth doesn't shake. That's so lame.

The Hunters have also been reduced! They had plasma cannons in HALO CE, with huge splash damage. They were indeed fearsome, and you really ran for cover when you saw them about to fire. In HALO 2, they have those lame "light projectors", with no splash damage, and when the "projector" hits you, it doesn't really do anything.

And one more thing, which is a huge loss: the death sounds.
The death sounds of the Grunts and Elites in HALO CE sounded like Bart Simpson and Bart Simpson with a deeper voice (Waaaaaaa or Woooaaaaaaa). And it's almost hilarious. It reminds you that the game is not really so serious. So it's fun to tag them with grenades, shoot them with needlers, especially tag them with grenades.

In HALO 2, they have human or near human death sounds. And that is terrible. The Grunts sound like dying kids.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

This thread was started before some people like Hooah even joined. Epic necromancy.

[pevergreen]

As EMAM said.

Plus, so much is wrong with your posts, I can't even respond.

[Greyblades]

Plus, so much is wrong with your posts, I can't even respond.
It would be nice if you could elaborate on why they're wrong instead of coping out and just saying "there's so much wrong".
No offense to you in particular pever but It is aggrivating seeing people who put alot of effort in their arguments, right or wrong as they may be, being met with "your wrong because I say so." answers.

[pevergreen]

Its not entirely that, but a multitude of factors!

I'm sneaking posts on while at work, no time to type up something nice.

Hes ressurected an old thread.

At least I was on topic? :tongue:

Plus, I'm biased, I disslike halo.

[ThePianist]

and, one more post, about suggestion for future HALO games:

1. The HALO CE life-bar, please bring it back. It adds challenge and adds tension in the midst of a firefight. That was a major element of the fun in HALO CE (you could die more easily than in HALO 2, because you can't assume that when your shield is gone, your health would be 100%).

2. The vehicles in HALO 2 sound like crumpling paper when they get hit, that needs to be changed.

3. The indestructible warthog was really fun in HALO CE. There should be an option that you can toggle: destructible land-vehicles or not.

4. The plasma pistol needs to be restored to HALO CE. The human pistol needs to be restored to HALO CE. The Needler (especially the grenade-like explosion, sound and looks) needs to be restored to HALO CE. The plasma grenade's effect need to be restored to HALO CE. The plasma cannon needs to be restored to HALO CE. The Scorpion's splash damage need to be restored to HALO CE. The Hunters need to be restored to HALO CE. The wooooaaaaa voice of the Grunts and Elites need to be restored to HALO CE.

5. Mod-ability.
Like, people should be able to mod their game (like, adding the Star Wars' force into the campaign, when you play as Arbiter with a sword). There should be a mapping kit attached to the PC version, so people can easily make their own campaign missions, and share it with other gamers.

6. Dual-wielding plasma swords.
Plasma swords have their edges too defined and too sharp in HALO 2. It's plasma, it should be more diffuse like in HALO CE, it looks better. It'd be great if they could be dual-wielded.

7. Map originality:
The biggest map originality, in a sci-fi game, was in Jedi Outcast. Jumping puzzles, really precarious environments, etc. Also, that railroad level (level 4) in Shadows of the Empire (N64), where you had to jump from one train to another.

Master Chief is too powerful in HALO 2, and that makes it lame.
He wasn't too powerful in HALO 1. For one thing, he had a life-bar, rather than a vague circle that you can always assume is 100% health. He could also die or get injured by jumping from too high. That was removed in HALO 2, and that's lame. Games are boring when the character is overpowering.
How about a level where there are gondolas on rails, and the character has to jump from one to another. Or gondolas in mid-air, some going horizontal and some going vertical, like Mario, and the Master Chief has to time his jumps.

How about a level where the character has to board a Covenant battleship (like in the book First Strike) from the outside, and you have to avoid all the plasma firing lines, and open a breach, and then go in.

How about a level where the character is Cortana (or even, another AI), and your mission is to hack into the Covenant network, opening things, disabling other things, and fight an electronic battle with some AIs from the Covenant (as described in the book First Strike).

How about a level where the character is a human pilot in space, in a Longsword (it could be anybody, it'd be just one level), and you have to pilot it in space combat (well-made space combat like Homeworld), and perhaps help land Spartans somewhere, or deliver some kind of item to some place.

How about a level where the character is a Spartan, and your responsibility is to carry another wounded Spartan with disabled MJOLNIR armor, and you have to carry the person through Covenant territory, and make sure the person doesn't get hit and die? (so it would be a sneaking mission)

How about a level on a map like Sidewinder, with 10 Scorpions and 150 Marines against, 10 Wraiths, 5 Banshee, and 150 Covenant soldiers?

How about a level where the Covenant Elites drop out of the sky in pods (what HALO2 uses to deliver weapons/ammo to the Marines), like in the original HALO 2 shown at E3 (but discontinued by Microsoft).

How about a level where the rooms are the nodes of a Buckminster-Fuller sphere
http://schemistry.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/c60.png

And there are either enemies or traps in every room, and in every passageway. But the solution to the map is not to fight all the enemies. The solution would involve doing some kind of puzzle, like a Rubik Cube kind of puzzle, and you modify the entire structure depending on what you do in every room (or maybe, depending on which direction you go first).
Yes, this could be used in the Cortana level for hacking. But it's even better if this is Master Chief in some strange Forerunner structure.

Or, some of the links are missing between the rooms (the nodes), and Master Chief has to activate switches in a certain order, so that all the links could be completed, and the structure come online. However, in every game (like, every time that level is loaded) the puzzle would be different and the solution would be different.

And also, the Covenant could be also roaming through the system, so that they could do unexpected changes.

I have no idea how to design such a puzzle, but I thought the idea was great.

[Veho Nex]

M8.... What are you talking about? There is sooo much and I have the attention span of a rodent on crack. We need a tl;dr version pleassseee

on a side note: I seemed to have had a 5 month head start on Hooah and yet he has surpassed and doubled my post count :/

[pevergreen]

Yeah, things like that happen Veho. Look at ATPG...:no:

[Monk]

I'm gonna focus on a few of your points..(mainly from post #1) If i tried to do them all I'd be here all night. Seriously man, that's a term paper you just wrote!


first of all, Call of Duty is not a realistic game. Not with a "HALO shield".
The "HALO" shield was invented to make FPS playable on console.
FPS are terrible on console, because you can't use a mouse, so you have to first move the vertical, then move the horizontal. It's difficult to aim.
You can compare the experience of playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault on PC, and playing Medal of Honor: Frontline on XBOX. Terrible on console.
You can compare the experience of playing Rainbow Six III: Raven Shield on PC, and playing Rainbow Six: Black Arrow on XBOX. Terrible on console.

Why? Because the player is so slow at aiming, due to the handicap of the console controllers.
Therefore, the AI in the console FPS was also dumbed down, in aiming, in reaction speed. In Medal of Honor on PC, you would get shot the moment you poked your head out. In Medal of Honor on console, you could stand five feet in front of the AI, and wait to get shot, and the AI would shoot around you, the aim is so bad.


Not true!

In fact, Call of Duty 4 works wonderfully on the 360. The limitation of not having a mouse is felt, sure, but that is to be expected with how much freedom a mouse+keyboard setup gives you. In fact, all of the modern CoD games are top notch examples of FPS games done right on the console, even the ones I hate (i'm looking at you, World at War!) I could not hate on because of bad controls.

The two analog sticks work layout of the 360 controler works wonders for controling both x and y axis. While I prefer the PC shooter over the console shooter, i cannot deny I've got more than a few FPS games in my console's library. the control stick really isn't a limitation anymore. what was once the the death of console FPS, now is a minor hindrance.

My advice? If you're going to denounce console FPS games, come to the current generation and see what it has to offer. :yes:


Then came HALO.

HALO was the first console game to have a rechargeable shield, thus infinite health when managed well.
This is how HALO was the first FPS success on console. Because the AI no longer needed to be dumbed down in movement and aiming.

The problem, is that the game publishers always preferred selling console games to selling PC games. Why? Because there are now 4 different consoles: XBOX, XBOX 360, Playstation 3, Wii. The disc for each of these are unreadable by the others (though there is some compatibility between XBOX and the XBOX 360). This potentially allows a game-publisher to re-sell one game 4 times, by putting it in different data-disc format.

It's really a huge scam, the console game market.

Did you know that once-upon a time, there were so many video game consoles it made your head-spin? You know why that isn't so anymore? Because the over saturation of the market alienated buyers and eventually led to a market crash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983) effectively eliminating many of the contenders.

Today there's only three contenders in the ring and neither one really likes the other (just look at Sony and Microsoft, constantly trying to one up each other.) But that isn't a scam, if anything it's great for us consomers! The PS3 Slim went on sale for $299 a few weeks back and, sure enough, Microsoft dropped their prices right along side Sony. Next Gen consoles are pretty cheap running anywhere from $200-350 USD, which is a far cry from what they were just a couple years ago. Competition is a great thing for companies because it keeps them on their toes.

The reason Microsoft and Sony have consoles that don't have compatable discs is simple. Sony backed Blu-ray, Microsoft backed HD-DVD. Microsoft went head to head with their nemesis trying to set the standard for the next generation of DVD formating, and they lost big time. HD-DVD is already being phased out. So really, it's not a "scam", it's just business as usual.


The console games always have less buttons, compared to all the keys on the keyboard. Therefore the console games can only be good to a point, they must be kept simplistic, and can never match to well-made PC games.

Complexity is not a sign of quality. If it was then Bejeweled would be universally hated and mocked by people like you and me, while EVE online would be shouted as the best game of all time. I think we can agree that neither is so.


Microsoft and SONY bribed or otherwise controlled EA Games and Ubisoft enough so that these game publishers are pushing for all games to be on console. They even seek to disappear the PC game market (which will never happen, because as long as there will be computers, there will be games on computers. And the computer is the best platform for gaming. It is absolutely impossible to play RTS and good FPS on console.)

Because of this huge scheme to have everything on console, the game publishers decided to import the "HALO shield" into every console FPS (even those in World War II!).
And that ruined gameplay.

I'm sorry, what? You're suggesting that rather than the market evolving it's a big scam to phase PC gaming out? That's a little too much for me to bite on. Microsoft has even tried to do its part to keep PC gaming active with their "Games for Live" service. It's terrible, sure, but they are making the effort (Though i do love how you can tie your 360 gamertag into Live and earn achievements from GFWL games that support it. top notch stuff.)

I think, instead, that instead of calling it a scam we can just look at it for what it is. Everytime a game comes along that redefines a genre, or does something different, people will copy it. It was the same in the days of Wolfenstien 3D and it's the same in the days of Halo and Gears of War. Now don't get me confused. I wasn't suggesting Halo is "genius" but it did something interesting and different. it made people stop and think "Hm. That's not too bad!"

While I wish game designers wouldn't all flock to what I consider a mediocre product; I, for one, welcome our health regenerating overlords.





It is the same with Call of Duty 3. Except, Call of Duty 3 was so horribly made, that white American soldiers in World War II were gangster-walking (shoulders swinging this way and that way) and gangster-talking like Snoop Dogg. Those were WHITE PEOPLE in 1942 ! They certainly did not walk and talk like African Americans on MTV.

In real life, the men in WWII called each other "Mac", because most of them were Scottish or Irish. Their expressions were absolutely different from MTV. They walked like people, not like cavemen.
But, whoever made Call of Duty 3 made it only for console, and the World War II soldiers talked and walked like MTV in the year 2000!
That's the most stupid thing I have ever seen!
And what's worse, they had the HALO shield!

I like to call this "UT3" Syndrom. It's a marketing ploy and games suffered terrible when they try to "relate to the young people". I wouldn't let it get to you.. Dawg.




War definitely should have risks involved (except in sci-fi or fantasy).
So when people get shot, they should have decreased life-bar until they find a medpack. People's health should not regenerate by itself!

So what's more realistic? Wolverine self-healing or stepping on health packs and healing broken limbs?



Really, this "HALO shield" was a crutch introduced to help prop up the handicap of consoles, because the aiming is so much slower with controllers. And the "HALO shield" helps the console gameplay, by overpowering the player.

However, on PC, where the keyboard/mouse is the best combination of user-interface, where the player has no slowness handicap from console controllers, the "HALO shield" needs to disappear (or, at least be made into an option, like a cheat that the player can activate) because it ruins the fun of gaming.


See my first point.

Whether it ruins the fun is a relative term, and even though its not my fondest feature of the current generational FPS I have to be honest I really don't mind health regen. Health packs work, health regen works, it's just the latter seems more popular. If you'd like, F.E.A.R 2 is a console/PC game of the current generation and it uses Health packs. Maybe you'd be interested in that?

[Azathoth]

:thumbsdown:

[Fragony]

It is perfectly possible to play fps on a controller, I will whoop many a pc-player's behind. The human species is a primate with exceptional learning capabilities. If you line up your shot vertically a controller has more precision than a keyboard/mouse setup, you can aim very gently horizontally and perfect vertical allignment for that headshot.

[Prussian to the Iron]

am i the only one who noticed that ThePianist ressurected a topic that has been dead for over 2 years?

thats gotta be a world record or something.

[Greyblades]

This thread was started before some people like Hooah even joined. Epic necromancy.


Hes ressurected an old thread.

Your not the only one.

[Prussian to the Iron]

what im wondering is how people can find these old-ass threads like on the last page or something, and then decides its a good idea to not only revive them, but to continue a stupid argument made 2 years ago...

[Azathoth]

Hardly a record. There must be a 1+ year necro at least every other day in a forum this size. I once saw a 5 year necro on the Matrix Games forums, and that was in 2007...

[Monk]

what im wondering is how people can find these old-ass threads like on the last page or something, and then decides its a good idea to not only revive them, but to continue a stupid argument made 2 years ago...

The guy who necro'd either took a lot of time to write up his opinions, or took the time to find some good copy paste material. Either way it was worth some of my time to offer up some counter points. :yes: