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I have two main complaints about Halo 3 game play across all maps, both of which stick out especially on Guardian. Nearly all the "internal" spaces seem excessively cramped. Sometimes it's pieces of architecture catching you up, other times it's just a really small room or narrow hallway. The fusion cores effected to make this seem even worse. Thinking about it now makes me realize why grenades were toned down from Halo 2 to 3. This sort of leads into my second complaint about weapons, and I'm extremely glad to see that it is being heavily addressed in Reach.
Every weapon in the game should have a specific purpose, not only this but every weapon used on a map should have a specific purpose and placement tailored to that map. I was hoping for some comments in this article about the original weapon set on guardian. For a map the size of guardian there should probably be two specifically short range weapons, one for each team. Fights for these two weapons would keep LoneWolves interesting and dual wielding should allow the other three players to keep up. Also note that neither of these two weapons should cause, "hilarity to ensue", when it sends your enemies... and your allies flying off the map.
Back to the topic at hand, the original weapon set for Guardian had, 3 maulers, 1 shotgun, and a hammer/SpiritStick + fusion coils. This to me seems like an error on the magnitude of, doubling the damage of a weapon. Thankfully it was fixed but even still the general properties of the weapons don't seem to suit the map. Dual wielding while more effective than people may know, just doesn't make the cut or outweigh the disadvantage of not being able to throw a grenade. The hammer just causes a ruckus and could have been a sword. The brute shot is placed in the position you would least want to use it, the lowest point on the map, and is also very ill suited to work with the bubble shield also in that area. All spikers should be either SMGs or Plasma Rifles. And To use the needler from it's only effective position you must make sure you have a secondary weapon that easily dispatches fusion coils.
All in all guardian has never really been a fun or rewarding experience for me. I think it could do both for me if it were built on a slightly larger scale and if the weapons were balanced better.
Final kicks/Questions to consider:
Shouldn't the power drain have replaced the need for fusion coils?
Could the small map size and CQC imbalance have been alleviated by a melee that takes 3 hit's to kill, each blow dealing 38.5-40 points of damage?
[Edited on 02.05.2010 2:37 AM PST]