- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: Belsebub
I would like to hear your opinion about Halo especially from one of the veterans like Surge or Durandall(numbers)...
Sorry Belsebub, but Durandal(bunchanumbers) is me, but thanks for the ntoe as being a veteran... it's always amusing to call a 16 year old a vet... But as it has been noted, this was very much asking ForceMorph for his contribution ;-)
Now I'm going to take the side of Marathon as a better game, I know that isn't what this thread is about but bear with me... Alot of what has already been said by other people is my firm belief as well... "Halo is good but not up to Bungie snuff" is a good way of summing things up.
I totally agree, as always, with Recon. (How does he always manage to say exactly what I want to before I get teh chance) And I agree with a fair bit of what ForceMorph said, also a normal occurrence. I think everybody who has posted so far has made their good points... but getting back on track...
All of the things you listed for Halo, also appear in Marathon. In 10 yearstheir advancement was...? Graphics, sound quality, game physics, music... those are your answers.
I'm a big fan of music, but for some strange reason I have to agree with FM... while playing M2 I felt no need for there to be any because it would detract from the tension of the situation. If you have dark, evil music playing your senses are ready for something to happen (we've all tuned our bodies into games and movies right now) but playing M2 there is deathly silence and you turn round a corner to find a cyborg twice the size of your own inhuman stature... needless to say on many occaisions I have fallen out of my chair while playing! (sure when I first started playing I was maybe... 8, but I still do it now)
Graphics... well sure Marathon would have been all prettied up with 3D graphics and all, but it worked the way it was meant to. In fact, a boost in graphics would have probably detracted from the game at that time... think about it... you're playing a shooter that requires almost no upwards/downwards movement of your screen... It was only when I got the first two Mara games again that I even used mouse, before it was the whole keyboard set up.
Physics- Marathon had pretty advanced ones for the time. You had blast radius, button toggling, overloading weapons, monsters with AI good enough to hear your gun shots... so what if they spent half the time mincing up their own friends trying to hit you... it fit their story line :P
Sounds- this is the same as graphics I think... to tell you the truth, I LOVED the sounds in marathon! There is nothing quite like the sound of the rocket launcher firing or the (ORIGINAL) zeus and pistol... (the M2 and Moo ones were a bit dodgy.... (hahahaha Moo))
Now you may be asking "whats this guy on about? this is about Halo!" well now we swap over. Halo is a game that, to fit it's audience and release date, probably sacrificed alot of it's Bungieness. Graphics and sounds are phenomenol, and I love to hook it up to the tv with surround sound and turn it up. Graphics, well good for that moment in history, but I look forward to Halo 2 and Halflife 2 for almost totally interactive scenery... the music is good, but silence is also effective as I said above... I'm a soundtrack junkie, and I'll probly get the Halo one (if thee is one) but it has its good and bad sides.
I feel the major problems were to do with story line and the lack of leaps in Multiplayer. You guys go on about Multiplay bein the best thign in the world, but Marathon was revolutionary, it had co-op, and 5 or more type of multiplayer... I used to sit at my mac watching the original multiplay films wishing I could play with Carnator, gregisstupid, superoperaboy, ribfeast and the rest of the gang... I think Halo left alot in that field... maybe it's more designed for team play with huge numbers of people (me only playing 2 player vs or co-op) but I don't see any real revolutionary jumps except maybe vehicles...
Anyway... I have a feeling this post is getting far too huge so I'll stop here and let you guys comment... have fun reading :P
Tristan ;-)
EDIT- a prime example of what I HATE about halo... see above... BLASTem has said what I could have whinged about for ages... and that is a BIG REASON FOR HALO NOT BEING AS GOOD. I'm sorry but you can't talk me out of this one!
[Edited on 8/27/2004 4:07:25 PM]