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Halo 2 Goes Gold
schmiddy writes "This just in -- Halo 2 has officially gone gold as of today. Bungie has confirmed the story with an announcement on their front page. Trailers and such available here ."
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I should preface this comment by saying it is very subjective and should be read as such. I'm making huge generalizations about entire platforms and I don't want to turn it into a debate but rather a discussion.
/endrant
From the first day, I've been given a horrible impression by all modern consoles. PS2, GC, and XBox. My issues is with their controller setups. I absolutely despise the concept of dual joystick and I think the XBox controllers are the worst yet. Many people would surely agree with me that they're oversized and poorly laid out. There are of course third party replacements.
This leads me to a conclusion that PC gaming is just "better" from a usability standpoint. In a PC FPS I get freelook with the mouse, and 5 individual buttons to map (at least on my mouse). On the left, I get movement and strafe as well as any other function I want to bind near those keys. The classic "Quake" layout. And I can change this layout at will. It is far more powerful and far more natural.
Beyond that, PC games have readily available multiplayer over the internet; the apex of multiplayer gaming. Console games are only just now getting this, and some of them are even subscription only.
In short, if I were to purchase Halo, I wouldn't touch the console. I'd get it for the PC. It's just a superior gaming experience. I don't see how the negligible (to me) convenience of plugging in a console and playing the game could at all be anywhere near the gaming experience you get on a PC with its infinitely customizable interface.
In short, if Halo 2 is available for PC (and Linux in my case), I would consider it. But as long as any game remains locked into a console with what is IMHO an inferior interface it won't be worth my time and money.
Tell me, anyone, what is the lure of console games? Is it merely the plug it in and go aspect? Why settle for an inferior user interface? Or am I missing something important here regarding the design of modern contollers? I did like the N64 controller as well as controllers like the Gravis Gamepad Pro. But dual-joystick just isn't a substitute for a mouse and keyboard for me.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Um, have you seen an Xbox controller since the controller 'S' was released? Sure the first one was like holding a pumkpin, but the controller S is in no way too big. Secondly people play console games for several reasons. You don't have to upgrade consantly, some people actually like controllers better, you're not sitting in front of a computer, you can sit on the couch, it's more social and mutliplayer friendly, it's cheaper, games take better advantage of the hardware (for the most part), there aren't hardware/software compatibility issues (plug and play, as you mentioned), better quality control....the list goes on.
That being said, nobody in their right mind will argue that a KB/M combo doesn't offer the pontential for superior control and precision, but that doesn't mean everyone actually likes playing that way. I'd much rather sit on the couch with a controller in hand, looking at a 36 inch television, than having to move my arms all over the place in front of a 19 inch monitor in a chair. While my pc is perfectly capable of playing any of the newest games, i simply have no interest in playing that way, at all. A matter of preference, really. Consoles are just simpler way to play games, in general.
Christmas two years ago, I gave his son a copy of Halo 1 (after checking with my friend to see if he was okay with his son playing a FPS). He (his son) was excited as hell.
After New Years, they invited my SO & myself over to their house for dinner. We show up and find my friend and his son in the living room in front of the big screen, engaged in a Halo CTF match.
Imagine, seeing a middle aged guy who had shown absolutely zero interest in gaming before playing with his 12-year-old son. And you really couldn't tell who was more excited. Don't get me wrong.
Before that, he would have just shrugged and muttered something about kids, violence and video games had he been approached by his son about playing a multiplayer game. He really had absolutely no interest in games whatsoever. But for some reason, he found Halo compelling enough to try it out.
Long story short, the guys (me & him & his son) ended up playing Halo that night while the girls (his wife, my girlfriend and my friend's daughter) laughed at us.
I usually don't pay too much attention to "the mainstream". But that's exactly what I like about Halo - diversity. It's just a fun game. It's still, even after all this time, fun to pick up the controllers, kick back and play (and this isn't just about replay value; it's about being able to just sit down and have fun with your friends).
I've spent a long time trying to figure out why I dislike this argument. It never sat well with me. It took me months - but one day I went to a friend's house to play some RPGs and I realized why.
"Give us better weapons!"
"No."
"But the game won't be fun unless you do!"
You know, power isn't everything. Sometimes part of the fun is not being godlike. In PC FPS games, you're pretty much guaranteed to be able to snipe people, instantly, with a machine gun, from two hundred yards away. And you know, I don't care. It's not interesting.
In Halo, it's a lot tougher. "Fire for effect" becomes a reality. Sometimes you're not really trying to hit anything, because you can't, you're too far away - you're just trying to keep their heads down.
To me, a game isn't necessarily fun just because I can kill things more easily. It's fun because of the challenge. It's fun because of the story, or the coolness. I'm told they jacked up the difficulty when they moved Halo to the PC - is it more fun now? I mean, sure, you're more powerful. No argument. So are they. So why is it now "more fun"?
I'd agree that there's a level of frustration when you just can't make the controls do what you want. But I didn't encounter that in Halo. You can snipe easily, if you have a sniper weapon. You can aim if you put a little time and work into it. It's far above the frustration point - so what's the issue?
Compare Starcraft and Total Annihilation. In almost every way, Total Annihilation's interface was far superior. You could select an unlimited number of units. You could queue up any commands, up to and including construction commands (yes, that's right - thirty seconds of clicking and you've got fifteen minutes of construction set up.) Does this mean TA is a better game?
No, of course not.
A game is a good game if people enjoy it. That is necessary and sufficient. Deer Hunter is a good game - for its target audience, it fills the exact need. Halo is a good game.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
and ready to ship?
... they tend to get better with time.
Even if it's 3 year old underspec'ed piece of shit, talented devs now know the platform so well they structure the game engine around it and manage to squeeze every bit of perfomance out of it (without worrying about compatibility).
With PCs you gotta aim at the average PC specs, cause there is no incentive coding features that only a minority are gonna enjoy now (the only benefit you get from wasting $2000 on a top of the line PC is a slightly higher framerate and higher resolution... how exciting). By the time the current top of the line PC hardware becomes the standard, the target will have moved already.
And once the next gen consoles come out, PC will have "fall behind" once again.
But as every true gamer knows, what really matters is how fun the games are.
Definitely agree with the diversity. Halo's semi-comic approach in it's violence doesn't turn off the casual or never before gamer. I find girls are a lot more likely to play this game due to it's infamy and lack of "disgusting guts". A quick learning curve allows them to just jump in and have fun with the guys.