Halo 3: ODST Forum
This topic has moved here: Subject: Why are there no consequences for your campaign gameplay decisions?
  • Subject: Why are there no consequences for your campaign gameplay decisions?
Subject: Why are there no consequences for your campaign gameplay decisions?

One of my biggest gripes with ODST's (and H2 and H3) campaign is that Bungie utterly failed to tailor the campaign experience to change according to your gameplay decisions. Think of all the false "hurry up or something very bad will happen!" cues in H2, H3, and ODST: the mining station falling after you sever the support cables in H2, the UNSC bomb triggered to destroy Covie invaders in H3's "Crow's Nest" or even escaping the disintegrating High Charity in "Cortana", and Dare's desperate plea for help and the Covenant onslaught on the ONI bridge in ODST. Whether you raced to achieve the goal the game set for you or set your controller down for a half-hour, you still got the exact same cut-scene/in-game dialog at the end. I think Bungie was very lazy in its campaign design. Compare those encounters with Halo: CE's magnificent campaign. In the level 2 ("Halo"), if you sprinted to each dropship and and quickly took out the Covie invaders before they killed the Marines, Cortana praised you. If you were too slow, she'd sadly remark, "We couldn't save them." Little differences in the campaign experience really motivated you to try harder. You really had to carefully protect Captain Keyes while escaping the Truth and Reconciliation or he'd die and it instantly was game over. Compare that with the invincible Johnson/Arbiter in H2 and H3. (I understand that these were plot-critical NPCs and they couldn't be allowed to die. But at the very least, Bungie could have injected some sort of realism into their gameplay, e.g., Gears of War's clever "revival" system. The way Arbie magically leaped up at the end of a battle, fully revived, after eating 100 needler rounds, made no sense and ruined any sense of his vulnerability.) A final example of how Bungie designed actual consequences for your gameplay behavior in CE was in "The Maw". You knew if you didn't stomp the gas pedal to get the heck off Halo before it blew, you were toast. I still rate Halo: CE's campaign as far and away the best one in the series for the real tension such gameplay created. I read online that a Bungie employee said they deliberately did not include a countdown clock (ala 'Hog Run in Halo:CE) in H3's Crow's Nest because they thought it would be too difficult or frustrating for players. That's garbage - the challenge and the satisfaction of getting through a tough section (especially on Legendary difficulty) are what "made" Halo:CE so great. Why didn't Bungie simply leave the clock out for Easy and Normal difficulty, but put it back in for Heroic and Legendary? Bungie just doesn't seem to get it. They focus on the wrong aspects of campaign. They recorded thousands of new lines of dialogue that only marginally affect the gameplay experience, and then botch a simple fix (adding a countdown clock, quickly ending the game with an explosion if the player fails "get out in time") that would have reinstitute Halo:CE's palpable sense of danger and urgency.

  • 10.01.2010 2:21 PM PDT

Think before you post

I have to strongly agree with your appreciation of the cause and effect aspect in gameplay, but disagree with your opinion that theres no more of it in the games, what about in h2 where you have to board the scarab, if you don't get to the bridge fast enough you miss it, and also in h2 when youre in a warthog chasing the convoy of shadows through the underground tunnels, if you dont haul @ss, theyre impossible to catch, also, if you took out the forward one first, the others were a whole lot easier to take down, in h3 during that last hog run, sure there's no timer, but the ground slowly falls apart behind you, if you get held up for too long, youll fall to your death, also h3, on the ark, 2 prowlers come over a hill next to a crashed pelican, these are the first vehicles you see, and if you dont rush to the pelican, and grab the rockets, the prowlers are a whole lot tougher to take care of, these are just a few of the examples i came up with off the top of my head, i definitly wish the battles didnt just sit around and wait for you, but there is still reward for being quick and this does give a sense of urgency

  • 10.01.2010 5:50 PM PDT