More on Halo: Reach

[TornadoADV]

I'm not really sure what to say. Even though Yatzhee is incredibly wrong on all points about the HALO storyline (Yes, there is a cohesive plot that ties the whole series together.) and the characters with-in said storyline, he is entitled to his opinion, even though I disagree with it.

 

[Irshy]

So this shirt does make me look fat!

Thanks! Been stressing me all day.

 

[Irshy]

In regards to the story.

There are low fantasy writers trying to write hard sci-fi and well obviously failing.
Game devs making a game irrespective of the story.
And a mix of the two trying to maintain the aloof manner of a hard sci-fi story without any real attempt to write one.

There is so much 'background' information we're meant to know presented like a Hal Clement hard sci-fi novel, except the background isn't real science and they don't tell us about it or why its there or anything of it.

Spartan's weighing a ton is a perfect example, the way its treated is: "You know this, its science, it explains things and the end" except it doesn't hold up to science. So either get off the high-horse, make it make sense, or make up your own mythology THEN EXPLAIN IT!

The core story isn't BAD really it isn't, the idea of spartans the idea of the covernent, the concept of the halo rings, the flood, the prophets - there is the core ideas of an amazing story - its just getting presented by about 3-4 different groups all trying to do the wrong thing and it gets messy and sloppy and sadface.

Its so much wasted concepts, ideas and development.

 

[Sope]

I don't understand why some of you are bringing up the books, because they aren't relevant to the work being reviewed. You review something as a stand-alone, not as part of something greater. If a game needs to support itself on past works, than its relying on too much from the past. Reach is not able to support itself with it's own interesting and flowing story, and add something, anything to Halo's legacy. Each new entry in a series has to add something, or it isn't worth anything. The books are not relevant to Reach, have no business in a review about Reach, and aren't required reading before playing the game. If I can't hit the ground running with no prior knowledge, I have to go out and buy a copy of Halo: Printed to even fathom this assuredly deep and meaningful narrative about a human colonized planet overrun by a warring alien empire, where I follow and participate in an uphill battle to save the beautiful planet of Reach from its fall, Than it is not worth my time. It suffers from MW2 syndrome, where the multiplayer is worth more than the single-player. A game is supposed to have a story, a little at least, that new players can understand without having to dig through past games and novels to make sense of. Even Team Fortress 2 has a meaningless story, just to add some motivation( You are on one of 2 sides,Red or Blu, each controlling half of the world's government.). Stories that are "you kill things. The End." have no business in a $60 dollar purchase.

Did I contradict myself several times? I think I did. TL;DR Version the books are worthless and don't belong in this game's review. "Well, if you read the books..."

 

[KhakiHat]

Know you may never read this Mr. Y, but I think I can clarify the Cortana bit, at least in English.

Halo: Reach didn't convey this very well, but Cortana is a rare breed of AI. In the Halo 'verse, AI are the result of some crazy gobbly gook that takes a person's personalties and empties them into the computer to provide a lattice for the virtual AI. Dr. Halsey's DNA provided the material, via melting space clones, to make what usually kills the original person possible without 'human' loss of life and brain mass.

Now you see where the writers of Bungie REEEALLLLYYYYY want off the Halo train.

Anywho, they wanted Cortana cause she knows things. She knows how to find Earth, a task even humans aren't trusted with (something about mind reading and hostile space colonies). She's also shares Halsey's character, which is somehow important to the rest of the series. We do know she's smart and committed to the cause, which is a hit and miss with the other smart A.I. that were made with kidnapped children brains who couldn't cut muster in SPARTAN summer camp.

Finally, her namesake is a sword mentioned in the legends of Charmane and his knights, cast of the same steel as... DURANDAL, a sword that has such importance to Sir Roland that one can easily start to see phalic references. I haven't gotten too far in the book, but it's safe to say that those knights really loved their swords, and Cortana is indeed the weapon of the future.

A damned sexy weapon.

 

[Kingjackl]

It's priceless how Yahtzee dismisses the co-op in halo Reach as being 'single-player with a ball and chain', even though he's spoken up the co-op in games like Left 4 Dead and Guitar Hero as being fun with friends. It's actually a bit depressing, as if he thinks being a sad, opinionated loner makes him cool.

 

[Gormers1]

Yes, it is rather boring. There are new weapons and vehicles. (Or should I say old). I much prefered ODST's characterisation. I only starting liking Noble team (a little) after about half of them were dead.

Ew didnt think the characters in reach were that likebale, but I thought even less of ODSTs characters. Cept for the story told through the audio diary you could find, those characters I kind of liked :}

I liked Reach better than halo 3, but like halo 3 it referenced the books (especially fall or reach) too much, and tried to pull our heart strings (which they more often than not failed at) and make it all about the characters. I preferred it when you didn't really have to have any back story as in the first game.

Yahtzee did you actually READ that "ancillary media", because it also explains away the floaty movement feel and the first half of the book makes the whole "mum" thing completely false. Next time make use of all the facts there, just taking the ones that support your argument shows narrow-mindedness.

No one should have to read a novel to understand the plot of a video game...or a movie or whatever. Singular works of fiction should stand on their own, otherwise it all just becomes a closed, fanboy-centric loop.

He shouldn't have referenced the book like that then. But the whole cortana-aunt thing was, amusingly accurate yeah.

 

[Karilas]

"...and that shirt you're wearing makes you look fat."

Actually I'll have you know it's got nothing to do with the shirt and everything to do with my lardy gut, mate.

 

[runnernda]

I enjoy playing Halo, and I agree about games having to stand up on single-player. Multiplayer and co-op are important, but sometimes I just prefer to play by myself. Gaming sometimes constitutes my "me time," so if a game isn't worth playing when it's just me, what's the point?

Not to mention, I look fantastic in this shirt.

 

[Caligula_II]

skimmed a few pages, then tl;dr'ed the thread.

Anyways, why are we arguing about Yahtzee's opinion? That's what critics do, they say what THEY think about things. Not whether you would like it. Yahtzee is not a big fan of multiplayer, m'kay? If he talked about it, it would just be negative anyways. He's also right, by the way. Games SHOULD stand on single player alone if they have it. It should also be able to stand alone on multiplayer, aka TF2.

 

[dghjdgdjf]

Played the game. The story is bad, the game itself mediocre. Entertaining for a while, but nothing special. It just feels like another Halo 3 with different weapons. The graphical update is minimal, at best.

I'm not saying the game is bad. I'm just saying a "remake" of Halo 3 with new weapons just isn't worth the praise it's getting from almost every game reviewer out there. Friends of mine have agreed with me, and they were psyched about this game. They got disappointed when playing it though.

 

[Captain Pirate]

..and why an AI is on a bit of glowy pipe rather than, say, a USB stick.

Yahtzee, I love you.
This too baffled me. If we could probably fit her on a (albeit very large storage-space wise) USB Stick NOW, like, 500 years before the events of Reach, surely they could fit her in something... I don't know, thinner than paper, in 2552.

But it's negligible to me really, Halo was never known for it's realism. I guess it was just for effect, having a glowy blue pipe to signify Six was carrying something pretty damn important.


Anyway, I completely understand Yahtzee's view on Halo, I just disagree with it. Love the entire series [small](call me a fanboy..)[/small], but respect the fact that Yahtzee doesn't.
At least he gives good reasons why.

 

[mr_rubino]

Haven't read all the comments, but I'm guessing it's yet more "Why can't Yahtzee judge the game on the strength of the parts that go nowhere?" type stuff?
(The "parts that DO go somewhere" would be the stuff with the story progression that goes from point A to point B to point C etc until 'something' gets accomplished, instead of putzing around on a selection of maps where 'nothing' gets accomplished.)

 

[sln333]

I suppose I would have liked the story to end in some way other than just transporting Cortana, since I know she will eventually ruin the end of Halo 3's story, but I still think it was good. You finally had the chance to fight with other spartans, although I do see the noble death competition as being a real thing. I guess the cutscene where they set up the terms of the competition was cut from the game so as to not make it too obvious.

 

[Alphakirby]

A very difficult article to respond too. Each point balanced by another.

If I dispute your interpretation of the story with facts from other sources, I prove your point about ancillary media.

If I dispute your opinion on the weapons, vehicles, etc., I get to sound like an angry fanboy.

If I dispute your views on multiplayer, I'd just be a hypocrit.

Why do you have to make this so hard?!

Well, at least there are a couple things I can safely complain about.

Firefight was never mentioned. You said you reviewed "single player," not "campaign." So I was a bit surprised by this ommision since, unlike dedicated multiplayer options, this can be done solo.

As for the "spartan weighs a ton" thing, it seems reasonable to assume that they are not wearing a medieval plate. It's called "powered armor" for a reason.

...yeah, that's all I got.

Congrats!,you get to wear your "Not A Fanboy" Pin for another week. As for Reach,I personally think that singleplayer should be able to hold a game up,Then again i live in a forest in NJ so there we go

 

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

WE HAVE BEEN FOOLED.

and now i feel silly.

 

[i7omahawki]

Wow, massive presumption on what a prequel should be. A prequel is a sequel, just set before the events of the original work.

Thats still not an excuse for bad story writing.

Which, in turn, is not an excuse for bad reviewing. Ignoring previously established details, which are not immediately necessary to the story being told, is bad reviewing.

As I said, I'm sure Halo: Reach isn't great, and probably resides within the mediocre pile of gaming, especially in regards to storytelling. But if this is to be communicated, through a reviewer, then I would expect that reviewer to do half an hours research on the game they're supposed to be reviewing.

 

[Omniroth]

I've been a fan of Zero: Punctuation for many years, and a fan of Halo games for the same time. Now I understand why anyone would hate them, and when it comes to gameplay being at the least uncreative and at the most utterly broken (especially with the goddamn insta-kills between antagonistically infrequent check-points), I completely agree with everything you say Yahtzee. But what I cannot understand is how, as you say, all the characters in Halo: Reach are cliched.

To say that Master Chief or any other character from any other Halo game *isn't* a cliche would be a bad joke - they are archetypes wrapped in cliches in the most formulaic way possible. But in this game only, I found at least one character that could not be *less* of a cliche - Kat. While I found it disappointing that, because she's a woman, she automatically has to have pencil-thin arms, every other element of her character is like they took the standard, horrible cliche of a female soldier in games, and then went as far away from that model as they physically could, to the point that she is actually the first central, single, young female character in any game I can think of that *isn't* a romantic interest, for once! She isn't even the standard hyper-masculine over-compensatory female soldier cliche, and she most certainly isn't the delicate stay at home and let the men do the fighting cliche - how exactly *is* she a cliche then?

Amidst fiction like Twilight telling all young girls they should be utterly subservient in abusive relationships, I could not have more welcomed a decent female character in a game, one whose gender, I thought, was merely a part of her character, and not the other way round. And yes I am focusing exclusively on one mid-sentence comment amidst a whole review, but this is a comment I can't help but see as a rather large oversight in this case, one I am eager to hear explained. To other commentors who hate Halo - before responding with an all-caps rant about my idiocy, at least have the decency to consider my argument, which can be found here: http://eternallydisputed.com/site/index.php?page=news&type=view&id=omniroths_blog/halo_reach_and_martin_3

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Oh, this is bugging me about Yahtzee, what of multiplayer-only shooters like Counter-Strike, TF2, Battlefield 2, or what have you? Since he seemed to enjoy TF2 if his Orange Box review is anything to go by...

 

[FollowUp]

yes. I'm a halo fan. But even I understood that he did not like the game. I was sick of telling all my friends he didn't like it because he complimented ONE THING.

People in general are too quick to jump to one polar extreme to another.