Halo 3 'Feels' Like Halo 1 133
1up reports on comments from Bungie, who has come out to say that their next title Halo 3 will 'feel' like the first Halo: Combat Evolved. From the article: "'I have been playing through Campaign mode purely for kicks. Exploring, in fact,' [Frank O'Connor] says. 'There's lots of the feel of the original Halo, where you'll find yourself in a huge (dangerous) and intrinsically fascinating environment and just want to go tool around and check things out.' At the same time, O'Connor is quick to dismiss that Bungie's developing a sandbox, Grand Theft Auto-inspired shooter."
Exploratory reflection (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't like Halo (Score:5, Insightful)
I enjoyed the expansive environment for the first hour or so, then it just became annoying. If you miss one thing, then you have to run around making sure you didn't miss a small path that leads to the next area - or you need to perform a perfect jump to get onto a ledge and you aren't sure if you're supposed to jump to it or find a different way up. While I don't claim every game has to be linear, don't hide the route you have to go.
Also, I found a lot of the levels boring and repetative. (Library anyone?) Sure, it's realistic to go through a few levels, get something, and fight your way out - but if I wanted realistic I wouldn't be playing a game. Why not make another way out so the levels are different? Or, if it isn't necessary for gameplay, give an elevator/shuttle/monorail/teleporter/cutscene so I don't have to do the same thing twice!
If I wanted to see cool environments and just "tool around and check things out" I would play the Myst series.
I don't mean this as a troll, but I didn't find Halo to be a game that should be repeated in a sequel. Of course, I haven't played many games where I want a sequel that is very similar to the original - I like diversity in my games. Why should I pay $60 for the same game that has added a few new weapons and enemies and updated the graphics a bit? Why not call the new game what it is - an expansion pack.
This sounds foreboding (Score:5, Insightful)
If it "feels" like the beach segments than I'm all for it 'cause that felt great. If it "feels" like the cheese grater on my kneecaps that was The Silent Cartographer and everything after, then it's good that I know this now so I can prepare for absolutely no anticipation for this game.
No One Cares (Score:1, Insightful)
There are easily 20 space marine in bumpy and shiny metal armor games coming out for the 360 between now and the end of next year. Halo will be just another one in the crowd with a larger marketing budget from Microsoft.
Take away that stupid green metal effect and no one would even talking about this dreadfully medicore series. There are fantastic fps games coming out between now and 2007 - on the pc...
Not every game needs a gimmick. (Score:4, Insightful)
Halo had a plotline, which IMO is severely lacking in the FPS genre. True, the technical improvements in the game between 1 and 2 were minimal (and in some cases regressed; see my comment about the Magnum, above), but I don't think that's as horrible as you're making it out to be.
If they can continue to refine the gaming experience that people have gotten used to with Halo 1 and 2, I'd take that as a success. I'd rather they continued the plot, refined gameplay, and took basically conservative steps than if they changed something radically for the sake of change, and messed up a good thing. Not every game needs some kind of "hook" that's been cooked up to make it artificially unique: particularly if the appeal of the game is that it's just a really good shooter.
The Halo games at this point are a known quantity; there are other games you can buy if you want something gimmicky (or "innovative," the difference between an innovation and a gimmick being rather difficult to tell without the benefit of hindsight). I think it takes a certain amount of balls to realize when you've got a good thing and should just stop changing it.
With that said, unfortunately I doubt Microsoft will ever let Bungie just stop making new Halo games; they'll flog the franchise as long as they possibly can, until it becomes ridiculous.
Re:I didn't like Halo (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, you are not alone, I am not much a big Halo fan either. Especially the Flood levels where just boring and repeating over and over and over again, Library of course too. There was also a bit running around in circles to find out how to continue, but I didn't found that much worse then most other games. My main problem with Halo was however the story, it was just so very damn pointless, run around in circles for a few hours till everybody of your comrades is killed just to then return to where you started and blow your own ship up, well great, so why again did I play this game? The last level was also extremly annoying, actually one of the worst I have ever seen, not sure if there actually is a way to drive around that track in anything remotly fluid, but I certainly didn't manage to and it turned into a try&error where the outcome was more luck then anything, certainly wasn't fun.
Art direction of Halo on the other side was quite good, the large bright outdoor environments are certainly a lovly change compared to all those games that try to be all dark and ugly. Enemys tend to look a bit to much like Muppets here and there, but that aside they looked nice and colorfull stuff. Vehicles and transporters also looked great.
Can't say anything about multiplayer, but the singleplayer mode didn't hold up to my expectations, it wasn't the worst I have seen, but neither was it anything I would bother to play again, never touched Halo2.
Re:Not every game needs a gimmick. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Un-nerf the Magnum, please. (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted, the SMG's only useful for dual wielding (and not worth sacrificing grenades for even then), but how can you prefer the assault rifle to the battle rifle? The assault rifle is inaccurate, low damage, and pretty much forces either spray-n-pray or knife range combat. The battle rifle is accurate, reasonably high damage, and has a scope thrown in for good measure.
The only possible drawbacks to the BR compared to the AR are no full-auto and a limited ammo capacity. I wouldn't mind having a full-auto option on the rifle, I suppose, but I never really felt the lack. The ammo capacity I'll give you - it's kind of a PITA. On the other hand, it's not like you can carry a hundred shotgun shells, either, and that's still a quality gun.
Now, the magnum...well, that's just unfortunate all 'round.
So long as it doesn't feel like Halo 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, good! Because I got fed up with Halo 2 well before the end of the game and have never been back to it since, whereas I played Halo right up to the finish, infuriating as some parts of it were.
I got the impression that all the effort in Halo 2 went into the multiplayer and the single-player game was kind of an 'oh yeah, we need to throw this thing in too'. H1 had an interesting story (in an interesting environment); H2 was just a series of events.
As far as multiplayer goes, I don't have Xbox Live; I don't want Xbox Live. I don't want to drop into a game to have a bunch of fat American teenagers call me a fag in disguised voices. To me, that's not entertainment. (YMMV.) But there seems to be this shift towards making online multiplayer the core of a lot of titles at the expense of the one-player game, and if that's going to be a continuing trend then frankly I'll be keeping my money for things that are actually, y'know, fun. Even by MS's own figures, Xbox Live players are still very much the minority of Xbox owners, so why is 40-50% of the gameplay that people are paying for only available to them?
How about Halo 0 ? (Score:3, Insightful)