Edge awards Halo 3 for "Interactive Innovation"

[Eejit]

So being like Gmod but more user-friendly is considered innovative these days?

 

[Mellish]

I've played the Halo Multiplayer and enjoyed it very much. Not enough to get a xbox though

 

[Asknoone]

If Valve had come up with the Forge and Theatre modes the vast majority of naysayers here would be involved in an innovation circle jerk from the rooftops they had to climb inorder to sing praise to these features.

Being able to quickly and easily mix and match gametypes in MP has long been an advantage of console fps - from Golden Eye to Time Splitters and Halo. ctf, assault, dm/tdm, king of the hill and on and on and on. Games like UT tried similar things, but never came close to the levels of customisation and usability. The Forge took all this and made deciding on what gametype you want to play a game in itself. Whether you're tweaking exisiting modes or creating brand new ones, you'll likely have as much fun in the design and testing - playing rocket baseball and trying to drop vehicles on each other - as you'll get from the finished product. I wish there was something similar in pc fps. I wish there had been something similar for the last 10 years.

As for the Theatre mode, it simply takes the pc demos we've been recording and watching over the years and made them accessible. Recording demos in TF2/CSS/ET now seems archaic, and not being able to rewatch anything i've done in any fps - pause, rotate, zoom in and out, take a picture and send it to a friend - be it co-op, mp, or single player, seems like a rather obvious ommision by the developer. Think of the jump from tape to cd, or vhs to dvd.

Take the blinkers off you fuktards

But yeh, gaylo lol! gg

Wondered when they would let you out the box.

 

[Warbie]

I think I did pretty well to hold out for 5 pages

 

[Kadayi]

Nice Post Warbie, you pretty much sum it up. Indeed I think a lot of people are knee jerk reacting here, because it's Halo 3 rather than thinking it through. Yes the portal gun was innovative, but in the broader long term view of game development what will it's legacy be? Certainly Valve are going to exploit the potential of it in the upcoming sequel & probably in HL EP3 in some form, but it's not going to revolutionize other games that much. I can see that with the Forge stuff, etc with Halo 3, Bungie have introduced elements of adaption and creativity that hither to haven't existed in the console sphere, and albeit such tools might seem provincial compared to what can be achieved on the PC, it's setting a new standard for other console developers to aspire to, which isn't necessarily a bad thing given so many developers are creating for the market. I expect LBP to win the award next year as again it's pushing console creativity.

 

[Wanted Bob]

Yeah, if you separate Halo's online technical achievements from personal opinions on the quality of the gameplay, it's got some very impressive stuff. It's 4-player online co-op is the thing to beat in the FPS market right now, and the ability to form a party, play some co-op, jump into multiplayer, then review the best moments of the round in theater, then all jump into forge and tweak the map together is amazing. I'm not a fan of the actual multiplayer, but I've got to give it credit for doing some amazing stuff.

That just about sums up how I feel. Technically it is very impressive, though what most of you refer to is gameplay innovation (of which of course, Halo 3 has very little )

Also:

Sounds more and more like Garry's Mod.

The thing is that wasnt originally part of Half Life 2, it was a mod made later on. I'm assuming they were looking at the acheivements of the actual developer.

 

[Warbie]

Bungie have introduced elements of adaption and creativity that hither to haven't existed in the console sphere, and albeit such tools might seem provincial compared to what can be achieved on the PC, it's setting a new standard for other console developers to aspire to

To be fair, it's setting standards for any developer. Every fps should have a Theatre mode, and every MP fps would be a whole lot more fun with an equivalent of Forge.

Most, if not all, of the elements that make these two features great have been present on the pc for years, but they've been clumsy, clunky, inaccessible, and never combined in one package. Now we can do all these things cooperatively with a bunch of friends in just 30 minutes, and then watch a vid of it straight after.

 

[Kadayi]

To be fair, it's setting standards for any developer. Every fps should have a Theatre mode, and every MP fps would be a whole lot more fun with an equivalent of Forge.

Most, if not all, of the elements that make these two features great have been present on the pc for years, but they've been clumsy, clunky, inaccessible, and never combined in one package. Now we can do all these things cooperatively with a bunch of friends in just 30 minutes, and then watch a vid of it straight after.

agreed. To my mind one of the big draw backs with PC toolsets is that the developers don't make a particularly good effort at making thing easy or accessible (Looks hard at Valve). To achieve results you practically have to learn to code and waste weeks learning the ropes. With a console environment as a developer your forced to make your tool sets accessible & legible, and that in itself is no bad thing.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I don't know the technicals of it, but doesn't it take a lot of resources to do something like theatre that a dedicated console is quite poised to do?

 

[Gray Fox]

To be fair, it's setting standards for any developer. Every fps should have a Theatre mode, and every MP fps would be a whole lot more fun with an equivalent of Forge.

Most, if not all, of the elements that make these two features great have been present on the pc for years, but they've been clumsy, clunky, inaccessible, and never combined in one package. Now we can do all these things cooperatively with a bunch of friends in just 30 minutes, and then watch a vid of it straight after.

This cannot be stressed enough, very good posts in this thread Warbster.

 

[Eejit]

I guess some of us just have very different standards as to what constitutes "Innovation"...

 

[Jintor]

I don't bregrudge Halo 3 its recognition.

 

[Shodan]

I completed the first Halo, I found that quite boring, but I don't understand why Halo 3 needs an army of weiners to defend it, if it was any good it'd speak for it self.

When anybody mentions that game there's a furious flurry of key smashing and insult throwing, because acording to xXDaNubOwner2345Xx it is the best game ever. That is what puts me off it.

 

[knut]

Speak for itself? Though I don't agree with ''good review = good game'', Halo 3 has gotten good reviews and praise from across the board. Don't get me wrong, that's nothing to like the game or dislike the game upon, but I'd say that was the game speaking for itself with just how acclaimed it is.

Nice Post Warbie, you pretty much sum it up. Indeed I think a lot of people are knee jerk reacting here, because it's Halo 3 rather than thinking it through. Yes the portal gun was innovative, but in the broader long term view of game development what will it's legacy be? Certainly Valve are going to exploit the potential of it in the upcoming sequel & probably in HL EP3 in some form, but it's not going to revolutionize other games that much. I can see that with the Forge stuff, etc with Halo 3, Bungie have introduced elements of adaption and creativity that hither to haven't existed in the console sphere, and albeit such tools might seem provincial compared to what can be achieved on the PC, it's setting a new standard for other console developers to aspire to, which isn't necessarily a bad thing given so many developers are creating for the market. I expect LBP to win the award next year as again it's pushing console creativity.

Thank you. Good to see someone else is thinking on the same wave length. :cheers:

also, deathmaster: Luke Timmins, one of the engineering leads, said it took them years to implement the Theater into the final game, and it shows. But I don't know the technicals of it, but it hasn't even been done in a PC game if I recall. There is no mode in a PC game, that I am aware of, that lets you go officially into a ingame menu, view a whole selection of previously played games, make clips out of them, host them onto the Bungie network, send them to friends, download others off friends and so forth. Not to mention having the options to slow down, fast foward, view from an angle of ANY player in the field in different camera modes... I'm not that up to scratch with FRAPS, but if that isn't totally unique then I'm spent.

 

[Eejit]

Speak for itself? Though I don't agree with ''good review = good game'', Halo 3 has gotten good reviews and praise from across the board.

So did Crysis ^^

 

[Fiberawptic]

Eh,,, while its an entertaining game with mediocre story line, but repetitiveness like theres no tomorrow, i really think halo is a game that deserves the innovative reward the least... Wow, 'haloz gotz 1337s multiplayah and setz it parts fropm otehr games lol!" What a lame reason...

 

[knut]

A 'lame' reason? You know innovation is usually associated with something being unique or fresh, right? And those features that have set the game apart from every other console game, as discussed in this thread, are both of those in the console world. I mean, you knew that of course. It'd be silly of me to presume you skipped out every post and the article itself just so you could get a generic Halo comment in here.

Eejit; Yep, yes it did. Which is why I said that good reviews don't equal a good game. I'm just saying the game does speak a lot of itself. In the end, it should speak itself to you, though the way I saw that quote was that of it speaking for the collective gaming world, and if it's going to be like that, then the general overwhelming census is positive.

 

[Emporius]

Wow, 'haloz gotz 1337s multiplayah and setz it parts fropm otehr games lol!" What a lame reason...

And putting it in that tone shoots down any game running for it

 

[Cormeh]

Eh,,, while its an entertaining game with mediocre story line, but repetitiveness like theres no tomorrow, i really think halo is a game that deserves the innovative reward the least... Wow, 'haloz gotz 1337s multiplayah and setz it parts fropm otehr games lol!" What a lame reason...

It's Halo 3, not Halo. It's not awarding innovation to the multiplayer itself, it's awarding and recognising the Theatre and Forge modes as good achievements.

A huge part of the problem with these threads is that the people who attack the games are as bad as some of the people that defend them. And, because Goldeneye and Perfect Dark have already been made, it's all highly irrelevant.

 

[Emporius]

Hear hear


/thread before digital [anti]fanboy apocalypse

 

[Asknoone]

And, because Goldeneye and Perfect Dark have already been made, it's all highly irrelevant.

Must not go there. Must not go there.

 

[Cormeh]

Go there. Do it. Release it all. Don't bottle it all up Samon, let the anger flow through you.

 

[kupocake]

Halo 3 just seems a step beyond notable. Not because of its worth or lack of, but because the whole hub-bub about the questionable-merit of the first two games just doesn't seem to carry over to a third game that slipped by with nothing more than a cursory 'yeah, MC dies Harry Potter style' glance of apathy by FPS fandom and the games journalists who had learned that the 'in' thing wasn't playing and liking Halo, but picking holes in it as far as possible before slapping a respectable score on it, because it's really not THAT bad.

I don't think I actually know anyone who has played the third game, but then I know very few console owners beyond my house (and the best co-operative game we played last year was PS3 Singstar, which thereby renders any 'Covenant Pride Parade' cracks pretty limp wristed). I'll get round to it myself one day, but I still haven't played the second one through either.

 

[Jintor]

I have yet to play the third, but honestly I found the first and second perfectly tolerable, even if the ****ing Covenant and the ****ing forerunners had the worst ****ing architects in the entire ****ing universe.

Copy+Paste Enviroments ftw, apparently.

Multiplayer was fun enough in 1 + 2, I'll play 3 eventually.