Ok, so lets begin with how big of a Halo fan I really am. The first game was amazing as it offered an FPS experience that was unlike any other of its kind in one respect. By this I am referring to the overall quality of gameplay and the smooth transitions between corridor shooting and huge open areas with vehicles that operated as they were supposed to (as opposed to the glitchy ones in UT'04 and the Battlefield series). You can talk **** about a lot of things but this was one smooth experience with little bugs and amazing graphics (including the first mainstream use of "bump mapping" giving 2d textures a 3d appearance.)

Another aspect that made Halo great was the fact that the Marine's morale was actually an element of gameplay as faux as it was. Your fellow Marines felt emboldened fighting next to you and saving them was an actual goal that could alter the gameplay. This made me voluntarily restart certain portions if I had let my buddies die. The whole time you fought along side them was a great feeling as they cheered your ownage on. This made Master Chief be as esteemed as he was.

So now here we are... 2010... Halo Reach is the latest iteration and currently has a metacritic score of 91 out 100. This is the best the industry has to offer from the largest budgets with the most resources. My last xbox broke around 6 months ago but after the fervor with black friday I bought a new xbox slim and halo reach since I just couldn't help myself. So $300 dollars spent and few days of gaming later I am asking myself... Was it worth it? Yes I have more invested in this being good compared to the average gamer who's xbox hasn't broke on him... O wait... that's 75% of all xbox owners. T top it off it doesn't accept older xbox 360 hard drives. The games been out what? 2 months? and there's already a map pack... give me a break. A sign of the pure greediness that is the embodiment of those behind M$.

I have to say that this game is not that fun. The characters are now huge and bulky bordering a "Gears of War" like 'hugeness'. I don't care about these guys no matter how many lines they have in the game. I know one or all of them will die and I haven't even got to that part yet. So we see them with there masks off and try to add a human element to them. They wear non-camoflauge colors and have so many variations that it took away the effect that Master Chiefs were "one of a kind." Eh... there was something so epic about Master Chief being held in high esteem because he was a killing machine who had no personality. He was something of a freak being born simply to kill.

As you fight your way through the same linear places until you find the console at which you hit X we sit through cutscenes. I used to be captivated by cutscenes because they were so rare. There has just been no innovation done here at all and the first person cutscenes just piss you off since you want to control your character not watch him do things you aren't in control of. Boring.

Your squad is next to useless as well... It is one thing for the petty marines to not have a significant impact on the battle because they are mere regular grunts and it worked in terms of making you seem all that more bad ass. What was so hard to see that these elements made the first Halo epic. It wasn't graphics. It was hard to even make out what an elite's face was in the first game. It wasn't until the second when the significantly upped model poly counts which made the gameplay buggy and not as responsive or fluid.

The graphics are stellar, but nothing that I wouldn't expect an Xbox 360 game to look like on 5 year old hardware. It still hasn't upped the "wow" factor in my eyes the way Halo did. This huge importance on graphics has stalled gameplay development significantly. It tries to rehash the same old gameplay with only reassigning buttons and a few more features that you can play through the whole game without using.

We've reached a tipping point in that games are not evolving at the pace they were and are now becoming a slave to a franchise if we are console gamers. I don't have a money for the gaming rig that I want and PC gaming sadly is almost dead because of piracy. The only profitable games are MMOs but that style of grinding gameplay has never suited me. So Halo was all I had left as my faith in the industry. Sadly it's lost and if weren't for Netflix being awesome I would take back my xbox.

I don't know where the gaming industry needs to go but it's getting stale and I think this recent fall release of block busters has been rather poor and repetitive. Of course the gaming review sites all praise these games as the next coming but its simply because they are all owned by the video game companies. Quite a conflict of interest.

Halo Reach is just more content... at best it is what Halo 3 should have been 3 years ago. Except its not.

Wait... PC gaming is dead because of piracy? Apparently I didn't get that memo when I quadrupled my steam library this year.

Steam and it's good deals aside is basically the only place we can find PC games but Steam=Valve... Until I hear information about Half Life 3 or some other amazing Steam project I have no desire to PC game... After 2004 with Doom III and HL2 what have we had? Crysis was cool but was more just a graphic showcase.

I still want to know why bulky architecture and fuzzy sci-fi textures make an alien spaceship. Half of the multiplayer maps have 3 textures total. All the floating metal buildings have a blue electric metal panel look and no variation or accents. Nothing looks lived in, useful, or even designed, and when there is a pipe or a light fixture, they always lead to a paper thin wall with nothing on the other side. The only reason I know what any of the rooms or areas were is because it told me point blank "This is a library."

The characters are either absurd and over the top, or paper thin without dialogue. The storyline fails to provide any overarching narrative or meaning, and never provides a scope or sense of realism that would make me care about anything I'm doing. Apparently I saved earth a few times by the latest game? Halo has always screamed "Generic" to me. After one hour of halo, you've literally experienced everything the game can possibly offer.

You could say that but don't tell me anyone expected a warthog race out of an exploding crashed space ship was the final level of Halo. **** was epic beyond most anything I had experienced thus far in that game.

I think piracy barely has a measureable impact and its not like it doesnt happen on consoles. I do think it's the basic economics of the situation. Consoles dominate because of low end-user costs and low developer costs. But it's not like that makes consoles a superior platform.

I don't know, I think I'm getting pretty sick of spending 100s of dollars on a PC only to have to play with settings before things run smoothly, although this is also a fault of games being designed specifically for console hardware and then being ported to PC.

(Also, I haven't played reach so I just loaded up a few playthroughs on youtube and everything I said certainly stands for that game too. Generic repeatable architecture with flat muddy textures given "depth" with gloss. The only time you see accents is in unidentifiable canisters and crates, glowing geometric shapes, or a glowing panel that only serves to confuse people)

Wish I could overclock an Xbox.

There's a ton, including many that were released on consoles AND PCs:

1. Starcraft 2 (PC Exclusive)
2. The Orange Box (Portal and TF2)
3. Borderlands
4. Fallout series
5. Batman Arkham Asylum
6. Mass Effect series
7. Defense Grid
8. Torchlight (PC Exclusive)
9. Dead Space
10. Left 4 Dead series
11. Dragon Age: Origins
12. BioShock
13. Mirror's Edge

And that's just a list of games I own and enjoy!

Also, you can use old 360 hard drives in new "Slim" 360s. You just won't have a bracket to securely mount it inside.

aww **** massassi can't we just stay on topic and discuss maybe console gaming and Halo for once... ways it can improve.

but seriously your second game is based off a series that started 6 years ago. Give it up.

I also "converted" my old 360 hdd to fit in my slim but that was by far not a user-friendly experience considering it's a console... not a pc.

How is TF2 based on HL2? They use the same engine, that's it. That would apply to a lot of console games, which would be stupid.

Consolers (especially halotards) don't use logic. <_<

UT2K4's vehicles were not glitchy and they were after halo anyway

even the battlefield vehicles weren't exactly "glitchy"

i think you're confusing glitchy with the fact that unless you first played halo on the PC you were controlling the vehicles with a gamepad which is simply better for vehicle control than keyboard/mouse

plug a gamepad in and set it up for vehicle controls in those games and you'll see what i mean

seriously guys. you are all right and i am wrong when it comes to PC gaming. ****?

moving on.

I didn't realize I was a halotard, just someone who enjoyed a franchise immensely and watched the big shots turn it into ****... Happened to another sci-fi game series we know and love.

The reason I have a console is for financial reasons. I have a house now I can't just blow money the way I'd really want to on a nice gaming rig. Since consoles are now setting the standard for graphics. We have seen that few games have been pushing the latest graphic cards, this is because the technology is being limited by console technology. BUT incidently, video cards seem to be a total rip off. They release so many damn versions twice a year that the technology hasn't even caught up to the GTX 2xx series cards.

Can someone address the long first post I had. Disregard everything about my comments towards PCs and just admit at one point in your life that you may have liked Halo.

I palyed the **** out of halo 1 and halo 2 MP, everything else sucked.

Actually I was never very fond of it, although I did try it. I have better things to play.

I don't think you're a halotard.

I liked Halo Reach. I also like Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 3 ODST. One day, I hope to acquire Halo Wars for about eight dollars and play that.

That is all.

SoldierSnoop, are you a wee bit drunk maybe?

Sure. Although I would have been interested in learning your views on the subjects you address, I lost interest when I got to "M$".

halo reach is great, actually. i kinda hate it when people expect it to be an ark delivering them to perfect, heavenly gaming. It's just a great game, easily the best this year. The amount of pure content packed into that game is unbelievable. You can edit absolutely every aspect of the multiplayer and make your own thing up, and forge lets you make your own maps using an enormous, gorgeous template. Sure, the building blocks could use more variety, but for a console game, it's pretty amazing. You really shouldn't complain. Its a hell of a lot better than what Black Ops gave us.

On top of that, are you really complaining about graphics? Do you really need it to look better than this? I don't even understand what kind of standard modern gamers have for graphics.

But what are those hunks of metal for? Why is there a 10 foot bridge so close to the ground connecting nothing to an absurd enclosure that contains nothing? I realize it provides for something to jump off of and shoot around and that's all that matters in mp, but why after 6 games is the SP still a generic space marine metal factory? The graphics aren't bad, they just don't do or say anything. I always thought they were trying to keep the geometry manageable when it was XBox but after these iterations it just seems they actually like that aesthetic.

They would probably say something about how the aesthetic contrast works for the atmosphere they are trying to convey, the halos themselves are after all entire worlds on top of space stations.

Let's talk not just graphics but how games currently work to make them seem beautiful for "stills" that we see in magazines and on box art.

Here is what I know about the environments. Maps used to have difficulty rendering high polygon things. Thus the largest static map made 3d object you would see were crates and maybe cars. These objects were unmovable since once rendered they couldn't be manipulated. Now due to better map-rendering technology we can insert all kinds of high poly objects and have them rendered with bump maps to deceive the gamer as to what he is looking at. So basically any advances in actual technology to improve the environment and make it more realistic and part of the gameplay have been shoved off for years. What HL2 did with source and the physics were impressive but all progress in that direction has stopped. Now you just get rag doll physics and small objects yet even in CoD things like chairs are not movable. So while graphics are pretty, in essence they are fake and simply graphical illusion to make you believe you are in a higher poly environment then you actually are.

Kirbs, your problem is that you try to find a deeper meaning in everything. Can't it just be a neat looking alien structure? And besides, realize that the Halo universe and all its technologies came into being in 1999, when space marine metal factories were awesome and not generic because the huge amount of modern console games hadn't flooded the market yet. How do you expect them to go in some drastically different direction for the game that's supposed to be a prequel for the 1999 game? And besides there already are a few levels that aren't what you find in normal games. What about that level where you pilot a Falcon around New Alexandria in the rain, as Covenant carriers glass the city around you and you save desperate marines on the rooftops from hunters? Was that not awesome enough for you, or does it need to have some deeper philosophical meaning?

Keep in mind I'm only a fanboy for Halo Reach, not the whole series. Loved halo 1, hated 2 and 3, was impressed by the new direction ODST went in, and I firmly believe Reach is the pinnacle of the series, having perfected the gameplay and multiplayer. Normally I don't give a rats ass about the fiction of the universe or what have you, but I think Reach truly is a great game.

dubble postttttt

My synopsis

Soldiersnoop: I have an opinion I want to shove down everyone's throats that holds little merit or value to anyone but myself

Kirbs: halo sucks this is why *words mixed with a mild case of ocd *

Rest of massassi: lolconsolegaming





My take: halo reach sucked. Too short to spend 60 bucks on and too numb to feel like a good fps. Some areas were neat but it was lackluster all over.

Pc gaming is NOT dead and you've got to be a retard to think it is. If that was the case nvidia and and would be filing for chapter 11. Clearly not. You like consoles I get it, now understand that other people like PC's. I find most if not all (tfu port aside) superior on a pc. If you have to tweak your settings then stop buying budget video cards. Updating your pc for next Gen games is still cheaper then buying a new console.

UT2k4 vehicles were awesome you just suck at driving them.

Last point: I don't give two ****s and a **** if its not spelled console and I'm too lazy to look at the moment since I am typing this from my mobile.

The problem is that you're making crap arguments to support your opinion. Here's a shocking truth: not all opinions are equal. You cannot just spout bull**** and expect to get away with it because it's your opinion.

Also, stop trying to control the direction of the thread to some narrow topic no one cares about. This is a public discussion forum, not your blog.

...how does whether or not a chair is movable have anything to do with the number of polygons being rendered?

I thoroughly enjoyed Halo: Reach. I haven't liked a Halo game since the first one, but Reach was very fun. Sure, it was nothing groundbreaking or amazing, but it did everything right and very few things wrong, which makes it a solid title.

I did love the jet pack, halo reach was what halo 3 should've been.. nobody has mentioned ODST though (for good reason)

It's not that I'm looking for a deeper meaning, I just want the giant structures to have some kind of logic to them, to make me feel like the storyline has real meaning. When I spend a whole level trying to get to a goal, and the goal is literally an empty structure with absurd glowing walls that reach into the sky, monotony creeps in.

It'd also help if the enemies had any variation at all. Vehicles were really really cool the first game, and that's the biggest change up we've had besides brutes having swords. Maybe the AI is smart, but they never survive long enough to prove it to me. Even on the hardest modes, their difficulty is in their health and not their strategy or speed. Not that the levels encourage any kind of strategy at all.

This is more of a problem with FPS' in general though. Still it's hard to ignore that halo is a series of generic buildings with enemies hiding behind unidentifiable crates with the occasional midget. The only time I feel challenged or interested is when something cheap happens, like the hammer or being attacked by a vehicle on foot. I actually really like the outdoors parts of halo maps, but as soon as I get to a building things get boring again.

I must have played that same planet side mission map in Mass Effect about 20 times, and it didn't make the story feel like it had any less meaning.

Did you play Red Faction Gorilla? I was so into that game in the beginning, but when I realized that all of the buildings had this lumpy "everything needs pipes so there is something to break" aesthetic, I got really bored. If breaking a pipe caused water to fly everywhere, I think I would've been engaged more. For me, part of a game is seeing a world unlike my own, and experiencing the world through someone else's eyes. Halo isn't a world, it's a shell to shoot in. Maybe I'm looking for too much out of a shooter, but I feel like that's the art director's job. I'm avoiding the word realism, because part of the joy is being in a world that isn't real or recognizable.

I agree that uninspired design makes the game less engaging and immersive, but I don't think it affects the story.

I agree. I think for me its more the atmosphere of the game that draws me in rather then the architecture. For example I love the game Omikron because it definitely pulls me right into its universe and I can play for hours on end. Anachronox does the same thing with me as well. That's probably the most attractive part of a decent video game to me.

See for me, I have no interest in defending a building that the story overtly tells me is a civilian apartment building when it's quite obvious that the building was designed for gameplay. When Half Life 2 shows me the sterile woman crying to her husband, and then I hear the combine climbing the steps out in the hallway I am entirely immersed. It comes from the Show don't Tell mantra. Instead of relying on the overt narrative to create immersion, I'd rather the art director have a major role in creating a believable world that informs the narrative on its own.

I am always reminded of the galactic library in the prequels, and how it at least made sense how data was accessed in the building even though there aren't books on the wall. Realistically, there would probably just be consoles to access the database, but the designers made the library look like a library we'd be familiar with, and then turned that on its head. The library in Halo 1 could have been an armory and it would've been designed no differently. I don't know how that DOESN'T affect the storyline. It implies that the story is incidental.

ITT: Jedikirby *****ing about a game he hasn't played thing and other things he doesn't like

I've never really played Halo. I borrowed it and tried to play it over xbox live and got destroyed. I think it's because people have had many years of practice since Halo 1 while I was still plating jedi knight... when there's no conc, I'm useless!