Anybody played reach yet?

Zeouterlimits

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Kind of have to laugh at me getting called out for looking at Goldeneye through rose tinted glasses after the amount of times I've been given out to on these boards for telling people it's aged terribly

It's generally safe to assume people hold it too high, didn't mean it personally.

Azza wrote: »

Sorry going have to call you on this one. Twitch shooters by which I assume you mean Quake and Unreal Tournament do reward intelligence as well as aim.

Agreed, considering I've played them with you before I would agree.
I was actually referring more to COD.

Retr0gamer

Zeouterlimits wrote: »

It's generally safe to assume people hold it too high, didn't mean it personally.

Ah don't worry, I'm just a bit notorious for trying to people that it's aged really badly and then al hell breaking loss

NeoKubrick

Sorry for being over a week late; Halo Reach's multiplayer is addictive.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

What's the difference? And don't even claim to think that Bungie weren't influenced by Tribes because after it was released in 1998 everyone was playing Tribes.

That's speculation and conjecture. What isn't is that Halo: Combat Evolved was originally a real-time tactical game, then a third-person shooter and finally a first-person shooter. So, it's more likely that Tribes had no influence on Halo: Combat Evolved than the opposite. Especially as I've said, Tribes shield mechanic is not the same as Halo's and recharging shields was present in Bungie's Marathon: one is integral and the other is an option/power-up. Furthermore, you've inadvertently implied that Bungie's Halo had influence on other developers: everyone was playing Tribes and therefore Bungie were influenced by it; everyone was playing Halo and therefore developers were influenced by it. Either both or none are valid.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I think the fact that I'd been playing PC games since 1992 and had my own PC since 1996 counts more.

Quantity does not equal quality, and in agreement, you on more than on occasion have said that popularity does not mean a game is good; so, you can't use the number of years you've been playing PC games to justify any argument, because you would be hypocritically claiming that quantity equals quality. Super Mario Bros. is just "run and jump things"; again, it doesn't cheapen the quality no matter how little the quantity of words it takes to describe something, because quality does not equal quantity.

And, I don't think the quantity of experience you have counts for anything if you think the difference between Super Mario 3 and Super Mario World is analogous to Half Life and Half Life 2. You either haven't played Half Life and Half Life 2 sufficiently to notice the significant difference, or haven't the sufficient understanding of first-person shooters, or both. You claimed that Half Life 1 was a better game than Half Life 2, not that you preferred it to Half Life 2, which is two different claims. It's absolutely valid for someone to prefer one game to another and to ignore which is actually superior, but it isn't valid for someone to claim one game is better than another if he hasn't a valid and sound argument as to why.

It's irrelevant that Medal of Honour: Allied Assault could not be influenced by Halo; I asked you to name three games which offered the same experience as Halo: Combat Evolved before its release as you claimed PC players had played and seen it all before, and one of the games you cited was a game (Medal of Honour) released after Halo was launched. So, how did PC players have the benefit of this experience a couple of months before the event of actually playing the game? This is the crux of the debate: if you can't prove that there were similar or superior combat experiences on the PC platform that is a basis for the comment that PC players had seen it all before, then Halo: Combat Evolved was revolutionary. The two valid examples, Hidden & Dangerous and Half-Life, were not anything close to the tactical and engaging combat in Halo, and if you had to point to an example of a game that was released after Halo: Combat Evolved, it does more to indicate how scarce, not abundant, the experiences, like Halo, were. Here with your wealth of years of experience since 1992 playing on someone else's PC and since 1996 playing on your own, you said:

"Also [Halo:Combat Evolved] was the best example of a FPS since Half Life and Deus Ex. The PC FPS games before it were terrible and repetitive crap."

I accept Halo's combat design as good because the design principles are logical and sound. First-person shooters are combat, first and foremost. Despite your repeated requests for me to outline why the combat is revolutionary, I've articulated it to you myriad times in different debates on this forum and wrote a thousand word essay on the subject on an independent blog, and you've never refuted any of my arguments other than responding with self-serving contorted claims; in this debate, I've even demonstrated that you've implied that it revolutionized the genre (devolution isn't synonymous with stagnation) and demonstrated that you can't prove that it didn't.

If you think the shield mechanic, weapons, grenade and melee gameplay, the variety of enemies and, especially, the artificial intelligence were small improvements, then you should be a bit more introspective of whose hook you bit after 2004.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I tell you what was revolutionary, Super Mario Bros. and here's a good article much better written than the two you posted to show why:

http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/index.php/Games/G5-SuperMarioBros

That Super Mario Bros. piece was a good article, if you go by the tenet that anything posted on Gamespite is automatically good regardless of the content. The writer describes Super Mario Bros. and describes the change from iterative arcade games to a narrative game. He doesn't analyze the design of Super Mario Bros. at all, and how it was revolutionary, because either he wasn't able to or that wasn't the aim of his article. I think it's the former, because nowhere in his article which dedicates a lot of words on the subject does he mention that the lack of 'Continue' was a design decision; Miyamoto made that decision, because players like playing through parts of a game they now find simple and it allows them to show off how good they are - it's his guiding principle throughout all his 'action' games.

Although the writer mentions the experience of the start of the game, he doesn't analyze how its design is good: the placement of the first ? block to entice players to hit it, and increasing the chances of inadvertently stamping on the Goomba and making players understand how to kill it; the placement of the row of blocks when you hit the ? block for the mushroom to increase the chances of players failing to jump over the mushroom and easier to collide with it and inadvertently make players understand the mushroom is a power-up. That's game design. Now after reading all of that, try reading this with a straight face:

"Oh, and let’s not forget the impact Super Mario Bros. is still having on game designers to this day, with full recreations of that astoundingly memorable first level finding their way into modern games"

Do you really think he has a solid clue why the first level has an impact on game designers when he says that we shouldn't forget that some games have replicated the first level? You may limit your understanding of game design to the opinions of select high-brow journalists, but I don't.

Retr0gamer

I'll freely admit that back in 2004 I was 20 and full of ****. You'll find other posts by me praising Goldeneye and FFVII from that time that I admit with the benefit of hindsight were wrong.

ickle_pwincess

"The best example of an FPS since Half Life and Deux Ex" doesn't mean the best example ever! Maybe there had been a string of cruddy ones in between them games. Maybe it was fun when he played it the first time, and then it got old. But, who gives a crud?

Lets just put it this way, if someone said you were crap, Halo wouldn't put any effort in trying to defend you. Know why? Its 'cause it doesn't love you like you love it. 'Cause its not real.


... And that's a Dealbreaker ladies!

NeoKubrick

ickle_pwincess wrote: »

Lets just put it this way, if someone said you were crap, Halo wouldn't put any effort in trying to defend you. Know why? Its 'cause it doesn't love you like you love it. 'Cause its not real.

That would depend if I knew someone with the name 'Halo'. Anyway, it's overkill to come on to defend someone and directly imply it's because you love them, ickle_pwincess.

astrofool

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I'll freely admit that back in 2004 I was 20 and full of ****. You'll find other posts by me praising Goldeneye and FFVII from that time that I admit with the benefit of hindsight were wrong.

PC FPS games at the time were all going down a similar path, Halo did introduce a lot of mechanics that have since become popular in FPS games on the PC (shields, limited inventory, weapon pickup, vehicles meshed in with gameplay). I've played a lot of fps games over the years, Halo and HL2 have been by far the most enjoyable I've played in the last decade or so.

Though I'm jumping into this thread a bit, seeing Retr0gamer hating on Halo, Goldeneye, FF7, is as predictable as Basquille hating season 2 of anything over on the TV forum

Goldeneye hasn't aged well, a lot of N64 games haven't (bar Mario and Zelda imo), FF7 I could still see myself going back to, if I had the time to play games again, but while I used to play a lot of games, I now barely get to play any, I really did enjoy the brief experience that was Halo:Reach, more enjoyable by there being no perseverence test Flood level.

Now, I'm sure other games did Halo things before Halo did (e.g. Tribes), but none of them packaged and presented them the way Halo did.

Moogintroll

NeoKubrick wrote: »

recharging shields was present in Bungie's Marathon

I played a LOT of marathon back in the day (what with it being the only game worth playing on the mac back in those days... Not that things have changed much) and I'm pretty certain that while it had shields, they worked exactly like a regular health bar. The only way to recharge them was with pickups or health dispensers on the wall.

That being said, Halo was basically a sequel to Marathon and there are a lot of similarities.

Retr0gamer

Correct, it works nothing like the shields in Halo it's just a standard health bar that can be replenished at stations in the wall. Unlike Tribes shields which some people justwant to stick their fingers in their ears and shout lalala about.

Moogintroll

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Correct, it works nothing like the shields in Halo it's just a standard health bar that can be replenished at stations in the wall. Unlike Tribes shields which some people justwant to stick their fingers in their ears and shout lalala about.

Yes but in all fairness Halo was in development long before Tribes was released. I mean, Steve Jobs announced Halo back in 1999 (No, seriously, the iPod guy) and it had been in development long enough to morph from a RTS to a FPS.

Besides, what made Halo a great game wasn't the shield mechanics, it was being dropped repeatedly into these 30 second combat scenarios that were all a little bit different each time depending on the way you approached it and whatever weapons you were able to scavenge.

Still, it's not as good as Deus Ex though.

Retr0gamer

Moogintroll wrote: »

Yes but in all fairness Halo was in development long before Tribes was released. I mean, Steve Jobs announced Halo back in 1999 (No, seriously, the iPod guy) and it had been in development long enough to morph from a RTS to a FPS.

Besides, what made Halo a great game wasn't the shield mechanics, it was being dropped repeatedly into these 30 second combat scenarios that were all a little bit different each time depending on the way you approached it and whatever weapons you were able to scavenge.

Well Tribes came out in 1998 a good 3 years before Halo. The 30 second scenario thing was fun but I don't see how it was different from the pacing in other first person shooters, it's kind of an obvious lesson in game pacing. I kind of prefer the pacing broken up more like in HL1, well HL1 was the big one that came along and did it properly first, but it kind of has a lot more variety in it's levels and gameplay and doesn't rely on constant combat. Halos swamp level took a stab at this type of pacing but while good I think other games succeed in it a lot better. I forgot to mention Outcast that had the impressive AI in an open world enviroment. It's a bit like Halos in the way it works although Halo is a more advanced version.

Moogintroll

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well Tribes came out in 1998 a good 3 years before Halo.

You know fine well that the reason Halo came out in 2001 was because Microsoft bought Bungie in 2000 for the express reason of converting the game to the XBox. Hell Bungie even had to cut a lot just to get it released on time, hence the repetitive level design and reused maps.

Besides, recharging shields aside, Halo's multiplayer is based on Marathon's and Marathon was doing MP back in 1994.

Retr0gamer

Well a lot can happen in 3 years development time, including perhaps being influenced by one of the biggest multiplayer sensations of the time. It's kind of obvious that Halo was rushed from the copy and paste level design in places and back tracking. Bungie will fully admit to that!

I'm not saying anything bad about the multiplayer, it's an area I've not much experience in. Marathon was very ahead of it's time. Ultima Underworld and to a greater extent System Shock just got there first with a lot of gameplay innovations like a physics system and room over rooms but Marathon did it better and did it running well on modest hardware. Durandal had the bigger influence on Halos multiplayer with alot of game types carried over and I'm sure some of them were seen for the first time in durandal. Duke 3D and Quake around the same time only had plain old deathmatch.

Moogintroll

Actually it's interesting to see how halo developed over the years:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI84riXyXoU

(Damn, I need to play System Shock 2 again some time. One of the best FPS ever.)

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's kind of obvious that Halo was rushed from the copy and paste level design in places and back tracking. Bungie will fully admit to that!

I love halo, it's my fave FPS, but that's one thing about the games that's bugged me since i started playing them. All 5 of the FPS games employ back-tracking as a lazy way to add play time to a game, and it's just infuriating when it comes up in-game. As soon as i hear a voice on the comm saying "get back to the ship", or " make your way back outside" or "get back to the command centre" or whatever, i instantly groan.

Some games were worse for it than others, but it was particularly bad in 1 and 2. ODST got away blatantly with it for half the game. The night and day sections were essentially a clever way of re-using the same map twice, just by throwing different lighting effects and a handful of cosmetic changes onto each map. It wasn't everywhere, but where it happened it was still annoying.

Retr0gamer

Well Halo 2 didn't really use backtracking but a big problem for me was that huge chunks of level were copied over and over in places which was a problem with Halo 1 but in that case it was understandable, not so much in Halo 2. It's why I prefer Halo 3 out of the original trilogy. There was no real backtracking other than 1 level but they changed the level significantly and a lot more care and attention went into the levels. That and the lack of Flood levels.

bonkeyfonkey

It's certainly refreshing to the halo series. It was beginning to feel pretty stale!