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Halo 3 - The Final Word
In anticipation of Halo 3's release later this month, EGM and the folks at 1up have been creating a veritable altar to the Halo deities over at the website. This edifice has tons of information on the two previous Halo games, commentary from numerous Halo-literate folks on the subject, as well as weightier articles like a preview of the co-op mode (four players, mind), a primer on the story if you've missed something, and a breakdown of the good and bad in Halo 3 . Yes, there are even some things they don't like about the game. From the co-op breakdown: "The Achievements offered tantalizing hints of the game's structure, features and techniques, a welcome morsel of information for the faithful to contemplate and speculate about. The co-op news was greeted with even more warmth, because it put to rest ill-founded rumors that Bungie was planning to deliver a half-completed game. On the contrary; up to four players will be able to take control of the Master Chief, the Arbiter and two Elite warriors, N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham. (Don't bother trying to pronounce their names; just appreciate the promise of joining up with three friends to conquer the game.) And somewhere in the middle, these two topics are connected by something even more intriguing. Halo's co-op game and its Gamerscore-grinding intersect at a point enigmatically referred to in the game's Achievements as the 'Meta-game.'"
I still love bees.
meh.
Militant Agnostic: "I don't know, and damn it, neither do you!"
Halo 3 was supposed to be Microsoft's ultimate weapon. It was supposed to launch on the same day as the PS3 and PS3 owners were just going to flock to the 360 because of how amazing the game was.
LOL
Looking at what Halo 3 has in reality turned out to be one can only be left with the question: What the hell has Bungie been doing for the past three years?
After three years of 'work' Bungie has shipped a game that:
1) Looks almost identical to Halo 2, just with the resolution bumped up and some higher rez textures. It's the same old last gen style engine. Three years of work and people getting confused in comparison shots between Halo 2 and Halo 3 is shockingly bad for what is supposed to be the killer first party tour de force for Microsoft.
2) Has the same networking setup as last gen. The rumored dedicated servers turned out to be a pipe dream. Instead Halo 3 has the same old last gen 16 player cap per game and lag prone P2P networking for games. With all of Microsoft's money you would think they could have hired someone to actually updated the networking code to next gen levels.
Outside of a variety of gameplay tweaks and additions Halo 3 might have been a decent 360 launch title where people would have been happy with such a weak effort and been happy just to play a new Halo in 720p.
What will the final verdict on Halo 3 be?
The same almost entirely US Xbox fans who bought the first two Halos will buy Halo 3.
The rest of the gaming world will go right on not caring about the game.
Microsoft will put out lots of press releases claiming all sorts of "Fastest..." "Biggest..." and the 360 will continue to sell at roughly the same pace as the first Xbox(24 million after four years for the Xbox, 10 million at just under two years for the 360 worldwide).
Instead of diversifying their line up and beefing up their first party development Microsoft has become fixated on Halo with the belief that if they just spend enough money hyping the games that the gaming world will finally come around and care about the franchise.
Those who would break this oath are heretics! Worthy of neither pity nor mercy!
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Online Co-Op For Halo 3 Launch Confirmed
Halo 3 Preorders Top 1 Million, Marketing Begins
Halo 3 Almost Done
Halo 3 Has Gone Gold
A Look At Halo 3's $10 Million Ad Campaign
Halo 3 - The Final Word
This whole thing is turning into the bastard child of Vista and the iPhone. And this list doesn't even include the articles (about the 360 and ilovebees) that were about Halo but didn't have Halo 3 in the topic. Despite this we still have two news posts about Halo 3 *marketing*, two about it going gold and one correcting an incorrect earlier /. article (I think that was a first).
Did /. ever push any other game like this?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
...out from the woodwork comes the trolls who have clearly seen and played (extensively, might I add!) the version of Halo 3 that went gold!
Enlighten us, messiahs, with your ever-precious judgements!
Clearly, you know more than the staff of EGM who has actually played the game. Gah.
Seriously though, a couple things:
1)Article about Halo 3 isn't newsworthy, but that seems to be the trend here anyway.
2)Halo 1/2 may not have been God incarnated into video games, but they were still worth my 50 bucks. I don't think we need the over-the-top bashing of anything even remotely Microsoft related here...
3)I'm going to get rated troll for not calling Halo 3 a complete pile of poop.
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
I hate to be a hater, but Halo is the single most over-hyped game in history. It is a par shooter at best and the fact that it gets as much attention as it does is disgusting. It is not a revolution in FPS games. It is not a revolution in anything. It is just a decent shooter... that's it. Why can't anyone see that?
Future indie game developer of America (and possibly Canada)
One thing I disliked about Halo 2 was the reduced field of view, I'm still not used to it from Halo 1. The weapons set in Halo 2 stinks compared with Halo 1.
I have yet to play Halo 3. Is the FOV in Halo 3 the same as Halo 2?
Yeah, but I play Halo with my friends. They're more important to me than a mouse. I can either buy 4 gaming rigs, 4 copies of Windows, 4 copies of Unreal Tournament, and 4 monitors, OR... 1 console, 3 extra controllers, 1 game, and one big-ass TV. Guess which leaves me with enough money to cover the devastation my friends wreak upon my beer stash?
Needlers rule, as aforementioned.
Just commenting in support of a needlebro.
Does that make it worth all the hype? Well, probably not. But I've never really run into another shooter that plays quite like it (aside from Marathon, naturally...) Being an old-school Bungie fan myself (creator of the Eternal mod for Marathon, current admin of one of the two still-active Marathon forums, and former head honcho of the Myth section of Bungie.org), I was initially uber-hyped about Halo. Finally, Bungie was coming out with Marathon's spiritual successor (if not outright sequel), and they were gonna make the big time with a major hit game, simultaneously released on both Mac and Windows like the Myth games had been... ooh boy that was gonna be great!
Then the MS buyout happened. Halo became an Xbox title; the PC version took second fiddle, the Mac version more like seventh fiddle. I've never been much of a console gamer, and NEVER been a fan of Microsoft. So I pretty much gave up on Bungie. But, a friend of mine bought me an Xbox and Halo for my birthday, so I gave it a shot, had a good bit of fun. It's a nice game, feels a lot like a modern, polished version of Marathon, which is exactly what I had always wanted (though getting used to the console controls was a bit of a trick at first). Like you say, Marathon and Halo play VERY differently than other FPSs, and I've never much been into other FPSs for that reason. In Bungie games you move slower and, to me it seems, much more realistically. It's a much more relaxing, flowing feel to the combat, less hyperactive twitch reflex. (Obi-wan's "a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age" feels somehow appropriate here). It also has coop, which has always been my favorite gametype; combines the social interaction and teamwork of a multiplayer game with the progressive, task-oriented nature of single player games, with a bit of the ol' Legolas & Gimli kill-count competition going on. So to me, Halo was the best FPS yet, and I actually went out and bought Halo 2 with my own money (the game I've bought for the Xbox that was given to me) and enjoyed it even more, especially coop on Legendary. And now I plan to buy Halo 3, though I'll only be playing it on my friend's 360. Seems a fitting way to end my involvement with Bungie, and I want to see how the series ends.
But, imagine my surprise when I looked about in the general gaming chatter online, especially here on Slashdot, and find out that apparently the only people who like Halo are dumbass pothead jocks and frat boys who masturbate with Microsoft brand hand lotion while shoving giant vibrating Xbox controllers up each others asses. Or at least, that's the impression you'd get listening to all the shit that people talk about it on the Internet. Certainly a surprise to me, the intellectual geek who spent much of high school pouring over mythological and literary references hidden away in Marathon terminals.
No, Halo is not the be-all end-all of all video games. But it's not utter shit either. I particularly hate the criticism that it's "old hat" and offers nothing new in terms of gameplay, especially in comparison to mainsteam PC games, which I spent many years looking down upon for lagging in relation to Marathon. (Wow, that new game has a story? Friendly NPCs? Dual wielded and dual function weapons? Cooperative play? Yawn. Welcome to 1994). When the latest sci-fi movie comes out, do you say "oh bah, I've seen a sci-fi movie before, show me something new"? No? So why can't a new game just be a newer, more polished version of the same sort of game that you liked before, with some new settings to explore, some new characters to meet, and some new situations to be resolved?
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Microsoft could program their web pages right! I was in I Love Bees 2 (called Iris), and I was ripped off! I started in early July, and, happened to be on my computer when Server 4's status chaned to pending. Despite sitting there for over 4 hours waiting, when it eventually opened up and allowed people to claim prizes, I got a key! But, after logging in with my Windows Live ID, it says "Server error in /tr89ex application", and showed the ASP.NET 2.0 Red Screen of Death. I WON, BUT COULDN'T CLAIM MY PRIZE! Stupid Microsoft! I'm still buying an Xbox 360 just for Halo 3 though.
I play it with a dog.
Let's call this a near-dup...
http://games.slashdot.org/games/07/09/12/1912212.shtml
I suppose the editors deserve a pat on the back for not posting EXACTLY the same story on the same day, but I think the SlashDot faithful got the message: Halo 3 is coming out soon, if anyone still cares. Any TECH news go down today or is it just games?
I will be bashed and modded down, but that's OK. I like the Halo series. It is a perfectly tuned console FPS. The story is great and it has great replay value online. I am still playing Halo 2 on "Live". I have a Wii, PS3, PSP, DS, PS2, XBox, and XBox 360. I definitely like my 360 games the best for whatever reason. I mostly play PSP (hacked of course) and XBox 360.
I don't think that Halo 3 is any more over hyped than any other big budget game out recently. Final Fantasy games are rammed down our throats and I don't think they are all that great. I've heard enough about WoW to make me want to puke every time I hear it and I have never played it. The same can be said for MGS 4, and I can't stand that damned pimp daddy GTA garbage. Talk about over hyped big budget filth! Halo 3 isn't exactly breaking new marketing ground here.
I love the Unreal series, but I will still take a Halo on my 62" DLP over a PC FPS any day. Since I am rambling, the PS3 games that come out this season had better rock because I am feeling screwed out of nearly a thousand dollars for a console, controllers, and two "decent" games right now. Thanks a lot $ony.
A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding...
And while we're at it, /. should stop pushing Eve Online since we know all about its scandals, anything from either id Software which has been around for over a decade and Valve since we're still playing Counter-Strike, and /. should go back to mindlessly bashing anything from M$ since /. is the stronghold of anti-M$ sentiment on the internet.
Well I guess this time they can reduce the FOV to 60! down from 75, those wacky guys!
Do your friends not have computers?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I've heard enough about WoW to make me want to puke every time I hear it and I have never played it.
That's funny. I feel the same way about Halo 3.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Do your friends not have computers?
This comment is a nice demonstration of how insular some communities can get (in this case, I'm talking about Slashdot).
Most people don't have computers that can play recent games, if they even have a computer at all. And of those that do, a significant portion don't have broadband. And yet, those people may still be friends.
The historical points that Pfhorrest, BlakeyRat, and jhmaughan make about the original development of Halo 1, Starsiege Tribes, and Tribes2 are all excellent. I can't comment on Tribes 1, because I never played it. I will comment on the evolutionary steps that Halo and Tribes2 were intended to bring to the PC world and how that all played itself out.
The original Halo was one of those games that reached a critical mass in hype and consumer mindshare (before Microsoft bought out Bungie) with good reason. Before Halo (and Tribes2) all first-person shooters involved running on foot, dodging, and shooting your target, going back to the days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom1/2. At that time, the Quake and Unreal series simply polished the graphics and added true 3D aiming, but the gameplay remained largely the same. The promise of Halo 1 was to add vehicles to the genre and every single PC and Mac gamer who played first-person shooters wanted to buy a copy on launch day...THIS WAS A VERY BIG DEAL...and then Microsoft bought out Bungie and broke the hearts of every single PC and Mac gamer by making it an Xbox 1 exclusive.
At the same time that Halo 1 was being developed, there was another upcoming first-person shooter that had not received as much attention as Halo 1, called Tribes2. Tribes2 also added vehicles to the FPS genre, but THIS TITLE would be released on the PC. I still remember the outcry and backlash from the PC gaming world about how Microsoft was taking Halo away from us and I learned about Tribes2 from that community of gamers. Disheartened Halo fans (like me) swore to buy Tribes2 as a substitute for Halo1 to feed our hunger for vehicles in the FPS genre on the PC.
I did not buy an Xbox, but I did play Halo 1 at a friend's house and I hated aiming in FPSes using the gamepad's joystick (as I suspected, it's a screen-jerky tap-fest and is not nearly as accurate as the mouse). On the other hand, Tribes2 was (and still is) the DEEPEST first-person shooter I have ever played on any platform. Aside from the keyboard character speech bindings (a wonderful feature), your character can run, jump, and has a jetpack strapped to his back that allowed your character to fly for limited periods of time. It has a one-man hoverbike (no guns), one-man speed flyer (with lasers and was later modded to fire rockets as well), one-man rolling repair-and-rearm vehicle with an automatic turret, three-man bomber (pilot, lead gunner/bombadier, and tailgunner), two-man tank (driver and gunner), and a 6-man heavy transport flying shuttle (one pilot, four side-gunners, and one tail-gunner). My favorite vehicle was the tank -- I loved to drive it and trample enemies all over the place while my gunner rained machine-gun fire and HUGE EXPLODING MORTARS on the enemy base -- especially near their base's vehicle station and flag stand. I would even capture the enamy flag and take it back to my base in my tank.
Tribes 2 also had a class-based system where you could choose to be a fast and light, medium and well-rounded, or heavy and rain exploding mortars of destruction on the enemy. The weapons you could use and items you could deploy were based on the size of your character class and you could choose change classes mid-game. Tribes2 also had turrets that you could control, allowed you to deploy additional turrets, and also allowed you to extend your default sensor grid using radar (detected most friends and foes and showed them on the tactical map, but could not pick up cloaked enemies) and motion detectors (could detect cloaked enemies, especially those moving in on your flag). It also had a jammer-pack that the flag capper could use to jam the enemy's motion detector, sonar, and turrets for a limited period of time. The first thing I would always do is deploy auxiliary turrets near my team's flag with motion detectors and radar sensors to extend our base's defensive network and reduce the enemy's flag captures.
In Tribes2, medium and heavy armors could also carry and deploy remote equ
I know several people that never did *anything* online until Halo1 came around. Suddenly there was another wave of noobs a la aol that discovered email, chat, websurfing, and 'networking' of all sorts. People that had never heard of 'ethernet' were suddenly asking me questions about hubs, switches, throughput, latency, isdn, dsl....all because they wanted to play H1 online.
;-)
H1 happened to arrive at the right place, at the right time. Subsequently there has been a boom in the use of various communications technologies including cell phones, text messaging, and online game play. Not all caused by H players, but the users are sourced from the same audience.
I admit the first 'video game' I ever played was Pong. Halo's adversarial and cooperative modes are much improved over that early experience.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Very nice comment: (+5), Postscript Flame: (-6), Useless Reply: (Priceless)
Ahh, tribes. Now *there* was a multiplayer game.
Isn't it available for free now?
I played so much Tribes 2 in college that the entire genre of multiplayer online FPSs is ruined for me. Everything else seems so shallow by comparison.
It's really not that hard of a formula to recreate. As I see it the core elements were tactical objectives, plenty of features encouraging team work, highly customizable loadouts, vehicles, expansive landscapes with actual distance between the points of interest to necessitate the use of the aforementioned vehicles, and jet packs (or any other sufficiently sophisticated movement system). If another game comes out with those elements, maybe with some stuff like the Natural Selection commander features added for good measure, I probably will play that game 5+ hours a day for the rest of my life.
halo3 beta's graphics sucked. god told me. so theyre not using that rendering engine for the final? why? i mean, cool, nicer graphics, but if you can get away with an "older" graphics engine still pulling off HALO 3 MULTIPLAYER in the way they want, the "new" engine MUST NOT be bringing anything noteworthy/new to the table. sorry. new engines require a lot of tlc. it wouldnt make sense for crytek to release a mp beta of crysis with the farcry engine, so ummmm... anyway, both engines, if they be as so claimed, still look like aids on toast. high res halo2, which was a meh storm. campaign and mp, both. whats so special about halo 3, besides i suppose the number 3 at the end? can anyone answer this? i guess it doesnt matter at 1 million preorders already. halo 3 wishes it was just halo 2 duct taped to chuck norris, but it isnt even that. sigh, i weep for you, credible gaming. with halo and the wii selling so well..... :(