Zero Punctuation: Halo 3

[Snap07]

Hmm. Let me stirr up a little controversy after all - if this doesnt get out the haters, I really give up on you lot
Halo is like the Starwars of games.... Terrible story, horrible acting, ridiculous characters. There - I said it. Being a HUGE SciFi fan, I've never understood how that C-movie could have become such a hit, and same for Halo.

Well, maybe nostalgia, funny playing/watching sessions with friends, people not really fluent in fps/scifi history simply not caring/knowing enough to really feel, all that stuff that makes one forget about the gaping flaws and still enjoy it nonetheless? Also, maybe not being cought up in the hype surely helps alot to avoid disappointment. All those emotional personal reasons that no review can account for?

Im having fond memories of StarWars (although i know of its flaws and would never defend it as perfect) and i was disapointed by the halo games because even though promising it, none of the gave me blowjobs and free pudding! :-/ Therefore, your announced troll pretty much missed me.

I agree with you on Yahtzees review value though. His coherent opinion gives me a much better idea of the games than some disjunct category ratings.

 

[omnibus01]

I stand by what I said in my original post. I have every reason to hate Microsoft also, and, in fact, do. The strident and all-consumimg hype was from the Evil Empire, not Bungie. The 'Best Game Ever' is a very personal opinion or a myth--take your pick. My opinion would be either Deus Ex or Half-life, but that's just my opinion based on how much I enjoyed the games and their respective stories and characters, presentation, challenge, fun, etc.

The Halo series are a bunch of rip-snorting sci-fi shooters, and they are the best of that breed. I still find it sadly amusing how some people give the strong impression that they are somehow 'above' blasting aliens and space-zombies. Ok, just go back to Myst and live large then. And, yes, I thought Myst [and a couple of sequels] was a terrific game, but I play to be challenged and have some FUN. If I really want intellectual stimulation, I will read a book--low tech, but very portable and the user interface is wonderful.

I was a strictly PC gamer for over 15 years, but got burned out on having to shell out big bucks every couple of years for upgrades to CPUs and video cards. At least the Xbox [ i.e. TOASTER OVEN ] is very easy to program for, and developers really appreciate that. The fact that they keep melting down is somewhat disconcerting, but not unexpected seeing as how they are from Microsoft. That's why I have a two year warranty. I only have time and the inclination nowadays to play shooters and RPGs [ come on Mass Effect! ]. Too bad. But I have acquired a real life--boring and tedious, but necessary.

In conclusion, I'd like to thank most of the folks posting here, as this has been a long and pretty interesting thread, and well above the usual fanboy flaming match of insults and opaque spelling and syntax. I did find Yahtzee's little flash opinion piece very funny, and even hilarious in a few parts, despite the obvious smuggery and attempts to be politically correct in a 'let's-all-bash-success' kind of way. I try not to distain something just because it may be popular, even though I am disposed to do that sometimes.

Thanks for everyone's time and attention--gotta do some more co-op in Halo 3 on Legendary...

 

[Jambe]

Halo 3 would've been much better had there been 'stonking great tits' a-la this fabulous figurine selling for thousands via eBay. [http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230176209373&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:middle:us#ebayphotohosting]

 

[galaga4ever]

Pre-Halo 3 hype from Bungie: "Finish the fight!" "Save Earth!" "Master Chief will once and for all settle the score with the Covenant!"
Post-Halo 3 hype from gamers: "Wow, they didn't fix what wasn't broken with multiplayer! No one really cares about campaign anyway!"

You can understand why Yahtzee and I, who don't give a flying shit about Halo multiplayer, might be feeling a bit misled. Some of you may only have wanted Halo 3 for the multiplayer patches, but some of us wanted a thrilling and mindblowing conclusion to the campaign story we'd known for six years. You guys got what you wanted, and we didn't. Why does it piss you off so much that we aren't happy with what we got?

Halo 3's multiplayer is fine as far as console multiplayer goes. Forge and Theater are neat ideas, but certainly not unprecedented. It feels like a bait-and-switch when I point out that the singleplayer isn't anything special and all I hear from fanboys is "BUT THE MULTIPLAYER ROXXORS!!!111". Sigh.

 

[kirite]

And I had no idea there was actually a FPS console vs. PC war. That's hilarious! You people need to get out more.

*claps*

 

[EyeR8 [deprecated]]

Figured I'd finally register and post my 2 cents on this one.

I guess I fall somewhere in the middle on this one. I own all 3 Halo's, I have never read a Halo book, I never will. But the games are fun and Halo 3 is a blast co-op and multiplayer. With most of the games I've played recently, it comes down to who you play them with. Staying up all night and playing through Halo 3 on Legendary with 2 good friends of mine was nothing but a good time. I don't think any of us were paying attention to the plot, we were just trying to out-do one another with the meta scoring turned on.

But the things about reviews of anything.. movies, games.. whatever.. its all subject to what the reviewer likes. If a reviewer isn't a fan of FPS games in the first place, then chances are they won't like a FPS they review. As a fan of Halo, what do I think of this review? I think it's hilarious. Just like most of his reviews are. Do I care that he doesn't like it? Not at all.. obviously people have different tastes.. if you don't like Halo, who cares? Thats your choice.

But then I see the whole console vs pc argument come in to play all the time. Give it a rest already. I am a gamer.. I don't care what system a game is on, as long as its worth playing (in my opinion of course) I will play it. I find it hard to believe that so many people out there still have some kinda of weird "I only play PC games" or "I only play console games" thing going on with them. Me, I just play games.

 

[SpaceInsomniac [deprecated]]

Did you read the consumer guide? Oh, and P.S. - not fawning over Halo doesn't make someone a blinkered Sony chauvinist.

I didn't mean to suggest it did. For the record, I really disliked Halo 2--too much auto aim, you lived and died by the radar, and the campaign was far worse than Halo 1 or 3--but I don't feel that means I'm automaticly a giant Sony fan because of it. I just played the beta and felt they fixed almost everything I felt was wrong about Halo 2. I also own a PS1 and PS2, so I'm hardly anti-Sony.

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.

You can scale the difficulity yourself with the skull system, which I believe is another thing you left out of your review. With just a few turned on, the game can be made much harder, and a challenge for even four players.

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?

As was already said, there's more to it than just moving the weapons around. People are already making very different syles of gameplay from using forge. You can change properties of all sorts of things: gravity, how much headshots are worth, how much kills are worth, how much vehicle kills are worth, how fast everyone moves. You can make the player who's in the lead move faster or slower, if you'd like.

How about a gametype where there's only one vehicle, but kills on a vehicle are worth 5 points? Everyone scrambles to fight for the vehicle, and everyone else tries to kill the guy on the vehicle. There. That's a gametype right there that could be a lot of fun, and really changes the gameplay. Not to mention in forge you can edit objects IN REAL TIME, with several other players, which adds all sorts of cool crap you can do. If you haven't already, I highly suggest watching this: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/25274.html

Yahtzee can ignore all this stuff, just ranting about the obvious flaws of the game, and that's fine. It's entertainment, and he's right to point out those flaws. Someone who's just a typical gamer can ignore all this stuff because they don't care about multiplayer, and that's fine. Not everyone cares for online play. But for a professional review to leave out the topics of both save films and forge, and focus so much on just the offline single player aspect, that's a rather large oversight.

I'm not trying to attack you here. I'd just like you to think about the content of your review and understand that you perhaps focused on the single player a little more than you should have for a game that most play for multiplayer.

 

[Ajar]

I agree with Merlynn: Yahtzee was nothing if not honest and open about what parts of the game he was talking about and why. "I don't care about multiplayer, so I'm not going to talk about it" is perfectly honest. It's also useful, since if you're a multiplayer fan then you know he specifically isn't talking about the part of the game you're most interested in, and can evaluate the review accordingly.

Having said that, I typically listen to Zero Punctuation for comedy value after playing the game in question, so I'm not using them in my decisions, and I'm never terribly concerned when Yahtzee says something I don't agree with.

This same thing just happened on Ars Technica, where the initial Halo 3 review made clear right at the outset that it was about the single-player campaign, but lots of people who only looked at the title and the score (a 7 -- shocking!) complained in the discussion thread. That's one reason why I like how game reviews here at the Escapist don't have scores attached. Far too many people just look at the name of the game and the review score.

[Edited to clarify who I'm agreeing with.]

 

[splitsticks [deprecated]]

Eh, I can see where he's coming from. If you don't play the other halos, you'll be completely lost. Halo 3's plot absolutely requires that you know the story from the first games. Some people just don't "get" halo, just like some people get half life, and they're both great games. Then again, I've played halo since I was 15 and got the first one on the christmas of its release, not knowing what to expect, and being very surprised. The game is more than a mindless fragfest to me, it's an imaginative story and a pure gameplay experience. Some of my best gaming memories are playing through halo 1 co-op with my twin bro and 2.5 hour ctf bloodgulch games at lan parties with friends. Yahtzee just doesn't "get" halo like the fans do (and not the squeaky, hyperactive mongrels that skip cutscenes and think that halo is made for the multiplayer, they're not fans and they can diaf), but that's not his problem, escapist is calling the shots after all. The game is hyped to the moon and back and tainted by one of the worst multiplayer fan bases in gaming, so he's destined to hate it. Plus he's never played the other halos? Come on. If you're gonna force feed him the game and make him regurgitate a review at least give him the backstory! As much as I can't stand the phrase "don't hate the player, hate the game", it applies.

And all of the people shouting "sellout" and other bs, get real. Money makes the world go round, and if that means working for someone instead of working for yourself, so be it. He's managed to stay true so far. It's a shame that he has to justify himself to the fanboys.

Bottom line, get over it, get over it, and get over it.

 

[Peterion]

Hehe, it's always entertaining to watch people act like they've just been personally offended because some guy doesn't share their opinion on something. How dare someone have an opinion that differs from your own!? Blasphemy! Do they not realize your opinion is right and theirs is inherently wrong!? Opinion is just that, opinion, not fact. Wasn't there some saying about opinions and assholes and how everyones got one?


Personally, I love Halo. I love every one of the games, I love the characters, I love the story. I stood in line with the weird sweaty neck-bearded nerds at midnight to get my copy of the game, and after I finished the campaign, I cranked up the difficulty to Legendary and started over again. To me, Halo 3 is like the greatest thing EVAR.

Yet, I loved Yahtzee's review of it as well. As was the case with the Bioshock review, another game I really liked. He points out many truths, and he does so in a very funny way.

Aaaanyhow, I was surprised Yahtzee didn't mention the second to last level of the campaign, when you rescue Cortana, that's one of the worst most horribly designed levels I've ever played in any game ever. It was just awful in every way.

Still, I love the game despite of it's flaws, just like Yahtzee loves Psychonauts in spite of it's various crappy parts (yes I played it and it angered me greatly on many occasions).

 

[yayaja67 [deprecated]]

yahtzee, you fabulous british bastard, you are so the fucking man, its not even funny

 

[ccesarano]

This is likely my last post on this, as I seriously don't have the time to keep up. But I will say, kudos, as even the least intelligent posts in this whole thing are more intelligent to what I'm used to.

To reconfirm, I was mostly responding to the other commentators, not Yahtzee. I probably should've kept the pretentious stuff out. However, it should be noted that I don't play Halo for any multiplayer except co-op. I'll go online and enjoy a game once in a while, but for the most part it's not why I play.

Halo is like the Starwars of games.... Terrible story, horrible acting, ridiculous characters. There - I said it. Being a HUGE SciFi fan, I've never understood how that C-movie could have become such a hit, and same for Halo.

Ok, so it's not Dune or Starship Troopers or, ironically, Ringworld, despite the obvious influences. However, it's still pretty good. Maybe to you it isn't, but sometimes you need to define where it's your standards. For example, I enjoyed Live Free or Die Hard despite the film being anything but intellectually stimulating. Why? They promised me a car flying into a helicopter, and dammit I got it and then some.

Now, Halo may not be Bioshock, but it's above Doom at least. Once again, if you dig into the subtle stuff (and once again, disregard the Halo novels as they can go suck it), the story is actually pretty good. Halo 3, once more, screwed it all up. They never even answered the one question that has burned my mind the whole time: why did the Covenant, who invited all other alien races into their religion, give humans no chance? I figured the Prophet of Truth may be hiding something, and I'd explain further were it not for spoilers (it's still new, after all). It would be in the style of the series for Mercy and Regret to live up to their names while Truth would prove to be more ironic. However, no such thing happened. Halo 3 WAS straight forward, and it was...well, yeah. It was poor.

That doesn't mean the build up before it was, though.

Now, as far as top tier shooters go, such as Bioshock and Half-Life, well, I still love Halo's setting (I pretty much fell in love with the Covenant), but it really is Star Wars in comparison. But let's take Doom 3, Quake 4, Prey and Area 51 and see....oh my, it turns out Halo's story is actually head and shoulders above the rest. In fact, comparing the gameplay, it's got a lot of things that none of those games do, either.

I am not surprised Yahtzee thinks Halo is run of the mill. After all, he came late in the series, and Halo 3 is basically everything previous, only polished. This is why I also have NO problem with it ending. However, if you do more than compare it to the best of the best, but compare it to everything, it really is above average, even if slightly.

I think we can all agree that reviewers should all be fired, though. GameTrailers is the best for reviews so far, but if a game is seriously hyped up, like Halo 3 or Metroid, you can bet the score is going to be incredibly high no matter what.

As for the hype, though, I think people end up hating on Halo just because of it's popularity. I really do. I got caught in it with Final Fantasy, but at this point, the only one I really hate is FF8. I could complete the other ones enjoyably enough, meaning they were at least good. Just not deserving of hype. Now, what people should recognize with Halo is, because it was the best title in a console launch, it gained instant success. If it had launched later in the Xbox life, chances are fewer people would have played it. However, due to its position, EVERYONE played it. So many people even foolishly claim the only games Xbox has are Halo 1 and 2, completely disregarding titles like Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Ninja Gaiden, Fable, Knights of the Old Republic or, and I'm sure I'm bound to get so much hatred for this, MechAssault 1 and 2 (no, they weren't as great as MechWarrior, but if they were supposed to be they would've had the same name; I like my arcade Mech style title).

People of all varieties play Halo, but the most significant is the mainstream market. These are some of the most die hard fans of Halo. These guys are either nice online, or are complete jerks. These are the people that haven't played nearly as many titles as we have or have heard of them. These are the people that play games with no expectations beyond what they grew up with on Atari or NES. However, some of them ignore things like the story, others pay attention. Whether you like the story or not, these simple folks may find Halo's story to be great. Now, isn't it better if they start to see this and hope for it to become standard?

Halo is hyped insanely simply because it's the mainstream fad. Once upon a time it was Mario and Zelda cereal, Mario and Zelda cartoons, Mario kids meal toys, and even Mario the movie. Given how much the gaming market has spread into mainstream culture, I say it's fine to see Halo getting the merchandising and hype it is. It's not like Resident Evil didn't have comics or novels, or Starcraft for that matter.

The Halo hype isn't for US. It's for the mainstream folks that'll only play Halo 3, Madden and maybe Lost Planet or something. Not for someone like me, who has recently played Halo 3, Blue Dragon, Stranglehold, Metroid Prime 3, Project Sylpheed, Brothers in Arms DS, Overlord, Bioshock, Shadowrun, Pokemon Pearl, twenty or so minutes of Two Worlds before wanting to microwave the disc, etc. etc....and you should see my GameFly list for the rest of the year...

I guess my ultimate point to the whole hype thing was that, I know it is easy to hate something over the hype. Just remember who the hype is intended for. If you think the game is average compared to the likes of more "quality" tastes, so be it, but for the average person it IS high quality.

Also, seriously, not all games CAN be nor SHOULD be art. I like artistic games as well (EarthBound probably being my favorite of them), but I like the simple stuff, too. If you expect nothing but innovation and art then there's too little in this world to enjoy and too much to despise.

Now that I've finished with that long ass ramble, I hope you guys all enjoy your discussions.

Yahtzee, good review, even if you were forced into doing it real quick over the weekend. I have only one request: start making them five or six minutes again. Three or four is just way too short.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

For me Halo has a been a slightly above mediocre game that if had better controls would be a solid and fun title on the console because it lacks it the game waffes at around a 6(above average).

Halo 1 had great AI for tis time 2 so so I guess the AI for 3 is fcked but then most "fps" AI seems weak right now....

I had been hoping that polish/gameplay would have made a come back now I guess gaming will remain on this trendy hollywood slop....

 

[SuperBlender]

I realize this is a bit off topic, but did anyone notice the picture of "finger quoting Margo" in Yahtzee's review? Could this comedic genious also be a Comics Curmudgeon fan?

 

[kanetsb]

That is so damn true... What's up with this halo-phenomenon thing?!? For Pete's sake - Half Life 2 seems much better to me! Really have to be a 15 year old over-experimenting with caffeine to enjoy this!

 

[Chinster]

Ahahahahah Yahtzee that was just brain meltingly brilliant

 

[LyonLee]

Let's be honest here. If you were looking to Halo 3 to be the next paragon of gaming, an adventure that would make you question your current beliefs and morals, an act that would bring you to tears, you were either fooled by their marketing or you're a fanboy.
And if you did cry, you're a little girl.
This game was never designed to be the best thing out there. It was designed to be entertaining to 70%-80% of their target audience. Whether or not they succeeded is debatable. Looking at these posts, the group gathered here seems a bit more discerning than a Halo 3 fansite. Bungie could have taken a dump in a box, and they still would have sold millions of copies.
As for the story: yes, it is confusing to someone who doesn't know the backstory. Hell, it could be confusing to someone who played the previous Halo games as well. Is it Bungie's fault for not explaining what happened better? Yes. Blame has to lay somewhere. They had to know they would get thousands of new people who had never played the previous games. They just didn't care.
As for the AI: AI in games has always sucked. If you're expecting different, stop it. Computers may have gotten faster but that does not mean they've gotten better or the programs have gotten smarter.
Bungie knew where their gaming core lay: in multiplayer. They realized it after the first Halo was released. That's why Halo 2 had such an unsatisfactory ending. They didn't care about the story anymore. Halo did have a few twists and surprizes. But after the revelation of the Flood, what was left to surprize people with? The only thing left would be the action. And that people could get from any random FPS.
Halo 3 is entertaining. Not great. Not the best. Just the best selling.

 

[PhantomBoyo [deprecated]]

I'm going to chill the atmosphere:

STONKING GREAT TITS.