Hypertrooper
Member
About the community.PooBone said:
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Halo: Reach |OT5| A Monument to All Our Sins
- Thread starter GhaleonEB
- Start date
Back to campaigns again?
1. Halo 2 - By far the best environments, atmosphere, and depth of stories told. Worst gameplay of the bunch but it's still the best in all the other departments.
2. Halo CE - Amazing mood and OST. Takes a huge nose dive when the last 3 levels are re-used BSPs, even though Two betrayals holds my favorite battles in the series. Unique sandbox encounters that haven't been recreated since.
3. ODST - Semi-non linear and the most challenging legendary run since Halo 2. Very fun to play, but the sense of weakness that being an ODST compared to a Spartan was not conveyed. A new and unique OST combined with fantastic architecture, sense of scale, and lighting. You actually felt like the planet was being invaded while you watched, something that was unable to be presented well in 2,3, and Reach.
4. Halo 3 - Back to a fairly wide range of environments that I love. The story itself was fantastic but it was told in such a lackluster, unempowering way as to make it forgettable.
5. Reach - What happened here? Was the entire team made up of artists while the writers and designers were all busy on Bungie's next project? It was like you don't accomplish anything until the last two levels of the game. While the art itself was breathtaking at times, it didn't show you anything. You don't feel like you are on a planet that is about to die. You hardly see and evidence of the covenant destroying cities or just doing general invasion related stuff. When I got to the credits my first thought was "Is that it?"
1. Halo 2 - By far the best environments, atmosphere, and depth of stories told. Worst gameplay of the bunch but it's still the best in all the other departments.
2. Halo CE - Amazing mood and OST. Takes a huge nose dive when the last 3 levels are re-used BSPs, even though Two betrayals holds my favorite battles in the series. Unique sandbox encounters that haven't been recreated since.
3. ODST - Semi-non linear and the most challenging legendary run since Halo 2. Very fun to play, but the sense of weakness that being an ODST compared to a Spartan was not conveyed. A new and unique OST combined with fantastic architecture, sense of scale, and lighting. You actually felt like the planet was being invaded while you watched, something that was unable to be presented well in 2,3, and Reach.
4. Halo 3 - Back to a fairly wide range of environments that I love. The story itself was fantastic but it was told in such a lackluster, unempowering way as to make it forgettable.
5. Reach - What happened here? Was the entire team made up of artists while the writers and designers were all busy on Bungie's next project? It was like you don't accomplish anything until the last two levels of the game. While the art itself was breathtaking at times, it didn't show you anything. You don't feel like you are on a planet that is about to die. You hardly see and evidence of the covenant destroying cities or just doing general invasion related stuff. When I got to the credits my first thought was "Is that it?"
ncsuDuncan
Member
It's about an hour long.PooBone said:
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But seriously, it's about Bungie's next game, which will be based on Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
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But seriously seriously, it's about them looking back on 10 years of Halo and 20 years of Bungie while looking forward to 10 more years of awesome.
I wouldn't expect any direct info on their next game, but I'd keep an eye out for little clues and eggs.
I imagine we'll see footage from the HBO LAN and similar community events, not to mention tons of funny anecdotes and such. It's going to be great.
ElRenoRaven
Member
GhaleonEB said:
They are. You know I think the series single player has always gotten a bad rep for no reason. Take Halo The flood are a very nice change of pace. It would get boring just being you and Covenant all the time. With the flood you get some old school just blast away overwhelm you with numbers shooting. With the Covenant you have AI that actually thinks and adjusts it's strategy. And hell just watching the 3 way battles between Covenant, Flood is just crazy fun.
Then Halo 2 gets a lot of hate for the Arbiter. I liked that myself but realize that maybe he should have been his own side game. The only problem I truly have with the Halo 2 campaign is the end. That could all be solved by leaving off the chief's part of it. Just after the question is asked they show the ship flying toward earth and fad to black.
Now Halo 3. Again gets the hate cause it's not epic. Well it was supposed to close out a trilogy.You can't go and expand more when you're trying to answer and wrap up a lot of things. Again I liked the flood in it. Sure the pure form ranged ones were annoying but that was a nice challenge. Also just like the library which was a change of pace Cortana was again in that game. The ends of both 1 and 3 were amazing and some of the best times I've had.
Also one thing Halo and Halo 3 get bad reps for is the repetition. I like that. It's kind of cool to go back and see an area you were just in. It's also realistic in the case of say the base in Halo 3. After all you are in a base and helping get people out of there.
Just like those 3 I think ODSt and Reach get bad reps too. ODST got it for again not being epic. It was never supposed to be though. It's a small side adventure. I liked it. Reach I'll give you the last level was not as memorable as the others. Course I didn't really think 2's last level was that great either to be honest either. However 1 level does not make a game. Also with Reach it can be argued that even though it's after the credits Lone Wolf is the real last level. And I did like that. It really brought home the sacrifice of the entire team and hell everyone on Reach.
So yea I rambled for god knows what reason but I really do think the games get a bad rep for the single players. If anything it's the single players that keep me coming back to them all time and time again.
squidhands
Member
Agreed, and it had the worst of the Noble Team to back you up, if you can even call it that. Emile should have been switched with Jorge in LNoS, since the former only seems to be able to carry close quarter weapons (and would actually be...I dunno, useful). I'd much rather have seen Jorge go all the way to the end with you, even to the Lone Wolf section. I really do love Reach's campaign, but there plenty of things that I wish that had played out differently. Such is the life of a backseat designer...Gui_PT said:
Yeah, I'd have to say that the use of the word shitty to describe Reach is hyperbole. I mean, why does everything have to be perfect or shitty? I'm looking at the entire Halo series, and I'm not finding a shitty title there. I certainly have my rankings of the Halo games, and none of them even come anywhere close to shitty.
Superman 64 is a shitty game. Any Halo game so far (Halo Wars included)? None are shitty.
Superman 64 is a shitty game. Any Halo game so far (Halo Wars included)? None are shitty.
Speaking of stuff I liked, I always liked the picture of Hang Em High in Tombstone (captured from the PC port by Halomaps users, so the lighting might be a bit off from what some remember):
Hang Em High 3.0 (Gallows?) should have a picture of Hang Em High AND Tombstone somewhere on the map
:lol
Hang Em High 3.0 (Gallows?) should have a picture of Hang Em High AND Tombstone somewhere on the map
and a Certain Affinity Cola machine as a Forge object
Cortana and Halo were terrible, terrible ways to end the game. Both were two of the least entertaining levels I've endured in the Halo series.PsychoRaven said:
Halo 2's story was its best part, but the fantastic cut-scenes are what makes it all shine. Been downhill since.
The Librarian
Banned
GhaleonEB said:
Good points on the mongoose run and the Drone encounter. However, I disagree about Boneyard battle (I don't understand the "shooting gallery" comment). That encounter is so freakin' huge and the number of ways you can deal with the encounter is awesome. Also, I disagree about the last Firefight encounter. It goes by pretty quick.
I don't enjoy the Warthog run in Halo CE because the Warthog controls poorly. It would have been better to alter the final run to fit the controls. What I mean is, Halo 3's final run would've been better suited for Halo: CE's Warthog, and Halo 3's Warthog would've been better for Halo: CE's run.
Blowing the engine cores was an interesting objective but I don't think it was implemented well. That area continually respawned enemies and that made it frustrating and annoying to wait for the engine cores to open (slowly...).
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
New SparkCast is great, a lot of good info.
For me...
CE - simply because it introduced me to the universe.
H3/H2 - tied for me... I enjoyed the story split with Arbiter parts in H2, and had a ton of fun in co-op in H3. I play Halo for the multiplayer first... story second... campaign last. I only play campaigns that are co-op as a general rule because of the social interaction. The anticipation for H3's opening, and playing through with friends was incredible fun.
ODST - loved the story line, and architecture of the game - yet found it waaaaaay too easy on legendary in a co-op setting. This dulled the game for me.
Reach - least favorite. I loved the setting though, and thought a number of story lines were cool - but playing through just did not have the same magic for me as H3's. It was a push just to get through rather than truly enjoying what I was doing... and it never gave me that sense of anticipation for what was happening next.
CE - simply because it introduced me to the universe.
H3/H2 - tied for me... I enjoyed the story split with Arbiter parts in H2, and had a ton of fun in co-op in H3. I play Halo for the multiplayer first... story second... campaign last. I only play campaigns that are co-op as a general rule because of the social interaction. The anticipation for H3's opening, and playing through with friends was incredible fun.
ODST - loved the story line, and architecture of the game - yet found it waaaaaay too easy on legendary in a co-op setting. This dulled the game for me.
Reach - least favorite. I loved the setting though, and thought a number of story lines were cool - but playing through just did not have the same magic for me as H3's. It was a push just to get through rather than truly enjoying what I was doing... and it never gave me that sense of anticipation for what was happening next.
ElRenoRaven
Member
squidhands said:
I do agree with you almost. I do agree that Emile sucked for the last level. I mean come on long range encounters with a shotgun? Really? That was beyond stupid. Also to be honest Emile was my least favorite member of the team. Now I don't agree that any of them should have made it to Lone Wolf with you. It wouldn't exactly be Lone Wolf then would it?
With Emile you could have had an alarm sound and him realize they were about to be surrounded. He then could have thrown you out and then enter a lot of elites surrounding him. Then as you float down you see that he succeeded in triggering it. Good suspensful moment and makes his death a bit more tragic.
Then with George you could have the same basic ending but have a bunch of elites attack him like they did but leave out the arrogant shit Emile did. Have George go down fighting. Again more tragic and a better team member to have had for the mission. The real thing that could have fixed the Emile problem in the last mission though would have been to let you be able to swap out his weapons so that you could give him a ranged weapon. That would have solved the foundry area problem with him on Legendary. That's why his uselessness really showed through. You know that long range shotgunning he'd do from across the giant assed room.
Louis Wu said:
I'm with both of you there. While Halo 2 is my least favorite I'd still rate it above any other FPS out there.
If I had to rate them here is how I'd rate my best to worst.
Halo - 9.5
Halo 2 - 8.5
Halo 3 - 9.0
ODST - 9.0
Reach - 9.0
So Um yea. anyone that says any of the games is just utter shit is delusional in my opinion. Just like if anyone said they were all perfect would be just as delusional because no game is perfect.
ncsuDuncan
Member
FyreWulff said:
I wonder if CEA's HEH will have the big ramp of H1 or the air lift of H2 (it could presumably have both, swapped in Forge).
I'm almost more curious to see the Reach-style versions of the maps, just to see what Certain Affinity decided would work better with Armor Abilities. The news that there are multiple variants of the maps (e.g. Battle Creek from the Sparkast) makes me feel assured that the Classic maps will be fairly faithful to the originals.
I think when someone mentions the word shitty and Halo they are usually comparing Halo games and not games in general.
I can see why anyone would hate Cortana but I'm surprised when people mention Halo. It's one of if not my favorite Halo levels. Has that feel of the Library during the climb. I believe they give you a shotgun there too. The boss battle in the middle is pretty stupid but I like the escape at the end. I believe every Halo game should end with an escape on a vehicle and something (world or halo ring) exploding.
Striker said:
I can see why anyone would hate Cortana but I'm surprised when people mention Halo. It's one of if not my favorite Halo levels. Has that feel of the Library during the climb. I believe they give you a shotgun there too. The boss battle in the middle is pretty stupid but I like the escape at the end. I believe every Halo game should end with an escape on a vehicle and something (world or halo ring) exploding.
ncsuDuncan said:
Well, the air lift came about because they had to scale HeH vertically so much (to balance against Halo 2's massive jump height and lack of fall damage) that the ramp looked silly (according to Max Hoberman).
It'd be neat if we could have both configurations, though.
It'd be a+ effort if a significant amount of the map was Forgeable. What if we could delete/move the tombstones?
Striker said:
Yeah, I hope they retain the jumps from the Tombstone version. Especially the one where you could jump from one of the tombstones up onto the broken walkway so there was more than one way up onto that ledge from Blue side.
maximum dorkiness picture incoming
edit:
If they consider the configuration of the tombstones as part of the classic-ness of the variant, then it would be easy to consider thinking of making them Forge objects.
Kuroyume said:
Even still. If we were to take a poll which Halo game is "shitty" when compared to the other ones, do you think that there'd be a consensus? Even a majority for one? This is just a guess, but I'm thinking it would be a 5 way split.
I'm not saying that some Halo games may execute better than others, but even in comparison to themselves, I still wouldn't say any of them are even close to shitty. For every Cortana you have a Covenant. For every Library, you have a Silent Cartographer.
ncsuDuncan
Member
True. The lack of fall damage in 2 really changed how that map played, taking the catwalks wasn't quite as dangerous, but the extra jumps really made the edges more worthwhile.FyreWulff said:
You know, now that I think of it Hang 'em High really would make for a decent Forge canvas, if you could delete everything and just have a huge box. Provided it actually has a stable framerate and better object colors, of course.
Kibbles
Member
Oooo Killzone and Metroid designers working on Halo 4, http://vicariousgames.blogspot.com/2011/07/killzone-metroid-designers-working-on.html
Hitmonchan107
Member
Perfect timing. I'm heading out to take my final exam, so after that, I'll be free until Sunday. :^)GhaleonEB said:Status:
Drafting done. Site had hosting issues yesterday so I had to save my last draft in Notepad. Handing over to copy editor later today.
squidhands
Member
Well said. Jorge was easily my favorite character of the story, so I would have loved to end what was overall my least favorite level with him.PsychoRaven said:
MrBig said:Tombstone was good for BTB 1-flag
And I see shadows under the pillars so it doesn't look like they're forge-able.
Looking at this pic again, it appears that those energy-bridges would be Forge objects, at least. It would justify the lack of shadows on the ground when deleted.
Also, I think I spot a new airlift up to the second level in the middle of the pic (just to the right of the trench)
ElRenoRaven
Member
MrBig said:Tombstone was good for BTB 1-flag
And I see shadows under the pillars so it doesn't look like they're forge-able.
You know looking at the image I like the light bridge like walk ways. That's a very nice touch.
ElRenoRaven
Member
GhaleonEB said:I'll cover it in more detail shortly
See that just shows you how play style can play a big part in how you view the game. I always have jumped down there and find the Boneyard encounter to be fun as hell.
The Librarian
Banned
Yeah, same here.PsychoRaven said:
squidhands
Member
Definitely, and the ability to vary up how you work your encounters really speaks to how well the game is designed. There are at least three different ways that I know of to approach that first section of Boneyard (one of which skips the battle completely), which really can't be said about too many other FPS games.PsychoRaven said:
Deputy Moonman
Member
Hang'em High was best with full 8v8 slayer matches to 100 kills and also Classic CTF games. Tossing the flag off the top of a base, getting it halfway across the map, and having one person from the other team manage to touch-return it. So good. Tombstone was awful. It may have had some improved geometry in places, but it just didn't work without the Pistol from Combat Evolved. And nothing like seeing an awesome futuristic/forerunner themed map turned dirty brown crap hole It's one of the few Halo2 maps that I really didn't enjoy... at all.A27 Tawpgun said:
thezerofire
Banned
Do you know what I realized I really missed? Ghost edges.
PooBone
Member
Dax01 said:
Halo 1 is still the best for a myriad of reasons. There's things I like better about sequels.
Halo 2: Better music, more grandiose story, awesome locations to visit, vehicle boarding, improved vehicle controls
Halo 3: The Ark, The Covenant, SCARAB BATTLES, campaign felt cleaner and more polished than 2, I liked the story and the ending.
ODST: Atmosphere, music, open world structure, loved the weapon set
Reach: Highest production values in the series, more open sandbox than 3 or ODST.
But for every game after Halo 1, despite these improvements in certain areas, each game had drawbacks and things that I didn't like about it as much as CE.
Halo 2: Unpolished gameplay, more scripted and dumber AI, smaller environments, ugly pop in and shitty textures during cinematics and gameplay, they took away my bread and butter: AR/pistol and replaced it with a BR that you could only fire 36 times before you were out of ammo, and a shitty SMG that you had to dual wield to be effective and give up grenades and melee, the last four levels are awful imo, boss fights were the worst part of the entire series, whole campaign basically felt like a rush job.
Halo 3: Other than The Ark and The Covenant, not many interesting environments to go through, the Earth levels I found boring for the most part, Cortana is the worst level in the entire series. The final level was a letdown and the lego plate run was way lamer than the trench run in the Maw.
ODST: Really short, most of the day-time missions aren't that interesting, the whole objective being to find an Engineer and save the Superintendent was so lame, I thought we'd be recovering a Forerunner artifact from the ONI building, at least something interesting.
Reach: Other than Long Night of Solace, there's not much about the game I wanted to go back and play, the art was gray and boring, the story was ho-hum by the numbers I thought they'd be able to work a twist into what we knew would be the fall of the planet, but they didn't, other than Jorge none of the Spartans were likeable, especially that douchebag Emile, all the good parts of the game were usually parts that reminded me of Halo 1.
I know Halo CE isn't perfect, and some things were better about later games, but it's still my overall favorite by a long shot. If I could change one thing about it, it would be the ghost controls. But the level, the subtle storytelling that the later games completely abandoned, the sense of mystery, the open levels, the encounters, the only-the-essentials weapon set, the pacing, it all comes together to make it my favorite game of all time.
The Real Napsta
Member
OuterWorldVoice said:
Which pistol?
ncsuDuncan
Member
Loved 1v1 pistol battles on Hang 'em High.
My friends stopped playing me on that, at one point they were convinced I had found some secret glitch that would let me land shots from so far away.
Halo 1 multi was probably the biggest skill gap between me and my group. We were all pretty even on Perfect Dark, but for some reason no one else could match me with the M6D. I'm still the best among my RL friends by far, but the gap has definitely lessened with each new game.
My friends stopped playing me on that, at one point they were convinced I had found some secret glitch that would let me land shots from so far away.
Halo 1 multi was probably the biggest skill gap between me and my group. We were all pretty even on Perfect Dark, but for some reason no one else could match me with the M6D. I'm still the best among my RL friends by far, but the gap has definitely lessened with each new game.
ElRenoRaven
Member
squidhands said:
Wait you can skip the first encounter? How the hell do you pull that off?
Blue Ninja
Member
I'll be honest, Tombstone was/is one of my favorite Halo 2 maps. I'm glad it/Hang 'em High is coming back to Reach.
Well, except for killing Guilty Spark. We could've done without that part.
Halo 3's "Halo" is one of my favorite levels from the series. It's just raw, uncondensed nostalgia. Assaulting the Control Room and then escaping on a Warthog, it's a really fitting end to the trilogy, imo.Striker said:
Well, except for killing Guilty Spark. We could've done without that part.
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
BungieTweets said:
Did this actually happen? Holy shit if true. Bungie A Song of Ice and Fire Tyrion FPS confirmed. =P
Blue Ninja
Member
No man, open-world RPG set in Westeros. Inject it right into my veins, please.Dani said:
I don't hate Halo 3's Halo or anything, but that was such a dumb fight, and the trip to Legoland afterwards was awful. Randomly collapsing floor tiles that require memorization to avoid and bad Warthog physics that cause a bounce-to-stop on every big jump (of which there are many) ruined the neat atmosphere that section had for me.Blue Ninja said:
squidhands
Member
You can grenade jump to the section with the bridge on the right hand side. I don't have access to youtube here at work or else I'd find it for you.PsychoRaven said: