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A halo game without a spartan. how do you think it will be?
I think the sandbox style with an fps is a good idea.
firefight mode seems to be a knock off of horde from gow 2
Since you not a spartan you will be waeker. i think thats a plus since
I love the idead of a bunch of 9 year olds jumping into the fray with out thinking and the get frusterated when they keep dying.
also i like the idea that all the missions are flashbacks while sand box mode your in the present

I think it'll be good to see the game from a soldier's point of view rather than a superhuman indestructible space marine or a Space Alien (in Space).

I think it will be great when I purchase it and put it on my shelf never to be played because of World of WarCraft. haha

I'm excited for it. It'll just be neat for the fact it'll be part of the Halo universe which isn't all Master Chief and Warthogs.

What cheese elemental said. But CoD:5 will be better and CoD:6 most likely will be too.

I hear cod 6 will not have well the cod name in it

Cheese Elemental wrote:I think it'll be good to see the game from a soldier's point of view rather than a superhuman indestructible space marine or a Space Alien (in Space).

I agree. It will provide a new prospective and insight into what everyone else had to go through while MC was trying to "finish the fight"

djphranq wrote:I think it will be great when I purchase it and put it on my shelf never to be played because of World of WarCraft. haha

I'm excited for it. It'll just be neat for the fact it'll be part of the Halo universe which isn't all Master Chief and Warthogs.

Lol curse you WoW! No warthogs makes me sad =( I wish they would have put the transport one in multiplayer in Halo 3 so I could laser it and get 7 kills at once

Now if only they would make games based on the novels... I want to see Contact Harvest as a game. Playing as Johnson FTW.

Cheese Elemental wrote:Now if only they would make games based on the novels... I want to see Contact Harvest as a game. Playing as Johnson FTW.

Hell yeah! He would kick so much ass. It sucks he was killed in halo 3 he was my favorite character

Frankly, I've always thought that Halo should have had you playing as a Marine from the start. Fighting alongside Master Chief and the other Spartans would have made them seem that much more...mythic, really.

I dunno, I mean, there are other war games based on being just one faceless soldier who does amazing things. Part of the whole appeal of Halo was the 'only you can do this' feel. Which really helped set the tone. I mean, it's a game full of 'oh man that was awesome' moments, and it plays up that you're a spartan that's what's supposed to happen.

Though I am excited for ODST, as I think it'll bring a little bit more to the table in terms of stealth and freeform gameplay. Halo 1-3 did great without them, but it'll be neat to see what bungie cooks up.

Kanluwen wrote:Frankly, I've always thought that Halo should have had you playing as a Marine from the start. Fighting alongside Master Chief and the other Spartans would have made them seem that much more...mythic, really.

My favorite parts in Halo [original] are when you fight alongside the marines. There are some truly epic battles in that game with you, the marines, and the covenant.

I preordered ODST. The firefight mode + halo 3 multiplayer [w/ all maps] + invitation to Halo REACH beta were enough for me.

I'm sure the main game will be alright, but i'm not expecting anything earth shattering. I wish they would have gone a more tactical route with this game, but clearly they want to keep it within the framework of how Halo as an FPS works.

I liked the idea of Halo Wars, it's just too bad the game sucked, but what did we really expect from a true console RTS?

Just so long as it is better than Halo Wars... My god I was so sad when I started playing that... Still not played it again after the first few missions when I bought it when it came out :(

Not sure if I want to pre-order ODST to get all the "limited" edition stuff or not. I don't really want to move onto a new game after investing so much in Halo 3

ODST is a shorter version of Halo with new maps, no regenerative shields and a really short single-player campaign that doesn't justify a full retail price.

SilverMK2 wrote:Just so long as it is better than Halo Wars... My god I was so sad when I started playing that... Still not played it again after the first few missions when I bought it when it came out :(

Not sure if I want to pre-order ODST to get all the "limited" edition stuff or not. I don't really want to move onto a new game after investing so much in Halo 3

There's pretty much no "limited edition" stuff for preordering, other than a beta key for Halo: Reach and unlocking Sergeant Johnson as a playable character for Firefight.

And anyways, on the subject of the game itself?

From what I've heard/read/seen, it looks good storywise. It's showing why the Covenant hit New Mombosa in the first place, and why they actually *invaded* Earth, rather than just glass it from orbit like they did with pretty much every planet that doesn't have Forerunner artifacts on them.

Plus--Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk and Adam Baldwin doing the voice-overs for your squadmates?
Hell. Yes.

BrookM wrote:ODST is a shorter version of Halo with new maps, no regenerative shields and a really short single-player campaign that doesn't justify a full retail price.

Jesus, it's not even a public beta or demo yet. Don't go making assumptions about its content.

Previews and interviews are your friend.

It doesn't look 'extremely short' to me. Besides, how many FPS games these days have a long campaign? CoD 4 took me five hours, piece of cake. The only moderately long ones I've played are Killzone and Halo: Combat Evolved.

It looks.. Off. From what I've seen of the gameplay (the video), you're just a different character model with new weapons and a vaguely changed health system. Wow. - not.

And the strange wire-framing business that seems to happen every 4 seconds, that would get on my nerves after the first minute.

sA

Cheese Elemental wrote:Jesus, it's not even a public beta or demo yet. Don't go making assumptions about its content.

It's a Halo game. 'Mediocre' is about all you can hope for.

I hear they're calling the next one Halo 4: Blood From a Stone.

Should be awesome. And by awesome I mean not awesome.

I don't really get all the hate over Halo. I don't get the fanboyism, either. It's a well-crafted, original game with an excellent story, OTOH, it's certainly no godsend or anything like that.

It seems that anything with a strong fanbase is automatically hated by anyone who isn't part of said fanbase.

Well, this could go on for ages but I don't like Halo because it is bland. It brought in little new though it did put the XBox on the market. I don't like it because it is boring, repetitive, bland, not refreshing and driven by hot air. The only reason it is so big is because Microsoft pushes this game over everything else as the next biggest thing since god shat out the world.

ODST is just a milking of the cash cow. It has a short single-player story, a new coop mode ripped from Gears of War 2 and some new multiplayer maps. I've seen the gameplay vids and I'm not impressed. It's more of the same, nothing new, same game, different paint.

You could say the same about most franchises.

What is, for example, Super Smash Bros. Brawl other than a clone of the old game with a few new characters and shiny graphics?

You can say that about pretty much anything by Nintendo though. Especially the games on the Wii... the first generation of them had about 5 or 6 really original games, and all the others are pretty much exact duplicates.

Don't look at me, we have a Wii but the melon-fether gives me RSI.

BrookM wrote: The only reason it is so big is because Microsoft pushes this game over everything else as the next biggest thing since god shat out the world.

You simply could not be more wrong in your assertion.

The enormous success of the Halo series is simply because of its multiplayer component. Particularly with the advent of Xbox Live - Halo 2 was huge on XBL, Halo 3 now even more so. It's this online community that drives the games sales.

These days FPS are mostly about the online component, though occasionally a developer will realize a first person perspective doesn't automatically equate to having to run around and shoot at a bunch of 12 year olds online. Thats how we get modern classics like Bioshock.

Halo is overrated as series, but it is immensely fun. Particularly when you play with friends.

I'm skeptical as hell about ODST though.

Looks pretty good, its a free roaming campain, so that be fun.

It be interesting to see how online unfolds.

I dont think firefight is a copy of horde, the idea of horde is generaly simple there was bound to be some more variations sooner or later, and there are bigger maps, vehicles the skulls added on so looks like gonna be pretty different.

Yeah using Nintendo is a really bad example, Lemon Tank. They're notorious for being quite bad at coming up with new things - every E3 it's just a new Mario, new Zelda, new Metroid... and probably some extra smaller Mario games thrown in as well.

My problems with Halo are two-fold:

1. Halo was the game that was supposed to rip the FSP genre in two, breaking it right open and going places that even Half-Life didn't go - it was going to be to Half-Life what Half-Life was to Quake. You look at the promise it had even when it was first shown as a game made for Macs. Then Microsoft jumped in the way, the game was delayed for years and in the end and didn't change te world the gaming. We had to wait until Half-Life 2 to get that change.
2. The game we did get was run-of-the-mill FPS that forever changed two things in FPS that didn't need changing - it eliminated health bars... for no apparent reason, and limited the amount of weapons we could cary (hooray for arbitrary restrictions!).

XBox Live was a big deal, Halo simply rode that wave.

I can agree with you on a big point here, Commissar Calgar; Halo would have been far better in its original incarnation. Squad-based third-person shooters are few and far between, and Halo could have boosted the genre considerably. The original trailer was just amazing (for its day, of course).




Yes, Halo was really like this back in the day.

Halo's great for mindless fps action. And unlike Cod you can have guest accounts play online. That right there keeps halo playing every now and then round my way.

ODST seems ok, I'll probably play it at some point, cause its familiar.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Yeah using Nintendo is a really bad example, Lemon Tank. They're notorious for being quite bad at coming up with new things - every E3 it's just a new Mario, new Zelda, new Metroid... and probably some extra smaller Mario games thrown in as well.

My problems with Halo are two-fold:

1. Halo was the game that was supposed to rip the FSP genre in two, breaking it right open and going places that even Half-Life didn't go - it was going to be to Half-Life what Half-Life was to Quake. You look at the promise it had even when it was first shown as a game made for Macs. Then Microsoft jumped in the way, the game was delayed for years and in the end and didn't change te world the gaming. We had to wait until Half-Life 2 to get that change.
2. The game we did get was run-of-the-mill FPS that forever changed two things in FPS that didn't need changing - it eliminated health bars... for no apparent reason, and limited the amount of weapons we could cary (hooray for arbitrary restrictions!).

XBox Live was a big deal, Halo simply rode that wave.

Your first point is a critique against Microsoft - not Halo as a game.

Remember when Peter Molyneux said Fable was going to change the world of gaming as we know? Yeah well guess what, that didn't happen even when all the previews made it look like it would. Fable was a good game regardless, I don't dislike it simply for what it could have been.

I don't feel that can really argue for "something that could have been/was supposed to be" when it in fact never did exist. We have no way of knowing whether it would have lived up to what it was supposed to be. Maybe you should blame the shareholders at Bungie for allowing them to be purchase by Microsoft.

I mean, you're acting like you were entitled to this original version of Halo. That's absurd.

Just what did Half Life 2 do for the FPS genre exactly? Have some nifty new physics, open environments, and an interesting storyline? That's hardly earth-shattering. Great game though.

Your second point is also partially incorrect. You had a health bar in Halo and there were even health packs. True you had shields, too, but it wasn't until Halo 2 that you completely lose the visible health bar.

I don't think regenerative health is a bad idea personally. Plenty of FPS still come out that use traditional health bars. I'd love to actually hear your thoughts on why you think regenerative health is actually a bad mechanic for a game. Halo's shields also function somewhat different from say the regenerative health of a game like Call of Duty 4. I'm fine with either. In fact I probably like a health bar better simply because I enjoy playing as a medic/healing class online [which you can't have with regenerative health.]

Only being able to hold 2 weapons? I think you're really being unreasonable here. It's not an arbitrary restriction. You are grasping for straws. It's clearly a design decision to only be able to choose two weapons at any given time.\

What exactly is wrong with having to pick and choose what weapons to carry- that only makes the decision on what weapons to carry that much more important. They are meaningful decisions. Is your problem because the majority of FPS games before this allow you to carry (in some cases) dozens of weapons? Because I will not accept that argument.

Besides plenty of games before Halo have restricted the weapons you can carry. Again, I just don't feel it's an arbitrary restriction. It's a design decision made by Bungie in order to get a specific type of gameplay that they are looking for.

Halo 2 is the title that made Xbox Live a viable platform for online gaming. Halo 2 made XBL. Halo did not ride an already big XBL wave.

Cheese Elemental wrote:Halo would have been far better in its original incarnation.

While you can believe this there is absolutely know what you can definitively know for sure whether it would have been a better game or not. Bear in mind that I am not arguing for or against the merits of Halo as it was released or as it was initially intended to be. I'm just saying your statement isn't based on reason. It is impossible to know how something is when it in fact never was. The evidence to make the statement that Halo in its original incarnation would have been a better game than Halo as it was released simply does not exist.