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Halo |OT16| Oh Bungie, Where Art Thou?

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lol I've been having the same thoughts as you recently XD

https://twitter.com/SpeedyBlueDude/status/322227301083398144

I think I stated the same thing in HaloGAF the last few weeks. Seriously... Reach really was an amazing game, Bungie did do an amazing job with Reach. Wasn't the Halo game I wanted, but that didn't make it a bad game. It was fun and I did enjoy it, even if all my ******** and complaining made it seem otherwise.

I'm kinda the same. I feel like Reach would have been just perfect if they'd focused on that CE core. It had it there, but it was held back by a lot of the new ideas.

Even then, I still had fun moments and I still have fond memories. And they did do a lot of great things.

It was a good game. It wasn't the best Halo could have been, but it certainly wasn't as bad as I remember making it.

Maybe it's mostly nostalgia, or maybe it's just me growing up. Hell, maybe I'm just following the stereotype of "New game sucks, old game is better". Whatever the case, I have no doubt right now that I would buy Reach for the 4th time to play Invasion and Campaign some more.

ODST still hasn't been topped yet for me. ODST was just fantastic. Deference For Darkness and Asphalt and Ablution+Finale are so amazing. I sometimes fall asleep to ODST's music. One time during a car ride in the pitch dark (10 hour car ride), it was raining really hard and you could hear and see thunder/Lighting+Rain drops, and the whole time I was listening to ODST's soundtrack and it was just incredible. :)

I know that feel broseph
If you could get a guaranteed job at either 343 or Bungie, which would you pick?

Save Halo? Launch a brand new universe?

I'd go with Halo if I was a lead on something MP or Forge related. I'd go with Bungie if I was a character artist. Dat Awoken...
 
ODST still hasn't been topped yet for me. ODST was just fantastic. Deference For Darkness and Asphalt and Ablution+Finale are so amazing. I sometimes fall asleep to ODST's music. One time during a car ride in the pitch dark (10 hour car ride), it was raining really hard and you could hear and see thunder/Lighting+Rain drops, and the whole time I was listening to ODST's soundtrack and it was just incredible. :)

EDIT: Random/Silly question.


If you could get a guaranteed job at either 343 or Bungie, which would you pick?

Save Halo? Launch a brand new universe?

Team Bungie

ODST felt more like you are alone in this cold night, that saxophone sounds were real good on the campaign.

Save Halo of course.
 
Man 4:10 into To Galaxy extended is amazing. Can't tell if Back to the Future or Jurassic Park vibes. Either way, sounds so good.

http://youtu.be/TmAPACP5nPM

I still think The Credit Music (Never Forget+117) is still the most amazing track in the game. This track single handily made me love Halo 4 (campaign). Just went through an emotional scene with Cortana
Losing a character I actually cared about and wanted to save
, and then that music pops up. I actually shed a few man tears, really emotional music.

Do we still spoiler stuff from the campaign or do we just not care anymore?
 

IHaveIce

Banned
I can't believe there are still AFK players.

I had the luck to have one afk teammate and 2 mates who had both 2 kills.

Good job
 

Booshka

Member
So I didn't really care for Halo 3's campaign, but I love Halo CE, and had some fun with Halo 2, would I enjoy ODST? I have never played it, only seen streams of people playing it back when it was new.
 
So I didn't really care for Halo 3's campaign, but I love Halo CE, and had some fun with Halo 2, would I enjoy ODST? I have never played it, only seen streams of people playing it back when it was new.

Short answer - yes.

Long answer - I think it's Bungie's most polished game and you should definitely give it a try. The OST alone is phenomenal and the gameplay gives a different but similar experience. It almost feels like you're watching a legit film noir movie. You'll either love it or find it boring.
 

Rev3rb

Member
Finally got everything off of my school's old ass server and into a permanent one!

www.quickcsr.com

The site scales nicely to phones/tablets (
<3 Bootstrap
) and everything should load a lot faster now that it's on a newer server.
 

HTupolev

Member
So I didn't really care for Halo 3's campaign, but I love Halo CE, and had some fun with Halo 2, would I enjoy ODST? I have never played it, only seen streams of people playing it back when it was new.
You'll either love it or find it a little bland.

I can't tell you which, but I will suggest that it's absolutely worth it to find out.
 
Finally got everything off of my school's old ass server and into a permanent one!

www.quickcsr.com

The site scales nicely to phones/tablets (
<3 Bootstrap
) and everything should load a lot faster now that it's on a newer server.

Thanks a lot man!

The time it takes to load waypoint and how connection heavy it is makes it impractical to use while playing - they need to make a much more friendly site if they plan on having website only features like csr
 

Booshka

Member
Short answer - yes.

Long answer - I think it's Bungie's most polished game and you should definitely give it a try. The OST alone is phenomenal and the gameplay gives a different but similar experience. It almost feels like you're watching a legit film noir movie. You'll either love it or find it boring.

You'll either love it or find it a little bland.

I can't tell you which, but I will suggest that it's absolutely worth it to find out.

I'll probably like it, I'm usually not bored by slower paced shooters as long as the highs are high and the pacing and atmosphere is good. I'll give it a shot soon. Thanks.
 

Omni

Member
Short answer - yes.

Long answer - I think it's Bungie's most polished game and you should definitely give it a try. The OST alone is phenomenal and the gameplay gives a different but similar experience. It almost feels like you're watching a legit film noir movie. You'll either love it or find it boring.
Yeah, this.

I personally find the campaign to be a chore to complete. Ambience means nothing when Mombassa streets is completely empty with nothing to do. Encounters on said level play out rather similarly and once you realise that you're wandering around with nothing to do, it gets boring. Other missions are very lacklustre (might be one or two decent moments in there) and the story is largely irrelevant.

If someone was to buy it now, I would suggest buying it for the best Firefight experience to date... that no one plays any more. Everything else is rather meh (OST was nice though)
 

TheOddOne

Member
that doesn't teach me how to make csr salad quickly
5249.69-tumblr_kze25rtDkb1qa4by8o1_1280.png
 

Madness

Member
Biggest issue (singular, not plural) with Halo 4...Go!

Loadout system. Singular, but so many things associated with it that break game, from certain weapons, perks, etc.

Without loadouts, you could still have some semblance of equal starts. None of this resupply, ammo, camo, boltshot, reroll etc.

Halo just doesn't work if you allow people to choose what they want to use at all times. Imagine if boltshot, DMR, stickies, Plasma Pistol were on map pickups only.

EDIT: I hate personal ordnance with a passion, but I don't know if it bugs me the way loadouts now do.

Oh, some guy is on a tear with the Warthog/Gunner, let me just die and pick my loadout with plasma Pistol and stickies etc. Oh damn, some guy has shotgun/scattershot/sword? Let me just equip the jetpack/AR/frag/grenadier/explosives loadout and just fly over them and drop bombs or spray and pray as they die etc.

Those are pretty dumb examples, but it builds up. I think it's why rock/rail and binary slayer are so fun to play in addition to doubles and throwdown, people can't pick and choose what they want to use.
 
Haha, Ninja: http://www.twitch.tv/ninja/c/2136397


--

Edit: and Load Outs for sure. That idea and every mechanic in the game that stemmed from them demolished "classic" Halo. It's something else now, and it kinda looks the same. Not sure if that's necessarily good or bad overall considering their success with regards to sales, but I definitely can say I like Halo 4's multiplayer less than I liked pretty much all the others. It's just going the wrong way for me.
 
It's hard when so many of the names in CE somewhat describe their map, what does yours look like? ;)

If I can get a good competitive layout to work right, then it will basically be a forest/canyon with forerunner structures. And lots of CE set pieces.

No pictures just yet.

Biggest issue (singular, not plural) with Halo 4...Go!

343 trying to capitalize on the wrong shooter crowd. Almost all multiplayer issue could stem from that. Flinch, Bloom, Killstreaks, Killcam, Instant Spawn, BTB emphasis, Perks, Loadouts, redundant rifles, anti-vehicle spawning classes, spartan armor, gameplay changing progression system, etc.

I could go on. None of it reminds me of anything remotely Halo. Little things like preset loadouts worked for gametypes like Invasion in Reach, but across the board it just ruins the game.

I really hope Halo 5 goes back to 1-3's style of gameplay. Any sign of AAs, custom classes, or bloom will be a no buy from me.
 
Loadout system. Singular, but so many things associated with it that break game, from certain weapons, perks, etc.

Without loadouts, you could still have some semblance of equal starts. None of this resupply, ammo, camo, boltshot, reroll etc.

Halo just doesn't work if you allow people to choose what they want to use at all times. Imagine if boltshot, DMR, stickies, Plasma Pistol were on map pickups only.

I have no qualms with being able to choose what weapons you want to start with, in this day and age players should be able to choose what weapons they want to play the game with. It also saves me from having to play AR starts. The one thing I do not like about Loadouts is the AA's and perks. I believe that anything that enhances a players basic traits should only be used as map specific pick ups. That way players have to earn their enhancement, be it by fighting another player for it or by luckily finding it respawn in front of you when no one is around. Personally I believe it to be more rewarding this way as well, since it is not something you randomly choose in a sub-menu of the GUI, instead it is a physical object within the game.
 
I think this sums it up

3tuidn.jpg


I flew a Falcon today in Reach and I couldn't help but grimace at the supposed reason that it was cut. Apparently, it "didn't work within the Halo 4 sandbox", so they had to remove it. My guess is that it was too easy to take down with PPs off spawn.

How about, the Halo 4 sandbox didn't work with the Falcon? Cut that instead. I've loved the Plasma Pistol since CE, but there is absolutely no reason it should be a spawning weapon outside of Invasion.
 

Madness

Member
I have no qualms with being able to choose what weapons you want to start with, in this day and age players should be able to choose what weapons they want to play the game with. It also saves me from having to play AR starts. The one thing I do not like about Loadouts is the AA's and perks. I believe that anything that enhances a players basic traits should only be used as map specific pick ups. That way players have to earn their enhancement, be it by fighting another player for it or by luckily finding it respawn in front of you when no one is around. Personally I believe it to be more rewarding this way as well, since it is not something you randomly choose in a sub-menu of the GUI, instead it is a physical object within the game.

What do you mean in this day and age? I think therein lies the problem no? We are used to loadouts from other games, but as we've now seen with Halo 4, it just doesn't work.

Letting people choose which weapons they want to use is a huge problem. It's why the matches are dominated by DMR/boltshot etc. The fact you can change on death, ruins a key part of the game too.

Loadouts also neuter the sandbox. If you think about other games, sure it's nice to choose, but people find out that there is one weapon to rule them all, and that's what what the pick. Right now in black Ops, I believe people majority only use smg's to play.

I agree the perks and upgrades also affect it. But for example, say we are playing on my exile. Someone has ghost, you get splattered, you choose the loadout where you picked plasma Pistol and stickies. You're just given something that will almost surely kill the ghost, but required no skill on your part.

I agree loadouts stops things like AR starts, but that's poor playlist management and personal preferences. I'd rather have AR starts with BR pickups, if it meant people couldn't pick boltshots, DMR, assault rifle whenever they wanted no?

But I understand, we all view things differently. I often wonder what HaloGAF truly agrees on as a strong majority.
 
But I understand, we all view things differently. I often wonder what HaloGAF truly agrees on as a strong majority.

I think we can almost all agree that this isn't the direction Halo should be going. It wasn't when Reach was made, and it hasn't gotten better.

Halo should be first and foremost a simple and straight-forward shooter. All of these shallow surface level gimmicks are only hurting the game in the long run, especially in terms of being backwards compatible with past maps and gametypes. At this rate, Halo 6 won't even have 4v4 or symmetric maps, and that's a problem. But it's one easily solved if we look back at what made it great - balanced team-oriented gameplay.

To get there again, we have to bring back certain things. Put powerups back on the map. Put healthpacks and weapons on the ground where they belong. Make everybody start evenly - Pistols, BRs, ARS, or whatever suits the map. Make balanced maps that are good for any kind of player. Make vehicles effective and fun to use, but not impossible to take down. Encourage players to learn creative strategies and think on their feet instead of handing them their advantages.

And it's just a personal preference for me, but I've disliked how maps have been given generic 2 syllable names like "Outcast" and these lengthy descriptions that are supposed to ground it in fiction. "This random structure was once home to random species during random times", or "This facility was made to house X during the times of Y". Honestly, it doesn't even matter - especially if nobody likes the map.

I prefer memorable names and descriptions like CE's maps:

Chill Out - "Dude you really need to..."
Timberland - "An enemy behind every tree!"
Rat Race - "Up the ramps, down the tubes
Ice Fields - "Slipping and Sliding."
Sidewinder - "Red Blood, White Snow"

They serve as tag lines or catchphrases for the map and help you remember it. I don't recall a single description for any other map except the ones from CE.
 

Ghazi

Member
"This Armour" is the concept art trailer music. I was disappointed this didn't make it into the OST, but I'm glad I have it now.

I was so hyped back then, funny to see how things turned out.
Do you mean volume 1 or ingame? Because I'm positive I heard it ingame.
 

Nebula

Member
I flew a Falcon today in Reach and I couldn't help but grimace at the supposed reason that it was cut. Apparently, it "didn't work within the Halo 4 sandbox", so they had to remove it. My guess is that it was too easy to take down with PPs off spawn.

How about, the Halo 4 sandbox didn't work with the Falcon? Cut that instead. I've loved the Plasma Pistol since CE, but there is absolutely no reason it should be a spawning weapon outside of Invasion.

My best memory of the Falcon was on that DLC Invasion map. I flew my friend to a 35 kill streak in it before gloriously being cross mapped by a Wraith mortar. Falcon was pretty awesome, but most people never flew it well, including myself. It was hard to master. I would have much rather seen the Banshee get cut to be honest.

Honestly I think map size and performance issues saw it cut.
 
My best memory of the Falcon was on that DLC Invasion map. I flew my friend to a 35 kill streak in it before gloriously being cross mapped by a Wraith mortar. Falcon was pretty awesome, but most people never flew it well, including myself. It was hard to master. I would have much rather seen the Banshee get cut to be honest.

Honestly I think map size and performance issues saw it cut.

That wouldn't make sense to me. Halo 4 still has Banshee's and many more vehicles. It also has some pretty large maps and there's plenty happening at once, including Ordnance Drops. I'm not saying it was decided at a round table that things were going to be cut "just because"; however, it bothers me that time is spent on things like the Mantis which has only ruined the maps it's on.

Granted the Falcon wouldn't work with most of the current map selection, but that's no reason to exclude it from Forge.
 

Madness

Member
My best memory of the Falcon was on that DLC Invasion map. I flew my friend to a 35 kill streak in it before gloriously being cross mapped by a Wraith mortar. Falcon was pretty awesome, but most people never flew it well, including myself. It was hard to master. I would have much rather seen the Banshee get cut to be honest.

Honestly I think map size and performance issues saw it cut.

I think it's because it was only found on BTB maps, and they slowly turned into heavies which made it a deathtrap. I remember one spire match, this guy who was our wheelman was so good, me and another guy got running riots each while on the gunner etc.

I don't remember Reach much, but I think there was one forge map, both sides had Scorpions, grenade launcher, rocket hog etc. Completely made the falcon on the map useless.
 
I don't think poor map balance should be used as a reason to exclude something. You can't shove everything on the map at once; there's a time and place for those things.

I don't even like the Falcon to be honest. I would have liked to see the Hornet back since it made flag runs on Avalanche interesting. But even then it'd be a flying death trap thanks to the abundance of power weapons and anti vehicle spawns.

sigh. It feels like I'm the only one who sees this issue.
 

Nebula

Member
I don't think poor map balance should be used as a reason to exclude something. You can't shove everything on the map at once; there's a time and place for those things.

I don't even like the Falcon to be honest. I would have liked to see the Hornet back since it made flag runs on Avalanche interesting. But even then it'd be a flying death trap thanks to the abundance of power weapons and anti vehicle spawns.

sigh. It feels like I'm the only one who sees this issue.

You're not the only one who sees that issue. I think that problem goes across all vehicles. There is just way to many anti vehicle weapons in play at all times in BTB. Being able to call in power weapons, the decision to keep Snipers anti vehicle and the choice to make everyone have the ability to be anti vehicle makes all vehicles a death trap. There isn't even a real way to counter this either. Vehicle combat in Halo 4 is practically dead. The only vehicles that see use are those that can one hit effectively, and they end up camping in one spot with in an open area just so people can't easily Plasma Pistol and spam nades to there hearts content.

I believe 343 saw this issue pretty early, but instead of addressing it across the board, they just made the Mantis and added Wheelman. Wheelman isn't massively effective, although it can be helpful, and the Mantis creates boring, campy combat. I really do hope they rethink loadouts.
 
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