For this I am going to use the famous and sometimes infamous franchise of Halo. In my regard an amazing selection of games..... Except the ones made by 343 industries.
I have a strong history with the series, when I was a young lad, I played the Halo combat evolved campaign with my best friend. We loved playing it. Shooting aliens, using their guns and their vehicles was a terrific experience. Exploring this alien world, and the introduction of the flood made Halo CE's campaign on of the most memorable campaigns I've ever gone though... Just take out the library and the whole campaign is very sound.
Then two years later comes the sequel. Halo 2 and you could bet me and my best friend jumped onto that game. And this had a twist. you could play as one of the aliens you had been killing in the previous game. And that was awesome experience. There is a reason the arbiter is the the favorite character for many Halo fans.
Then halo 3. Sadly I was no longer in contact with my best friend. We ended up going to different schools. But it was still a great experience. In the previous game, our main character master chief said the words "finishing this fight". And Halo 3 was that finish. It was satisfying and fun, The Halo trilogy felt complete.
Then to our surprise, halo 3 ODST was released. A game I still very much enjoyed. It had a good campaign, and in terms of halo's story, it was nice to see the experiences of characters separate from master chiefs shenanigans.
Then bungie announce their last Halo game Halo reach. I may have been an over hyped fan boy then, but I still say, it was a great final game for halo. It added so many new and fun mechanics. Expanding and adding to the halo formula. Where with Halo 3 ODST, it was the same as Halo 3 with some different types of level design here and there, but reach was a proper next game (I was about to say sequel) Bungie really tried to go out with a bang with halo reach, and they did it very well.
We said out fair wells to Bungie when they said they were done, then we looked to 343 industries, who were then given all rights to the Halo franchise. Some of us were nervous, some of us were excited to see what the hell that legendary ending to halo 3 was all about. I was in the middle. Since 343 industries had never developed a game before. All they had ever done, at this point, is make Halo fan fictions, (most of which I thought mediocre at best) I wondered how it would go. In short.... It went badly.
So now lets actually talk about game design, and why I think the 343 halo games are bad, at least in comparison what they are succeeding from.
Halo 4 is certainly the worst of their games. You might thing "that's odd" because the game follows the exact same mechanics as halo reach. And I said I loved that game. So you might be wondering why I don't like it. Since it's the same mechanic, I would be now judging this game off of level design and story.
The level design in halo 4 is boring. Halo always has followed a "go from point A to B" level system. Which I know sounds boring, but can be made fun. The objective of linear campaigns is making that linear progression fun. Which I find the halo games do very well. I admit Halo CE's campaign has aged a bit, but there are some points where the fun of progressing through is still enjoyable. Halo 4's campaign is boring. Point A to B is so strait forward, without any interesting obstacles along the way. Just stuff like "here is a door" or "here is a bunch of enemies" I'll admit it isn't all like that. I felt the last mission was pretty fun. Getting cortana to all those terminals to sabotage the Dydact was pretty fun. And getting in the mantis for the first time is fun. But that one quickly looses it's charm when they throw enemies at you the same way through out the entire experience. Probably the worst bit of level design in Halo 4 though goes to the pelican flying level. That was a massive disappointment. Flying around in a very empty area was just boring. I imagine 343 were trying to replicate the flying through the city sequence in Halo Reach. But in Halo reach is was more filled. You would be ambushed from time to time, and find resistance along the way to your objective, giving the player something to do along the way to objectives. There is even the option of optional side missions in that sequence. A little fun distraction from the main mission, and one even had a cameo from every ones favorite character from Halo 3 ODST "Buck". But in Halo 4, it was just fly to the objective with nothing in the way until you get there. Plus it was such a larger are with nothing in it. Making the time it takes to get from point A to B too long. It was all boring, and a huge disappointment. Halo fans had been wanting to fly a pelican for ages, and that was what we got. It is a shame really.
The new enemies as well were kind of boring. A cool thing at first, but they rarely throw them at you in different situations. It's one reason I liked playing through the last mission at least, because they did throw these enemies at the player in a different situation. But through out most of the game, I keep feeling like I did this this way before. Every time I was fighting those dog like enemies, it was a similar kind of area to what I fought them in when I first encountered them. Fighting these new enemies became stale. Which is a shame, because I felt this teleporting mechanic they gave these enemies could have made them something very interesting to fight. Like imagine if one them teleported right in front of the player, and smacked them. That would have been very interesting, and made them these enemies have a sense of surprise to them. The teleportation mechanic feels like it's there for the sake of it. They don't even use it to teleport into cover. They might as well have just walked there. And when you consider how long the teleportation animation takes, it would have taken them the same amount of time to just walk to that spot.
But, I can no put aside the worst part of this game. Were I think the lever design is boring, there were a couple times where it was fun. And even the prometheans and dog things were fun at first. But got stale once you figure out how their AI worked (which was pretty easy to figure out). But the absolute worst part of the game, was the story. I was so disinterested in the story, and confused. Confusion probably being to worst part of it. A lot of the lore that 343 Industries brought to the history of the forerunners and the humans made a lot of what we knew in halo 1-3 make no sense any more. The biggest confusion I have is with this idea that the forerunners and the humans were at war when the forerunners were alive. The biggest complaint I had with that, was that humans could use forerunner technology. While as other species could not. So from a military stand point, why would the forerunners allow their enemies to operate their technology, but others can't. The covenant certainly couldn't, and they were never at war with the forerunners. Also why were the humans chosen to be the forerunners successors. This part of the back story makes no sense. (This next part is nitpicking, so you are free to dismiss this next augment) Plus, who goes to war with an alien race, that has the technology to wipe out the entire galaxy in an instant? Sounds like you're in over your head human race.
There were so many moments in the campaign where this was my objective, because the story dictated it that way. But because I was not into the story, I didn't want to do that. I did not want to follow the markers because I didn't want to follow the story. It did a terrible job in making want to travel from point A to B. The escort the elephant mission was the worst for that. I did not want to any of what the mission was telling me, because I was disinterested in the reasons of why. Hell, even the character who was with seamed disinterested. It's like the developers wanted me to be reluctant to do this. Which sounds like a terrible idea, because then I just don't want to play. Bungie always managed to make me want to follow the story. How did they do that? well the simple reason is each objective promised Fun at the end. Most objectives in the halo games involved shooting or blowing something up. Which is what I want to do. I want to shoot enemies and have fun doing. And I don't need to go over my thoughts on the enemies again. but it does tie into why I don't want to go to the objective. If I find fighting these enemies boring, then I don't want to go to this objective that promises I'll fighting them. I want to do something more fun.
The next dislike I have is the characters. And I'm including our favorite Halo Duo Cortana and Master Chief in that. Not only are their characteristics nothing like what they were in previous halo games, but their new characteristics they have been given are annoying. There was only one point in the entire game where Cortana felt like herself, and it was in one line of dialogue. It was when Master Chief was in the tank at the start, and cortana said something like "let's show these Spartans how it's done". That was effective. The rest of cortana was like and scared little girl. It made me upset that some one with this characteristic was the one telling what to do. The reason cortana worked in bungies halo games, was because she was encouraging. I'll get more into detail about that later. But Master Chief is off as well.
Master Chief can be described very basically. He's a big with guns... Sounds boring right? but it wasn't. It was a refection of the player. We were playing these halo games because we wanted to shoot things, and master chief was the same. He just wanted to shoot things, and we as the player were happy to give him that satisfaction because it gave us that satisfaction. We felt like we were master chief, because we thought like he did. We just wanted to shoot, and blow stuff up. Buy in halo 4, they tried to make him human. He wasn't that bad ass we came to know any more. Instead of shooting bad guys because it was fun, it felt more I was shooting them because I had no choice in the matter. The drive that made master chief such a great character for players was gone.
Now as promised, the Cortana and Master Chief relationship. Now I've said Master chief is not a very complicated character. We know him a metal husk with guns, and as stated it is a reflection of us as the player. That does make him not a very smart character. In fact a lot of the time, he has no idea what other character are leading to, in terms of conversation. (he asks a lot of questions) All he knows is how to shoot. So if he is just shooty bang bang, then Cortana is the brains. She's the one telling master chief where to go and why to go there. And as she does, she encourages him to do what he does best. Even though she is much more intellectual then master chief, she enjoys chief being him. And again we go back to that player relationship. When ever she credits chief at being a bad ass, she's complementing the player. No where else in the entire halo franchise do you see their entire relationship, then in the scene from Halo CE where cortana is trying to blow up the pillar of autumn, but is locked out by guilty spark. She is a situation where she does not know what to do now. So now chief is in command, so what is his solution? "let's shoot at the engines core until it blows up", then cortana is the one to tell him how to achieve that goal. Such an amazing relation that makes us as the player feel like we are master chief... All of that thrown out the window in halo 4. Cortana is a scardy cat, and chief has a brain.
Other characters......... I don't know I don't remember them. I remember the general or what ever was a dick.... and the captain guy probably should not have been there, because he pretty much said to me why I didn't want to do these missions.
I'm not going to talk about the final boss fight, Because there is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said. But to those who don't know...Worlds shortest quick time event... I'm sure that says how anti climactic it was.
Now we get to halo 5, and you probably think I'm going to rip that apart... I'm not actually. I thought it was good.
But that's it, it was just good. The game play was good, and that's all you really need for a good game. Every thing else suffers from the same problems as halo 4.
Well let's make this one short, the level design is much better. With the new mechanics they've added, they've shaped the levels to work with these new fun mechanics. I actually enjoyed traversing these levels. The best moment for me would be when Spartan Lock teleported with the guardian, and then was falling down it's body wile shooting enemies. Like they did in the opening cutscene. I remember when I saw that cutscene, I thought to myself "I'm never going to do that aren't I" But then this part comes along and I'm thinking this is awesome. Shooting enemies as I fell, punching them, ground pounding them, it was so much fun. 343 had finally began to mix up the levels so they felt different. And I tackled them in different ways as a result. Game play and level design was improved on massively from Halo 4 I enjoyed playing through it. Halo 5 was good.
But like I said, everything else still suffers from the same problems as halo 4. Story is again uninteresting, and as I'm completing objective, I'm wanting to do something else, due to me not caring about or wanting to progress the main story. The biggest example of that is when chief finally gets to talk to the new cortana. As a player, I can eminently see there is something off about her. So I'm thinking "okay let's leave". but I can't, because the game wan't me to go where I don't want to go. Another example is me playing as spartan lock. After we see chief and lock fight, master chief wins. So why should I want to play as spartan lock? Master chief is clearly the better one. I want to play as chief.
So what about the characters in comparison to halo 4. One word "worse". I at least remember the characteristics of the two characters that in the ship that crashed. I don't remember their names, but I remember their personality. In halo 5, what was the point of them? The only character I remember is buck. But as already established, he was every ones favorite character in Halo 3 ODST. It's kind of pleasing to see he hasn't lost his personality to 343, and he's still himself. But he's still a pointless character. He served nothing. And all the other characters.... I don't know, I could not tell you anything about them because they are so forgettable... Speaking of which arbiter from halo 2 and 3 was in halo 5. I literately just remembered that. I guess that says something as well doesn't it?
I hear load of people talk about the armors you can unlock in halo 5. And I agree, they are too detailed. I hear to word "lazy design" used. I disagree with that. There is a lot of effort in those designs... It's just too much effort. It suffers from something I like to call "the battleship effect". If you don't know what that means, that's fine, because I made it up.
In WW2, spotting a ship in open water was easy. very easy, and due to so much knowledge of sea travel, it was also easy to predict where the ship was going and at what speed. So to combat that, they gave battleships a form of camouflage that made it difficult to see that. Like this https://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/dazzl... The effect this camouflage was to add detail to the ship, distorting it's shape, and making it difficult to see where it is going, it's direction, and speed.
The effect is the same as it is in halo 5's Armour design. There is so much detail that it distorts the shape, and confuses the eyes. Making it quite the eye sore. It's massive example of the phrase "less is more"
Anyway there it is. This was a lot longer then I thought it would be :P But oh, if you really want to see the differences in ideologies between Bungie (when they were making halo) and 343 Industries. I found this video that compares their Development documentaries side by side. It does show very well, people who have been playing halo since the first one, enjoy bungie's loads more then 343 industries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qfx9eoB-88
If you read through all this... Wow you impress me, I could not even be bothered to proof read this. So if here are mistakes they are there forever. And thank you for reading what is essentially a review really :3
This was definitely an interesting read because I'm also an avid Halo fan! I was 14yo and had saved up my lunch money and the $10 I made here and there cutting lawns during the summer just so I could buy the Original Xbox on launch night complete with complimentary controller and HALO: Combat Evolved. I've still got that launch edition disc. :P
I agree with a lot of your sentiments and you covered a lot of stuff that I think would be lame to hear me regurgitate back at you so I'll stick to things you didn't mention or that maybe I see a little differently.
Starting with HALO:CE, this was my favorite for a long time and like you I also played through the campaign with my best friend. XD I lived in a pretty tight-knit neighborhood so all of us kids would pile in together in someone's basement and take turns fragging each other in multiplayer. (Seeing as how the only FPS any of us had really played before was GoldenEye on the N64 it was a HUGE step up in gameplay mechanics and level design.) But if I had to pick one thing that hands down impresses me STILL about Halo:CE is the masterful way they pushed both the plot and the gameplay forward together. I really didn't notice it at the time (not until Halo 2 came out lol) but each level brings a ton of plot WHILE you play through the level. They use a good blend of in game plot movement along with cutscenes to keep you rolling into the next fight.
I was outside the EB Games store again on launch night for Halo 2 and while I enjoyed the continuation of the general plotlines, I felt like they had unbalanced the gameplay and plot movement pretty badly. In Halo 2 I felt like I was playing a level FOREVER with very little plot movement. Level 1: Stop/delay the invasion force. A half hour to 45 minutes later? I'm still going for this same main objective with very little plot or character development outside of a few minor tweaks to what I have to do to achieve this main objective. Then when I'm done I get to watch a long cutscene (that you couldn't skip in the original/not remastered version) where FINALLY we see some big picture plot development. Now it's Level Two: Make it through war torn New Mombasa. And it's that same pattern over and over the entire game. Long periods of fun gameplay but slow plot movement, followed by massive bursts of plot movement in the form of long unskippable cutscenes lol. I DID still enjoy the game the first time I played through it though. I was more than willing to overlook the long cutscenes or long stretches of "unimportant" gameplay.
Halo 3 was awesome because I felt like I was a veteran Spartan by then lol. I loved the story and how they managed yet again to throw me into the thick of it right off the bat, getting my adrenaline pumping and my ass on the edge of my seat. And I felt like that through most of the game. New tweaks to old classes of enemies, some new features, it all was just that perfect amount of change that kept it fresh but still felt like a member of the franchise. The way they ended it left me heartbroken and empty lol. I should also mention that this one gave me the most fun in the multiplayer. It was on the 360 so that meant better hardware to produce better visuals and such, it's a very pretty game when you consider the textures and landscapes. The different game modes, the ability to make your own maps, and a lot more intuitive partying up capabilities rocketed the multiplayer experience through the roof imo.
I played through the Halo 3:ODST but didn't spend a lot of time on it because I was deployed when it came out and I basically almost missed out on it altogether lol. By the time I started playing everyone was into Call of Duty!
I'm running out of characters so I'll finish in the next comment Cx
This was definitely an interesting read because I'm also an avid Halo fan! I was 14yo and had saved
Halo Reach was the perfect crowning jewel of Bungie's reign at the helm of the Halo series imo. They knocked the ball out of the park there. The story was dynamic and full of characters that quickly sucked you in and then chewed you up and spit you back out. I mean, we knew where that road was destined to lead and that should have made it boring right? Wrong. Even knowing where I would end up didn't prepare me for HOW I got there. I still replay that one today. Cx
You rang Halo 4's bell pretty well imo. I tried to take it with a grain of salt, I knew the reins had been passed on and that it just wasn't going to be the same. I knew that going in. It still didn't prepare me for what I feel was the most epic flop ever. If that was a real handoff in an NFL game, then 343 fumbled it for the other team to recover for a touchdown. It was so bad imo that I never played the campaign twice. I gritted me teeth and fought through all the horrible things you mentioned and when I was done didn't touch it again until years later When I had a friend turn me on to their coop mode. I can't remember it's name but it had episodes that they released periodically. The multiplayer was also fun for a while strictly because of the addition of the forerunner weaponry. It was a challenge to change my near decade of Halo multiplayer habits to include and survive these new weapons.
Now don't jump down my throat for this BUT I haven't even played Halo 5 yet. XD Someone bought it for me and I have it all downloaded on the external harddrive for my Xbox One and I see it update automatically from time to time. But I was so frustrated/disappointed in the overall uninteresting gameplay, boring characters, weird and confusing plot that made 0 sense at all, Cortana being a scared little girl (yes, you nailed her perfectly imo), Master Cheif developing more depth... that entire train wreck that was Halo 4... it all just left such bad taste in my mouth that I never once fired up Halo 5. I probably should do that now though lol.
I've actually got the Master Cheif Collection and Halo 4 and 5 on my Xbox One and I have the Xbox 360 versions of Reach and ODST there as well thanks to backwards compatibility. I could literally play through the entire series again and i I've actually been meaning to do that (in bits and pieces of course, dear God the sheer number of hours required complete the whole saga!) I probably won't run through the older ones on Legendary like I used to lol.
So this was an interesting read and I'm glad to get a chance to chime in on literally my favorite video game series of all time (Well idk, pre-GameCube Sonic was pretty solid... XD).
On a totally different note, I think a game trilogy you might enjoy (if you haven't already!) is Dead Space. I won't go into details here and derail any other conversation about your original post on Halo. But it is a good series and I enjoyed it so much I bought my brother the set so he could experience it. Cx
Halo Reach was the perfect crowning jewel of Bungie's reign at the helm of the Halo series imo. They
I've never played through all of dead space, And I'd rather not touch dead space 3, because I don't agree with it's micro transaction... But that's a principle thing. :P
There is one thing I should have added to my break down of halo 5. I thought it was good, but it's not a game I would return to. In that regard, weather you like it or hate is sort of a hit and miss ordeal. I think some points do hit well, and others miss. But not enough points hit for me to go through it again. Or buy it for that matter. I've only played halo 4 and 5 on a friends console. I don't own the games myself.... That being said halo 5 commits a cardinal sin by not having split screen.
I've never played through all of dead space, And I'd rather not touch dead space 3, because I don't
Whaaaaaaat? No split screen in Halo 5? Dx That's a huge let down imo but that's actually a videogame industry-wide thing they're doing now adays. No longer can you play co-op with up to four friends on the big selling games when only one of you paid $60+ for it. You ALL must pay for your own copy. I get it, it's about money and all that but it basically kills the old way of playing with buddies at your house.
As far as Dead Space 3 I didn't notice any issues with needing to spend any money on microtransactions in order to play through the game fully. I know other games like CoD:BO3, GoW4, and Battlefield One now offer similar microtranaactions to speed up unlocking items, skins, and other features. But unlike those games, I found that when I played through DS3 I had no difficulty getting all the bits and pieces from regular gameplay that they were offering for $3.99. Cx But I understand that if it's a principal thing, then it's a principal thing. Just thought I would elaborate. Also, horror games with coop are some of my faves (RE5 amirite?). Cx
Whaaaaaaat? No split screen in Halo 5? Dx That's a huge let down imo but that's actually a videogame
Whaaaaaaat? No split screen in Halo 5? Dx That's a huge let down imo...
Some people have theorized that the reason for "no split screen in Halo 5" is that the constantly improving graphics push the game to the console's processing limit, and the poor box can't handle rendering four views at such a frame rate at such a detail. Making higher res graphics is generally one of the only things one can close to objectively improve with each franchise game, so these multi hundred million dollar titles dedicate a lot of resources to doing so as it is one of the safest bets they can make. It comes at a cost of keeping the game running on the today's generally underpowered consoles; you can optimize a lot due to the standardized hardware but even that has a limit they are approaching fast.
~~~ Quote by XanderGreene: Whaaaaaaat? No split screen in Halo 5? Dx That's a huge let down imo
