Why does the magnum in Halo have a x2 zoom?

[Vibhor]

Because it was rare in the first game.
Moreover, that was the only way pistols could stand out apart from the pew pew weapons around.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

I like the Halo series but every time I play I ask myself "why does the handgun have a x2 zoom?"
I can see how it makes sense in a design standpoint but what creative answer can you come up with.

It's also the same game where the butt of your weapon is more deadly than shooting them at the head point blank. At this point, it's pretty safe to say that logic and realism went out the window pretty early in the development process.

To be fair, When your firing a bullet at a spartan, it has to break through the force field thingy first, but if you pummel him with your fists, the force fields aren't strong enough to hold you back, so you go right through them.

OT: Because otherwise the pistol would've been shit, and Bungie was trying to make sure that all weapons have a very specific purpose, not just one better than the other like Doom.

 

[www.2geeks1donkey.com]

Because 3x was too much. Ba-dum-chik! Actually,my guess was that Bungie created the Assault Rifle first, which sprays bullets quickly in every direction imaginable. After they made that, they probably wanted a sidearm that behaved differently. Thus, the magnum was born of necessity and gameplay design standpoint?

 

[TilMorrow]

I like the Halo series but every time I play I ask myself "why does the handgun have a x2 zoom?"
I can see how it makes sense in a design standpoint but what creative answer can you come up with.

It's also the same game where the butt of your weapon is more deadly than shooting them at the head point blank. At this point, it's pretty safe to say that logic and realism went out the window pretty early in the development process.

You needed a pistol and god-like melee to convince you logic and realism went out of the game at the start of development? Heck space, aliens and the fact that the Master Chief was not killed by that first explosion right at the start of the game did it for me.

And my reasons for x2?

1. It's really the chief looking through his visor.
2. The chief is extra quick at sticking binoculars on top of guns.
3. The chief upgrades things just by touching them.
4. Chuck Norris somehow got into the game (HE ALWAYS FINDS A WAY) and gave his blessing to the first gun he found which was the pistol. That why its so overpowered.
5. Cause its an awesome furtury pistol that still goes bang bang instead of Pew Pew.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

I just imagined that the gun was accurate enough that Chief could use his visor to zoom in without a loss of accuracy.

 

[Worgen]

because they didnt want to have any worthless weapons and the pistol is always worthless

 

[masticina]

How about this

So the developers had the magnum, basic standard handgun really.. not to powerful not to weak either just enough! Remember this is what the developers we're thinking what ended up in the real game is another thing.

Right so they found that they either make the thing ridiculous bendy shooting so you hit something that moved. Or.. how about a zoom? Oh sure there a zoom!

Yup easy come easy go!

 

[Netrigan]

I like the Halo series but every time I play I ask myself "why does the handgun have a x2 zoom?"
I can see how it makes sense in a design standpoint but what creative answer can you come up with.

It's also the same game where the butt of your weapon is more deadly than shooting them at the head point blank. At this point, it's pretty safe to say that logic and realism went out the window pretty early in the development process.

To be fair, When your firing a bullet a t a spartan, it has to break through the force field thingy first, but if you pummel him with your fists, the force fields aren't strong enough to hold you back, so you go right through them.

OT: Because otherwise the pistol would've been shit, and Bungie was trying to make sure that all weapons have a very specific purpose, not just one better than the other like Doom.

Reading through the explanations... either you guys played a completely different version of Halo than me or they "answered" these questions somewhere other than the game

In playing the game, I knew from inference that you were some seriously bad-ass soldier, but I don't recall any in-game explanation for any of it. I figured it was just standard FPS cliches in that you can take far more punishment than anyone else in the game because you're the one with the game controller.

Never really bought into the whole weapon balance thing people preach. The standard FPS weaponry exist in just about every game because they all serve specific purposes. Doom let you carry a lot of rockets because of the sheer number of high hit-point bad guys running around their levels. You have your cruising weapons (either shotgun or chaingun depending on if you're outdoors on in corridors), then you switch over to other weapons depending on the situation. Half-Life was the first game I remember severely limiting rocket ammo and that had a lot to do with the lack of heavies running around their levels. If they gave you a rocket launcher, it was for a reason... and after that, everyone started limiting the number of rocket rounds you could carry.

The pistol has always been a pretty useless weapon. Bungie just seems to have wanted to make it useful by turning it into a miniature sniper rifle... and if I caught the drift from other Halo threads, they had to make the thing less powerful in the sequels because they ended up creating a really unbalanced weapon in the process.

But it seems there's one thing video game players of all genres love, it's an unbalanced weapon/attack. Whether it's a fighting game or MMORPG or a FPS, if there's a cheap tactic, absolutely everyone will be using it and complain when it's taken away. Might be why Call Of Duty MP is so popular. Instead of giving you boring weapon balance, they just came up with horribly unbalanced, but insanely fun attacks.

Hmmmm, might make for a good thread.

 

[Wicky_42]

It's a smart scope - a 2x zoom camera above the barrel. Where's you think the gun went when you clicked zoom?! If it was the iron sites it would a) look hilarious an b) fill up half the screen with pistol!

Also, because a pin-point accurate oversized handgun firing explosive rounds wasn't OP enough on its own

 

[Professor James]

Because it's really chief looking through his helmet that has zoom.

 

[Peter Donaldson]

There's a camera on the front that links to the helmet, thats why there is two holes in the front. the second ones a camera

 

[The Funslinger]

I like the Halo series but every time I play I ask myself "why does the handgun have a x2 zoom?"
I can see how it makes sense in a design standpoint but what creative answer can you come up with.

It's actually explained in the books. Any weapon picked up by a Spartan is synced with his armour. He actually sees a little cross hair, shield bar and ammo counter. The gun is programmed with zoom capabilities with the suit, which makes sense considering you can still look around in 2x zoom when a none zoom weapon is equipped.

 

[GodofCider]

Because I don't want to waste my sniper shots on the grunts in my scope.

I played Halo 2, then 3, then 1. Being able to hold fifty plus rounds of sniping ammunition is hilariously overpowered; not to mention the magnum itself is effectively a slightly shorter ranged sniper gun. ^_^

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

I like the Halo series but every time I play I ask myself "why does the handgun have a x2 zoom?"
I can see how it makes sense in a design standpoint but what creative answer can you come up with.

It's also the same game where the butt of your weapon is more deadly than shooting them at the head point blank. At this point, it's pretty safe to say that logic and realism went out the window pretty early in the development process.

To be fair, When your firing a bullet a t a spartan, it has to break through the force field thingy first, but if you pummel him with your fists, the force fields aren't strong enough to hold you back, so you go right through them.

OT: Because otherwise the pistol would've been shit, and Bungie was trying to make sure that all weapons have a very specific purpose, not just one better than the other like Doom.

Reading through the explanations... either you guys played a completely different version of Halo than me or they "answered" these questions somewhere other than the game

Hmmmm, might make for a good thread.

Haha no, i just came up with most of that shit from off the top of my head, banking on a bit of sci-fi rhetoric. There's always force fields after all. I don't the specifics any more than you do, i only ever played the first Halo.

You mean like a Doom/HalfLife vs. Halo/CoD argument thread, discussing which system is more fun, to have all the weapons, or just any 2 at a time? Go for it, could be insightful to get people's opinions on that.

 

[Romidude]

Actually, if you listen to the Bungie podcasts. Someone fucked around with the code to see what it would be like, and forgot to change it back.

 

[gabe12301]

I like the Halo series but every time I play I ask myself "why does the handgun have a x2 zoom?"
I can see how it makes sense in a design standpoint but what creative answer can you come up with.

It's also the same game where the butt of your weapon is more deadly than shooting them at the head point blank. At this point, it's pretty safe to say that logic and realism went out the window pretty early in the development process.

Actualy Spartans have super strength.In the books they were using vehicles as Melee weapons. The reason for the magnums is: The fictional creators of the spartan's HUDs figured a handgun would be easier to obtain so, they added a zoom to the HUD to make it more efficient. (And because Bungie knew the AR was useless at long range.)

 

[i7omahawki]

In playing the game, I knew from inference that you were some seriously bad-ass soldier, but I don't recall any in-game explanation for any of it. I figured it was just standard FPS cliches in that you can take far more punishment than anyone else in the game because you're the one with the game controller.

The fact that you're in a giant armored suit isn't a big enough hint then?

Yeah it seems like the answer has been given a few times, the HUD of the Spartans could quite easily sync with the pistol, and syncing with other weapons wouldn't be very fruitful.

People complain that it's overpowered, but it takes an accurate shot for it to be that effective, I think having a nicely powered secondary weapon is great, much better than some piss-weak pistol that is only relevant until you find something better. Gives people who have just spawned on the map a decent chance of fighting too.