Biggest Letdown This Generation

  • Thread starter Thread starter rjk
  • Start date Start date
I wont say Bioshock to save Nokkons sanity. So it's a straight tie between Halo 3 and GTA IV for me, both overrated, both carried by their predecessors and marked up accordingly, both huge disappointments for various reasons.
 
I seem to be one of those that hasn't been that disappointed by any of the 'big' games. I loved Bioshock, Mass Effect and Halo 3 which was a blast 4 player coop. I also rated Assassin's Creed highly and really enjoyed Blue Dragon. The general controls of GTA IV have let me down somewhat and it's certainly not a 10/10 game but it would be a big ask to say this was my biggest disappointment.

Personally it would have to be Eternal Sonata which I know is a bit specific but really did disappoint me when I had such high hopes.

Also I'm very down on the fact there's still no news on a Dead Rising 2!
 
I've changed my mind, Live for me is the biggest disapointment. Every game the same old ****. Lag lag lag. It doesn't even have to be much to ruin a game. I hated it in Gears and it's worse in COD4.

You can go from not being able to hit anyone, to being a killing machine depending on who has the host.

Both Madfruit and I where watching oneshot play after we had died in a match last night. Oneshot emptied nearly a whole clip 100% bang on the money bullets into a guy and not one shot registered.

I've chased a guy with an LMG and emptied a whole clip into his back with no kill, for him to turn around and pop me straight away. When I watched the kill cam he was just watching me do a mad gunfire dance before shooting me.

I personally don't think it's good enough for shooters. They should either be dedicated servers or allow me to search for games by region tp try to make it better.
 
I can't decide between Halo 3 and Red Steel.

edit: Red Steel, Halo 3's failings were as much my own as the games.
 
Last edited:
In all fairness to red steel I never expected much from it in the 1st place, it didn’t exactly get the best reviews.
 
dannyjo22 said:
I've changed my mind, Live for me is the biggest disapointment. Every game the same old ****. Lag lag lag. It doesn't even have to be much to ruin a game. I hated it in Gears and it's worse in COD4.

You can go from not being able to hit anyone, to being a killing machine depending on who has the host.

Both Madfruit and I where watching oneshot play after we had died in a match last night. Oneshot emptied nearly a whole clip 100% bang on the money bullets into a guy and not one shot registered.

I've chased a guy with an LMG and emptied a whole clip into his back with no kill, for him to turn around and pop me straight away. When I watched the kill cam he was just watching me do a mad gunfire dance before shooting me.

I personally don't think it's good enough for shooters. They should either be dedicated servers or allow me to search for games by region tp try to make it better.
Click to expand...

Interesting, not played COD4 on live, but i will say as a game I play on the PSN quite often, the game has never been laggy as far as i can tell. Is this just down to your connection or are others suffering the same fate?
 
XPE said:
In all fairness to red steel I never expected much from it in the 1st place, it didn’t exactly get the best reviews.
Click to expand...

I expected a lot from the controls, but red steel wasn't the best game to play as a first fps with the wiimote.
 
thedoc46 said:
Interesting, not played COD4 on live, but i will say as a game I play on the PSN quite often, the game has never been laggy as far as i can tell. Is this just down to your connection or are others suffering the same fate?
Click to expand...

P2P gaming with 16 players is never a good idea. Host advantage reigns supreme in XBL.
 
I'm not sure I have been let down by any of the games I have bought or rented tbh. Maybe because I don't get sucked in by the hype, in fact I tend to ignore everything to do with Hype (except where halo is concerned and to be honest I am a bit* of a Fanboy of halo, but I am not by any means blind to its faults). So I only really play games I want to play... In fact the last game that was a disappointment for me was DMC2... That was a genuine let down. It would have been a good game on its own had DMC1 never existed. But it never lived up to DMC1 in every way except for graphics and (imo there were a few nice moves added)

Ok now to talk about halo3. First its faults as everyone loves to fault Halo3 and if I don't mention these first you will have just read the first line and skipped to the next post (who's to say you haven't already). [Edit]: Actually having seen how much I've written I doubt anyone will manage to read this. Good luck [/Edit]
IMO there are numerous faults in the game
Story - (You may want to skip over this and go to my last few lines of this point)
Story is weak as a standalone story (and somewhat ripped off from the bible). The Halo 1 Story was good enough to take you through the various levels and then just about strong enough to take you back through them again to finish the game.
Halo2 had just-about an engaging enough story to get you through the levels as long as you were paying attention. however the ******** at bungie, had to do a Matrix2 / Kill Bill and split the final part of the story in 2 and leave us on a cliffhanger. It never felt like you had completed the game, it just felt like the game stopped.
Halo3 IMO lost a lot of its story and game play appeal as the Elites joined forces with the humans. The Elites were part of what made halo, halo. But I'll get onto the game play in a bit. Without having played through and I do mean playing, just watching the cutscenes does not make you feel like you are a lone warrior, the last of your kind** and fighting for your survival and the survival of your species. (again I never felt my back was up against the wall in the way it was in Halo1) In Halo3 it seemed like I was on a jaunt across the earth mopping up the end of a war, rather than under the immediate threat of the earth being overruled first by the covenant and then by the flood. Then I had a short recreational visit to an extra-galactic space station, took in the sights killed anything that moved and blew some **** up. I was expecting to be home with tea on the table, and tbh it felt like the people of earth kinda expected it too (despite the dialog possibly stating otherwise).
Further more the model movies that were made as part of the hype and build up for halo3 (diorama etc) What place did they have in the story? I couldn't pinpoint when they could have happened. There seems to be a mix up of time lines, it appears that H3 takes place immediately after H2, but that cant be the case as it would have taken a significant amount of time for Keyes and Johnson to get back to earth, get promoted, get involved etc (Forerunner and covenant ships are faster that Human ones at crossing space so Chief should have got to earth before them at the end of H2)
So I guess when you see the chief falling from space at the beginning of H3 he could have been blowing some other space craft up. :dunno: Anyway After all that My opinion of the story was, whilst it was above average, it just wasn't gripping enough, I played it through because :
A) I'm a fan and B)I wanted to complete the game.


Game Play
I think the gameplay was spoiled in H3 by removing the Elites from the lists of badguys. IMO they were brilliant bad guys to fight in H1 & H2, they have that mixture of toughness and intelligence, you felt that they were leading the troops and were looking at use of tactics against you (to a degree) plus they have that reptilian look to them. Bungie should have realized that we held no empathy for the Elites after H2, because there was a lot of negative feedback relating to the levels you played as the Avatar. Often whilst playing the game when I saw a bunch of elites I wanted to engage and destroy them, just not being able to do that spoiled my fun.
The Flood whilst new enemies have been developed for this advisary were more of a hinderance and pestilance than a threat. The type that kept changing form whenever it was "killed" ****** me off more than scared me. In halo1 I was scared **** less by 3 types of flood, human xbreed , covenant xbreed and spawn carriers in fact even the spawn themselves were scary. Maybe thats because it was the first time I had seen this sort of enemy and there was this huge unknown surrounding them. But I'd like to think it was also the level of tension presented by the music and sound effects, the lighting of the levels and the fact that they attacked in floods in wide open spaces where you had no cover, limited ammo and no support (at best you had one buddy on split screen) You were literally fighting for your life against all the odds.
Back to the covenant. Again in Halo1 (if you hadn't guessed this is my bench mark) you felt out numbered out gunned and that even the lowest of the low rankings were a match for you, proving sufficient numbers, most fights could be approached in a number of ways and often you would play the same level a different way each time you played it (and often each time you re spawned) because their placement and behavior differed from time to time. The elites were a challenge and despite knowing what the best weapon is for the job, often you did not have it so you had to really fight it out with them.
For me the brutes were nothing more than bullet sponges, it was really no fun or even that challenging to fight them, it was simply a case of fire, dodge, reload, dodge, mellee dodge, rinse repeat. I just simply felt they were a poor advisory compared to the Elites.
Weapons, In H1 each weapon was a new toy and at the beginning of the game you had no idea of what you'd get (though being an FPS you knew an shotgun and rocket launcher would feature) But since then, you generally knew what weapons to expect in the game and how they would work, sure there have been a few additions in each generation of the game and dual wielding was a nice feature in SP (a pain in the arse in MultiPlayer) but overall the lack of new Ideas really limited the appeal to the newer generations of the game. One of the things that gives an FPS that novelty factor is the weapon systems in place.
Now in the 25th Century I'm sure they have the technology (on both sides of the war) to quickly develop new weapons systems. So why not introduce an entirely new generation of weapons into the SP mode, in MP they could retain all of the older generations or have a setting to have H1 weapon set, H2 weapon set etc on the maps.
The game was in my opinion too short and too open, far too much effort was put into expansive landscapes (and no doubt into minimal load times) I have little doubt that what was on offer was a technical masterpiece but what makes an FPS fun is challenge, I almost never felt I was challenged by this game, it literally was a case of how fast can I blast through this game in a gunho fashion. Sure after I've played it through once and collected all the skulls (some of which were a PITA to get) I could turn these on to add or subtract difficulty. But this was more a case of requiring better accuracy or bigger weapons rather than a more tactical approach to the game.
In H1 there was limited expansive maps requiring the use of transport to get from a-b and usually if you had that situation you were given the right number of enemies to keep you occupied but not frustrated. Sniper **** me off no end. There is no way they could be hitting some of the shots they were hitting me with in that game. IMO snipers should be used to close off areas of the map or in situations where you have a sniper rifle to hand. Not when you are cruising around in a open toped vehicle. Thats just bad level planning. OK it could have been negated had you been provided with intelligence such as "snipers up ahead" (Cortana used to give me this kind of intel, who stepped up in her absence) and having access to a SR or an AI with a SR so that you can stop the vehicle, bust a cap in their asses and then get back on and gun everything else down. Make it a bit more tactical... But tbh this was all run and gun. or drive and gun. I felt in some levels there was too much use of vehicles where more enemies and longer walks would have been better (the highway level for example), These guys are supposed to be a superior race and superior fighting force, they should have taken occupation to a city (or country) and the human reclamation should have been a hard fought, foot pounding battle for each inch, not a cruise in your open toped 4x4. It really should have been battle after battle after battle, with you asking yourself, "When will it stop, do I have enough ammo? Whats next? How am I going to overcome this? Can I survive?" I never thought any of this.

The Baddies imo have not really developed any since H1 Ok we now have the brutes and there is the Scarabs and a few new Flood forms but imo the difficulty presented by each enemy has become diminished. In H2 a Scarab was tantamount to certain death on its own, even a pair of banshees in H2 was an unsavory prospect if you didn't have a RL. In H1 Banshees could be a royal PITA and whilst not often your immediate concern you needed to be aware of them in the back of your mind whilst battling other enemies. In H3 Scarabs are like a sport. You see one and its a race to see who can get on its back first. Its like a ****ing bucking bronco. **** even when there is a gazillion flying enemies in banshees and hornets and enemies all over the ground swarming around like ants, I wasn't even a bit concerned for my safety. In fact on the numerous times I died in those situations I was more convinced it was bad luck, rather than poor strategy that killed me. I had every right to be where I was, and if I had paid a little more attention (to where Kreeeee was) then I'd still be alive. Surely this should never be the case. In this situation, I should have had to strategically traverse the mountain side, removing all aerial threats, then remove the necessary ground threats to finally commandeer the areal vehicles, whilst the rest of the humans have been distracting the majority of the rest of the ground fleet and the scarabs. Now that I'm airborne I can support the Ground fleet unhindered and our combined firepower will enable us to damage the legs of the scarabs so that I can board and destroy them. (effectively meaning the more effective I am at knocking out the covenant defenses the more human support I have and the faster I can get onto the scarabs). But this simply isn't the case. Its run and gun.

Generally I think too much effort was put into making the enemy too hard to kill and not enough effort in making them too hard to kill... Wait that doesn't make sense. What I mean is the enemy are too tough and can often kill you from range for no purpose other than to be irritating. Bungie themselves said some snipers were removed because all they did was kill you on first sight and no enjoyment could be gained from running round a corner to fall over (there is one on the first level that still gets me every time. More effort should have been put into fight scenarios and short term and long term objectives and making those objectives seem important to the turn of the war. i.e, secure this point so that we can gain a foothold in this region. This has to be done by taking out xyz. Then on the way to xyz you have to save some troops pinned down, take out some artillery, destroy a blockade, pickup an artifact, assassinate a covenant leader, clear an area so that you can make use of a particular vehicle. Ok these are all things you did in the game, but it was never expressed as "The fate of the world... no universe rests on your shoulders, if you fail were all dead" In Halo1 everything was that important and everything you did was spelled out to you as being that important. H3 it was just done because it was there.

I mentioned Cortanas absence earlier, in the books it states that the Chiefs battle reflexes are improved when Cortana is in his suit. We saw no evidence MC being any better or worse with her, but thats me nit-picking

Music and Sound.
Maybe all the above could be put down to poor music Direction by Marty O'Donnell, but I cant believe he would be at fault here, he has been faultless so far. But a lot of the time the music being played (that I remember) was the more upbeat music I associate with MC kicking arse, not the music I associate with MC being one step from death, with a vicious, unforgiving, merciless enemy surrounding him, waiting to desecrate is corpse.
The music and sound effects are imo more important than the dialog as it presents the atmosphere and mood of the characters and the story. This is a story of desperation, of defeat, of pending annihilation and extinction, not just of the human race but of the whole universe, that level of gravitas is not properly put across.
And yes some of the guns sound a bit puny, but I put that down to the fact MC is in a space suit and his footsteps sound loud because he weighs over a tonne.

Multi-player
Ok the things that get my goat about MP.
The network performance. How the hell can this be so god damn bad? Seriously I never hear of other games having such bad latency, is it just my connection or is everyone suffering the same as me? There are some givens with this game, the number of BR shots to a kill, the number of Needles to a kill. I have seen some players take 3 times as many shots as required to kill, and I have taken 1/3 of as many hits(I count the bullets to help me judge my progress) and still died.
It can only be put down to latency. Just last night, I got into a fight with someone, shot enough to kill him, ducked around a corner to prevent his last shot from killing me, and then a second later after I had finished shooting, he was nowhere on screen he dropped down dead and I got the kill. I'm sorry but that happened way too late.
Bungie all but admitted there were significant flaws in the network code when they introduced this retarded "if you melee with in x ms of each other the person with the most health wins" scenario, so despite on my screen I have hit and connected with a melee first, the game is telling me Its showing me one thing but something entirely different is happening. How is that acceptable? Also I have found in more case than not, my enemies seem to have a magic lunge ability during mellee combat that I have not got (I used to be able to do this in H2) When they get within say 6 feet of me they can hit mellee and dash forwards and pound me in the face, I hit Melee and I just stand there waving my gun about like a lemon, I'm lucky if I even hit the guy. In fact this mellee thing is so bad I actually time my mellee attacks based upon where I think I should be able to get a lunge from but because it doesn't work all I am doing is waving my arm about like a simple fool. Even when standing next to an enemy I'm lucky if my mellee makes any form of contact (I have on numerous occasions swung at the back of an enemies head only to be assassinated by him).
Kreeeee and Alrik tell me that they only encounter these issues when playing with me so maybe my ISP has something to answer for.

One odd thing latency related I noticed whilst at the First UE LAN was Kreeeee and I were playing a game of Rocket Races online and whilst being on the same vehicle, we were seeing completely different things on our respective machines, despite sitting right next to each other and being on the same switch in the LAN. I don't even mean we were seeing slight variances. There was in excess of 5 seconds difference in what was happening on screen.

The next thing that bugs me online in halo is that Halo2 online had an abundance of maps which were suited to 4v4 or 8 player free for all games, the maps were well designed and the more time you spent on the maps the more shortcuts and tactics you could develop to give you the edge in a fight. Up until the recent map pack which you have to pay a fair sum for each there has been no real good maps for this scale of game, most have been average at best. TBH I think Lockout (the remake) and Ghost Town are the 2 best small maps available. And Sidewinder (the remake) is the best large battle map on offer, with Standoff (last map pack) being the best mid sized map which can accommodate for Big team battles and 4v4 battles, and HighGround is good for one flag one bomb attack/defense style games. I don't think I would miss many other levels if they weren't in the game.
I'll catagorise them by my opinion

Great levels - Levels I'd like to play on very regularly
Filler levels - good enough for a turn but don't want to play more than once a night
Forgetable maps-Not even worth playing once a month just would prefer they were taken out of rotation.
Custom game maps - Not worth having for match making but nice for custom games like rocket races

Great Levels
Lockout
Ghost Town
Standoff
Sidewinder
High Ground

Filler Levels
Guardian
The Pit
Valhalla
Narrows
Zanzibar
Snowbound

Forgettable maps
Epitaph
Isolation
Construct
Rats Nest

Custom Game Maps
Sand Trap
Foundry

As you can see of the 5 maps I enjoy 4 I had to pay extra for and 2 of the maps I paid extra for I completely dislike (one of which is only useful for its flexibility in custom games) Of the maps I like most 2 of them are remakes.


So why do I less than three this game? I mean I have just written more about what I dislike in this game than I did for my dissertation. So what is there left?

Well despite the bashing I gave the story over all it is a good story that has also been expanded in cannon into books and a graphic novel (and there was once a talk of a film) I actually prefer the stories told by the books than that of the games (but I doubt they would in turn make good games in themselves)

campaign - Well it wasn't bad by all means. Certainly if you play it in hard or above (which is what it was designed for easy/medium are "for noobs" quote bungie)
The 4 player addition was a needed inclusion, had they not had it I'd probably have gone nuclear with rage. (and it very nearly didn't get included)

Multi-Player is where its at, and I know a lot of these features are available on the PC if you have powerful enough PC or download and use the right software. But generally out of the box (with the exception of the map packs) All of these feature are in place in MP for the user to use, and they are simple enough that with a little practice any idiot can use them

Forge - This is the ability to tailor any map to your suiting whilst the landscape must remain the same, all weapons and additional objects can be repositioned/deleted or added. There are people with skill and vision that have taken what Bungie provided and produced seemingly whole new maps, completely unrecognizable from the original. I think this is a remarkable feature and if I had much more time on my hands (and Kreeeee wasn't such a royal pain in the arse) I'd probably make much better use of this feature.

Game Saves and video replay - I know kill cam is in place in COD4 (but we have game cam) and I do to an extent wish that we had this kill cam feature in Halo3 because it would probably appease my death a little more and make me a better player (also Alrik would probably not scream as high pitched so often and accept his 4 deaths a game much better) But we do have a recording feature that records the entirety of a game and allows us to play it back whilst causally moving around the map. In essence we can see whats happening at any point in the game from any position and angle we choose. This is great for showing our friends funny moments, great kills, amazing teamwork (usually demonstrated by the other team) or even machinima. You can also send these clips to your friends.

Those are 2 additions that whilst on their own do not make this game they do add a very nice cherry on top.


Now down to the multi-player gameplay itself
Weapon balance, whilst there is not much new in weapon types and some times it feels like your weapon has the stopping power of a spud gun. When handled correctly the weapons in this game are remarkable balanced. Some obviously are lame ducks, but even they have their uses in certain scenarios. Once you understand the mechanics of the shield and the mechanics of the health system and the mechanics of each weapon you can identify what works best for you and how to implement that in your game, you will also find scope to do this in all the Great and filler maps (and in some of the poor maps)
When bungie do a Great map they really do make Maps that (for the halo game style) that are second to none, and allow for you to play your style of game regardless of what that style is and the size of the map. I like the fact that the game requires a degree of team work but solo skill is equally important as is the need to take the initiative, I like the fact that you can play the same map all day and require a different set of tactics each time you play the map (however most the time you gravitate around certain tactics) I like the fact that despite being severely behind there is always the opportunity to make a comeback (your skill and teamwork are the only limiting factors).
In some team based FPS game (and solo FPS games) there is certain hot spots / choke points that once dominated are incredibly difficult to siege and once taken the team that has that spot the onus is on that team to throw away the game rather that the other team to take the lead.

I generally dislike FPS games where "First Shot wins" fights occur. GRAW and COD are 2 examples of games I feel this is the case.

Generally I prefer the Halo and GOW style shooter, where movement, timing, tactics and skill are required (I'm not saying other games don't require these things, I just think they all come behind camping with the right weapon).

Actually I'm struggling to convey what I like about halo3, its very easy to find faults with this game as I have demonstrated and have many others in this thread. But I think its a case of the sum of all the parts as a whole make this a very very good FPS game to stay focused on for long periods. I think if you are the sort of gamer who only retains attention on a game for short periods of time then move on to something else then this game is probably not for you. Because a majority of the people playing it have effectively been playing Halo for about 8 years now they know the weapons they know the vehicles they know a lot of the tricks of the trade. Halo is a mixed pace game and comes across quite basic, where it like an onion, has many layers and it is the uncovering of those layers which takes time and practice. But once understood and appreciated what those layers are and how they impact the game you start to look the the entire game in an entirely new light.




* A bit is a bit of an understatement tbh.
**Halo fans will be aware that other Spartans still exist but at the time of H1 the Chief was not aware of this
 
Last edited:
Kronologic said:
I'm not sure I have been let down by any of the games I have bought or rented tbh. Maybe because I don't get sucked in by the hype, in fact I tend to ignore everything to do with Hype (except where halo is concerned and to be honest I am a bit* of a Fanboy of halo, but I am not by any means blind to its faults). So I only really play games I want to play... In fact the last game that was a disappointment for me was DMC2... That was a genuine let down. It would have been a good game on its own had DMC1 never existed. But it never lived up to DMC1 in every way except for graphics and (imo there were a few nice moves added)

Ok now to talk about halo3. First its faults as everyone loves to fault Halo3 and if I don't mention these first you will have just read the first line and skipped to the next post (who's to say you haven't already). [Edit]: Actually having seen how much I've written I doubt anyone will manage to read this. Good luck [/Edit]
IMO there are numerous faults in the game
Story - (You may want to skip over this and go to my last few lines of this point)
Story is weak as a standalone story (and somewhat ripped off from the bible). The Halo 1 Story was good enough to take you through the various levels and then just about strong enough to take you back through them again to finish the game.
Halo2 had just-about an engaging enough story to get you through the levels as long as you were paying attention. however the ******** at bungie, had to do a Matrix2 / Kill Bill and split the final part of the story in 2 and leave us on a cliffhanger. It never felt like you had completed the game, it just felt like the game stopped.
Halo3 IMO lost a lot of its story and game play appeal as the Elites joined forces with the humans. The Elites were part of what made halo, halo. But I'll get onto the game play in a bit. Without having played through and I do mean playing, just watching the cutscenes does not make you feel like you are a lone warrior, the last of your kind** and fighting for your survival and the survival of your species. (again I never felt my back was up against the wall in the way it was in Halo1) In Halo3 it seemed like I was on a jaunt across the earth mopping up the end of a war, rather than under the immediate threat of the earth being overruled first by the covenant and then by the flood. Then I had a short recreational visit to an extra-galactic space station, took in the sights killed anything that moved and blew some **** up. I was expecting to be home with tea on the table, and tbh it felt like the people of earth kinda expected it too (despite the dialog possibly stating otherwise).
Further more the model movies that were made as part of the hype and build up for halo3 (diorama etc) What place did they have in the story? I couldn't pinpoint when they could have happened. There seems to be a mix up of time lines, it appears that H3 takes place immediately after H2, but that cant be the case as it would have taken a significant amount of time for Keyes and Johnson to get back to earth, get promoted, get involved etc (Forerunner and covenant ships are faster that Human ones at crossing space so Chief should have got to earth before them at the end of H2)
So I guess when you see the chief falling from space at the beginning of H3 he could have been blowing some other space craft up. :dunno: Anyway After all that My opinion of the story was, whilst it was above average, it just wasn't gripping enough, I played it through because :
A) I'm a fan and B)I wanted to complete the game.


Game Play
I think the gameplay was spoiled in H3 by removing the Elites from the lists of badguys. IMO they were brilliant bad guys to fight in H1 & H2, they have that mixture of toughness and intelligence, you felt that they were leading the troops and were looking at use of tactics against you (to a degree) plus they have that reptilian look to them. Bungie should have realized that we held no empathy for the Elites after H2, because there was a lot of negative feedback relating to the levels you played as the Avatar. Often whilst playing the game when I saw a bunch of elites I wanted to engage and destroy them, just not being able to do that spoiled my fun.
The Flood whilst new enemies have been developed for this advisary were more of a hinderance and pestilance than a threat. The type that kept changing form whenever it was "killed" ****** me off more than scared me. In halo1 I was scared **** less by 3 types of flood, human xbreed , covenant xbreed and spawn carriers in fact even the spawn themselves were scary. Maybe thats because it was the first time I had seen this sort of enemy and there was this huge unknown surrounding them. But I'd like to think it was also the level of tension presented by the music and sound effects, the lighting of the levels and the fact that they attacked in floods in wide open spaces where you had no cover, limited ammo and no support (at best you had one buddy on split screen) You were literally fighting for your life against all the odds.
Back to the covenant. Again in Halo1 (if you hadn't guessed this is my bench mark) you felt out numbered out gunned and that even the lowest of the low rankings were a match for you, proving sufficient numbers, most fights could be approached in a number of ways and often you would play the same level a different way each time you played it (and often each time you re spawned) because their placement and behavior differed from time to time. The elites were a challenge and despite knowing what the best weapon is for the job, often you did not have it so you had to really fight it out with them.
For me the brutes were nothing more than bullet sponges, it was really no fun or even that challenging to fight them, it was simply a case of fire, dodge, reload, dodge, mellee dodge, rinse repeat. I just simply felt they were a poor advisory compared to the Elites.
Weapons, In H1 each weapon was a new toy and at the beginning of the game you had no idea of what you'd get (though being an FPS you knew an shotgun and rocket launcher would feature) But since then, you generally knew what weapons to expect in the game and how they would work, sure there have been a few additions in each generation of the game and dual wielding was a nice feature in SP (a pain in the arse in MultiPlayer) but overall the lack of new Ideas really limited the appeal to the newer generations of the game. One of the things that gives an FPS that novelty factor is the weapon systems in place.
Now in the 25th Century I'm sure they have the technology (on both sides of the war) to quickly develop new weapons systems. So why not introduce an entirely new generation of weapons into the SP mode, in MP they could retain all of the older generations or have a setting to have H1 weapon set, H2 weapon set etc on the maps.
The game was in my opinion too short and too open, far too much effort was put into expansive landscapes (and no doubt into minimal load times) I have little doubt that what was on offer was a technical masterpiece but what makes an FPS fun is challenge, I almost never felt I was challenged by this game, it literally was a case of how fast can I blast through this game in a gunho fashion. Sure after I've played it through once and collected all the skulls (some of which were a PITA to get) I could turn these on to add or subtract difficulty. But this was more a case of requiring better accuracy or bigger weapons rather than a more tactical approach to the game.
In H1 there was limited expansive maps requiring the use of transport to get from a-b and usually if you had that situation you were given the right number of enemies to keep you occupied but not frustrated. Sniper **** me off no end. There is no way they could be hitting some of the shots they were hitting me with in that game. IMO snipers should be used to close off areas of the map or in situations where you have a sniper rifle to hand. Not when you are cruising around in a open toped vehicle. Thats just bad level planning. OK it could have been negated had you been provided with intelligence such as "snipers up ahead" (Cortana used to give me this kind of intel, who stepped up in her absence) and having access to a SR or an AI with a SR so that you can stop the vehicle, bust a cap in their asses and then get back on and gun everything else down. Make it a bit more tactical... But tbh this was all run and gun. or drive and gun. I felt in some levels there was too much use of vehicles where more enemies and longer walks would have been better (the highway level for example), These guys are supposed to be a superior race and superior fighting force, they should have taken occupation to a city (or country) and the human reclamation should have been a hard fought, foot pounding battle for each inch, not a cruise in your open toped 4x4. It really should have been battle after battle after battle, with you asking yourself, "When will it stop, do I have enough ammo? Whats next? How am I going to overcome this? Can I survive?" I never thought any of this.

The Baddies imo have not really developed any since H1 Ok we now have the brutes and there is the Scarabs and a few new Flood forms but imo the difficulty presented by each enemy has become diminished. In H2 a Scarab was tantamount to certain death on its own, even a pair of banshees in H2 was an unsavory prospect if you didn't have a RL. In H1 Banshees could be a royal PITA and whilst not often your immediate concern you needed to be aware of them in the back of your mind whilst battling other enemies. In H3 Scarabs are like a sport. You see one and its a race to see who can get on its back first. Its like a ****ing bucking bronco. **** even when there is a gazillion flying enemies in banshees and hornets and enemies all over the ground swarming around like ants, I wasn't even a bit concerned for my safety. In fact on the numerous times I died in those situations I was more convinced it was bad luck, rather than poor strategy that killed me. I had every right to be where I was, and if I had paid a little more attention (to where Kreeeee was) then I'd still be alive. Surely this should never be the case. In this situation, I should have had to strategically traverse the mountain side, removing all aerial threats, then remove the necessary ground threats to finally commandeer the areal vehicles, whilst the rest of the humans have been distracting the majority of the rest of the ground fleet and the scarabs. Now that I'm airborne I can support the Ground fleet unhindered and our combined firepower will enable us to damage the legs of the scarabs so that I can board and destroy them. (effectively meaning the more effective I am at knocking out the covenant defenses the more human support I have and the faster I can get onto the scarabs). But this simply isn't the case. Its run and gun.

Generally I think too much effort was put into making the enemy too hard to kill and not enough effort in making them too hard to kill... Wait that doesn't make sense. What I mean is the enemy are too tough and can often kill you from range for no purpose other than to be irritating. Bungie themselves said some snipers were removed because all they did was kill you on first sight and no enjoyment could be gained from running round a corner to fall over (there is one on the first level that still gets me every time. More effort should have been put into fight scenarios and short term and long term objectives and making those objectives seem important to the turn of the war. i.e, secure this point so that we can gain a foothold in this region. This has to be done by taking out xyz. Then on the way to xyz you have to save some troops pinned down, take out some artillery, destroy a blockade, pickup an artifact, assassinate a covenant leader, clear an area so that you can make use of a particular vehicle. Ok these are all things you did in the game, but it was never expressed as "The fate of the world... no universe rests on your shoulders, if you fail were all dead" In Halo1 everything was that important and everything you did was spelled out to you as being that important. H3 it was just done because it was there.

I mentioned Cortanas absence earlier, in the books it states that the Chiefs battle reflexes are improved when Cortana is in his suit. We saw no evidence MC being any better or worse with her, but thats me nit-picking

Music and Sound.
Maybe all the above could be put down to poor music Direction by Marty O'Donnell, but I cant believe he would be at fault here, he has been faultless so far. But a lot of the time the music being played (that I remember) was the more upbeat music I associate with MC kicking arse, not the music I associate with MC being one step from death, with a vicious, unforgiving, merciless enemy surrounding him, waiting to desecrate is corpse.
The music and sound effects are imo more important than the dialog as it presents the atmosphere and mood of the characters and the story. This is a story of desperation, of defeat, of pending annihilation and extinction, not just of the human race but of the whole universe, that level of gravitas is not properly put across.
And yes some of the guns sound a bit puny, but I put that down to the fact MC is in a space suit and his footsteps sound loud because he weighs over a tonne.

Multi-player
Ok the things that get my goat about MP.
The network performance. How the hell can this be so god damn bad? Seriously I never hear of other games having such bad latency, is it just my connection or is everyone suffering the same as me? There are some givens with this game, the number of BR shots to a kill, the number of Needles to a kill. I have seen some players take 3 times as many shots as required to kill, and I have taken 1/3 of as many hits(I count the bullets to help me judge my progress) and still died.
It can only be put down to latency. Just last night, I got into a fight with someone, shot enough to kill him, ducked around a corner to prevent his last shot from killing me, and then a second later after I had finished shooting, he was nowhere on screen he dropped down dead and I got the kill. I'm sorry but that happened way too late.
Bungie all but admitted there were significant flaws in the network code when they introduced this retarded "if you melee with in x ms of each other the person with the most health wins" scenario, so despite on my screen I have hit and connected with a melee first, the game is telling me Its showing me one thing but something entirely different is happening. How is that acceptable? Also I have found in more case than not, my enemies seem to have a magic lunge ability during mellee combat that I have not got (I used to be able to do this in H2) When they get within say 6 feet of me they can hit mellee and dash forwards and pound me in the face, I hit Melee and I just stand there waving my gun about like a lemon, I'm lucky if I even hit the guy. In fact this mellee thing is so bad I actually time my mellee attacks based upon where I think I should be able to get a lunge from but because it doesn't work all I am doing is waving my arm about like a simple fool. Even when standing next to an enemy I'm lucky if my mellee makes any form of contact (I have on numerous occasions swung at the back of an enemies head only to be assassinated by him).
Kreeeee and Alrik tell me that they only encounter these issues when playing with me so maybe my ISP has something to answer for.

One odd thing latency related I noticed whilst at the First UE LAN was Kreeeee and I were playing a game of Rocket Races online and whilst being on the same vehicle, we were seeing completely different things on our respective machines, despite sitting right next to each other and being on the same switch in the LAN. I don't even mean we were seeing slight variances. There was in excess of 5 seconds difference in what was happening on screen.

The next thing that bugs me online in halo is that Halo2 online had an abundance of maps which were suited to 4v4 or 8 player free for all games, the maps were well designed and the more time you spent on the maps the more shortcuts and tactics you could develop to give you the edge in a fight. Up until the recent map pack which you have to pay a fair sum for each there has been no real good maps for this scale of game, most have been average at best. TBH I think Lockout (the remake) and Ghost Town are the 2 best small maps available. And Sidewinder (the remake) is the best large battle map on offer, with Standoff (last map pack) being the best mid sized map which can accommodate for Big team battles and 4v4 battles, and HighGround is good for one flag one bomb attack/defense style games. I don't think I would miss many other levels if they weren't in the game.
I'll catagorise them by my opinion

Great levels - Levels I'd like to play on very regularly
Filler levels - good enough for a turn but don't want to play more than once a night
Forgetable maps-Not even worth playing once a month just would prefer they were taken out of rotation.
Custom game maps - Not worth having for match making but nice for custom games like rocket races

Great Levels
Lockout
Ghost Town
Standoff
Sidewinder
High Ground

Filler Levels
Guardian
The Pit
Valhalla
Narrows
Zanzibar
Snowbound

Forgettable maps
Epitaph
Isolation
Construct
Rats Nest

Custom Game Maps
Sand Trap
Foundry

As you can see of the 5 maps I enjoy 4 I had to pay extra for and 2 of the maps I paid extra for I completely dislike (one of which is only useful for its flexibility in custom games) Of the maps I like most 2 of them are remakes.


So why do I less than three this game? I mean I have just written more about what I dislike in this game than I did for my dissertation. So what is there left?

Well despite the bashing I gave the story over all it is a good story that has also been expanded in cannon into books and a graphic novel (and there was once a talk of a film) I actually prefer the stories told by the books than that of the games (but I doubt they would in turn make good games in themselves)

campaign - Well it wasn't bad by all means. Certainly if you play it in hard or above (which is what it was designed for easy/medium are "for noobs" quote bungie)
The 4 player addition was a needed inclusion, had they not had it I'd probably have gone nuclear with rage. (and it very nearly didn't get included)

Multi-Player is where its at, and I know a lot of these features are available on the PC if you have powerful enough PC or download and use the right software. But generally out of the box (with the exception of the map packs) All of these feature are in place in MP for the user to use, and they are simple enough that with a little practice any idiot can use them

Forge - This is the ability to tailor any map to your suiting whilst the landscape must remain the same, all weapons and additional objects can be repositioned/deleted or added. There are people with skill and vision that have taken what Bungie provided and produced seemingly whole new maps, completely unrecognizable from the original. I think this is a remarkable feature and if I had much more time on my hands (and Kreeeee wasn't such a royal pain in the arse) I'd probably make much better use of this feature.

Game Saves and video replay - I know kill cam is in place in COD4 (but we have game cam) and I do to an extent wish that we had this kill cam feature in Halo3 because it would probably appease my death a little more and make me a better player (also Alrik would probably not scream as high pitched so often and accept his 4 deaths a game much better) But we do have a recording feature that records the entirety of a game and allows us to play it back whilst causally moving around the map. In essence we can see whats happening at any point in the game from any position and angle we choose. This is great for showing our friends funny moments, great kills, amazing teamwork (usually demonstrated by the other team) or even machinima. You can also send these clips to your friends.

Those are 2 additions that whilst on their own do not make this game they do add a very nice cherry on top.


Now down to the multi-player gameplay itself
Weapon balance, whilst there is not much new in weapon types and some times it feels like your weapon has the stopping power of a spud gun. When handled correctly the weapons in this game are remarkable balanced. Some obviously are lame ducks, but even they have their uses in certain scenarios. Once you understand the mechanics of the shield and the mechanics of the health system and the mechanics of each weapon you can identify what works best for you and how to implement that in your game, you will also find scope to do this in all the Great and filler maps (and in some of the poor maps)
When bungie do a Great map they really do make Maps that (for the halo game style) that are second to none, and allow for you to play your style of game regardless of what that style is and the size of the map. I like the fact that the game requires a degree of team work but solo skill is equally important as is the need to take the initiative, I like the fact that you can play the same map all day and require a different set of tactics each time you play the map (however most the time you gravitate around certain tactics) I like the fact that despite being severely behind there is always the opportunity to make a comeback (your skill and teamwork are the only limiting factors).
In some team based FPS game (and solo FPS games) there is certain hot spots / choke points that once dominated are incredibly difficult to siege and once taken the team that has that spot the onus is on that team to throw away the game rather that the other team to take the lead.

I generally dislike FPS games where "First Shot wins" fights occur. GRAW and COD are 2 examples of games I feel this is the case.

Generally I prefer the Halo and GOW style shooter, where movement, timing, tactics and skill are required (I'm not saying other games don't require these things, I just think they all come behind camping with the right weapon).

Actually I'm struggling to convey what I like about halo3, its very easy to find faults with this game as I have demonstrated and have many others in this thread. But I think its a case of the sum of all the parts as a whole make this a very very good FPS game to stay focused on for long periods. I think if you are the sort of gamer who only retains attention on a game for short periods of time then move on to something else then this game is probably not for you. Because a majority of the people playing it have effectively been playing Halo for about 8 years now they know the weapons they know the vehicles they know a lot of the tricks of the trade. Halo is a mixed pace game and comes across quite basic, where it like an onion, has many layers and it is the uncovering of those layers which takes time and practice. But once understood and appreciated what those layers are and how they impact the game you start to look the the entire game in an entirely new light.




* A bit is a bit of an understatement tbh.
**Halo fans will be aware that other Spartans still exist but at the time of H1 the Chief was not aware of this
Click to expand...

Longest 'Halo sux' post ever

On a serious note, I pretty much agree with everything there.
 
Kreeeee said:
Yes, otherwise I wouldn't have stated so.

Krono, the pit is blatantly a great level with a lot of depth to it.
Click to expand...

I think it is a good level, probably better than the levels I have put it with, but IMO its just not as good as the levels I have categorized as great (i'd actually say the same about guardian tbh) but my justificaiton on those levels is I could not spend all night playing those maps. Where has Sidewinder (avalanche to you) I could easily spend a night playing nothing else

KNiVES said:
Longest 'Halo sux' post ever

On a serious note, I pretty much agree with everything there.
Click to expand...


So you like the game then ?
 
Last edited:
RTCW - Enemy Territory, completely borked the original RTCW Quake III engine/physics/gameplay, the game felt so distant to the original, plus is took a lot of the hardcore players away from Wolf at it's peak.


......also waiting for a proper sequal :(


also.........Duke Nukem Forever! This game needs to be something very very special, it will need to revolunize FPS'ers if it ever gets released.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom