Halo 3 Wins Innovation Award

Jim

http://www.edge-online.com/news/halo-3-scoops-edge-award-interactive-innovation

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Retr0gamer

Fail!

Jesus Edge really need to just stop and admit that they got it wrong with the halo games. I mean the 10/10 for Halo 1 was understandable but they act like children giving embarassingly high marks to Halo 2 and 3 and constantly referring to Halo as 'a masterpiece'.

All they have done is embarass themselves by giving an award to a game whose description is completely at odds with the game it is being awarded to and shamefully denied the far superior and more innovative nominees.

Their reasoning is pathetic. Because of Forge and Theatre mode? So it innovates by having a really very poor attempt at a level editor and a poor mans consolised version of fraps. Forge is an utter sham, I was making levels in Timesplitters 2 back 5 or so years ago and I won't even go into the PC mod scene.

Creamy Goodness

great now my keyboard and two monitors have tea all over them.

and then i read comments like this...

HA HA, toadwarrior thinks that Portal should have won. Aha ha, that's really funny. The only thing INNOVATIVE about Portal is the portal gun and that's it. They definitely don't deserve the award for making level one the same as level 20. The level concepts are all the same and their isn't anything more to it. It's like playing Mario Bros--keep doing the same thing by yourself.

and now my tea is empty and all over my desk and cup smashed to pieces.

Retr0gamer

My calendar must to wrong, it's saying 12th of August when it's clearly the 1st of April. This has to be some kind of joke surely? Some kind of sick perverted joke. I just hope Kim Swift and her extremely talented and more deserving team members threw common decency out the window and keyed Bungies and Edges cars and slashed their tyres before the awards ceremony was over. I bet even Bungie were surprised to be nominated for this award let alone to win it.

How on earth did this game win an award ??? I'm a Halo fan but Halo 3 was just a big let down in so many ways.

Jazzy

i actually kinda agree with the reason.

cant really be arsed to explain myself tho. on the other hand there hasnt really been that much innovation in the past 12 months anyway. just really really good sequels

Ivan

Jazzy wrote: »

i actually kinda agree with the reason.

cant really be arsed to explain myself tho. on the other hand there hasnt really been that much innovation in the past 12 months anyway. just really really good sequels

I'm sorry, having a controversial view point, I can understand. But wading into the dragons lair, stating this controversial opinion and then leaving without explaining why... just doesnt work for me.

I dont do conssole gaming that much, but I have played Halo 1&2 on the PC and I own Halo 3... Innovative it isnt.

I honestly thought this was meant to be some type oif joke when I was opening this thread...

R0ot

Halo deserves the award, but I can think of a few other games that deserve it a lot more to, so meh. :pac:

Kinetic^

I feel embarassed for them!

Mr E

Its a completely overrated game (I stopped playing at the end of level 2, and went to play some COD4 instead), but they are not acknowledging the game (which is a bog standard shooter) - they are acknowledging the online aspects, the community, FORGE etc.

I have no experience with any of that, so I can't comment.

Having said that, I did look around the page for The Onion's logo.

thelordofcheese

Ohhh Edge.

Look, i like Edge. I think it's a great magazine and it's features are well written and very interesting. I've never put much faith in their reviews but that's because everyone is wrong but me.

But sweet baby jesus if they keep pulling shit like this i'll have to start buying something else....

madrab

Retr0gamer wrote: »

EPIC Fail!

Fixed

0ubliette

oh lol, lets bash halo.
Fact of the matter is halo 3 did innovate quite a bit with forge and theater mode. What FPS before halo let you record your entire game either SP or MP, as a film, replay it, pause, rewind, take screenshots, make moves, and share them with your friends by uploading em to a dedicated website before? (and dont say 'lol fraps' as its a 3rd party program)
Forge mode lets people basically make brand new MP games, without needing any programming knowledge or mod making skills. Just play games like team rocket race or zombie and stuff like that to see it in action.
Portal isnt as innovative as it likes to think it is. Prey did portals 2 years before it was eve released. (portal did them better, but prey had the idea first). Portals main game is over in about 2 hours and alot of its praise is down tot he fact that its got a funny song at the end. Hardly innovation. But i suppose its easier to bash halo than portal cause you know, 'halos like for the kids and xbot newbs LAWL'

Kinetic^

0ubliette wrote: »

What FPS before halo let you record your entire game either SP or MP, as a film, replay it, pause, rewind, take screenshots, make moves, and share them with your friends by uploading em to a dedicated website before? (and dont say 'lol fraps' as its a 3rd party program)

It's the first console game (could even be wrong there) but PC games have been doing it for years. It's something that has been around for years so they're hardly being innovative.

0ubliette

Kinetic^ wrote: »

It's the first console game (could even be wrong there) but PC games have been doing it for years. It's something that has been around for years so they're hardly being innovative.

seriosuly then, show me the PC game that, built into it, lets you record your entire SP campaign and make film, screenshots, etc, and gives you dedicated server space to store them on. Cause ive been PC gaming for years and havent seen it. As i say, fraps isnt included as A) its not part of a game, its a 3rd party program and ispretty fiddly to use, and a 5 minute fraps video in a half decent resolutionis going to set you back a few gigs of HDD space, then you have to compress it, then compress it again..etc

Retr0gamer

0ubliette wrote: »

oh lol, lets bash halo.
Fact of the matter is halo 3 did innovate quite a bit with forge and theater mode. What FPS before halo let you record your entire game either SP or MP, as a film, replay it, pause, rewind, take screenshots, make moves, and share them with your friends by uploading em to a dedicated website before? (and dont say 'lol fraps' as its a 3rd party program)

Eh, Quake was the first to my knowledge back in 1996. With simple console commands you record in most games. Really big innovation there.

0ubliette wrote: »

Forge mode lets people basically make brand new MP games, without needing any programming knowledge or mod making skills. Just play games like team rocket race or zombie and stuff like that to see it in action.

No it didn't, it let you change a few things like item and vehicle placement on existing levels. Even on a console games have had level editors that were far better. Some of the games might be obscure but then one big one that springs to mind is Timepslitters 2, a game that allowed you to create entirely new levels from modular pieces with no programming skills required at all.

0ubliette wrote: »

Portal isnt as innovative as it likes to think it is. Prey did portals 2 years before it was eve released. (portal did them better, but prey had the idea first). Portals main game is over in about 2 hours and alot of its praise is down tot he fact that its got a funny song at the end. Hardly innovation. But i suppose its easier to bash halo than portal cause you know, 'halos like for the kids and xbot newbs LAWL'

Prey had portals but they were only in the game as a cosmetic feature. Portal on the other hand used portals to create an entirely unique and 'innovative' puzzle game. There is no other game out there like it other than it's predecessor Nebacular Drop which is the game that got the team noticed. Thats not to mention it's success in the story telling department with a unique setting and how it added humour to the experience. It certainly was more than generic space marines in generic space.

koneko

I don't think it should have won, but teh hatred is so funny, I wonder what it is about the Halo games that makes people soooo angry (and need to bring it up so much)

The theater is a lot more detailed than fraps, you can switch to other's perspective (ie if you have a saved film you can switch to other people's view), spin around the map (outside your view) and edit a film, it's a feature I'd like to see in more games (wanted it so many times when I was playing GTA IV, heh). That said, again, I don't think it should have won, and the level editor isn't that speciail, but there isn't a huge amount of innovation in the usual games releases. I have a soft spot for Portal, if Braid was out earlier maybe it could have won

thelordofcheese

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Eh, Quake was the first to my knowledge back in 1996.

And Carmageddon had something similar as well.

0ubliette

koneko wrote: »

I don't think it should have won, but teh hatred is so funny, I wonder what it is about the Halo games that makes people soooo angry (and need to bring it up so much)

Because its a popular game. And its easier to criticise something popular like halo than it is to point out flaws in games that have mroe 'cred' like portal etc.

Retr0gamer wrote:

Eh, Quake was the first to my knowledge back in 1996. With simple console commands you record in most games. Really big innovation there.

WOW! quake let you position the camera anywhere on the map, record films, screenshots, gave you dedicated server storage space, view the action from your enemies POV, watch in 3rd person, all back in 1996? ****, i loved quake, wish id known about those features back then, maybe id have used them.

Retr0gamer wrote:

Prey had portals but they were only in the game as a cosmetic feature. Portal on the other hand used portals to create an entirely unique and 'innovative' puzzle game. There is no other game out there like it other than it's predecessor Nebacular Drop which is the game that got the team noticed. Thats not to mention it's success in the story telling department with a unique setting and how it added humour to the experience. It certainly was more than generic space marines in generic space.

Yeah, portals in prey were totally there just to pretty up the levels, Not once did you actually have to use them to access other areas of the map or anything. Never. Nope, not at all. Just there for decoration, they was.
And putting HUMOUR in a game?! wow, theres some REAL innovation right there! Never ever heard of a funy game up til then. And the STORY, wow, its was SUBLIME!!! 'Get out of this test chamber', and 'now get out of this test chamber', was really fantastic, and lest we forget the final mission 'get out of this chamber, only this ones bigger'. Give those guys a pulitzer!!

Azza

I'm another who is amazed at the constant high review score the Halo series has got over the years. Now I will admit I have never played any Halo game bar the first one (but many people seem to regard it as the best in the series) and I have never played Halo online so maybe its got a really good mutiplayer that makes up for it.

But from my playing of Halo on the PC (and as one of the few that had no problems running it at release) I got the impression of a very average game. Average story, average graphics and average gameplay. I remember wondering at the time what all the hype was. I also remember the annoying amount of back tracking and insanely rubbish section where you fight the flood. I have heard that its the same story in the sequels too. I did not find Halo the worst game ever made but there is so many FPS that are better its hard to figure out why its done so well. Pure marketing hype?

Its just perplexing is all!

Mr E

Damn... time for some popcorn.

Please, continue.

kaimera

Azza wrote: »

I'm another who is amazed at the constant high review score the Halo series has got over the years. Now I will admit I have never played any Halo game bar the first one (but many people seem to regard it as the best in the series) and I have never played Halo online so maybe its got a really good mutiplayer that makes up for it.

But from my playing of Halo on the PC (and as one of the few that had no problems running it at release) I got the impression of a very average game. Average story, average graphics and average gameplay. I remember wondering at the time what all the hype was. I also remember the annoying amount of back tracking and insanely rubbish section where you fight the flood. I have heard that its the same story in the sequels too. I did not find Halo the worst game ever made but there is so many FPS that are better its hard to figure out why its done so well. Pure marketing hype?

Its just perplexing is all!

It is average.

on the pc compared to pc FPS games. Then again, there is a lot of tripe in the pc fps genre.

thelordofcheese

Azza wrote: »

I did not find Halo the worst game ever made but there is so many FPS that are better its hard to figure out why its done so well. Pure marketing hype?

There are plenty of FPS games on the PC that are better. Loads. Halo CE is a PC gaming also ran.

But on the console it's arguably the best one since goldeneye.

That says alot more about how terrible FPS games are on consoles than how 'good' halo is.

savemejebus

koneko wrote: »

I don't think it should have won, but teh hatred is so funny, I wonder what it is about the Halo games that makes people soooo angry (and need to bring it up so much)

The flood in general and the library in halo 1 and that puke/pizza level in halo 3 were what did it for me tbh

noodler

Its a very good FPS but it has been done already in its previosu two versions. Very well made FPS but not in any way innovative. You can't give a game an innovation award based on one or two of its features anyway.

The likes of ICO etcs should be getting nominated for these awards. PPL are saying ti sjust popular game bashing but thats just it, the most popular games are hardly the most innovative.

Would a Fifa or PES get an innovation award? They really shouldn't.

Retr0gamer

0ubliette wrote: »

WOW! quake let you position the camera anywhere on the map, record films, screenshots, gave you dedicated server storage space, view the action from your enemies POV, watch in 3rd person, all back in 1996? ****, i loved quake, wish id known about those features back then, maybe id have used them.

Actually yeah, it let you do most of those things.

0ubliette wrote: »

Yeah, portals in prey were totally there just to pretty up the levels, Not once did you actually have to use them to access other areas of the map or anything. Never. Nope, not at all. Just there for decoration, they was.

Yes you had to use portals but it remained a totally linear experience that deviated very little from the FPS template. Portal used them to create a puzzle game like nothing else that had gone before.

0ubliette wrote: »

And putting HUMOUR in a game?! wow, theres some REAL innovation right there! Never ever heard of a funy game up til then. And the STORY, wow, its was SUBLIME!!! 'Get out of this test chamber', and 'now get out of this test chamber', was really fantastic, and lest we forget the final mission 'get out of this chamber, only this ones bigger'. Give those guys a pulitzer!!

It's more how the story was told than the actual quality. For a game that was as you say 'get out of this test chamber' it was really well wrapped up in a great narrative that kept you immersed and playing right through to the end. The injection of humour was genius and nobody could argue that it wasn't probably the best writing in a videogame. It never once resorted to cutscenes and even used the environment to further the narrative.

Compare that to Halos poorly written gutter level sci-fi story line with jarring cutscenes that outstayed their welcome.

johnny_ultimate

Read this last night and suspected some controversy. As much as I love Edge, their Halo loving is always slightly eyebrow raising. The Forge was indeed a disgrace of a feature, pretty much a half assed PC level editor. The community features were excellent, but so many other games went beyond Halo that it really is a bit of a sham.

i_am_dogboy

0ubliette wrote: »

WOW! quake let you position the camera anywhere on the map, record films, screenshots, gave you dedicated server storage space, view the action from your enemies POV, watch in 3rd person, all back in 1996? ****, i loved quake, wish id known about those features back then, maybe id have used them.

You could record, take screenshots and position the camera with the quake console, yes. There was no infrastructure for the dedicated storage then, and my knowledge of the console isn't indepth enough to say if you could script the last two you mentioned.

0ubliette wrote: »

Yeah, portals in prey were totally there just to pretty up the levels, Not once did you actually have to use them to access other areas of the map or anything. Never.

They were simple lock and key puzzles, they might as well have had doors and some funny gravity. I loved prey, but their use of portals doesn't even come close to what portal did.

0ubliette wrote: »

And putting HUMOUR in a game?! wow, theres some REAL innovation right there! Never ever heard of a funy game up til then. And the STORY, wow, its was SUBLIME!!! 'Get out of this test chamber', and 'now get out of this test chamber', was really fantastic, and lest we forget the final mission 'get out of this chamber, only this ones bigger'. Give those guys a pulitzer!!

The humour of portal was in the delivery, it was pitch black humour with a dead pan delivery, and one of the most interesting characters out there. And there was far more to the story than the progression you mentioned.

Cuddlesworth

0ubliette wrote: »

WOW! quake let you position the camera anywhere on the map, record films, screenshots, gave you dedicated server storage space, view the action from your enemies POV, watch in 3rd person, all back in 1996? ****, i loved quake, wish id known about those features back then, maybe id have used them.

Source engine too, HL2 Deathmatch, CSS, Team fortress etc. The only thing they didn't do is provide a dedicated storage server. And tbh, the only reason there was one provided for Halo3 is because the feature would be useless due to the inherent nature of the xbox360. On a pc you have a vast amount of choices to upload and distribute said material.

So they got a innovation reward for putting well used features of fps games on the pc(level editor and demo recording) onto a game for the xbox360? Seems a bit weak to me, not with some of the indie games out there at the moment.

Genghiz Cohen

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Source engine too, HL2 Deathmatch, CSS, Team fortress etc. The only thing they didn't do is provide a dedicated storage server. And tbh, the only reason there was one provided for Halo3 is because the feature would be useless due to the inherent nature of the xbox360. On a pc you have a vast amount of choices to upload and distribute said material.

So they got a innovation reward for putting well used features of fps games on the pc(level editor and demo recording) onto a game for the xbox360? Seems a bit weak to me, not with some of the indie games out there at the moment.

Could you do it in CS 1.6 or earlier too?

Cuddlesworth

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Could you do it in CS 1.6 or earlier too?

Actually, yes you can. Just had a think back to all the 1.6 demos I've watched.

R0ot

0ubliette wrote: »

oh lol, lets bash halo.
Fact of the matter is halo 3 did innovate quite a bit with forge and theater mode. What FPS before halo let you record your entire game either SP or MP, as a film, replay it, pause, rewind, take screenshots, make moves, and share them with your friends by uploading em to a dedicated website before? (and dont say 'lol fraps' as its a 3rd party program)
Forge mode lets people basically make brand new MP games, without needing any programming knowledge or mod making skills. Just play games like team rocket race or zombie and stuff like that to see it in action.
Portal isnt as innovative as it likes to think it is. Prey did portals 2 years before it was eve released. (portal did them better, but prey had the idea first). Portals main game is over in about 2 hours and alot of its praise is down tot he fact that its got a funny song at the end. Hardly innovation. But i suppose its easier to bash halo than portal cause you know, 'halos like for the kids and xbot newbs LAWL'

Battlefield 2

0ubliette

R0ot wrote: »

Battlefield 2

No, it didnt.

Look you can argue all you like, the fact of the matter is that if any of those games had actually implemented these phantom features youre talking about in any kind of user friendly or visible manner, (using the command line, what a great USP for an FPS) maybe they would have won the EDGE™ award for innovation. but as it stands, they havent. No, not even portal. you cant actually argue with that. Youre all wrong, and probably just a little upset that games you love never won awards for innovation.

thelordofcheese

0ubliette wrote: »

No, it didnt.

Look you can argue all you like, the fact of the matter is that if any of those games had actually implemented these phantom features youre talking about in any kind of user friendly or visible manner, (using the command line, what a great USP for an FPS) maybe they would have won the EDGE™ award for innovation. but as it stands, they havent. No, not even portal. you cant actually argue with that. Youre all wrong, and probably just a little upset that games you love never won awards for innovation.

I'm pretty sure it's an annual thing, all of the games everyone has cited weren't released this year it would be hard, nigh on impossible, for them to win. Dispite predating the alleged innovation of Halo3 by anywhere up to ten years.

You sir are, infact, wrong and i claim my five pounds.

Retr0gamer

Companion cube says 'Fail!'

Cuddlesworth

0ubliette wrote: »

Look you can argue all you like, the fact of the matter is that if any of those games had actually implemented these phantom features youre talking about in any kind of user friendly or visible manner, (using the command line, what a great USP for an FPS) maybe they would have won the EDGE™ award for innovation. but as it stands, they havent. No, not even portal. you cant actually argue with that. Youre all wrong, and probably just a little upset that games you love never won awards for innovation.

Source Tv? Let you do all that while the game was being played. Even put a delay on it so you could stop cheats. Couple of thousand people could watch it live. Kinda makes forge look stupid now.

And I would not call the command line hard.
Push console button, "record (demoname)", "play (demoname)". When it starts you get a nice fancy GUI. What's hard about that? They didn't plaster it in your face and call it "Forge" because it was a normal feature of a fps. Still is.

Its an award for innovation. What is pointed out is that HAlO3 didn't do anything new. They used an old idea, named it and put it in the menu. And they won a award for it? Going by your logic they also should have been awarded for redesigning the fps game. They didn't but f*ck it, its HALO3 right. Fanboys would love that.

Lastly, why would any of us care if games didn't win awards. Nobody cares. except for when they win a award for something they didn't really do well.

i_am_dogboy

0ubliette wrote: »

Youre all wrong

I was going to give a sensible reply but it seems cuddlesworth got there before me. So I'll leave it at "no you are".

Jazzy

Ivan wrote: »

I'm sorry, having a controversial view point, I can understand. But wading into the dragons lair, stating this controversial opinion and then leaving without explaining why... just doesnt work for me.

I dont do conssole gaming that much, but I have played Halo 1&2 on the PC and I own Halo 3... Innovative it isnt.

I honestly thought this was meant to be some type oif joke when I was opening this thread...

yeah its just it would take a while to explain. its basically to do with xbox live and community gaming and such. the fact that im a big online gamer myself on the PC and that Halo 3 is the only game that on a console that can really touch PC games on the whole community front, demos, forge etc.
i dont really think any of those rhythm games are innovative... just Parappa the Rappa repackaged

tman

0ubliette wrote: »

WOW! quake let you position the camera anywhere on the map, record films, screenshots, gave you dedicated server storage space, view the action from your enemies POV, watch in 3rd person, all back in 1996? ****, i loved quake, wish id known about those features back then, maybe id have used them.

Not exactly (you could certainly take screenshots, and third person was also an option if you were willing to delve into console commands), but so what?
Has anybody seriously USED theatre mode for more than 5 minutes? Has it somehow enrichened your gaming experience?

Halo 3 was an entertaining shooter, but definitely not worthy of this award.

im...LOST

Bungie.net

I have to say that I don't believe Halo3 should have won the Innovation Award but I'm impressed by the stats and facts that are available on Bungie.net.

I know that it's nothing to do with the game, per sé, but I think it's kinda cool to be able to look back at gun you used to get your very first kill online.

MooseJam

Halo's just on the xbox, which means it's not a real game