Zero Punctuation: Halo 3
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Haha, Yahtzee what have you done. Throwing a halo review into the internet is like throwing a burning match into a fuel-tank.
Seriously, you all care to much. Its an opinion about a console game for gods sake. Its a program to waste some time - thats it. What the hell is wrong with us.
Well, ill sit back and enjoy the show.
Seriously, you all care to much. Its an opinion about a console game for gods sake. Its a program to waste some time - thats it. What the hell is wrong with us.
Well, ill sit back and enjoy the show.
More flawless logic? 10 out of 10 doesn't mean perfection in any reviewer's opinion that I know of. It just means that the game is the top of the scale. Do you get angry when film reviewers scores a movie with minor flaws five stars? I doubt it.catbarf said:
Anyway, the multiplayer more than makes up for any shortcomings people might have in the single player campaign - though in my opinion that campaign has but one dip in quality and enough epic encounters to counteract it.
As a product of the American edumacational system, I'd like to say "Thank you Yahtzee, for expanding my vocabulary s'more."
That said, I sort of liked Halo 3. I'd never bother to play it through in 1P. 2P Cooperative is the only way that any Halo game is any fun to play. You can sit there with your friends and ***** about the funky gameplay together and play "Hey y'all, watch this!" that way.
There's only so much enjoyment you can squeeze out of the 'deathmatch' multiplayer as you get spawned right in front of a 12 year old with a sniper rifle who's already spent a significant percentage of his life online playing this game and die before you can even look around again and again and again. It has every single problem every deathmatch game has ever had, and they've done precious little to address it. You still don't have NPCs to kill cooperatively, ther still is no way to balance out some weenie getting the biggest gun and camping over spawn points, and you don't even get to be a floody monster in the 'zombie' game.
What we concluded was:
1. It doesn't suck as much as Halo 2 did.
2. It is not an improvement over the original Halo. The story plays out almost so identically to the original Halo that we may as well strip the '3' off.
3. We liked the original Halo, and still play it, so I suppose we must 'like' this, too, after a fashion. At least it's purdy.
4. The friendly AI is indeed as dumb as a sack or rocks. The marines run around and get killed off like lemmings just like in every Halo game. You give one a rocket launcher that you spent 15 minutes scrounging, and he'll decide he's supposed to drive, or man a turret, and even when he's finally ready to fire, he'll either watch the scenery as you try to convince him to shoot at something, or shoot a rock right next to you both.
5. The enemy AI, well, they worked to allow them to seek cover and flank occasionally, but overall they do simply swarm up out of cover and get shot a lot, and you can still play most of a game on 'normal' without firing a shot (everything can be beaten).
That said, I sort of liked Halo 3. I'd never bother to play it through in 1P. 2P Cooperative is the only way that any Halo game is any fun to play. You can sit there with your friends and ***** about the funky gameplay together and play "Hey y'all, watch this!" that way.
There's only so much enjoyment you can squeeze out of the 'deathmatch' multiplayer as you get spawned right in front of a 12 year old with a sniper rifle who's already spent a significant percentage of his life online playing this game and die before you can even look around again and again and again. It has every single problem every deathmatch game has ever had, and they've done precious little to address it. You still don't have NPCs to kill cooperatively, ther still is no way to balance out some weenie getting the biggest gun and camping over spawn points, and you don't even get to be a floody monster in the 'zombie' game.
What we concluded was:
1. It doesn't suck as much as Halo 2 did.
2. It is not an improvement over the original Halo. The story plays out almost so identically to the original Halo that we may as well strip the '3' off.
3. We liked the original Halo, and still play it, so I suppose we must 'like' this, too, after a fashion. At least it's purdy.
4. The friendly AI is indeed as dumb as a sack or rocks. The marines run around and get killed off like lemmings just like in every Halo game. You give one a rocket launcher that you spent 15 minutes scrounging, and he'll decide he's supposed to drive, or man a turret, and even when he's finally ready to fire, he'll either watch the scenery as you try to convince him to shoot at something, or shoot a rock right next to you both.
5. The enemy AI, well, they worked to allow them to seek cover and flank occasionally, but overall they do simply swarm up out of cover and get shot a lot, and you can still play most of a game on 'normal' without firing a shot (everything can be beaten).
I thought it was bloody funny as reviews go.
Of course this review was going to be contentious; it's a review of Halo 3. It's aggressively put, but the point behind what he's saying is right: 'It's Run of the Mill'
The main problem is that Halo 3 is good, but not special. Its multiplayer should not need to 'compensate' in any way for a lacklustre campaign, because they should work brilliantly together. It's also not especially inspired - I have seen a lot of Bioshock comparisons, indeed by Yahtzee but also by Halo fans absolutely tearing it to pieces unnecessarily. I think the best comment was the one about it being a well told story but not having a game attached to it, leaving me with the distinct impression that said poster clearly hadn't played the game.
I suppose I just don't see what the fuss is about. It's a good shooter, but not of the stratospheric heights of brilliance you'd expect judging by the media attention lavished upon it. I think it's unfair to belittle the integrity of a reviewer (I refer to Russ, the reviewer in question) simply because he had a different opinion. As if somehow perceiving the game in a different way is some sort of crime. I know Bioshock has its detractors, and to be honest Yahtzee's review of it made me laugh, because the endless respawning and dying did drive me crazy as did the other irritating niggles. I never said it was a perfect game and is untouchable, it's just a fresher game than Halo 3, and tries something genuinely new. Admittedly it doesn't always succeed in its objectives, but there's a hell of a lot of game in there, rich in its atmosphere and depth. Halo 3's atmosphere is OK, but I can't say it feels that inspired - I noticed the comments in other threads about it being Hard SF in the manner of Asimov, but it hasn't got anything approaching the level of depth as his works of fiction. No, Bioshock doesn't have multiplayer either, but does it NEED to have multiplayer? As a result, I can't score them against each other in that respect. I hope none of that sounded immature - I don't like getting snarky and bitchy, and sincerely hope I struck the right tone - but I wanted to put across what I wanted to say in a rational way that avoids flame broiling.
Anyway, let's not get into the PC/Console thing. You play one, the other, or both. Let's not make this unpleasant.
Of course this review was going to be contentious; it's a review of Halo 3. It's aggressively put, but the point behind what he's saying is right: 'It's Run of the Mill'
The main problem is that Halo 3 is good, but not special. Its multiplayer should not need to 'compensate' in any way for a lacklustre campaign, because they should work brilliantly together. It's also not especially inspired - I have seen a lot of Bioshock comparisons, indeed by Yahtzee but also by Halo fans absolutely tearing it to pieces unnecessarily. I think the best comment was the one about it being a well told story but not having a game attached to it, leaving me with the distinct impression that said poster clearly hadn't played the game.
I suppose I just don't see what the fuss is about. It's a good shooter, but not of the stratospheric heights of brilliance you'd expect judging by the media attention lavished upon it. I think it's unfair to belittle the integrity of a reviewer (I refer to Russ, the reviewer in question) simply because he had a different opinion. As if somehow perceiving the game in a different way is some sort of crime. I know Bioshock has its detractors, and to be honest Yahtzee's review of it made me laugh, because the endless respawning and dying did drive me crazy as did the other irritating niggles. I never said it was a perfect game and is untouchable, it's just a fresher game than Halo 3, and tries something genuinely new. Admittedly it doesn't always succeed in its objectives, but there's a hell of a lot of game in there, rich in its atmosphere and depth. Halo 3's atmosphere is OK, but I can't say it feels that inspired - I noticed the comments in other threads about it being Hard SF in the manner of Asimov, but it hasn't got anything approaching the level of depth as his works of fiction. No, Bioshock doesn't have multiplayer either, but does it NEED to have multiplayer? As a result, I can't score them against each other in that respect. I hope none of that sounded immature - I don't like getting snarky and bitchy, and sincerely hope I struck the right tone - but I wanted to put across what I wanted to say in a rational way that avoids flame broiling.
Anyway, let's not get into the PC/Console thing. You play one, the other, or both. Let's not make this unpleasant.
Wow, because pretty much every corner I turned had some masked lass with a gun pointing at me or a rocket turret just sitting there for the hell of it.Garfgarog said:
Hard? They're piss easy on any difficulty. Run, shoot, die, respawn, run, shoot, die, respawn, run, shoot, di- you get the picture. And yes, I LOVED the design and style of the game; at heart I just wish everything was Art Deco and going out in public with suspenders over your shirt and a trillby on your noggin wasn't laughed at... but again atmosphere and a great tale of socio-economic horror under the sea just don't make up for piss poor gameplay!
I did enjoy Bioshock; that is Bioshock potential novel and Bioshock the potential movie. And I completed Bioshock the game in near enough two sittings... but the gameplay, the weight of objects in the world and the manner in which you're able to interact and "play" with enemies didn't even meet up to System Shock 2's somewhat antique offering.
And can you stop trying to fraking insinuate that I'm some slack jawed "college frat boy" [that's what the Yanks call them isn't it?] who can only enjoy something if it has tits and or guns and explosions. For a man who hadn't even heard of the Elite series until I posted about it a few minutes ago you're remarkably stuck up about video game culture.
To be fair, I've played the first 2 and there isn't really a plot to begin with. Oh wait, there tries to be, but it gets stuck like a broken record and repeats the same bit for 2 hours so that the story actually lasts more than 15 minutes.niktu said:
Halo is pretty and a decent FPS for consoles. There is a reason the PC version has done dismally compared to other FPS games on the market, and it's because its frankly just not as good as people want it to be. The only way my friends and I managed to make the first Halo any fun at all was to completely remove the FPS elements of it and try to run each other over with jeeps in blood gulch. Halo 2 was a yawn fest extension of the first game. I'm not quite sure where the love of the series comes from but hey, to each their own.
I've liked plenty of 'over-hyped' games in my time and don't really feel it necessary to beat up a game just because others all seem to love it. Usually there are reasons everybody else loves a game, it's just that in this case I can't find it.
No no no no no.ccesarano said:
You do not spend a whole post calling someone pretentious before then revealing that you work for a site that combines Xbox360 and Wii systems into one website in some kind of ploy against Sony. To even pretend that Microsoft and Nintendo are allied and not out for each other's necks is as ignorant as calling adventure gamers "pretentious."
That aside, I remember when Escapist threads weren't full of flames, flamebait and the kind of argument fallacies that would make Soviet Russia get a hard-on.
You're right. Handhelds have been proving incredibly profitable, more so than the GameBoy ever was now that the DS is on the scene.Garfgarog said:
Look, I know PC gamers love to think that the computer gaming platform is number one, but the fact of the matter is back when the first Civilization came out it was named Game of the Year on PC and a best seller while, at best, strategy game of the year on Super Nintendo. However, the game sold around the same number of units on both, despite being a PC game best seller.
Now you can argue all you like about whether console gamers are more stupid or not and I could care less if you swear by the "keyboard and mouse is better" argument because I could care less. I grew up with console games because I had a shitty computer, and getting the Playstation was cheaper than upgrading the computer for the latest and greatest. This is still a fact today, and as long as it is consoles will sell more than PC games. The PC has as few real exclusives coming out that are worth playing as the damn PS3 does.
Once again, though, I'd say it's better to see a game like Bioshock coming to the 360 even if it was "dumbed down" by excluding an inventory screen (I'd say the Vita-Chambers are a result of the same mentality as Prey and have nothing to do with "console 'tards"). You introduce a more intelligent form of game to the audience and suddenly they may start saying "Hm, how come more games can't have well thought out stories and gameplay as Bioshock?". Viola, you now have a larger market to appeal to and can start making console games smarter.
I seem to run into this issue a lot.
The whole idea behind Wii60, at least for the CURRENT staff, as the old staff has run along to do other things, maybe even create SDF, was that we felt Microsoft and Nintendo were taking the gaming industry in the right direction. Microsoft has shown that, while obviously in it for money, they DO care about games. The introduction of Xbox Live and the evolution of it has given much for gamers to love, and even something as stupid as Achievements has proved to add replay value to a game. Hell, it's why I'm even bothering finding the skulls in Halo 3. The Wii, meanwhile, shows a different method in control and represents an idea a lot of developers have forgotten: games aren't about graphics, but about fun. I could go into a further discussion into the impacts of the two companies, but I won't.
Basically, Wii60 is meant to support both MS and Nintendo because of the direction they are pushing the industry: progress. I've hated Sony for a long time, but I'm actually excited that one of my roommates wants a PS3 because of Warhawk.
The site is not about pretending MS and Nintendo are in bed with each other (though I'm sure some of our community wish it), it's about what the companies are doing with the industry.
Or that's at least how I justify writing news and reviews for it. Nonetheless, I'll be leaving for greener pastures eventually.
Straw Man? Can you provide the sources? And can you also explain why you make the assumption that a strategy game that has came out on PC and NES will have the same quality over both platforms? You dismiss the keyboard and mouse argument, fair enough, but in this case it is necessary to incorporate that factor.