Anybody played reach yet?

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!