Halo Reach Perfect 10! WTF?

[Evil_Weevil]

As the thread starter I feel it my duty to try and justify my position. This being the internet that's somewhat more difficult to do in a reasonable way, so here goes...

As I said before I do not recognise the validity of a 10/10 score and nor do I believe that this represents an opinion that the game is "Godlike" to borrow a term. Instead I'm in agreement with you and Eren Murtagh that 10/10 is not necessarily perfect. What I would say though is that even with the advances in game design, the craft and detail present in graphical and audio work has been largely lacking from the story telling aspect of games.

I'm not saying either that every game should be Great Expectations or War and Peace (although I would like a game to attempt Kafkaesque, would be, interesting... ) but for a well read and widely circulated review site like IGN to explicitly belittle this part of games production is deeply disappointing to me as I believe games have the capability to be much more than the Summer Cinema Bonanza that I see currently.

And yet, despite not being particularly original and having mostly stock characters, the story is at least engaging and provides reason enough to want to progress other than "these guys are bad." I think it's the best story (or at least, the best-told story) in the series.

It doesn't get in the way of the game, it's functional, the characters are likable, and there are some definite "oh shi--" moments. By FPS standards, it's fantastic. Why should it be marked down thusly?

K, back to the film references: Inception or perhaps The Matrix. Both fantastically fun, but simultaneously fantastically ambitious in terms of ideas and concepts. Where is the equivalent in games? Maybe in the works of auteur designers like Hideo Kojima and the numerous indie studios.

But the mainstream games industry has developed like cinema's retarded little brother in terms of marketing this trite, uninspired and (to me) utterly unsatisfactory garbage with the way in which it plays it so totally safe with its ideas. Whilst I still play games like MW2 for a little light relief I would hate to see the industry continue utilising these emotionally and intellectually sterile period/future/modern war environment, with none of depth that other mediums have brought to these settings. I mean for Chris's sake, even Starship Troopers had a pretty potent black comedy heart about the bleak pointlessness of war, and that was fun as hell.

I'm going to spoiler tag this; do not click on this spoiler if you do not want to be spoiled for Halo Reach.

No, seriously, I'm going to mention the ending. Don't click on it if you want to avoid being spoiled.

Spoiler

One of the things that's interesting in Halo Reach - particularly when compared to other games in the series - is that you have a very definite reason for fighting here. You're defending your home from invasion, rather than being told "here be aliens, go kill them."

But the thing that worked very well for me is that... you're fighting a losing battle. Sure, if you're familiar with Halo canon you know ahead of time that Reach falls - it was mentioned in the Halo 1 manual and there was an entire book about it - but that doesn't really undercut the impact of Noble Team (and the rest of the UNSC) steadily realizing the magnitude of what they're up against.

There's a feeling of melancholy in the Reach campaign that the other Halo games haven't had. One by one, Noble Team's numbers dwindle, and I thought it was actually very well-done how Bungie presented things. You're fighting a losing battle; there is going to be no last minute rescue or deus ex machina. Can you have victory in defeat? Even knowing that you're going to die, can you pass the torch to maintain hope that somewhere, your allies will win?

The finale is superb in this regard, and actually ties gameplay in very well to story. There are two arguable "finales," but mentioning the first one - you're manning a railgun turret to try to protect the launch of the Pillar of Autumn (the ship from Halo 1). There's a Covenant cruiser closing in on the Pillar; but you also have smaller ships firing at you. I found myself trying to ignore the smaller ships to fire on the Cruiser; trying to accomplish my mission even if it meant my own death.

To me, that's a very interesting tie-in between gameplay and story. It's why Reach is my favorite campaign in the series.

Also spoiler tagged for Spoilers

Spoiler

Now to me that experience you had when defending the pillar of autumn is great, really that sounds like a truly great moment to experience. But, and here's my main point, did the rest of the narrative bring you to this moment of emotive power? Did the game provide enough hooks, enough flesh to achieve this?

Having not played the game I can't answer this, but I still stand by my original argument that the IGN review in question was mistaken to sideline narrative and story in favour of lauding other aspects, in effect looking the other way.

To be honest it sounds like you consider the story to be solid enough on its own, but I don't think that detracts from my observation that gaming is sadly lacking in ambition and effective emotional intelligence

 

[gabe12301]

Looks like someone bought a PS3
but seriously,Don't judge the game until you play it then you can call it mediocrity.

 

[Sn1P3r M98]

Hell, some reviewers were giving Halo 3 perfect scores.

I thought it was perfect....until I put a good 250 hours into it. It was a great game. It just got old, and better things came.

 

[AWC Viper]

this is all i have to say about this.

 

[Jumplion]

I think it's important to note that IGN had recently revamped it's review system, now on a 20 point scale (no 9.8s, only .0s and .5 endings).

That being said, reviews are opinions and you should never base a purchase on just one review. Take the collective viewing on a game and make your decision from there. If the majority say that the controls are clunky, then take that into consideration. If a minority say that "It's just a harmless lil' shoot-em-up" but everyone else says that it's a load of tripe, take that into consideration aswell.

People take the "10/10 means perfect!" rating way too seriously. 10/10 does not mean "perfect", it means that it outshines every other game in it's genre and could be considered the new level to achieve for. But again, that's all opinion.

 

[skips]

10 doesn't necessarily mean 'perfect.' In this case it's possible that the positives greatly outweighed the negatives to the point where they seemed irrelevant.

 

[John Funk]

Also spoiler tagged for Spoilers

Spoiler

Now to me that experience you had when defending the pillar of autumn is great, really that sounds like a truly great moment to experience. But, and here's my main point, did the rest of the narrative bring you to this moment of emotive power? Did the game provide enough hooks, enough flesh to achieve this?

Having not played the game I can't answer this, but I still stand by my original argument that the IGN review in question was mistaken to sideline narrative and story in favour of lauding other aspects, in effect looking the other way.

To be honest it sounds like you consider the story to be solid enough on its own, but I don't think that detracts from my observation that gaming is sadly lacking in ambition and effective emotional intelligence

In my opinion, yes it did. I found myself invested in the fate of (most) of the characters by the end, there were several poignant moments, and the story hooked me enough to keep me wanting to play more for reasons other than "I want to beat this game" and "I need to beat this game for work."

I disagree with the IGN reviewer's assessment in the first place, but I also think that it depends on the game. Torchlight has the barest minimum of plot, but the gameplay is fun. Tetris has no plot, but it's a classic.

If A.) the central purpose of the game is not to tell a story, and B.) the gameplay is well-made and entertaining enough to compensate, then I have no qualms with not penalizing it for not having a good story. I mean, I play FIGHTING GAMES. Are we going to be docking Street Fighter points now because we don't clearly understand M. Bison's motivations?

 

[Evil_Weevil]

damn, and here was me thinking that war was a tiny bit more involved than that...

Cheap shots and pettiness aside, representing experiences should have more than one dimension in whatever medium you choose. Yes Sports games are inherently lacking in a narrative because they take each encounter between opponents completely out of the context that usually surrounds them. That's just about acceptable when you take a game of a game because sports (and puzzles) can exist within the framework of their rules. In a sense Halo multiplayer is the best representation of what you want from a shooter because it has no context, no begining and no end, beyond the ones imposed on it by its in built rules. A narrative storyline (which the singleplayer experience is) should strive to convey some motivation, some empathy and perhaps some more complex ideas than "run, shoot, die"

Sure it can be a bit more involved if you are a higher up but here is the thing the story of wars come from what happened before that and after, soldiers do not always know the exact reasons for a war but what they do know is they are defending something important to them and that is their motivation. You are a soldier in this game, they have attacked you therefore you defend yourself there is not much story to that, the motivation for their attack is simple "You are a pest therefore they're going to kill you" and the motivation for your retatliation is "Hey they're trying to kill us".

You may not know why but the point is someone is trying to kill you and you don't want to be killed. IMO the story of WWII isn't all that great if you don't look at what happened before or after, only in-between whilst they are fighting each other.

No. just no. completely misunderstood what I was asking. How can you possibly say that war, ESPECIALLY for a 'footsoldier' type grunt level, is not involved? Hell they're the most involved mothas in the whole business. Look at any war and find moments of incredible heroism and emotive courage from ordinary soldiers. Have you ever seriously found a truly emotive moment in a shooter? No, you're too busy mowing down faceless enemy nonames whilst stepping over the dead bodies of your fallen comrades, because you are a super soldier (or might as well be in most shooters)

Which brings me to a quick point. Now, these Spartans (Master Chief especially, but for the sake of argument, Team 6 as well), quite important aren't they? Quite likely to be highly briefed and knowledgable on enemy intel and the setting in which they find themselves fighting as well as probably fiercely loyal to each other and human enough to give a damn about the true grunt levels humans dying around them... any sense of this in any Halo game up till ODST (again, haven't played Reach)? Thought not.

 

[The Rookie Gamer]

snip

I felt the same way after seeing the campaign. By the way, when could we expect a review for Reach here, if I may ask?

 

[Eipok Kruden]

TL;DR?? Films cant get away with using another medium to tell a story so why can games??

Because films CAN get away with it. Terminator: Salvation isn't particularly story driven or deep, but it's a ton of fun and it adds a ton of little bits of info to the overall Terminator story as well as referencing a bunch of things from other Terminator movies. It stands on its own as a well made summer action movie, but it also adds to the Terminator lore as a whole.

No, that is a film using another film to continue the story. I wouldn't expect one film or game to be made that encapsulates an entire story (although it would be nice from time to time game developers) but I expect the film to have some story elements in it. Also, the new Terminator film kinda sucked because of its shallow plot and lack of a real connection to the original Terminators (oh sure, they throw out CGI Arnie and show the scars being made but that's not a real connection, it's a tenuous link at best)

To clarify, my issue with your original statement has nothing to do with Halo, more your assertion that it's fine for a game to put a story together that says nothing and just be enjoyed based on its gameplay because it has a story written up elsewhere. Games that have no real story are fast becoming a thing of the past. Even Mario tried to put a different spin on its story in Sunshine. If we want the medium to evolve we have to expect games to have a solid storyline woven into the gameplay rather than force people to read literal novels in their time away from the game to get the full experience.

But... Wait, I never said that it's alright for a game to have a story that doesn't say anything. Halo 2-5 have fun stories that move the campaign along and give your actions reason, but they aren't really that deep if you aren't looking for depth. They don't spell everything out. There's an insane amount of depth if you look for it, but it isn't required to enjoy the story. That's what I was saying.

I find it the same with Terminator. There's actually quite a bit of story and detail (not really character development, but story development for the resistance and SkyNet) if you're looking for it and there are a lot of details that add to the overall lore. It's not as well done as the Halo games and it isn't quite as well woven into the background, but it's there. It was just an example. If you still don't understand what I'm saying, then there's nothing I can do to make it clear to you. Try playing through Halo 3 again, except this time think about everything that happens, listen to all the dialogue, explore the environments, read the terminals, put some effort into uncovering the finer points of its story. If you don't care about putting that kind of thought into it, then Halo just isn't for you.

 

[DarkRyter]

Maybe they just liked the game.

People can like games. It tends to happen on a frequent basis.

 

[Canid117]

As I recall the general consensus on these forums is that "IGN's reviews are shit" so I am not too surprised.

 

[Doc Funky]

...the argument I was putting forward is entirely to do with writing in games, and from there its spiralled into an argument about scoring in reviews.

...and that's all well and good, but you have to acknowledge that even before getting into the actual point of your original post, you hit the reader with the 10/10 score right off the bat, and also utilized the "perfect 10" argument yourself, so you had already set up the "scoring in reviews" framework. But I'll play along.

It seems like it's really popular these days to say that writing in games needs to be deep, rich, challenging material (yes, I love Extra Credits, too), and that anything less should be unacceptable...and I'll agree that it's true in some cases, but not all. While I love games with deep stories and rich worlds to explore, there are days that I just want to shoot aliens in the head, or roll up colorful objects into an ever-expanding ball...it's the same way with movies, as there are times when I want to watch a deep, sharply-written drama, and other times where I just want to watch some absolute cheese where Schwarzenegger blows things up and spouts one-liners. Should every story be deep and involving? Maybe. Do they have to be? No.

It's the same as it is with any art form. Things can be extremely enjoyable while still having flaws, but if you want to say that having flaws can never make anything "perfect", well...you're getting into those issues of scoring again.

 

[John Funk]

snip

I felt the same way after seeing the campaign. By the way, when could we expect a review for Reach here, if I may ask?

Tuesday, 9 AM EST.

 

[Autofaux]

reviewers like IGN create the impression that Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is better than the Godfather.

That's just the Games Editorial Team. IGN Movies is a bit more scathing when the movie doesn't have important things like good writing, dialogue, or if there are more than a few plot holes.

With IGN's new 20point scale for reviews now weeding out minor point discrepancies, like the IGN AU review score for Halo 3 - 8.9, (pretty much a 9.0 now) which is the score for Halo: Reach. And the written review reflects that.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

when did it get 10/10? I only saw 9.5/10.

 

[UberNoodle]

It's so trendy to hate on Halo's story but fans of space opera literature should be able to see that were Halo a series of novels, it would have been very popular and even one awards. Story and Plot are different things. The game has a simple plot because it's an ACTION GAME. However, the story is the conglomerate of the characters, the world and the events of past, present and future within that world. As such, Halo has a pretty good story.

ALSO: this is a GAME. Every single thing that the player does in the game, is writing the story. Many critics of game storylines/plots forget that important point. The player is writing the majority of these stories via their actions within the game. The cutscenes and story events are just plot plots, cues and bookends, to the REAL story, written by the player.

Oh and I have a rule - anyone who throws around charges of being pretentious, much be pretty pretentious themselves. What qualification or well earned prestige do these poeple have?

 

[Miles Tormani]

Actually, a ten shouldn't mean literally perfect - without flaw. It should just mean that it's masterfully done.

That's why we use stars, honestly. People interpret someone giving a game a 10 as saying it is utterly and completely without flaw. Us giving a game five stars, on the other hand? Sure, it's technically the same thing, but if you see a game get 5/5 stars, you don't think "oh, it must be perfect 100%," you just think "damn, that must be a superb game."

Besides, even if the characters ARE fairly stock, they're likable enough, and the story is well told for all its cliches. I'm not going to spoil Tuesday's review, but it was the first time a Halo game felt genuinely emotional

That's something I never understood. Why people take a 5/5 to mean something different than a 10/10. How is a 5/5 "Masterfully well done; A must play" while a 10/10 is "Absolutely perfect in every imaginable way. Nothing wrong can possibly be said about it. Best thing ever. Made by the hands of God himself. Should be worshiped by every man, woman, and child on the planet. Bow down before its glory."? Do you know what drives people to see 5/5 as different than 10/10? I mean, sites even say in their 'review score breakdown' or whatever they call it that 10/10 doesn't actually mean "perfect".

I don't plan on getting into this argument. I find it to be a petty one at best. That said, I believe I do have an explanation for why people find 5/5 to mean "damn good," and 10/10 to mean "perfect," despite them technically being the exact same thing.

It's because ten sounds official. Ten sounds important. Ten is the basis of the decimal system. Ten is a psychologically pleasing number. When people see a ten, they immediately think more of it than when they see a five.

Regardless, even if it's based on percentages, 10/10 can mean anywhere from 91% to 100%. In terms of reviews, which are inherently subjective, it should probably be considered around the 95% mark, but people get up in arms because it says 10/10, so they assume that it must be 100%. A five out of five on the other hand can be anywhere from 81% to 100%. In this case, there's an extra bit of breathing room, so people are okay with the 5/5 being interpreted as, say, 84%. It also doesn't have that psychologically dominating "10" there to distract people with its "glorious" double digits.

(The percentages obviously being rounded up to the flat score in this example.)

 

[Evil_Weevil]

Also spoiler tagged for Spoilers

Spoiler

Now to me that experience you had when defending the pillar of autumn is great, really that sounds like a truly great moment to experience. But, and here's my main point, did the rest of the narrative bring you to this moment of emotive power? Did the game provide enough hooks, enough flesh to achieve this?

Having not played the game I can't answer this, but I still stand by my original argument that the IGN review in question was mistaken to sideline narrative and story in favour of lauding other aspects, in effect looking the other way.

To be honest it sounds like you consider the story to be solid enough on its own, but I don't think that detracts from my observation that gaming is sadly lacking in ambition and effective emotional intelligence

In my opinion, yes it did. I found myself invested in the fate of (most) of the characters by the end, there were several poignant moments, and the story hooked me enough to keep me wanting to play more for reasons other than "I want to beat this game" and "I need to beat this game for work."

I disagree with the IGN reviewer's assessment in the first place, but I also think that it depends on the game. Torchlight has the barest minimum of plot, but the gameplay is fun. Tetris has no plot, but it's a classic.

If A.) the central purpose of the game is not to tell a story, and B.) the gameplay is well-made and entertaining enough to compensate, then I have no qualms with not penalizing it for not having a good story. I mean, I play FIGHTING GAMES. Are we going to be docking Street Fighter points now because we don't clearly understand M. Bison's motivations?

-If the analogy is good, then Torchlight <=> Diablo (I+II) for all intents and purposes? if so then I'd agree that it was a enjoyable if shallow experience with good gameplay mechanics but by no means a great story. Could it have been improved with the effective implementation of a good story? well obviously. But here's where it gets difficult, but, at the expense of the gameplay? In an ideal world no, but I will concede that without the expertise required to achieve a fully integrated story the overall experience may have suffered. The problem is that developers don;t work closely enough with the writers when designing their games. Without a central figure driving the vision of a project (MGS perhaps) then there tends to be a disconnect between the gameplay, and the narrative drive. If someone could cleverly and subtly provide me with a reason why I just unlocked a new ability then surely that would be great, rather than a spending hours reaching that point only for a menu screen to cheerfully tell me what I have, thus breaking the flow of events and the immersion.

-I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Puzzle games, like tetris, and Sports and fighting games as they exist today, can have no story line and rely entirely on gameplay. Why? because for the most part they don't progress in any narrative manner and effectively exist beyond or outside of any context whether they have any to begin with or not. Contextual information was introduced as a tidbit for completion, a sweetner. Rather than a driving force they were the pathetic figleaf hiding the percieved impossibility of playing a game for the framework and the challenge working within that represented. You don't attach a narrative to poker if you play against a computer. You might if you played against real people, but that's why multiplayer is different to Singleplayer

-Why are we still talking about points? I don't give a damn about points, they serve no purpose beyond the spark to kindling of flame wars

 

[Atmos Duality]

Please. I saw this sort of self-contradicting bullshit years ago back when they launched Halo 2, despite having all the technical grace and balance of a pregnant Rhinoceros on a tilt-o-whirl.
"If you can ignore the fact that the game is still loading textures half-way through the cutscene, then you'll love this game!"

"If you love getting killed by horribly, HORRIBLY buggy network coding (fixed a year after launch, natch) you'll love this game!"
(Seriously. I did a LAN on gigabit ethernet and the game STILL gave the Host a massive advantage. I watched a dude take 5 Brute Shots to the balls, shit blood on the other screen, and then get melee'd to death ALL BECAUSE HE WASN'T HOSTING.)

"If you love generic-as-humanly-possible-no-twists stories, you'll love this game!"

"OH MY GOD MULTIPLAYER! 10/10! GOTY!"

Or more recently, Fallout 3: The buggiest shit-whack-port-job I've ever seen in the business.
GAME OF THE YEAR!
Seriously? "Crash to Desktop: The Game" took Game of the Year? Fuck that, and fuck the reviewers who gave them that.

So yeah. I watch reviews if I want laughs. There are so few reviewers left who have the balls to post credible reviews.
You know, I would try to post reviews of that nature, but by this point nobody would listen.