Be Excellent To Each Other

Well, the Reach Night thread needs keeping for Reach nights, but currently I'm immersed in a few other Halo bits and bobs, so have points for discussion.

1: No Bungie anymore - can a Halo FPS be as good again?

2: Where do YOU want the series to go from here?

3: What's your best Halo alien?

4: What are

5: Read the books? What did you think? I'm enjoying every moment of Contact Harvest presently, having just finished Fall of Reach.

6: Continuity - FoR and Halo Reach seem to contradict one another slightly. Hmm.

7: Spartan John-117 - is he a ginger?

I'd like to vote for "be fun". I've played the first mission of Halo:Reach, I've participated in three game nights of it, and I can't bring myself to play it any more. This is how I felt about the other Halo games I tried (1, 2, and the public beta of 3). Waste of forty quid.

I want them to release a few map packs for Reach, and then never make another new Halo game ever again. I wouldn't mind the 343 guys working on Halo CE and Halo 2 HD remakes, but other than that, leave it, LEAVE IT. The reality is, we're going to start getting Call of Duty style annual releases of poor quality from 343. We already have Call of Duty for that. As for Bungie, they're apparently working on an MMORPG, which could be interesting, or could be shite.

Actually, I could get behind that too.

You're doing fun wrong.

I'll be quite happy to trade it in when GoW3 comes out, put it that way.

But the game nights can be brilliant fun, sometimes.

One of my friends loves Halo. Loves it. Played all the games multiple times (though wasn't so keen on Halo Wars). Read the books. Got numerous action figures. Insists we talk endlessly about the multiplayer on whatever is the latest one in the series, then gets me to sit and watch his replays.

He's killed it for me. I loved the original. I even liked the much derided sequel. I took the day off work, got up early, stuck Halo 3 on first thing on it's day of release and didn't stop playing till the Campaign was done - and I've never done that on a game before.

But my enthusiasm for the series is now so dead that my copy of ODST is still in the cellophane wrapper and I've so far barely scrapped through the first mission of Reach. I have no desire to pick it up again. I'm planning on trading both of them in once there's something I want post Fallout: New Vegas.

Halo. It's all a bit shit really, isn't it?

Red versus Blue. I don't get it.

Oh God. I went to see my aforementioned friend last night for a beer. 20 mins in he's showing me a Red Vs Blue YouTube video of various people's fuck-ups in Reach multiplayer. I gather it was hilarious, if his response was anything to go by.

The minute anyone even mentions Halo these days, I cringe.

Besides which, Killzone 2 was a metric fuckton better than Halo 3 and KZ 3 looks like it's going to be a belter too.

I have no idea why I don't enjoy it and I want to, but I just don't. Good idea, boring game.

But Zio, you'll use a talking about Halo thread to complain about your mate, who would appear to be the problem?

Anyone enjoy talking about Halo?

pffft

As this thread seems to be a coming out thread, I may as well join in

The Taffs and the Scotch seem to dislike Halo.

So:

The amount you like Halo is inversely proportional to the size of your heroin habit, how much distilled fermented swampwater you drink and how much you sexually abuse sheep.

Or H = 1/(S+W+B)

where H is Halo Love, S is Skag in grams/week, W is whisky in litres per week and B is for the number of inappropriate ovine touches you indulge in per week.


I bloody love Halo, me.

I'm gonna come out and say it as well then. You all find it boring because you're shit at it. It doesn't offer instant gratification like CoD because it's not as easy. So you find it boring because you're getting spanked most of the time.

TRUEFACT.

I also think there's a bit of a reluctance to commit yourselves to it because CODBLOPS is just around the corner, and therefore you'll never get good at it, and it'll always be "boring".

You may be onto something there. Only improving your aptitude will improve in-game ability, playing over time gets you a shinier helmet but no better guns. My CoD abilities went through the roof as soon as I had nothing better to do than play it for a while, but equally I hated getting beaten because I know the winner isn't necessarily any better at the game than me.

I also hate CoD and am not buying CODBLOPS. Next theory?

You're the exception, you don't like anything! I was referring more to the BeEx CoD contingent who are so vocal in this thread.

/me points mutely at the receipts for four copies of Unreal Tournament 3.

I think there might be some truth in that however I would dispute the fact that CoD provides instant gratification. I used to be good at Halo 3 and usually finished around the top of the scoreboard in online games once I'd picked it up but I didn't enjoy it. Even before I traded Halo Reach in I had started improving just through playing more but I still didn't enjoy. i know if I had played it more I could have gotten better again but I had no motivation or desire to do so.
Also, I don't think Call of Duty online is easy if you are playing the right game modes and I'm good at that. In fact, I know someone who would argue 'til blue in the face that CoD is harder than Halo and that Halo is crap because it requires less skill...

"It's not as good as UTIII"

So what's everyone's best alien then?

I like Elites.

Using paint on ones face doesn't make one correct though.

Na, Halo definitely requires more skill, knowledge and practice. CoD really genuinely is a piece of piss. People die very quickly and if you've got good aim and decent reactions, it's easy to come out on top, which I constantly do. I genuinely think I'm very good at FPSes, having spent the majority of the last 10-15 years playing them almost exclusively, and I can hand on heart say that Halo is much tougher on n00bs.

"Difficulty and skill requirement" and "Fun" are quite a long way from being the same thing.

Have you even read what we've been talking about?

And even if you haven't, surely you can accept that in the context of an online FPS, getting caned by people who are much better than you constantly isn't as fun as running around killing everyone and finishing top of the server. Therefore, the difficulty of Halo is a hindrance to having fun, whereas CoD is relatively easier if you have a bit of aim/quick reactions, and therefore more fun more quickly.

What I'm saying is that they're both great fun, you just have to work longer and harder for it in Halo (and let's not forget that most of the people saying Halo isn't fun have played all of the CoD games extensively and are therefore already a lot better at them). So yeah, difficulty does = fun in this context to an extent. Well, not so much difficulty as experience and ability.

Killing someone on CoD is much easier. See, for instance, the "Throw random grenades and get lots of kills" phenomenon. Or the "Instant kill cheap underslung grenade launcher". Or Claymores. Or flukey headshots. or etc etc etc...

You're right, apologies. I'm letting my Halo frustrations get the better of me again.

Must say though: from what little I've played of it, I do like the slightly more serious take on things they've gone for with the Campaign on Reach. I appreciate this makes me the anti-Dimrill, but the comedy grunts used to be quite off putting for me and kind of ruined the atmosphere.

I don't think how tough it is on new players is a good indication of if it is a good game. I'd argue that other online games that allow new players to join and enjoy straight away are better. Decent aim and decent reactions are part of the package you should need to be good at these games (and things that improve the more you play). Dying quickly is a two way thing, you can't go running out because you'll die so you are more thoughtful with your actions and more likely to play as a team with tactics. You peer round corners, leave claymores behind you, switch to your sidearm for corridors, use smoke and flash grenades...
I just feel the gameplay is a lot more varied and yes, fun. I would like to like Halo (and I really enjoy UT3 which I think plays quite similarly) but I find it repetitive, boring and tiresome.

Nope. I'm always in the bottom 1/3 of the table when I play online FPSs, and I love them to bits. Also, the original context also referred to the campaign being unenjoyable, which would mean PvP ability isn't a factor.

I couldn't really care less about the campaign and whether people think it's fun or not. I'm talking about online only. That's where the staying power of these games lies, and that's what we were talking about as far as I can see.

Do you have everyone except for yourself on ignore?

I'll be picking up Reach when I see it for £10, but really I've had my fill of Halo. ODST was good with the 'Dream Team' but awfully dry as a solo game. Had my fun with the CODs too. UT3 didn't agree with me, no soul.

There's only one shooter franchise worth bumming...

GEARS OF WAR.

Sorry, I love CoD, but saying it's more varied than Reach seems a little bit crazy to me. Yeah, there are lots of weapons but as we've all noted before, they're all essentially the same. Halo Reach offers a ridiculous amount of variety. Vehicular combat, more game modes than you can shake a stick at, etc. I'm not saying CoD doesn't offer variety - it has plenty of great game modes as well, but if you found Reach repetitive, you were playing it wrong and I don't think you were open to enjoying it from the start, despite what you've said.

I can't be arsed to "defend" it anymore. I'll see you in CODBLOPS. All I'll say is, you're missing out on some great online FPS fun, and I personally think it's for no other reason than you're waiting for CODBLOPS and you, maybe on a subconscious level, don't want to enjoy anything else lest it detract your attention from what you've already decided you'll be playing for the next 12 months. Too many good games, not enough time.

Halo Deathmatch is easily the best multiplayer FPS experience since Quake.

The Campaign sucks, but I have never enjoyed single player or co-op FPS games. I just want a big arena in which to shoot people. That's what I paid my money for. Likewise my ODST disc 1 was pretty much untouched.

Halo gets it just about right. Not too much gore, futuristic setting etc. Personally I find "realistic" FPS games a bit sick.

No. Zio was talking about the campaign for a bit. I'm arguing with the CoD online players. Talk about the campaign all you like. I'm not the only one here talking exclusively about online play. Read it through again. Since when was a campaign the main event when discussing online FPSes over a month after launch? It's all about the multiplayer with these games. Do you think the millions of people playing MW2 this week were having another bash at the campaign?

In answer to (guessing) 5, I read the first book, and thought it was proper gash. There's only so many ways you can say 'shoot the flood, reload, walk backward', which most of it was (obviously, it was the first game, only as a novel).
It was a plodding chore, IMO.

What happened to my reply to WTB?

Damnit. It was along the lines of "no, you" but more eloquent.

My ideal would be somewhere in between UTIII and Halo.

-Allow the player to carry a few more weapons (Like UT) so that the specialist weapons are a bit more practical. Or adopt a scheme like UT where a weapon has two modes of use, so 2 weapons in one.
-Fun punchy weapons (Completely lacking in UT. Hammer requires noisy charge up which makes it somewhat less practical)
-Team games with vehicles should lock the friendly vehicles until used (Like UT)
-Huge variety in customisable game modes (Halo reach - Things like hammer jetpacks and rocket raceare rather excellent)
-More fliud motion like UT.
-Personally, I much prefer UTs not having to reload weapons constantly. Shame the only workaround in Halo that I've seen is bottomless clips.
-I'd return the characters to a brighter scheme for MP - I find hiding games are rather tedious.
-provide a dog spewing helicopter for teams who are getting somewhat hammered

Flood weren't in the first book. They were in Halo: The Flood which was the (oft-criticised) novelisation of the Game. Apparently the characterisation of 117 was utterly different to Nylund's starting point. In fact, going on the wikipedia entries I think you might have read the one book that should be avoided if you were only to read 4.

Coming soon, however, is a 'Forerunner Trilogy' by Greg Bear. 343 seem to be taking their franchise a lot more seriously than Lucasfilm these days

Some good ideas. I just think it's disappointing that the whole "realistic" war shooter setting seems to have captured more imaginations than the more traditional FPS scenarios of space marines and insane future death sport tournaments.

The Realistic thing will run its course to some extent, as the more realistic the games, the more controversial and less sellable they are. Eventually the quality will drain out of the genre and chavceptable shovelware will remain, leaving space ninjas and other cool shit as the preserve of the quality FPS, in both multi and single player.

I'd still like the realistic thing to continue to some extent, just not in every 2 out of 3 FPSes as it is now.

Good grief. I can only imagine how dry-as-toast ultra-hard-sf is going to go down with fifteen year old Halo fanboys.

And Mr Dave's opinions have my axe. He's basically just described UT3 with Forge-like mutators and extra melee weapons, which would suit me just fine.

I loved the mutators in UT. The thing about UT3 is it's not as comprehensive as 2004 for example. Fewer mutators, fewer game modes, etc. It's like they stripped the features back and put UT2004 "lite" on the new engine. I was hoping for a bit more. I love it, but I still think UT2004 is pretty much the perfect online FPS, and much better than UT3.

Ah yes, I meant 'book of the first game' rather than 'first book'.


Typical.

But everyone here who doesn't like Halo much loves UT3, so that's not really the only distinction to make.

Are we not due a UT4 or something anyway? With proper continued console support and a high profile launch and a huge community? Please? Suppose they're busy with Gears 3 and Bulletstorm.

Eh? It feels like you're just half-heartedly chipping in and trying to knock spots off my Halo argument, which ended a few posts ago. I was just making a general statement.

And also, who's everyone? Gaywood? Dave likes Halo much. Nobody else has mentioned UT3.