Halo 3 - now coming to Xbox One. MC Collection.

[simms]

doesn't mean Halo 2 is a better game.

Not sure if you are responding to my statement but oh yes it does, if we are talking about a FPS whereby combat and the AI are the main ingredients. No Wii FPS so far is anywhere near Halo 2 in terms of the shooty gameplay even Metroid 3 won't touch Halo 2 in terms combat but will good at the other parts like story (if your a Metroid fan), adventuring, platformy bits, remote aiming and waggle.

For the record I was slightly dissappointed by Halo2 but its nowhere near as bad as some people make out.

[scottcr]

Not sure if you are responding to my statement but oh yes it does, if we are talking about a FPS whereby combat and the AI are the main ingredients. No Wii FPS so far is anywhere near Halo 2 in terms of the shooty gameplay even Metroid 3 won't touch Halo 2 in terms combat but will good at the other parts like story (if your a Metroid fan), adventuring, platformy bits, remote aiming and waggle.

For the record I was slightly dissappointed by Halo2 but its nowhere near as bad as some people make out.

I feel all positive now towards Halo 3 - so I don't want to derail the thread and cause unhappiness.

We shall agree to disagree.

[Guest]

I feel all positive now towards Halo 3 - so I don't want to derail the thread and cause unhappiness.

We shall agree to disagree.

did you like halo then?

it's not that different really, so i don't understand how you can have so much hatred. unless the answer to my question is no, obviously.

[scottcr]

loved halo.

loved it.

I thought halo 2 got some pretty fundamental things wrong and my dislike is based mainly on my expectations of it being as least as good as halo 1 - which it wasn't - by a long shot.

but - that's that.

this is about halo 3 - and it sounds amazing.

[simms]

loved halo.

loved it.

I thought halo 2 got some pretty fundamental things wrong and my dislike is based mainly on my expectations of it being as least as good as halo 1 - which it wasn't - by a long shot.

but - that's that.

this is about halo 3 - and it sounds amazing.

Sorry to continue this debate at the risk of derailing the thread, but what were these fundamental things that made it pale so badly in comparison to Halo. Also Halo 3 is not likely to be a huge departure from 2 to be honest. This is a chance to redeem yourself Scott and justify your constant ramblings about Halo 2 being no good. I sorry if it seems like I'm attacking you but honestly I'm not but your constant bashing of Halo2 without any justfication was tiring.

[pretentious_helvetica]

I thought Halo had better weapon balancing, a more expansive environment compared to some of the claustrophobia Halo 2 had. A lot of Halo 2 also seemed very linear - Halo was quite linear but it didn't really feel that way at times. I think Halo 2's multiplayer also got a lot more loving in the development cycle than the single player and it shows, while Halo's single player had a lot more substance to it. Plus I missed that ace volumetric effect of sunlight passing through the trees in Halo 2. There's trees in Halo 3, so I'm hopeful for the effect to make a welcome return.

My two pence anyhoo.

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

Now that I've returned to Halo 2 after a couple of years I find it a much better experience. Mainly because the impossible expectations are now gone, in that it should be Halo but then like 10 times as good. Halo 2 is a very good game, and stood up wonderfully after this time, even though we've moved to a new generation of games which have raised the bar in many ways.

[Gregory Wolfe]

I thought Halo had better weapon balancing, a more expansive environment compared to some of the claustrophobia Halo 2 had. A lot of Halo 2 also seemed very linear - Halo was quite linear but it didn't really feel that way at times. I think Halo 2's multiplayer also got a lot more loving in the development cycle than the single player and it shows, while Halo's single player had a lot more substance to it. Plus I missed that ace volumetric effect of sunlight passing through the trees in Halo 2. There's trees in Halo 3, so I'm hopeful for the effect to make a welcome return.

My two pence anyhoo.

What do you mean by weapon balancing? If you're talking about multi player then my experience is that it's an excuse used by spazzes who couldn't get used to dual wielding or sometimes quick switches from one weapon to another, noob combo, lolz. No offence like but I think the imbalances all came out in the wash when experienced players played each other.

[Ferine]

Sorry to continue this debate at the risk of derailing the thread, but what were these fundamental things that made it pale so badly in comparison to Halo.

Dual-wielding diluting the tripartite combat mechanic of gun, grenade, mêlée. The inclusion of bosses. The damage-sponge Brutes rearing their heads. Endless waves of spawning enemies in some sequences. Psychic Jackal Snipers crippling the enjoyment of Legendary. More arena-based combat as opposed to the original's largely open battlefields. A highly unsatisfying ending that was horribly executed.

However, I'd still say it's the second best FPS of the last generation. It's a really good game, it just catches a lot of flack for taking what many see to be backward steps towards well-worn first-person shooter territory— c.f. the reaction that's due to hit Metroid Prime: Corruption when it's released.

[Gregory Wolfe]

Dual-wielding diluting the tripartite combat mechanic of gun, grenade, mêlée. The inclusion of bosses. The damage-sponge Brutes rearing their heads. Endless waves of spawning enemies in some sequences. Psychic Jackal Snipers crippling the enjoyment of Legendary. More arena-based combat as opposed to the original's largely open battlefields. A highly unsatisfying ending that was horribly executed.

However, I'd still say it's the second best FPS of the last generation. It's a really good game, it just catches a lot of flack for taking what many see to be backward steps towards well-worn first-person shooter territory— c.f. the reaction that's due to hit Metroid Prime: Corruption when it's released.

If by diluting you mean adding more permutations then goddammit you're right.

[Shook]

Absolutely everything I've read or seen about Halo 3 points to it being COMPLETELY BLINDING.

The beta, even in its simplicity, was a perfect upgrade. All of the new mutiplayer inclusions, especially Forge, look really well thought out. Early hands-on reports about the Campaign have been very positive.

Add to that that we now get Four player online co-op (FOUR. Imagine it on legendary), shareable films, less emphasis on dual wielding and customisable everything and it looks like Bungie are cooking up a right belter of a game.

And those screenshots...

This game just oozes class already.

[Ferine]

If by diluting you mean adding more permutations then goddammit you're right.

No, I meant diluting as in making it worse. Obviously this is my opinion, but I found that in multiplayer a lot of people would just run at each other dual-wielding SMGs or some such, and there wouldn't be the to-and-fro I found in the original where players would weigh up whether it was best to backpedal and grenade, charge in and go for the mêlée, or just stay at arm's length firing.

Something I noticed in the Halo 3 Beta was that not many people used dual-wielding, and for me the experience was all the better for it.

[Harlen Quinn]

EDIT.

[Nick R]

That Wired article was great. The image of the death locations on the multiplayer map was the sort of thing I imagined they used as a testing tool, but I had no idea about the the other image - the one with the dots that show the player's location at regular intervals, to see how smoothly they're moving through the level.

I suppose some people are worried that they'll be "dumbing it down" too much in their efforts to make it accessible, but surely the stuff they're talking about in that article will mostly apply to Easy and Normal?

Also noticed this:

Wired article:

"Battles, he hopes, will once again become the sort of lightning-fast chess matches they were in the original Halo, requiring constant, on-the-fly decisions about which method of attack to use."

Kerraig:

"Its like chess in space with guns. And you only have 1 piece."

[pretentious_helvetica]

What do you mean by weapon balancing? If you're talking about multi player then my experience is that it's an excuse used by spazzes who couldn't get used to dual wielding or sometimes quick switches from one weapon to another, noob combo, lolz. No offence like but I think the imbalances all came out in the wash when experienced players played each other.

Well, I think the single player weapons in Halo were a lot more suited than the single player weapons in Halo 2. Multiplayer's a different matter for Halo 2 though - I stopped playing when people started exploiting the energy sword with its oh-so-fair infinite energy and teleport-to-kill-instantly death lunge. It totally put me off playing multiplayer Halo 2 and I'm no spaz when it comes to playing online FPS games. I could quite easily kick your arse at Unreal Tournament. Bring your own rocket launcher.

[diggler]

My only real beef with Halo 2 was its scrapping of the battle rifle and pistol - the two works of utter brilliance that made Halo 1's combat such a riot. It was still fun, but without 'em, instantly lost something.

[LittleJoe]

Interesting article indeed, finally an explanation for why we never saw that level from the E3 demonstration.

Where was this? I must be blind I didn't see anything about that.

[scottcr]

Sorry to continue this debate at the risk of derailing the thread, but what were these fundamental things that made it pale so badly in comparison to Halo. Also Halo 3 is not likely to be a huge departure from 2 to be honest. This is a chance to redeem yourself Scott and justify your constant ramblings about Halo 2 being no good. I sorry if it seems like I'm attacking you but honestly I'm not but your constant bashing of Halo2 without any justfication was tiring.

I've spoken many many times about what I didn't like about Halo 2.

I summed it up best when I said that, in Halo 1, I felt as though I was dropped into the middle of a war to sort things out. Just me, an assault rifle and my green suit. In Halo 2, I felt as though I was in the middle of a war and I had no idea what was going on.

I really disliked the weapons and the dual weilding, I got to grips with it just fine, but the assualt rifle things didn't have the impact of the original. I didn't like the boss battles and I couldn't stand the arbiter. I thought it was dull and confusing. I didn't like the brutes. Basically... I got bored with Halo 2. The standout moment, which I thought was excellent - was the attack on the walker thing near the beginning. That was the only time in the game where I got that Halo-esque feeling of being the Master Chief, coming in to sort shit out.

I'm particularly impressed with that testing article in Wired - it seems as though Bungie know fine well (and they've hinted at it a number of times) what made Halo 2 a less than satisfactory one player experience - and they're really going out of their way to fix that. To me, that suggests that Halo 3 is going to be all kinds of awesome and I really can't wait.

[macosx]

Dual wielding and its reliance on it, spoiled Halo 2 for me. Also the AI seemed not a patch on Halo 1 at all, which I felt even from the early battles. The whole feel of the game was different and the ending was a kick in the balls. Oh yeah and they diluted the narrative and lost me when i suddenly jumped into someone elses body and story at points. From what i've read they've addressed all the above in H3.

[Silence]

The one thing I dislike about Halo 1 when going back to it is the health system, with the health bars and first aid kits. That's one thing Halo 2 definitely improved on.

[Straps]

Where was this? I must be blind I didn't see anything about that.

They said that originally for Halo 2, they had different teams all working on different levels (including post-"finishing the fight" levels) and that it all came out a jumbled mess, so they scrapped 80% of it and started again. We are to assume that the E3 level before its release was part of the scrapped work.

In any case, I strongly feel that Halo 3 campaign is going to be a belter. They've proven to me that multiplayer is fine, and assuming the extra deployables and flamethrower and such don't completely break it then it's my opinion that they've bettered Halo 2's multiplayer. And the noises being made seem to suggest that it'll be the case for the campaign as well. So in essence, what does it matter if Halo 2 was a bit of a let-down? If it weren't, then we could well be sat here in three years' time lamenting the duff aspects of Halo 3's campaign and how they broke the series at number three, rather than number two. I'm not sure that makes any sense, really, but I'd stick a bet on them having nailed the Halo 3 campaign. Not perfect, but fantastic. And I for one am really fucking excited about it.

[Shook]

Why is everyone harping on about Halo 2?

Halo 3 is out in 35 days. Woooooooot.

[clarky75]

Why is everyone harping on about Halo 2?

Halo 3 is out in 35 days. Woooooooot.

34 days 13 hours 38 mins.................. wooot woot

[Gommy]

34 days 13 hours 38 mins.................. wooot woot

Wort Wort?

[Stanley]

spazzes who couldn't get used to dual wielding

The reason Halo was such a breath of fresh air was because it took away as much as it added to the FPS genre; every weapon was equally as powerful when employed correctly and used skillfully. Dual wielding added nothing to experience and looked like they added it just for the sake of it. I mean, Goldeneye had it so it was nothing new. Why didn't they use it in Halo 1 if it's so great? The reason why is because Halo stripped away all the flab that had consumed FPS' over the years and brought it back to the combat. Not since the first Quake did an FPS feel so fresh.

I hope Halo 3 is brilliant, but I fear that because they added dual wielding in 2 they can't think of a reasonable excuse for it not to be in 3.

[Talvalin]

I hope Halo 3 is brilliant, but I fear that because they added dual wielding in 2 they can't think of a reasonable excuse for it not to be in 3.

Did you play the beta at all? Dual-wielding is still in, but with the return of the assault rifle you're in a far better starting position than with Halo 2. The first thing you had to do in Halo 2 was to find another gun to dual-wield or a battle rifle. With Halo 3, you can charge straight in.

[Stanley]

Did you play the beta at all? Dual-wielding is still in, but with the return of the assault rifle you're in a far better starting position than with Halo 2. The first thing you had to do in Halo 2 was to find another gun to dual-wield or a battle rifle. With Halo 3, you can charge straight in.

No I have only just got my 360. Don't get me wrong, Halo 3 is one ofthe reasons I bought the console, so I'm hoping it will be the best game I've ever played, but there in lies the problem - weight of expectation and all that.

[b00dles]

No I have only just got my 360. Don't get me wrong, Halo 3 is one ofthe reasons I bought the console, so I'm hoping it will be the best game I've ever played, but there in lies the problem - weight of expectation and all that.

I'm going for not thinking it will be that great after the disappointment of 2 then hopefully I'll be really pleasantly surprised. Over hyping has often spoiled stuff for me.

[Eighthours]

but with the return of the assault rifle you're in a far better starting position than with Halo 2.

I didn't feel that. I felt hopelessly underpowered with just the assault rifle.

[Straps]

The Assualt Rifle was perfectly pitched. If I didn't have a power weapon, then 95% of the time I had the AR/BR or AR/CC and never felt the need to look for anything else.