Zero Punctuation: Halo 3

[galaga4ever]

There was still The Funny here but as it was less concerned with pointing out truth than as with bear-baiting it's all the less perspicacious for it.

It's only bear-baiting because the bears have lost all sense of perspective and reality by praising this good but not great game to the skies and hailing it as the second coming of Christ the Asskicker. In my book, such bears deserve to be baited, since they ruin it for the rest of us.

That wouldn't be a problem but for the fact that the piece starts with Yahtzee calling all other game reviewers in the world 'cock eaters' (is that actually funny?),

Yes, it is funny.

...implying that he is the great, single rational mind in a critical community otherwise drunk on hype. Exaggeration to make a point is fine but it needs to be mostly true to properly work.

He's not the only one, but he's in a small minority. Look at metacritic's Halo 3 page. 100s all over the damn place, and liberal sprinklings of phrases including "best game ever", "most awesomest game", and "OMG HALO 3 ROCKS EVRY1 ELES SUKS!!!!!11111". Even though several of the reviews notice things like AI bugs, story retardation, and stupidly short singleplayer, they breezily slap all of that aside so it doesn't derail the love train.

At this point, I feel I need to rip Halo 3 harder to make up for the unjustified accolades.

 

[jackolantern]

gozaimas- i essentially agree with you. my first post was mostly in reference to posts regarding the video as revelation and justification for delusions of superiority (although, if those posts were facetious, i can appreciate that).

but, i think all of yahtzee's pieces are perspicacious and have bear-baiting to various extents. sometimes one more of the other, but it's all fair to me

 

[dv8withn8]

The thing with Halo is, you have to be a "fanboy" of the series to really appreciate it. I for one have become absolutely engrossed in the universe from the games to the novels and beyond. The mythos has been built up and enriched across all these mediums and understanding them all prior to playing Halo 3 makes the game infinitely more enjoyable. There are so many nuances that you would only get having been a part of all things Halo.

Some argue that Half-Life 2 is better. When I picked it up and played through it, I felt totally lost the entire time. In the end I simply thought of it as Yahtzee thinks of Halo 3, average. So what I'm trying to say is, different strokes for different folks.

 

[galaga4ever]

Yes, Bioshock is a better single player game, and so is Half-life, and some others. But none of them are as much pure FUN.

Silly me, I thought that better games were defined as being more fun.

Backstory is great, but who gives a shit if it's all but ignored? Am I supposed to make the crappy singleplayer better because I've played Halo 1 and 2 and can imagine what they would have put in the game if they had tried harder?

 

[Joe]

For those of you who don't have word of the day toilet paper and/or a need to use five-dollar words when conversational ones would do:

http://m-w.com/dictionary/perspicacious

Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin perspicac-, perspicax, from perspicere
: of acute mental vision or discernment : KEEN
synonym see SHREWD

 

[jabrwock]

Yahtzee you charismatic bastard, you're absolutely right.

My biggest thrill with the Halo series hasn't really been the game itself. You're absolutely correct. It's "ok". It's not bad, but it's not great. It's fun, but not "OMG SUPER DUPER".

I've always loved the background story (and you are quite correct, you need to have played the previous games, or read the books, for the current plot to make much more sense than "kill the baddies"), and the detail into which Bungie plunges itself when it comes to screwing with your mind and turning you into a Google-junkie as you try to decipher their latest viral campaign. And then tying it in to the twisted version of epic story that they've been toying with various incarnations of since the days of Pathways into Darkness.

I don't even know if I'll play Halo 3. I might, if invited over to a friend's house to waste an afternoon blowing the crap out of each other. But until then I'll settle for dissecting the story, and marveling at the unique meshing of stories that is the Bungie mainstay.

 

[Lothar Hex]

Personally I like Halo 3's single-player and it's probably my favourite game franchise of all time, but a lot of what Yahtzee says is true. You need to know the full backstory to properly get into it, and he's right about the difficulty curve as well. Halo 3 is definatly a lot better if you're playing multiplayer but if you don't care, it is really half a game. I wouldn't say it's run of the mill, and I would argue that Halo 3's combat is better than Bioshock (anyone who says the A.I is shit after comparing it to Bioshock obviously didn't notice that most of the splicers tend to just run at you screaming where in Halo 3 they do employ some tactics).However Bioshock does a better job of conveying the decaying atmosphere of rapture and a more effective story telling technique. They're both excellent games but I prefer Halo 3 as I've been following the story for some time and like multiplayer against friends.

Also, sticking plasma grenades to Grunts never gets old.

 

[DeusExMathias]

Beautiful!
I really like Halo 3, but I definitely see your points. (I'm not that big a fan of MP, either, tho the Co-Op is extremely fun with friends)
Another seriously entertaining video review. Good job, Yahtzee!

 

[gc_danny]

You, on the other hand, are a professional game reviewer. You're not sony defense force. Your review made it to Metacritic, and is currently the lowest Halo 3 score there. When you review Halo 3 and don't for a moment mention features as innovative as forge and save films, you've made a mistake.

Did you read the consumer guide? Oh, and P.S. - not fawning over Halo doesn't make someone a blinkered Sony chauvinist. Check out some of my other reviews, and you'll probably have trouble finding any single thing that I consistently favor (other than brutal violence, of course).

I HATE the stupid plot of Halo games, and feel bungie can't tell a good story to save their lives. But I don't play Halo for the plot, and neither do a lot of people. And thanks to features like four player competitive scoring--also ignored by your review, I believe--even the campaign can be quite fun.

Just because people don't play the game for the plot doesn't mean it isn't there - if Halo 3 had been released as an Unreal Tournament-Style multiplayer-only game, I wouldn't have critized it for having a mediocre single player game, but they didn't, so I did. Also, since they didn't scale up the difficulty, co-op is far too easy, even on Legendary.

While the Unreal Tournament 3 editor will be WAY more powerful than forge, it will also be VERY complex, and you'll need a computer to use it. Forge allows all gamers to get in and screw with the gameplay in ways never before seen in a mainstream console FPS, and you just ignored that.

Never before seen? Wasn't there a level builder in Timesplitters? And doesn't forge just let you change where various items spawn? Sure, it's a novelty putting a few tanks in High Ground, but the level design is solid enough that most tweaking done seems to be tweaking for tweaking's sake, rather than actual improvement. Sure, it's nice to see a hornet or tank show up in Multiplayer, but the maps really aren't big enough to support them, so what's the point?

 

[Mechsae]

Just registered, and though I've enjoyed the other reviews here greatly this is the one I want to comment on and actually went through the few seconds it took to register.

I've been saying this since Halo: Combat Evolved (the first one). Halo's "great" when compared to other consol shooters. It's average compared to everything on PC, especially after Half-Life came out and raised the bar so high all other FPS games for a while after it came out were hard focused on multiplayer.

Doesn't mean I'm not a fan.

And no, I haven't played Halo 3,but after the first two I'm not surprised Halo 3 is pretty much more of the same with a fresh coat of paint.

Anyway, in short, spot on in the flaws it brings up and funny in it's relation of them. ^^ keep up the great work.

 

[walshicus [deprecated]]

And now we see why Yahtzee is the reviewer. If you seriously believe the bolded part is what inspired this review rather than try to believe the fact that someone doesn't like your failure of a game, then you clearly need to understand the concept of free will. That aside, the fact you say Bioshock doesn't have a game attached is proof that you don't actually know what a game is, which I can understand entirely considering you're a Halo fanboy.

Sure, but I'm also an Elite 2 and 3 fanboy too and could kick your arse on a timed manual control run of the Ross 154-Barnard's Star trade route. So suck on that bizzaach.

Do I think rational people are perfectly capable of being disinterested or even disdainful of a global phenomena *because* everyone else is raving about it? Absolutely! I've suffered it myself an awful lot; for years I put off watching Galactica because people were raving about it. I had to be *forced* to watch Brazil and Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud.

And seriously, did you *play* Bioshock? It was a brilliant piece of narrative for sure... but the combat was dull and frankly a game can't live on atmosphere alone. And you know what? I was Bioshock's target audience; I've got a degree [big whoop, look at me!] in Economics and Politics and have read Rand, so the plot was the kind of thing I could lap up by the decalitre; I just don't think the gameplay was even average.

But anyway, that's more me arguing with YOU rather than the flash article.

Gozaimas, are you the guy who owns the Xbox Live gamertag of the same name? If so hey there, long time no see! "Sir Fragula" here. You still freelancing?

 

[jackolantern]

God forbid someone not be interested in a game that has never been and will never be anything special to anyone but a bunch of incompetent children.

some might argue that videogames in general encompass just that. but, of course, we're a little bit more opened-minded than those people aren't you and i?

 

[cctoide]

Great review as always, although when he began the review at faster-than-average speed I thought he was going to swear me (and others) out for criticizing him about his slowness in the Peggle review...

I'd just like to add that, while realizing that arguing about this is useless until Yahtzee drops down from heaven to declare one of these propositions false, there are two ways of looking at ZP - one assumes the reviews are always what Yahtzee meant to say, and the other assumes the reviews are, most of the time, the funniest possible way of reviewing a particular game. Personally, I side with the latter, mostly, I suppose, because I do actually like FPSs and Yahtzee doesn't seem to care too much for, quote, "insipid boom fests".

 

[ccesarano]

First thing I should note when reading people's comments: Yahtzee is pretentious. Yes, he's funny as well, and that's the biggest reason I can watch these. However, he is also pretentious. He makes Adventure Games, where the biggest market is a bunch of other pretentious people. Being someone that looks to design games but with a different background, I can recognize many of his points and agree.

On the topic of Halo 3, Bungie dropped the ball on story altogether. I think this was a horrible conclusion, and after hating Fall of Reach I've said "bollocks" to the rest of the books. In fact, some of what is considered canon actually ruins the story in the games for me. Is the story to all three games horrible? No, and anyone that says such a thing can shove a roll of socks in their mouths. The setting is interesting, and the subtle hints of the origin of Halo, the Flood and information about the Covenant is all great from the start as long as you pay more attention than to "guy in green armor goes to save world", which is all people ever examine when discussing the story. Halo 3, however, has nothing subtle in there aside from the terminals. They even leave some questions unanswered. Once more, ball has been dropped seriously badly on this one with story.

As for gameplay, Yahtzee is and isn't correct. I don't care about the multiplayer much either, to be honest, and I also hate the dicks of Xbox Live. Yet I enjoy the single player quite a bit. Granted the improved combat of Gears of War has diluted my enjoyment, but Halo is unique. The only A.I. that sucks is that which takes over when the Marines drive. Somehow that part got even worse than the previous games. However, the rest of the A.I. works very well and often surpasses that of the competition. While the Grunts provide a comic relief, you also begin to take them seriously when you try to charge a dozen of them and you explode from the Needler. What's wrong with giving your enemy a little personality for a change instead of having them just be big bad growling foes? Plus, while all of the elements of Halo 3 may have already been done, they've been put together in a well designed package. There is no better dual-wielding system, vehicle hijacking works well and is rare enough because the enemies aren't dumb enough to intentionally give you opportunity, tearing turrets off can be a blast and there are few games where grenade pick-ups explode in massive chain reactions when left on the floor. Average is, honestly, an understatement.

If you want nothing but games that make you think, then naturally you won't get this. However, Halo 3 is a combat game, and the Halo series has done combat very well. Of course, Gears dethroned it and Call of Duty 4 likely will as well, but so what? It went from being the best to not. Who cares? Part of the reason it's no longer the best is because it pushed the market anyway. UT2K4 suddenly includes vehicles in there, despite UT2K3 originally not having them? Hmm, I wonder if that has anything to do with Halo's sudden use of vehicles? Etc. etc. and so on and so forth.

Halo may not be the most amazing game ever released. Hell, Halo 3's engine is the strongest of the series, but the story plays it out merely as just another of the series instead of the grand finale it should've been. However, given that I can't find saved films, skulls and, on console, anything like Forge I'd have to say the game has more than others can offer. That doesn't mean it deserves the high scores, but it certainly is above average, even if by a slight.

Again, I like Yahtzee's reviews. Love them to death, in fact. However, I don't take all of his criticisms seriously since he is a pretentious PC gaming fanboy who can't recognize that "dumbing down for the console 'tards" at least introduces more intellectual elements to the one aspect of the gaming market that matters: consoles.

EDITUS: I should note that I do not mean to slant Yahtzee, either. Again, I love ZP, and I've been slowly going through his archives of FullyRamblomatic, and it's even better that ZP brought me to this site at all. I like the articles here. However, from my observations, it is a simple fact that he is pretentious when it comes to gaming, hence why he can nitpick so badly.

Then again, I'm likely guilty of similar things since people on Wii60.com had serious issue with my rating Metroid Prime 3: Corruption an 81/100. Then again, I wouldn't have minded them dumbing Metroid down if the combat was actually worth more of a damn.

 

[erock7101]

Yahtzee, I find that I'm starting to wait anxiously for your reviews on Wednesdays lately. I didn't think you'd do Halo 3 this early, but I suppose you have higher-ups to answer to, just like the rest of us. Screw all the fanboys and anti-fanboys: just keep on doing what you're doing, 'cause its damned funny!

 

[walshicus [deprecated]]

Bragging about a game only works when the other person knows/cares about the game in question, and I can say I'm in neither audience. Never even heard of the games before, so I'm fairly certain I don't really care if you can make the Kessel run in under 10 minutes as well.

Isn't that like not having heard of Super Mario, Civilisation or Pong? I mean for frak's sake mate...

Bioshock's combat is only dull because you think Halo's combat is better without giving a single thought to the notion of scale.

Flawless logic? And I'm fairly certain scale is one of the foremost things in my mind when I consider just why I love the Halo series so.

 

[chrisg123 [deprecated]]

I found this very amusing, and can see why everyone found his fast talking review comical and informative.

but i have to admit i'm a halo fanboy. i was very pleased with Halo 1, and played it quite often but of course found myself disapointed with halo 2.

But a review about the story, and the game from someone who had never really truly loved the game from the beginning seems wrong.

granted a critic is supposed to be critical and thats just what this review was extremely critical. but for someone who didn't give a care about halo from the beginning...why is he writing a review about it?

to me the person that reviewed halo 3, was unqualified to really give an opinion on the 3rd installment, having never really played the first one or the second one.

in my opinion, i honestly liked the game, the single player most definietly had its bugs, but i think i was more interested in beating the single player on legendary and finding out what happens to the hero.

the multiplayer most definietly was an excellent feature of the game since it gave the game replayability.

bioshock isn't replayable again and again...