SilentChris writes "As of 3 PM EST, major websites were finally 'permitted' to release their reviews of Halo 2. The verdict: near perfect scores. Check out reviews by Gamespot, IGN, and GameSpy. Bungie has done it again!"
Emphasis on AGAIN
by
fsterman
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· Score: 5, Interesting
What most people don't understand is that Bungie has always been one of the most innovative game houses. Halo and Halo 2 have received quite a lot of attention since MS was able to do some real push with the game. But all of Bungies games are just as impressive, and more so when you realize what a variety of new thinking they put out.
Marathon, an FPS, to Myth, a team player RTS, to Oni a FPS/martial arts game, to Halo, possible the most creative FPS to date. If they had gotten with a big development team earlier I would love to see the games they would have produced!
So hats off to Bungie, I want to see the next non FPS!
-- Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Re:Emphasis on AGAIN
by
curtlewis
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I think you've been jaded with time.
Halo 1 Creativity:
weapons - manly rockets, not those pussy quake type ones
alien weapons that can't be reloaded, and overheat
vehicles - first game I know of that you could DRIVE vehicles in an FPS game.
enemies - while only a few types existed, the AI was very good, unlike the 'huge hit games' like CoD.
Bungie didn't do the PC port, although they supervised it. And shame on them for shipping it with utter garbage for net code. Can you say milking the customer base?
outdoor sequences - first FPS with halfway decent outdoor levels and graphics in those levels. Sure, the graphics look dated now, but they were pretty hot back then.
Indoor sequences - walls tend to be flat, that's what walls are. The dark, moody ship levels were interesting early on, but the rubber stamp action of a rushed ship job became rather boring. Given enough time, I think they would have done it well.
Bungie invented dual wielding and weapons with more than one firing mode back in the mid 90s with Marathon. They also veered from the overly fast, unrealistic movement of the DooMs and Quakes and went for a slower, more realistic run speed. This forces you to think more and makes it a bit less of a twitch game. You can still twitch to take out a target that suddenly appeared, but escaping from danger isn't so easy.
No, I'm not a Bungie fan boi. But they have been historically innovative in game design, often a step ahead of the competition. But they fail to listen to fans just as much as the next game company and they ship a game too soon just like every other game company. People still buy the stuff anyways to feed their crack habit, so why put some quality into it? It's a disgusting trend in the industry, but there's no avoiding it now unless we stop thanking them for slop with the all mighty dollar.
What really gets me is how the Gamespot review spends over half the review glossing over the flaws and then they still give it a near-perfect score.
I admit I actually liked the original Halo-- it had a different feel and the enemies had some character to them, but the review I just read makes Halo 2 sound like they didn't even bother to work on the biggest issues of the original at all and in fact came out a lot worse in a few areas while only improving mildly here or there.
I guess the reviewers really ARE taking payoffs these days...
Slashdot Mirror
What most people don't understand is that Bungie has always been one of the most innovative game houses. Halo and Halo 2 have received quite a lot of attention since MS was able to do some real push with the game. But all of Bungies games are just as impressive, and more so when you realize what a variety of new thinking they put out.
Marathon, an FPS, to Myth, a team player RTS, to Oni a FPS/martial arts game, to Halo, possible the most creative FPS to date. If they had gotten with a big development team earlier I would love to see the games they would have produced!
So hats off to Bungie, I want to see the next non FPS!
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
What really gets me is how the Gamespot review spends over half the review glossing over the flaws and then they still give it a near-perfect score.
I admit I actually liked the original Halo-- it had a different feel and the enemies had some character to them, but the review I just read makes Halo 2 sound like they didn't even bother to work on the biggest issues of the original at all and in fact came out a lot worse in a few areas while only improving mildly here or there.
I guess the reviewers really ARE taking payoffs these days...