Halo 2 Video Evaluation

phantomdesign

phantomdesign

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37.75MB http://media.cgnetworks.com/cgfilms/games/halo2/halo2.mov

The reason Halo 1 single player sucks, and I now think Halo 2 single player will also suck.

(from a Halo 2 video)
In Halo 1, there was maybe 30 seconds of fun then happening over and over and over again, so if you get 30 seconds of fun, you can pretty much stretch that out to be an entire game. Encountering a bunch of guys, mainly attacking one them before they were aware, throwing a grenade into another group of guys and then cleaning up the stragglers before they could surround you. So you could have all the great graphics and all the different characters and lots of different weapons with amazing effects but if you don’t nail that 30 seconds you’re not going to have a great game.
Click to expand...

Wow, I hope that Valve (and other game developers) never adopt this mentality.

Basically they admit extremely repetitive game-play. How could I have said it any better, but you play the same 30 seconds OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Half-Life 1 had vastly diverse game play in retrospect. The reason Halo 1 was a success was it’s multiplayer, which is based off of the graphics and weapons, but he outright disregards them. Oh, well, I guess that's why we're mostly PC gamers, not console players.
 
I think Halo 1 was great fun , especially its Singleplayer.

Half-Life was repetitive in the same kind of way as Halo, you always encounter headcrabs the same way, fight grunts the same way...

By stretching out, he doesn't mean using again and again, there is difference in all battles , and it's really fun to use different tactics on the very good enemy AI. I think he's right.
 
Half Life 1 had a lot more to it than just simple 30 second battles. Halo 1 enemy AI sucked, so hopefully they've improved it greatly.
 
halo 1 enemy AI sucked? wtf? anything to back that up seeing as most of the gaming community would disagree with you.
 
Originally posted by The Terminator
halo 1 enemy AI sucked? wtf? anything to back that up seeing as most of the gaming community would disagree with you.
Click to expand...

Yeah

The AI in Halo is wayyyy better than HL1...

In HL1 Grunts just sit there shooting at you if you confront them directly. Halo (especially on legendary) is crazy. The elites go and hide if they lose their shields if you aren't charging them. They flank you if you try to stay put. The little guys get scared and run away when their friends die or a couple of elites die. The hunters are the most predictable AI-wise. They shoot at you if you're far away...and if you get close..they charge you. If they were any more unpredictable they'd be really really hard to kill (if you don't have a pistol).

I don't know what they were talking about exactly in 30 seconds of fun. I had much larger stretches than 30 seconds of fun in Halo... If Halo 2 is even a tiny bit better than Halo 1...I'll be happy.
 
Originally posted by AmishSlayer

I don't know what they were talking about exactly in 30 seconds of fun. I had much larger stretches than 30 seconds of fun in Halo... If Halo 2 is even a tiny bit better than Halo 1...I'll be happy.
Click to expand...

Halo is great... I love EVERY second I play that :)
 
I thought Halo was repetitive but it also had set pieces that were never repeated and were quite fun. It didn't have enough of them though, so i just gave up with it.

I still think it's succes was mainly due to it being the first and only FPS that was playable on a console, I mean consolers thought that redfaction was good????

Consoles are for silly childish games like mario and whatever, which is why GC is the only console I would ever consider getting.
 
No, I think it's sucess was down to the fact that it's actually the first 'shooter'

Quake, Quake II and Half Life, the main things that slow you down in those games is... the enviroment

In Halo, the only thing that is stopping you is the enemies, and by using repititive enviroments, Halo cemets that feature in your mind... it's the Covenant that you are fighting, never the quicksave and jump buttons, or the enviroment...

Combine this with a novel-grade story, and quality AI... winner!
 
I do think quick save should not be in HL2, but rather checkpoints like Halo 1 and games as old as the origional Duke Nukem.
 
Originally posted by phantomdesign
I do think quick save should not be in HL2, but rather checkpoints like Halo 1 and games as old as the origional Duke Nukem.
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Yep.... I hate quick-save whoring :)
 
no ****ing way check points drive me nuts. I don't mind auto save which saves it for you at vital points but i like to have the option to save it normally when I get fed up of playing a certain part over and over again.

badger: your practically praising it for being pure run and gun, which is rather unusual as most people seam to think thats the wrong way to go about desighning a game. Also I'm not sure it is the first pure shooter, what about serious sam? didn't that come out before Halo?
 
No, not praising it for being run & gun

Run and gun means precisely that. In Serious Sam, there were platform puzzles or collecting keys etc...

Halo is not Run and Gun... it's hard to explan ... it's different :)
 
Halo had great scenes sometimes, like when you drove the tank, when you meet the Flood for the first time and when you crashed with the escape pod, I thought that those scenes where pretty fun and exciting.

But most of the game is very repeating, and it gets boring in my opinion.
And the layout on certain maps gets boring as well because they look all the same.

I have heard rumours though that Microsoft rushed Bungie so they didn’t have so much time working on the maps, hope they don’t do so with Halo 2.
 
Originally posted by mrBadger
No, not praising it for being run & gun

Run and gun means precisely that. In Serious Sam, there were platform puzzles or collecting keys etc...

Halo is not Run and Gun... it's hard to explan ... it's different :)
Click to expand...

lol I don't think you can deny serious sam as being pure shooter. Especialy when your claiming that Halo is but isn't but really is but isn't but might actually be not what it is.
 
Originally posted by Loke
I have heard rumours though that Microsoft rushed Bungie so they didn’t have so much time working on the maps, hope they don’t do so with Halo 2.
Click to expand...

Halo was originally gonna be a PC/Mac game that was going to have more of a BF1942 style fighting...more vehicle based than it is now and more war-like. Then Microsoft bought out Bungie and rushed the game so they'd have a good game for launch. It looks like Halo 2 will be like Halo 1, but I still would've loved to see the Halo as the original concept.
 
Sorry to hear about that Mr.Badger, but you can just create a fun game yourself. You know, make a corridor, long corridor, and put enemies there. Get yourself a weapon and just run straight forward, shooting things. I mean environment is not important, is it? It just slows you down, to hell with environment or any level design. The most important thing is to press left mouse button, and kill the same three alien types for the rest of a game. This is REAL first person shooter.

Irony is that the most fun of Halo was when you were in 3rd person view, driving a car or a tank. So much for a great FPS.
 
No, I meant that the enviroment was there to play through... not non existant..

And I guess it is like Serious Sam...
 
But Bungie have acknowledged the 'repeatedness' and have said it won't be like that in Halo 2 (thanks god!)
 
That Halo engine was the worst port I have ever seen. It ran like crap, and looked like crap. And right at the start they're trying to get all cinematic on me, with that abomination of an engine. Getting close-ups of that captain's horribly textured face.. such a traumatic experience:p

If you hadn't noticed, I didn't like the SP :), sorry for the bashing :p

Anyway, I heard (never got that far myself) Bungie had to make the second half of the SP basically a rerun of the old maps the other way around, going back through all of them. Simply because they didn't have enough time to get it all done :/
Rushing = bad.
 
Did't have quite as many enemys as serious sam or one's quite that size and i think Halo's AI is a bit better than SS lol.

TBH I can't really blame Halo for being repetitive when I enjoyed SS, there must be another reason why I didn't like Halo. Maybe it's becuase I don't like consoles and the PC version sucked ass.. yep thats it.
 
Yeah, the levels are all cut and paste. And the worst part is that you backtrack through the same repeating hallways you've already been in. Not only is the level design boring, but they make you play through it twice.
 
I liked Halo, it was great fun. I really don't care what you think, as I'm sure you don't care what I think either.
 
help me!
i downloaded it and when i try and run it quicktime says that it prolly wont work because i don't have the required compressor. so where can i get it?
 
The Halo AI is still the best i've seen in a fps (where are these pc shooters with better AI?? Certainly not Half Life. Deus Ex/NOLF 2/CoD/MoH/Jedi Knight/Vietcong - all have shite AI :( )

On Legendary the game is harder, and more rewarding than any PC fps i've played (including Half Life, which I also love btw :) ).

Halo is average at best on the pc, which is a shame .. on the XBox it's excellent. This game needs analogue movement, trigger buttons, rumble, a big tv and surround sound much more than a high resolution and mouse. It may be easier to aim with a mouse, but that's all it is - not better (online gaming is the only type that requires super quick aiming, imo of course ;))

Also, the levels only felt repetitive on low difficulty settings. As with online gaming, it is the challenge of staying alive that is rewarding. Halo is the same, there is no time to notice the scenery - let alone get bored with it (some of the flood bits being an exception lol, especially Library - that was crappy :/) oh - there's is no point in playing Halo on a setting less than Heroic.

Call me a fan boy if you like, it matters not. I love my pc (play daily with my clan mates at a high level) but realise it's downsides - there are nearly no good single player FPS on the pc! Give me Golden Eye and Perfect Dark any day :) (For online play pcs are the daddy tho \o/)

Halo 2 will own - as to whether it'll be better than HL2, we'll all have to wait.

//sorry for going off topic and ranting - but i'm a bit drunk, and have forgotten what I wanted to talk about now.
 
Originally posted by mrBadger
No, not praising it for being run & gun

Run and gun means precisely that. In Serious Sam, there were platform puzzles or collecting keys etc...

Halo is not Run and Gun... it's hard to explan ... it's different :)
Click to expand...

yes it is! and Halo MP is really the meat and potatoes of the PC version package.. SP is really more of a side dish :)
 
Originally posted by Warbie
The Halo AI is still the best i've seen in a fps (where are these pc shooters with better AI?? Certainly not Half Life. Deus Ex/NOLF 2/CoD/MoH/Jedi Knight/Vietcong - all have shite AI :( )
Click to expand...

WHOA, WHOA, whoa... back up... CoD has THE BEST ai in a game i've EVER seen... WTF are u smoking?
 
How do you guys judge good AI??? I see lots of people say this or that has good AI and I remember previews of RtCW said it would have really advanced AI but I didn't really see anything impressive when I played the game. The Far Cry AI demo didn't really impress me either... What are you supposed to look for?
 
thehunter1320 wrote:

"WHOA, WHOA, whoa... back up... CoD has THE BEST ai in a game i've EVER seen... WTF are u smoking?"

Roffle - obviously something less potent than you are :)

Don't get me wrong - CoD is great fun in a mindless blast kind of way. AI isn't it's strong point (very scripted)
 
Ghost Recon... now there's some AI I can like. :cheese:

I can't believe an AI discussion even came up in a HALO thread, though... :dozey:
 
That's a tough one Styloid.

I think it comes down to whether the challenge is sufficient, doesn't become boring or repetitive and is somehow believable (in a video game, shooting monsters, way :D).
 
Yup - good game that. I love System Shock 2 too - neither have good AI (imo :) ).

The AI is Ghost Recon and Flashpoint are good in a very different way - the enemy acting much more tactically. Up close the fighting in both of those games sux :/ But that's ok .. they arn't all out action games.

Halo is :) and does it best.
 
Originally posted by Styloid
How do you guys judge good AI??? I see lots of people say this or that has good AI and I remember previews of RtCW said it would have really advanced AI but I didn't really see anything impressive when I played the game. The Far Cry AI demo didn't really impress me either... What are you supposed to look for?
Click to expand...

By looking at the AI code of the SDKs for those games ;)
 
Halo's AI served its purpose very well. If you were to put it in a strategy-based game, it wouldn't... but that wasn't Halo's style.

EDIT: Whoever can guess what my new avatar is gets absolutely nothing.
 
Not yet, but stuff like Flashpoint there is....

But it's pretty obvious that Halo's AI is unscripted, since it's different each time :)
 
I think what sucked about halo AI was the repetivness. When I played Halo, the guys always did the exact same thing....every single one of them....over and over.

Is there a Halo SDK?
Click to expand...
I don't think there is a single console game which has a SDK or any sort.
 
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