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Author
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Topic: Halo 3 - Finishing the Fight
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SquarejawHero
IE # 188
Member # 2601
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posted
I've been lucky enough to obtain a copy early here in the UK and have been playing it over the weekend... I know a few of you are gamers like myself, as well as wonderful artists, and thought I'd chime in on a non-spoiler opinion.
It's fantastic.
Admittedly the artwork can be a little shoddy - the walk cycles, general construction and facial detail of human characters is disappointing for such a huge title, and there's some obvious tweening going on. But the scale of the game, what it throws at you, the general direction and quality of voiceovers coupled with the continuation of the story of the second (boy, did it need continuing) is second to none. I've had more "holy cow" moments with this game than is healthy.
Bear in mind this game will make more than any blockbuster this summer, and you kind of get an idea of the kind of hopes that've been pinned on it by fans... Truth is, it's a neat package. Being able to replay your own single-player campaign to record cool moments and take photo's is a nice touch and the multiplayer element (including a rudimentary but suprisingly adaptable level editor) looks like a winner, with more options than is necessary.
I've been playing the game on Heroic and the AI is very, very well done. The animation in cutscenes may be occasionally ropey, but in-game it's very readable (running away enemies panicking like Kermit always gets me giggling) and couple with their extremely adaptable nature the aliens are suprisingly intelligent. Previous lunks the Brutes from H2 now hold back than rush you, The Flood adapts to close range and distant combat by mutation and giant AI insectoid tanks track you down whilst enemies run around its back... before you jump on and join them to take it down.
It's generally pretty crazy stuff, but oddly enough its lived up to the hype so far. Buy in confidence.
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Bowendesign.com
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Dennis Woodyard
IE # 81
Member # 2314
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posted
Thanks for the first level headed player review I've come across for Halo 3. The usual posts on game site boards are way over the top with fanboy frenzy concerning Halo 3.
I'd like to play it,but, I don't have a XBox 360, and don't plan on getting one. I've always been a fan of Halo (I did several Dragonfly Flipz books of it). I'm hoping I'll get a change to play the PC version on a Intel Mac someday.
With all the hype with now, I got to thinking after Halo 3 and Halo Wars, what's next for Bungie, the developer? I wonder if the artists who spent years working on Halo are going through some sort of creative withdrawal? What do you think?
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The Gods that smiled when you were born are Laughing now - My Favorite Fortune Cookie Saying
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Floyd Bishop
IE # 183
Member # 2322
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posted
The game made $170 million in the first 24 hours.
Thats more than many films make in their entire run.
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Floyd Bishop
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-FP-
IE # 13
Member # 914
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posted
quote:
The game made $170 million in the first 24 hours.
It makes me feel out-of-touch that my first question is "What is Halo 3?'. I suppose it is a popular game, and that Wikipedia will answer all questions, but I will go to bed now and forget to look it up.
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gergley
IE # 200
Member # 74
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posted
quote:
The game made $170 million in the first 24 hours.
Thats more than many films make in their entire run.
That's a lot.
But, at how much a pop versus the cost per seat of a ticket, in several thousand theatres over a weekend?
Sales versus the service of movie theaters happens. And, Microsoft pushed the hype quite a bit to get to this point. I even saw a story about it on the news. And, believe me, with all going on in the world, the game isn't News.Not to diss it or anything, the hype worked and the audience, the early adopter crowd, was waiting for the release.
I must admit, what impresses me more is that the XBox 360 has that many owners that it can get those sales. That bodes well for other XBox game developers, for sure. Even if sales aren't as spectacular as Halo 3's a company might get enough sales to make it pay off.
Dennis, as it goes, at one point in time, Bungie was the one of the more innovative houses. And, now that it is under the MS umbrella AND since Bungie delivers, if the studio still has innovation in it then it might already be busy on something funky AND maybe even different than the Halo games. We'll all know it when we hear it, eh?
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Greg B
IE # 118
Member # 886
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posted
Today's games are far more interesting than most films because it's rare to find someone who knows how to direct a movie to keep one's interest or to impinge on the viewer.
Hitchcock was a master of this. John Huston too.
A well made video game doesn't end. No two gameplays are the same.
I'm not a fan of HALO. It was a boring bug hunt space thingie. I'm more a fan of Half Life 2 and the following episodes.
Also the old Oddworld games before they got assimilated by Microsoft.
You can modd a pc game but a movie you just have to sit and watch it.
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http://www.boonestoons.com
http://www.spacefool.com
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Tobias A. Wolf
IE # 250
Member # 383
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posted
I bought it last light, played it for 20 minutes, got bored, and popped in Skate and played it for 3 or 4 hours.
I'm so very tired of shooters. That's all there is to it. From Space Invaders to Halo 3. I'm sorry, for me it's a dying genre. I'm sick of killing things. Even in my off-time, it feels goofy to spend it stepping on "sand castles".
Nothing against anybody that is in that place right now. Because I've been there. Mushy as it sounds, but by and large I like to build castles these days, see what others have done, and have that love infect me. Enough with the killing for me.
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Gecko3
IE # 235
Member # 3053
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posted
I liked it, but it felt a bit short for me. I think they really designed this game for multi-player, as the single player campaign is a bit dull by yourself.
With at least a second player however, it became a lot more enjoyable since one guy can distract the bad guys while the other guy flanks them (I heard there's even 4 player co-op, which is probably a first for FPS or probably any game out there, and we need more of those).
I love that they brought back the assault rifle from the first game, as it was probably my most widely used weapon throughout the game (if nothing else for the fact that you could carry a lot of rounds for it). I hate how many of the human weapons got "nerfed" (aka weakened) though. The shotgun is just about useless now (it was actually quite powerful in the first game, since you could 1-shot the Flood monsters with it, but in this game it takes at least 2 point-blank shots to take one down). The pistol is all but useless as well, as you can't zoom in with it anymore, and its power/ammo count is much less now. However, I love the gravity hammer (basically a giant, 2h hammer that lays the smackdown on anything you touch with it), and I also like that melee attacks are much more powerful in general (in the other Halo games it was almost pointless to melee unless it was a weak guy, a bad guy with their shields down, or someone who's back was turned to you. And against the Flood it was pointless, as it took anywhere from 5-20 hits to kill one, where as shooting them was much more efficient).
I also love that vehicles again play a much, much bigger role. There's just something cool about running over some bad guys with a vehicle, or blowing them away in a tank ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) And sometimes I just don't feel like walking around, and I just wanna jump into a warthog or mongoose (a fast ATV that allows a gunner to ride piggyback, awesome if it's a computer NPC with a rocket launcher).
Again, like I said, the game felt a bit short. While it does provide some closure to events that happened in the first two games, I could've used one or two more levels of kicking booty and taking names.
I'm not a terribly big fan of the pvp (player vs player) aspect of FPS games, particularly on a console, as once you know where the good weapons spawn, and have a good idea of what the map looks like, you're pretty in control and hardly ever die against people who aren't familiar with the game/map. To be fair, I haven't played on Live yet, but most FPS games are similar when it comes to fighting other players (not all, but most), so I'm probably not too far off in my comparison.
Another downside is that while it does provide an interesting experience, it doesn't do terribly much different than most other FPS games out there (which isn't necessarily a bad thing though). I'm generally a fan of FPS games, but I want to see more stuff like Bioshock (and hopefully there'll be more creative ways to make an FPS game rather than just giving big guns and tons of bad guys to shoot at, but again, there's nothing wrong with that).
Overall it's a pretty decent game, and worth getting (although just buy the regular edition, unless you really want that helmet and/or the bonus features disc).
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