Vigil's Rants.

Vigil wrote:As we all know, games have changed a lot in the 15 odd years I've played them, with games being churned out at faster rates and having a lot more disposable income to spend. But if we go back to the beginning, I have to admit there were some games I played to death which may have completely turned my judgement about them.

I find it hard to distinguish "Good" from "It was good then". We always defend Halo: CE as being the best in the series, but it's not a good game now. There are a lot of shortcuts that were made because, back then, Bungie was a small developer. The following shortcomings would be inexcusable in a game made today, even by a mid-tier developer.
-Copy/Pasted maps: Bungie did this remarkably well: I only realized that Two Betrayals was the reverse of Assault on the Control Room on the third playthrough, and the map works well both ways. It's just something that would be undoable today.
-Small Sandbox: Face it: we're used to large numbers of weapons to play with in our FPSs. Halo: CE had a grand total of eight usable weapons, not counting grenades. Unless you had the pistol or the sniper rifle, you were stuck with short-range combat.
-Hunters. Just saying.
-Lack of ways to break up or accelerate combat.
Let's just say this: Ringleader may moan that it is a sell-out to the CoD n00blets, but it WAS a Godsend. With sprint, short-range weapons become viable ONCE AGAIN, because you can close distance or break engagement. I can name a few areas in Halo: CE that could have benefited from a sprint system, particularly because of the short-range nature of the weapons.

These flaws and more make Halo:CE a poor game by today's standards. I do not say this in order to make Halo look bad or claim that Reach is a better game. Halo is a GREAT game because its success and balance inspired more FPSs to use its innovations, and because it has aged very well compared to its contemporary FPSs. Most importantly, it gave us, all together, YEARS of entertainment and happiness.

Once we take the rose glasses off, we realize that games have improved since then. In some ways, they've regressed, yes. Halo 3 was not as balanced as the sandbox in Halo: CE. Gears of War has worse storytelling, in some ways. Graphics, animation, AI, user control have all taken huge strides, and these ARE valid points to evaluate a game. But the most important metric is: How much fun did you have with it? It is a game after all.

Oh, man, I could do the same rant for Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The enemies were absolutely predictable once you got to know them, you had a hyperspace arsenal on your back, and you stopped using all other small arms once you got the Sten. And you quit using the Sten and the rifles once you got the FG-42.
Fun as Hell, though.

I find it hard to distinguish "Good" from "It was good then". We always defend Halo: CE as being the best in the series, but it's not a good game now. There are a lot of shortcuts that were made because, back then, Bungie was a small developer. The following shortcomings would be inexcusable in a game made today, even by a mid-tier developer.

Yeah, if Halo CE released now, it would have been a average selling game that would probably be forgotten after a year or so. But back in 2001, these ideas made sense and were revolutionary. I have to keep reminding myself when I played Perfect dark and Beyond Good and Evil, which I only got to recently, that at the time these games were released some of the design decisions were common and made sense due to the limitations of technology, whereas when I played them they played them, they felt a little clunky and some elements were pretty stupid buy today's standards (e.g. the stealth sections in BGAE, there are pretty tedious and almost broken by today's standards.)

Copy/Pasted maps: Bungie did this remarkably well: I only realized that Two Betrayals was the reverse of Assault on the Control Room on the third playthrough, and the map works well both ways. It's just something that would be undoable today.

As well as Keyes being a slightly tweaked version of Truth and Reconciliation and the Maw being a one of the Pillar of Autumn.

Devil may Cry 4 did it where after the halfway point your going through all the levels you just went through in reverse as a different character. It was a little cheap, but the fact they mixed it up a bit playing as Dante and the final few levels being completely new helped this. Dragon Age II shamelessly copies dungeon maps constantly, and it's one of my major complaints about it.

Small Sandbox: Face it: we're used to large numbers of weapons to play with in our FPSs. Halo: CE had a grand total of eight usable weapons, not counting grenades. Unless you had the pistol or the sniper rifle, you were stuck with short-range combat.

Pretty true, though the assualt rifle at a pinch can do it if you burst it. A big problem nevertheless.

Hunters. Just saying.

Don't remind me. Really hope if this supposed remake is real they replace the hunters with the more recent iterations, as they were just plain useless in CE.

Lack of ways to break up or accelerate combat.

There's this certain section near the end of Two Betrayals where you need to steal a banshee from a heavily fortified covenant hold out point which the flood attack from behind you. You usually get stuck between both sides, and given the heavy armour the covies have it makes it really hard to get past them. It would of been nice to be able to sneak along the side while they were preoccupied or have better ways to draw out some of them to soften them up.

Let's just say this: Ringleader may moan that it is a sell-out to the CoD n00blets, but it WAS a Godsend. With sprint, short-range weapons become viable ONCE AGAIN, because you can close distance or break engagement. I can name a few areas in Halo: CE that could have benefited from a sprint system, particularly because of the short-range nature of the weapons.

Yeah, AA gave a lot more tactical options and it made it a lot easier to try things a little more unorthodox than in Halo CE, sprint or drop shield would of been a godsend on the library. It would promote intuiative thinking to get out of situations instead of hoping they go could before your ammo count does.

These flaws and more make Halo:CE a poor game by today's standards. I do not say this in order to make Halo look bad or claim that Reach is a better game. Halo is a GREAT game because its success and balance inspired more FPSs to use its innovations, and because it has aged very well compared to its contemporary FPSs. Most importantly, it gave us, all together, YEARS of entertainment and happiness.

Exactly my point in the last rant. We judge it by it's legacy and it's impact on us when we played it to death all those years ago, not whether it could actually stand up to todays standards, sure that's a little unfair given how much the industry has changed since it's original release, but it's important to realise that even though the game will always have a place in my fond memories, I still at least recognise some of the flaws it had. Hell KOTOR II I'd be here all day talking about them, but I love that game regardless, due to the strong narrative and memories I have from it.

Once we take the rose glasses off, we realize that games have improved since then. In some ways, they've regressed, yes. Halo 3 was not as balanced as the sandbox in Halo: CE. Gears of War has worse storytelling, in some ways. Graphics, animation, AI, user control have all taken huge strides, and these ARE valid points to evaluate a game. But the most important metric is: How much fun did you have with it? It is a game after all.

They've improved for sure, and they have new problems that now blight us, some problems are eternal. And honestly, I've had as much fun with Mass Effect 2 that I did with KOTOR.

Oh, man, I could do the same rant for Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The enemies were absolutely predictable once you got to know them, you had a hyperspace arsenal on your back, and you stopped using all other small arms once you got the Sten. And you quit using the Sten and the rifles once you got the FG-42.
Fun as Hell, though.

I got that game a few christmases ago, got through a bit of it and couldn't get really in to it. Changes in taste I guess.

I FJ I wrote:

mexicantaco1808 wrote:

Felix wrote:

mexicantaco1808 wrote:

Felix wrote:How active can a website about halo wars actually be? A fan based one at that.

Either way, we (at least I thought we did) lost interest in Halo Wars and the Halo Wars forums when we realized we all hated it (or just don't enjoy playing it any more)

Pretty active actually some people are going back to it but if you want to stop talking about halowars that fine but last thing if this makes vigil happy

http://www.halowars.com/stats/StatsGame.aspx?Id=11142756-9008-1399-7000-000000000000

We can keep talking about it, just saying it seems odd that a fan based site for halo wars is still active. To me anyway.

I dont know the population of halowars seems to be growing and there is actuall competition I can show you a link to the site but then you will see how FJ is racist as hell and how all the old players of the game lose alot and are pissed about it

Lol, Racist? Yeah right, it's just because you suck hard at Halo Wars. You only won because I was too slow to transition from hogs and you spammed cobras like a pussy.

Also, you losers are still bitching about me two years after the fact? Wow, you people seriously don't have any lifes at all.

FJ oohh FJ just admit your shit at halowars and I kicked your ass you racist bastard

Taco, it was Vigil's April fools joke.

Divine Virus wrote:Taco, it was Vigil's April fools joke.

oohh :oops: