Before There Was Halo
- Thread starter Shamus Young
- Start date
I never owned a console, so I can't say what Halo did or did not do for the console FPS gerne. As for what it did for the PC shooter gerne, which it was announced for and for which I bought it: F*** all. By the time they released the game for the PC the enviroments were ok at best. Those wide open areas they promised were for the most part fairly cramped. And I don't know if it's the libary level or another one, but there was one crappy single player level that consisted of a seemingly endless sequence of room-corridor-same room with the cubes that act as furniture slightly rearanged repeated way to often. And as a final kick in the balls, after a while they tried to make me run through that same godforsaken level backwards. That's the moment I uninstalled it and returned it (that was still possible back then). Perhaps if I had a good internet connection on my game machine then the multiplayer could have salvaged the game, but as it was the single player was just poor.
Eh. Quake 2 ended all shooters for me. I played through it on the hardest difficulty level, thoroughly enjoyed myself, played a little multiplayer, and when all was said and done, I would never have to play another shooter again. Sure, I have played others, but never felt I needed to, and also never thought that any of them matched the sheer chain gun and rocket launcher joy of Quake 2.
ok we'll go slow here, keep up.DazBurger said:
Shamus said that Halo LED US to where shooters are today. I SAID that TODAY, we are stuck with a bunch of, as Yahtzee put it, a bunch of shooters that are ultra-relaistic (ha) Brown hazy shooters. So, Halo LED US to the modern brown hazy shooters. I did not SAY Halo was a brown realistic shooter. I said that Halo LED US HERE. That was Shamus's point, that Halo is responsible for the modern age of shooters. I was saying that is not a good thing. If you cannot understand my point now, I cannot help you.
Halo pretty much defined the current economics of this consle generation, the FPS is king! I will say I prefer Halo to CoD, mainly because Halo is more interesting than CoD and I can actually do something other than get sniped and killed by campers.
Some of you people just can't let it go, can you? Why do so many feel the need to pick the article apart, finding anything they can to shoot it down? Accept that fact that you don't like Halo, but other people do. Also accept the fact that it was a milestone in gaming, whether you like it or not.
It was the second First Person Shooter I had ever played, and he pointed out something that made I loved about the game. Your A.I. partners. They actually helped and knew how to fight. That was what amazed me about the game, and the reason I stayed away from all other FPS. It was nice not being the only thing everyone shot at, although that changed midway through the game. That was a bit of a let down.
It was the second First Person Shooter I had ever played, and he pointed out something that made I loved about the game. Your A.I. partners. They actually helped and knew how to fight. That was what amazed me about the game, and the reason I stayed away from all other FPS. It was nice not being the only thing everyone shot at, although that changed midway through the game. That was a bit of a let down.
[quote="So Halo led other games to become brown and realistic by being purple and science-fiction-ish?
Is that what you are saying?
[/quote]
Well, if Shamus is right, and remember, we're talking about the Experienced Point today here, and Halo changed shooters forever, then we only ended up here, with today's shooters, because of Halo. If Shamus is wrong, and Halo did NOT cause the state of todays shooters, then no, no Halo didn't. Either way, I miss runnign around in God Mode with a chainsaw letting off some steam on an endless horse of monsters, instead of escorting retarded AI civilians as they march blindly towards death, taking cover behind thigh-level walls every ten feet and having to start a mission over every time Generic Thug #12 sees me before I see him. Give me back my BFG!
Is that what you are saying?
[/quote]Well, if Shamus is right, and remember, we're talking about the Experienced Point today here, and Halo changed shooters forever, then we only ended up here, with today's shooters, because of Halo. If Shamus is wrong, and Halo did NOT cause the state of todays shooters, then no, no Halo didn't. Either way, I miss runnign around in God Mode with a chainsaw letting off some steam on an endless horse of monsters, instead of escorting retarded AI civilians as they march blindly towards death, taking cover behind thigh-level walls every ten feet and having to start a mission over every time Generic Thug #12 sees me before I see him. Give me back my BFG!
Very good article I must say. It sold the idea to me that the mechanics of Halo were/are the best for FPSs on a console which the salesnumbers of such titles show.
I myself hate Halo for killing the good old classic shooter. Nowadays it can´t be found in the mainstream-library because PC-shooters are not promising enough to return the investment compared to a console-shooter (and we all know how much games cost these days to produce). As times passed I adapted to the new gamestyle and I am having fun with Halo and such. But the old geezer I am I still glorify the past and the dedication you had to bring along to beat a game. Those were times where they imposed sadistic challanges for you because... you expected it as a consumer so you didn´t feel ripped of your money. Nowadays there are hardly any challanges even on highest difficulty settings (well Halo 2 is one of the few that are hard to impossible depending on your skill level. Good job Bungie). *grumble grumble*
Where was I? Oh yeah, good article!
I myself hate Halo for killing the good old classic shooter. Nowadays it can´t be found in the mainstream-library because PC-shooters are not promising enough to return the investment compared to a console-shooter (and we all know how much games cost these days to produce). As times passed I adapted to the new gamestyle and I am having fun with Halo and such. But the old geezer I am I still glorify the past and the dedication you had to bring along to beat a game. Those were times where they imposed sadistic challanges for you because... you expected it as a consumer so you didn´t feel ripped of your money. Nowadays there are hardly any challanges even on highest difficulty settings (well Halo 2 is one of the few that are hard to impossible depending on your skill level. Good job Bungie). *grumble grumble*
Where was I? Oh yeah, good article!
I loved the first halo, it was perfect, but I didn't like halo 2 to present. Everything after halo is generic console shooter.. pff.. breaking the weapon system down into catagories where one weapon sucks in all but one situation and dual weilding was the final nail in the coffin.
I would say that the "brown realistic Multiplayer first" side did not come from Halo CE since the Campaign and multiplayer seemed to be 60% and 40% respectively in terms of the games focus. And Halo was far from realistic or brown (Ok, brown was used in their color pallet quite a bit but at least the game dosnt look like its being played while looking through a earth colored filter). If anything it was Call of duty trying to be 'tough and gritty'.DiscoAtThePanic said:
Red vs Blue is definitely one of the best by products of the game, but i would say in my own opinion that it was not the only good thing.
Finally, Bungie themselves are not taking credit for 'revolutionizing the genre' (at least i havnt read or heard them say it) thats all words being put in their mouthes by fans, haters, and Microsoft.
EDIT: Should have read the rest of the comments before i replied to Disco
DiscoAtThePanic said:Well, if Shamus is right, and remember, we're talking about the Experienced Point today here, and Halo changed shooters forever, then we only ended up here, with today's shooters, because of Halo. If Shamus is wrong, and Halo did NOT cause the state of todays shooters, then no, no Halo didn't. Either way, I miss runnign around in God Mode with a chainsaw letting off some steam on an endless horse of monsters, instead of escorting retarded AI civilians as they march blindly towards death, taking cover behind thigh-level walls every ten feet and having to start a mission over every time Generic Thug #12 sees me before I see him. Give me back my BFG!"So Halo led other games to become brown and realistic by being purple and science-fiction-ish?
Is that what you are saying?
Yea he did say that it lead to the current state of shooters but that does not mean that every little thing that you dont like about shooters stems from halo. I mean, in my opinion the Regenerating health didnt even come from Halo. It would have happened anyways due to the inaccuracy of the joysticks compared to the mouse. Inaccuracy leads to taking more hits and damage so something had to change and compensate for those hits. Halo slapped on a shield system over the HP bars to allow the character to take the hits.
Never in the entire series of Halo did you escort a helpless civilian, Sure you had to escort Keys once but he was armed and that small stretch of the level was piss easy even on the harder difficulties.
Halo also was very forgiving as far as your enemy shooting first. Both by almost always guaranteeing that enemies would spawn in front of you as well as having the regenerating shield.
And since when did anything in halo even somewhat appear to be a cover based shooter with chest high walls everywhere. That was Gears of War which, mind you, is a brown, gritty 3rd person shooter with true regenerating health. But you dont see anyone beating that series up.
To me you seem to be blaming halo for all of your first person shooter woes. Sure Halo was a starting point for major console shooters, however it was the subsequent Gears of wars and Call of duties that truly diluted the genre into what it is today which is what you seem to hate so much. I for one like the series and take it for what it is, a nonrealistic and colorful FPS that i can have fun in. The current state of games are the Generic Brown Regenerating Health Shooter developers fault.
Never in the entire series of Halo did you escort a helpless civilian, Sure you had to escort Keys once but he was armed and that small stretch of the level was piss easy even on the harder difficulties.
Halo also was very forgiving as far as your enemy shooting first. Both by almost always guaranteeing that enemies would spawn in front of you as well as having the regenerating shield.
And since when did anything in halo even somewhat appear to be a cover based shooter with chest high walls everywhere. That was Gears of War which, mind you, is a brown, gritty 3rd person shooter with true regenerating health. But you dont see anyone beating that series up.
To me you seem to be blaming halo for all of your first person shooter woes. Sure Halo was a starting point for major console shooters, however it was the subsequent Gears of wars and Call of duties that truly diluted the genre into what it is today which is what you seem to hate so much. I for one like the series and take it for what it is, a nonrealistic and colorful FPS that i can have fun in. The current state of games are the Generic Brown Regenerating Health Shooter developers fault.
Well, Shamus made the claim that Halo changed the genre. The brown hazy multiplayer realistic shooter is the state of the genre, what dominates it now. If Halo changed the genre, and this is where we ended up, Halo had to have had something to do with where we are now, IF Shamus is right. I am not sure he is. I am only pointing out that for his statement to be true, that also has to be true.Cpu46 said:
"Bungie dabbled in RTS".
Bah. IMHO, the Myth games were the best thing Bungie ever did, although Starcraft and Total Annihilation got a lot more attention. Epic plot in it, too, and none of that cheap science fiction where the writers fail on physics (unlike Halo... Yeah, Sci-Fi in general is pretty much a bad precedent bandwagon). I think it's rather unfortunate that Myth wasn't popular enough to change the genre (or the rest of the industry?) like Halo did, and now we have a plethora of RTSes where building up an army is tantamount to using it.
I liked other RTSes too, but Myth, especially the multiplayer in Myth 2, would extract the awesome parts and allow me to revel in them like with a pigsty full of simulated mayhem.
Bah. IMHO, the Myth games were the best thing Bungie ever did, although Starcraft and Total Annihilation got a lot more attention. Epic plot in it, too, and none of that cheap science fiction where the writers fail on physics (unlike Halo... Yeah, Sci-Fi in general is pretty much a bad precedent bandwagon). I think it's rather unfortunate that Myth wasn't popular enough to change the genre (or the rest of the industry?) like Halo did, and now we have a plethora of RTSes where building up an army is tantamount to using it.
I liked other RTSes too, but Myth, especially the multiplayer in Myth 2, would extract the awesome parts and allow me to revel in them like with a pigsty full of simulated mayhem.
I have a hard to ascribing any notably positive trends in FPS development to Halo - for a given definition of notably and positive of course. Quite obviously, Halo became the blueprint for how a console FPS should be designed, and the success and popularity of FPS games on consoles is due in a large part to the success of Halo; certainly the console FPS genre is a more functional one now.
As someone who considers the very notion of an FPS on a console to be akin to blasphemy, I don't care about any of that - I'd never be caught dead playing a console FPS for any reason, so the only aspect of Halo that makes a damn bit of difference to me was its extremely polished mediocrity. Mediocrity that has unfortunately been widely imitated, and which, because of the success of Halo, has led to multi-platform FPS development heavily favoring consoles. Neither of those trends are worthwhile in my estimation - thanks to Halo, the ratio of aggressively uninteresting FPS games primarily designed for consoles and, if released on the PC at all, given naught but a desultory port to the FPS genre's natural and only true home, has gone up so high that I'm having trouble remembering the last pure FPS that I've purchased.
As someone who considers the very notion of an FPS on a console to be akin to blasphemy, I don't care about any of that - I'd never be caught dead playing a console FPS for any reason, so the only aspect of Halo that makes a damn bit of difference to me was its extremely polished mediocrity. Mediocrity that has unfortunately been widely imitated, and which, because of the success of Halo, has led to multi-platform FPS development heavily favoring consoles. Neither of those trends are worthwhile in my estimation - thanks to Halo, the ratio of aggressively uninteresting FPS games primarily designed for consoles and, if released on the PC at all, given naught but a desultory port to the FPS genre's natural and only true home, has gone up so high that I'm having trouble remembering the last pure FPS that I've purchased.