Main Menu

Halo: Reach

Started by radiator, 06 August, 2010, 11:33:41 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

radiator

Have just pre-ordered this, and am crossing my fingers that Bungie don't drop the ball on this one.

As someone who couldn't give a monkeys about multiplayer (except for a little bit of co-op and Horde/Firefight-type modes), I've long been dismayed that Halo 2,3 and ODST have all somehow failed to recapture the magic of what made the original Halo's singleplayer mode such a triumph. It's almost as if, focusing so much on the multiplayer/deathmatch aspect of the game, Bungie have forgotten what made Halo great in the first place.

I want big, expansive outdoor levels. I want to drive over rolling hills in my Warthog. I want non-linear levels, something to rival The Silent Cartographer - still by far the series' greatest moment. I want epic battles to rage around me, truly emergent 3-way skirmishes on vast battlefields. I want to choose whether to get in a Banshee or to go on foot and I want the vehicle sections to seem organic, not enforced. I want that sense of scale that has been missing in all of the follow ups.

Don't let me down, Bungie - give the singleplayer fans the game they deserve!

On the plus side, at least Firefight now has matchmaking (the lack of which entirely ruined a great feature in ODST)!

Keef Monkey

I've never been big on Halo, I always enjoy them enough when a mate has loaned me a copy but I've never been interested enough to buy any of them. Could never really see what the fuss was about but I guess you've just nailed it with the open emergent style which they've moved away from since. From what I hear the main goal with Reach is to get back to big battlefields so I'm sure it'll be an improvement.

Main thing I've never liked is the combat all feels really floaty light, when I'm holding a shotgun I like to feel like I'm wielding a bone shattering cock of death.

radiator

#2
The genius of Halo is the combat. If you were to plough through the games on 'easy' or 'normal' difficulty, I could understand how you would come away with the impression that it's a bog standard FPS series.

It only really comes alive on the harder difficulty settings, where the AI, the interplay between the enemy units and the tactics needed to bring them down become the focus. It forces you to think tactically - the enemies genuinely work as a team against you, and each enemy type is unique so different configurations of them create different challenges which force you think carefully about how you approach a situation. An example of this is the colour-coded ranks of the enemies, which give you the opportunity of tackling the leaders first, making their underlings panic and flee.

Halo
may seem slow by today's standards, but this is very deliberate and serves to give the game it's masterful pacing - there are long stretches of calm, occasionally broken up by small pockets of intense action. You always feel in control of a situation and though the game is tough, you rarely feel confused, overwhelmed or die unfairly. Apparently Reach introduces a 'sprint' button  ::).

Coupled with the expansive, open levels and huge battles (in which you can choose whether to get involved or not), the original Halo still stands up incredibly well to this day (a few frame-rate and asset recycling issues aside).

Compare and contrast with a game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, where the singleplayer mode is pretty much a characterless target range where memorising the location of enemies is the only successful strategy. The enemies seem to have no intelligence at all, and the player is constantly getting shot at from all angles, by unseen aggressors, death is unforeseeable and sudden, everything moves at a ludicrously (laughably) fast pace and there is constant deafening noise.

The only thing that comes close in terms of it's combat mechanic is Gears of War 2, which includes some really great, edge of the seat battles and has the same fairness and solid pacing of Halo.

Keef Monkey

Yeah, Gears 2 is a bit of a masterpiece in that respect, love it! Hoping there's a bit of a graphical leap with Reach, Halo 2 looked great at the time but when I played Halo 3 I felt like the 360 could do better visually. From the looks of the Reach shots they're putting a bit more welly behind it though.

radiator

I'm not that fussed about graphics. One of the reasons Halo 2's singleplayer was such a let down is because they sacrificed the scale, the scope and the stunning locations of the original for shinier graphics.

In my mind, one of the most backwards things about the game industry is the emphasis of graphics above all else - there are so many games that look impressive in stills (presumably so they look great on the back of the box) but look absolutely horrible in motion. I'd much rather they harnessed the processing power for things like animation, physics and for increasing the scale of the action.

Imagine a game like Halo where you could have hundreds of characters on screen at once, all fighting in a giant battle with you at the centre - armies of characters stretching off as far as the eye could see - real time battles unfolding on distant hillsides.... Sadly, we seem to be stuck with the same old numbers, but they just look a bit prettier with each generation.

Professor Bear

Agree with you about ODST and Halo 2, but I thought Halo 3 was great.

I'd also argue that Halo's greatest asset was that it was essentially moron-proof - not only could you run through the entire game just shooting all the while and still win, Halo was so easy that you could forget that you were actually - at the time - making the transition from digital controllers to analogue.
Halo made the whole FPS experience seem like it didn't have to be a chore to progress, whereas other defining entries in the genre like Black, Killzone, or Timesplitters 3 muddied the waters with extraneous details like button-pushing, backtracking, stealth, taking cover - Halo was all about you finding someone to fuck up on your linear path to victory, but because of the huge playing areas, different tactics you could employ in shooting aliens (though you didn't actually have to bother for the most part) and optional vehicle usage, it seemed like you weren't on rails.
I agree with you about playing on harder difficulties, though.  It's a meatier experience.

radiator

Yeah thats a good point. I downloaded Perfect Dark HD recently, and while it is still a fun game, it feels extremely dated, despite only coming out a year or two before Halo. The mission objectives are so finnicky and it's so easy to fail a mission through no fault of your own... then have to start right back at the beginning of the level.

Halo streamlined the whole FPS experience with some extremely well thought out design choices. It's innovations were as much about what it stripped away as what it brought to the mix, something that a lot of people don't acknowledge.

Devons Daddy

want to pre order, so know, i need to do so,
BUT  ODST, was well, not a bad game, in anyway, but it was no where near the heights of Halo I II or III of which each was a truely outstanding single player experience.
not had time to take part in the Beta launch, job taking to much of my time recently.

No huge, bloody excellent launch campaign for this one? Halo 3 was one of the best i ever took part in.

I AM VERY BUSY!
PJ Maybe and I use the same dictionary, live with it.

NO 2000ad no life!

Tweak72

I gots Halo (PC) and I do like it might load it up this evening. I run XP so I have not been able to run Halo 2 (a fcuking piece of shit marketing ploy on Microsofts part. I will NOT get Vista). I did think that Halo is a slower paced game on the PC (FPS are generally quicker on PC) and wish that they thought to speed up the Master Chiefs movement as it is an arse on hardest.
+++THRILL POWER, OVERWHELMING++++++THRILL POWER, OVERWHELMING+++

nev

I'm looking forward to the online in this, looks pretty damn good.

radiator

#10
I've never cared about online. Deathmatch type games bore me to tears... kill, die, die, kill, die, kill....Zzzzzzz.

There's no exploration, no sense of place. You can't enjoy the game at your own pace and the atmosphere is always super-competitive and hostile. That's not what I want from videogames. It frustrates me that online multiplayer is becoming more and more the focus at the expense of the singleplayer experience. I think the big developers often fail to realise that there's a lot of people like me who simply aren't interested in multiplayer.

nev

I enjoy the singleplayer, but the multiplayer is what keeps me playing the game for longer, and I just really enjoy having a laugh with friends online.
So in that sense I guess we're after different things from the game.

Tiplodocus

QuoteThere's no exploration, no sense of place. You can't enjoy the game at your own pace and the atmosphere is always super-competitive and hostile. That's not what I want from videogames. It frustrates me that online multiplayer is becoming more and more the focus at the expense of the singleplayer experience. I think the big developers often fail to realise that there's a lot of people like me who simply aren't interested in multiplayer.

Amen to that. The only multiplayer I actually enjoy is when four of you are sat on the sofa next to each other. It can be competitive but never gets aggressive.  All hail Mario Kart and Goldeneye and many a fine evening.

Another people may think HALO is bog standard is if they come to it late. Goodness knows how many ideas have been nicked by lesser games.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Professor Bear

Online is fun for five minutes, but after that you aren't there for the game, you're there because you're invested in a conversation about the large success rate of people of Hebrew or African descent finding employment - and in fields that I assume must be quite competitive given how passionate the debate becomes! 

My headset was poached by my MW2-addicted nephew, mind, so I don't see the point of just wandering about with no clear goals getting into fights with strangers while barely managing to stay on good terms with your supposed 'friends' - and online gaming isn't much fun either, b'dum tish, etcetera...

Roger Godpleton

I've honestly never had bad experiences with American teenagers on Xbox Live, the worst I've ever got was Mancunians droning on about their broadband deal. There *is* such a thing as a mute option...
He's only trying to be what following how his dreams make you wanna be, man!