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Halo |OT12| Last One Out, Get the Lights

Redford

aka Cabbie
Never said it was great but still it's a fun distraction, it's better then spec ops IMO since it's a mode I bearly touch in COD.

Like I said, the "Content content CONTENT" principle is good for back-of-box buzzwordia, but you don't have it for content's own sake and you especially don't put it up behind an invisible paywall.
 
So I'm back at work today after having last week off. 320 unread emails...

Sometimes multiples from the same people. And I have an autoreply away message, lol.

Anywho, something something Halo, SpOps is unplayable online, etc.
 

Tawpgun

Member
SpOps more fun than horde/spec ops?

Damn. You must eat up that small story shit up.

So far I've had no memorable moments in SpOps. Horde mode always gets crazy. Spec Ops just had more variety in gameplay.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
I play Spartan Ops for achievements. Nothing more.

I played Firefight for challenges and nothing more.

I'm in the camp of having both in the game though for variety. Just funny that some people seem to want Ops cut completely when it has so much promise moving forward. If they can start evolving the missions a bit as we get past the initial season and they have more time it could grow into something awesome. A lot of fun now, but could be amazing in the future. Start doing book missions, or flashback missions, etc.
 

willow ve

Member
Man, the population for this game has dipped so much in the last week alone, it seems like.

wait for christmas, it will get worse.

Yeah. It's falling rather quick. Don't foresee it hitting 200,000 at a time at any point in the future. Which is a shame for the flagship game on the 360...

Might help their numbers if they had campaign matchmaking, spartan ops matching available for any episode, and the Halo 4 servers didn't drop off the map occasionally. The normal matchmaking complaints have already been made by almost everyone on this forum, but these things still annoy me to no end.

If you lose connection to the Halo server - you have NO opportunity to play Spartan Ops. That means, at some point in the future, all of this content is simply gone. And it has achievements tied to it as well. Why this is a part of the game is beyond me. It feels like a locked down DRM scheme whereby you always have to be connected to play the game. Which is asinine.
 
My least favourite thing about Spartan Ops is that it doesn't seem at all balanced for the individual player, whereas with ODST Firefight I could play a game of survival against the odds and Reach was balanced for fun individual scoring sessions (which I could customize in legitimately overwhelming detail).

No, wait, that's my second least favourite thing. My actual least favourite thing is there are no fail conditions, no lives, no tension of any kind. You just bang your head against the wall until its over, which occasionally means respawning in the middle of packs of enemies on Legendary.
 
Man, the population for this game has dipped so much in the last week alone, it seems like.

bUaF4.png

;_;
 

Tawpgun

Member
Imagine if firefight could have taken a page from Gears 3 with the building of bases and fortifying. Using the same shit from Dominion.

God what a missed opportunity.

Use points to build up bases, buy vehicles/ordnance....
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
I just wish that all devs who make shooters (actually this kind of applies to all devs, really) would realize that to gain a large audience, you don't chase the leader. You innovate, shake up the genre as a whole.

Did any other Halo's population dip this fast? I saw the counter under 100k quite a bit this past week. It probably has to do a bit with the holiday, but as a whole the numbers are dropping a lot.
 
Promise moving forward?

Look at the pattern

Horde mode - no story waves of enemies

Halo made FF mode - Waves of enemies no story

CoD creates Spec Ops mini campaign missions

Halo makes Spartan Ops - mini campaign missions

Thats the order of the modes.

Moving forward Halo is going to have the best new gametype from another game. Creatively bankrupt.

Just go back to the fucking basics get rid of all the shit youre adding and make a GOOD Halo Campaign and a good Halo MP experience.

Its like they spent so much time thinking of ways to get players to continue to play their game they forgot to make an interesting game. " yea an unlock system! Theyll be our little hamsters grinding that wheel ! yeaaa they wont even realize it LOL" "Yea we can make little DLC campaign missions so the campaign folks will come back!" "Weren't we supposed to be doing something? Nah lets go home!"
 
Pretty depressing in here today. Anyone have any good news? Things they like? Great Halo 4 matches?

I only have one more mission to complete on Legendary to get the achievement/armor/emblem :)

Still really digging Halo 4. 343 impressed me with their first original outing and I'm sure they will make some good decisions on what to fix/change for their first major title update next month.

I'm mostly hoping for the infamous missing X, being able to hold Back to check the score without impeding movement, tweaking Oddball instant-spawn and other playlist configurations, and finally hoping they implement the three Forge maps into matchmaking.


Promise moving forward?

Look at the pattern

Horde mode - no story waves of enemies

Halo made FF mode - Waves of enemies no story

CoD creates Spec Ops mini campaign missions

Halo makes Spartan Ops - mini campaign missions

Thats the order of the modes.

Moving forward Halo is going to have the best new gametype from another game. Creatively bankrupt.

Just go back to the fucking basics get rid of all the shit youre adding and make a GOOD Halo Campaign and a good Halo MP experience.

Its like they spent so much time thinking of ways to get players to continue to play their game they forgot to make an interesting game. " yea an unlock system! Theyll be our little hamsters grinding that wheel ! yeaaa they wont even realize it LOL" "Yea we can make little DLC campaign missions so the campaign folks will come back!" "Weren't we supposed to be doing something? Nah lets go home!"

I love Spartan Ops, even more than Firefight. I enjoy having a story to follow and I enjoy weekly content.

I also think Halo 4 already does have a GOOD campaign and a GREAT MP experience.

And I'm really not trying to shoot you down 100% but I also enjoy the unlocking. It's addicting and fun.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
It is also a massive investment of resources that could have gone elsewhere.
I don't know. I mean, what did they do for Spartan Ops aside from adding enemy spawns on already existing maps (bar 2 or 3) and creating short CGI cutscenes? Record whoever voices Palmer saying "Eggheads" and "Crimson" one time and you're already halfway done with the voice-overs of Spartan Ops.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
Gears didn't invent the idea behind horde, and CoD didn't invent the idea behind Spec Ops.

Also, this is the second best Halo campaign, and the MP is a blast (with some tweaks needed). It brought back people that had left Halo for dead, which I'm glad to see.
Opinions everywhere. Wooo!

-Campaign is good
-Graphics are sick
-Weapons feel great for the most part
-Oddball and KotH are in their best iterations
-Truskill is working for the most part

:p
 

Vire

Member
I played Firefight for challenges and nothing more.

I'm in the camp of having both in the game though for variety. Just funny that some people seem to want Ops cut completely when it has so much promise moving forward. If they can start evolving the missions a bit as we get past the initial season and they have more time it could grow into something awesome. A lot of fun now, but could be amazing in the future. Start doing book missions, or flashback missions, etc.
The concept of Spartan Ops is good. The execution however is not.

"Hey guys, we are going to have fifty missions with an overarching story that leaves you hanging with exciting cliffhangers!"

Sounds great right? Instead, we get environments that have been reused over 3 times and hardly any story bits within the missions themselves. Spartan Ops has been a great disappointment for me. Hell, I even expected them to reuse assets from the campaign, but I didn't expect it would be to this extent. The "story" being interlaced in the missions themselves just isn't all that interesting and hardly ever amounts to anything besides "kill these guys", "push that button". And I have yet to experience one of these so called "cliffhangers" that would have me dying to know what happens next...

Unlimited lives and lack of scoring doesn't help either. It all just amounts to "why bother". There is little to no tension and at all.

I don't really see any great promise in this mode and I would be surprised if there was a Season 2 given the sour reception thus far.
 

darthbob

Member
Pretty depressing in here today. Anyone have any good news? Things they like? Great Halo 4 matches?

The game looks fantastic on a nice HDTV.

Music is sick.

Campaign Spoiler - -
The Didact is a great villian, thematically. Having read the books, I appreciate the story as a greater whole I believe.

Spartan Ops, for me is a lot of fun, and I'm loving the CG cutscenes.

DMR not having Reach bloom = God tier

Players in games are not assholes, at least, to me.
 

J10

Banned
I only ever played Spec Ops in MW2, but it was just campaign areas sectioned off for co-op play with scoring as far as I remember. Did that change in later installments or has it always been that?
 
Pretty depressing in here today. Anyone have any good news? Things they like? Great Halo 4 matches?

Just got off from playing some nice games.


Now for the negativity, and I guess I'll just keep saying this until it's fixed: A challenge with the phrase "in a single match" is not a weekly challenge.
 
Doesn't really matter if you do or not bro what ever tinkles that fellows pickle.. I just played about 7 games of Reach a min ago and had more fun than I've had with Halo 4 in weeks... the first 4 or 5 days of 4 was fun but it doesn't have any longevity for me at all... Really don't understand why everyone here just continues to shit on Reach... Halo 4 is the most uninspired halo game ever released... I understand 343 is a new developer and its their first game but 90% of everyone on the team have years and years and experience, besides that kid thats the MP lead he's like 25 or something the MP is just frantic nonsense.. I just wish I wouldn't have made a 300 dollar mistake in buying a new system and 2 copies to just dislike it... The only thing halo 5 has going for it now is the graphics will look insane this time... I thought this game did from a 3rd person-view point but the hardware is just too old and they spent like 99% of the budget on lighting.... leaving the ground to look terrible and some of the worst textures I've ever seen... BTB is one of my favorite play lists in halo and it is just the opposite of fun for me in 4... KOTH is my most played list...But after like 3 or 4 games of halo 4 one of which is me getting put in a game with like 10 kills or less, just makes me what to quit right there...and Firefight not being their is just SAD... SPops is just not fun, mainly because Promethean are the most unfun enemies to fight ever... I hate brutes and they were better...The only reason I will play every once in a while is because in all the hype and excitement I got the map pack thing... so I will try those I guess. But I really hate that I hate the new game in probably my most played and loved series in games ever...It sucks..... This is why you have a beta instead of making us buy it and test it for them....


I'm all for criticism but in it's current form this is illegible.
 

Homeboyd

Member
Now for the negativity, and I guess I'll just keep saying this until it's fixed: A challenge with the phrase "in a single match" is not a weekly challenge.
I think they're ok (sometimes) for the simple fact that it could take someone several days to get the challenge. Of course, that all completely hinges on how difficult the challenge actually is. In this case it should definitely be a daily (the 16 headshots one).

Otherwise you're guaranteeing that all weeklies have to be grinders (which I personally hate). I do understand that's kind of the point of weekly/monthly challenges, but I do consider that if made difficult enough, there can be some value to the "get X amount of Y in a single game" type of weekly challenge.
 

neoism

Member
Gears didn't invent the idea behind horde, and CoD didn't invent the idea behind Spec Ops.

Also, this is the second best Halo campaign, and the MP is a blast (with some tweaks needed). It brought back people that had left Halo for dead, which I'm glad to see.
Opinions everywhere. Wooo!



:p

it will only get funner when the other thread and this one mix next thread.... second best campaign....glad you enjoyed it... I would put it a little ahead of Reach only becasue it has Chief in it... still the story was allover the place, and I shouldn't have to read 4 books to understand it...


Campaign
H1(for its time)>ODST>H3>H2>H4=Reach(still had a shit load more replay value for me)


MM
REACH>>>H3>H2>H1(only because I just played with my bro and once played 2v2 on prisoner for 10 hours one day...was to stupid and poor to lan... was still insanely fun...>>H4
 

Noricart

Member
I only ever played Spec Ops in MW2, but it was just campaign areas sectioned off for co-op play with scoring as far as I remember. Did that change in later installments or has it always been that?

It's always been that. It's just that SpartanOps fails to achieve it's hook (post-campaign cooperative story) or present as many unique scenarios as SpecOps. This also includes the terrible first impression the mode makes and the assumption that some of it is on disc content locked away by a weekly schedule and XBL Gold.
 

kylej

Banned
Its like they spent so much time thinking of ways to get players to continue to play their game they forgot to make an interesting game. " yea an unlock system! Theyll be our little hamsters grinding that wheel ! yeaaa they wont even realize it LOL" "Yea we can make little DLC campaign missions so the campaign folks will come back!" "Weren't we supposed to be doing something? Nah lets go home!"

you know the scene in home alone when the mom is on an airplane and kicks back to enjoy her flight, then she bolts upright and screams "KEVIN" because she realizes she forgot macaulay culkin

343 probably did the same thing with screenshot functionality
 
Been having a great time with Halo 4. #CounteringTheMadness
Same. Had to take a break for a day or two to save my thumbs from wearing out.

Just hit SR53 and Operator specialization. Not into grinding at all, but it'll be neat to see how much longer I can survive in a vehicle once the Op support is unlocked. This is by far the most hours I've put into any Halo versus mode and I'm still just getting warmed up.

The latest Spartan Ops cinematic is also getting me hyped - love the interactions between Halsey and the Spartan IVs, the quality of voice/animation/detail still blows my mind, and its good to see lots of story threads being set up. This could get very interesting ;P I'd like to see more specific story carryover into the missions themselves, as they've still felt disconnected for the most part. But after last week I'm more optimistic for the series.
 

Homeboyd

Member
The one thing I miss about the brutes is popping their hats off and then sending them into a flailing backflip with a headshot. So damn satisfying.
 
The one thing I miss about the brutes is popping their hats off and then sending them into a flailing backflip with a headshot. So damn satisfying.

YES! I honestly miss them. Including the hammer is a cruel tease. And you know 343's art dept would make those guys look so damn brutal.

Plus, the incendiary grenades and spike grenades are far better than pulse grenades.
 

J10

Banned
It's always been that. It's just that SpartanOps fails to achieve it's hook (post-campaign cooperative story) or present as many unique scenarios as SpecOps. This also includes the terrible first impression the mode makes and the assumption that some of it is on disc content locked away by a weekly schedule and XBL Gold.

I agree, Spartan Ops is lame so far. It's not a worthy replacement for Firefight in my opinion and I would rather have that back than another season of Spartan Ops. Maybe they could just condense the little cutscenes with all the relevant story info into an actual animated feature - I'd happily buy that on DVD if word of mouth around the community was positive. Tacking that on to the Spartan Ops gameplay scenarios does nothing but annoy me for having to wait over two months to see it all.
 

Ramirez

Member
I just wish that all devs who make shooters (actually this kind of applies to all devs, really) would realize that to gain a large audience, you don't chase the leader. You innovate, shake up the genre as a whole.

Did any other Halo's population dip this fast? I saw the counter under 100k quite a bit this past week. It probably has to do a bit with the holiday, but as a whole the numbers are dropping a lot.

Or it could be that Halo simply doesn't have the following that it used to, or the staying power.

Anyone who thinks this game's population is low because they chased the CoD crowd is delusional. Halo's design simply doesn't translate to what the majority of gamers want today. Not that it matters really, just play the game or don't, it's not going to change into the Halo of 2004 or 2007.

I came to grips with that months ago, I feel like some of you lied to yourself, thinking this was gonna be the return to the old fashioned Halo, when everything was right in front of you showing you it was going to be vastly different. Maybe that's why I'm not as upset? I dunno.
 

Noricart

Member
Does anyone remember a section with sleeping grunts in campaign? I believe there has been one in every halo game except for this one. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
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