Halo and Halo2

[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.

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 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?