• 31Jul 07

  Bashing Halo 3

  Overhyped? Maybe. Over-rated? Too early to say. This is what can be said: people who say that Halo brought nothing new to FPS are obviously either not paying attention or intentionally distorting facts. Halo was unique. It had a recharging health system, the two weapon system, simultaneous weapon and grenade use (no switching to grenades), a melee button that could be used in any combat without switching weapons, a control scheme that worked, a fantastic and compelling storyline, amazing graphics (at the time), a unique set of enemies that interacted in interesting ways, and many other things. Even if Halo wasn't the first game to do these things (in most cases: it was), it still was the first to do them all together and do them well. Halo 2 was a continuation of the already established Halo franchise, and as such didn't bring as many new things to the table. We saw a revamp of the health system, the power sword, a slew of new weapons, and dual wielding.

  Judging by what I have seen and what I have played (the halo 3 beta), Halo 3 is similar to Halo and Halo 2. Graphically it is far superior to the first two, but it has similar gameplay. And why not? Should they change the gameplay completely for every new iteration of a series? Judging by the attitudes towards Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 here on gamespot: yes. That is completely unreasonable. It's a shooter. You are going to run around and shoot things. There aren't a whole lot of ways to mix that formula up. Stop bashing Halo. It doesn't make you cool. It doesn't make you look sophisticated or smarter than a Halo-loving gamer. It just makes you look like a prick.

  • Posted Jul 31, 2007 9:50 am PT
  • Category: Rant
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• 8Aug 06

  The Halo Story

  The forums here on gamespot are overrun with mindless fanboys. There are Xbox fanboys, Nintendo fanboys, Playstation fanboys, and my personal favorite: elitist PC fanboys. I think I can safely say that I belong to none of these groups, although I do have a healthy amount of disdain for the PS3 ($600?). Most of these groups (except xbox boys) seem to hate Halo. I have heard quite a few reasons for this, and one of them in particular is thoroughly untrue. Therefore I will hereafter endeavor to provide my reasoning as to why the Halo story does not suck, and then commiserate with you all about the "casual gamers" that Halo has brought in.
  
  I have heard that the storyline in Halo is very poorly written. This is so unbelievably false I hardly know what to say. The thing about the Halo storyline is that it is told in such a way that anyone can get the gist of it (like casual gamers...), but the real story is something you have to really pay attention to understand. A good example of this comes in 343 Guilty Spark and all the things that he says. He refers to the chief as reclaimer, and speaks as if they'd met before ("Last time you asked me, if it was my choice would I do it..."). There's a site that's entirely dedicated to the Halo story:
  
  http://halosm.bungie.org/story/
  
  This site delves into the deeper aspects of the story for more... mature... halo players. The Halo story is more than equal to any other game on the market.
  
  Another problem that people have with Halo, and one I thoroughly agree with (although it isn't really Halo's fault that it's a fun game), is that it's brought many "casual gamers" onto the scene. Gamers who've never really played any games except Halo or sports titles and who want a game to be short and cut down to the dumbest level it possibly could be. The thing about people having this particular problem with Halo is that not everyone who plays Halo is retarded. Halo is just a great game, and anyone can enjoy it.
  
  • Posted Aug 8, 2006 1:29 pm PT
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