• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Halo |OT12| Last One Out, Get the Lights

Brolic Gaoler

formerly Alienshogun
Yeaaaah, having a PP in my loadout for Spartan ops makes it a WHOLE lot easier. No wonder these things were rare around Promethean knights. They turn into easy as hell enemies.

who else is getting blops 2 aside from me and juicy?

I might if someone gifts it to me or I get it on the cheap. Not gonna pay full price for a COD this go around.

Unless you two come back espousing how it's the second coming of EZBesus.
 

DeadNames

Banned
Ugh. I don't see how you guys can abandon H4's MP for CoD's.

IMO, CoD's is just a constant clusterfuck of OP killstreaks raining death from above, cheap kills, imbalance, and overall annoyances.
 
Ugh. I don't see how you guys can abandon H4's MP for CoD's.

IMO, CoD's is just a constant clusterfuck of OP killstreaks raining death from above, cheap kills, imbalance, and overall annoyances.

The only one like that is MW2. Black Ops was good. MW3 just had horrible lag and awful maps.
 

BigShow36

Member
who else is getting blops 2 aside from me and juicy?

I will.

Think people are getting tired of waiting around chasing the ghost of a good game.

Gotta face it Halo is dead, they killed it hard. I'd love to shake all of their hands and say congrats "What part of Halo did you kill?"

I completely agree, but I've felt that way for a long time. The gameplay hasn't fundamentally changed since Halo 2 and Halo 3, which people seem to love around here. I gave up when they drastically altered the gameplay in the Halo CE to Halo 2 transition because it directly impacted how the game played on a fundamental level. Halo 4 is still fundamentally a Halo game in the same vein as Halo 2 and Halo 3, so I don't see why it's the straw that broke the camels back for people who claimed to love those games.
 

Merguson

Banned
Apparently there's a RvB Easter Egg on the last chapter of Episode 2 since it unlocked the achievement for me. No idea how it was activated though. Anyone know?
 

Brolic Gaoler

formerly Alienshogun
Ugh. I don't see how you guys can abandon H4's MP for CoD's.

IMO, CoD's is just a constant clusterfuck of OP killstreaks raining death from above, cheap kills, imbalance, and overall annoyances.

I definitely won't be switching over. I really, really like Halo 4. It definitely is the best Halo MP I've played (enjoyability), at least for now.
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
LOL@infinite spawning Mantes on Meltdown.

Might try Blops, I'll see what my money situation is.
Wait, is this actually a thing?
Ugh. I don't see how you guys can abandon H4's MP for CoD's.

IMO, CoD's is just a constant clusterfuck of OP killstreaks raining death from above, cheap kills, imbalance, and overall annoyances.

Sounds familiar :(

edit: Also, for dudes getting Blops 2 that aren't getting it at the midnight launch, check out the Microsoft Store online. For $60, you get the game plus 1600 ms points and a $10 coupon code. I've preordered 2 games from them, and got both of them on release day as well. Pretty slick deal.
 

Tawpgun

Member
The first part of the story sets up the urgency with which the Chief wants to get Cortana to Halsey and get fixed up. Then we meet the (spoilerz!)
Didact, and Chief’s motivation shifts to stopping him. But that shift took place before I had any idea what the threat was, and I didn't follow how they knew what it was either. It was just some dude in a huge ball with Force powers. So there was this long period of time in the Campaign when I was confused about why he took priority over saving Cortana; it was established why saving Cortana was critical long before I knew why stopping the Didact was more important.

A:
I agree that they didn't make the didact out to be that big of a threat at the start. He did say something about humanity being inferior, forerunners taking over etc etc etc. But nothing concrete until the Composer was revealed.


And then we get to the (spoilerz!)
Didact himself. There was a lot of build up, but I'm still not sure I follow anything about his story. Why was he locked up, and why on Requiem? Why did he immediately turn to zapping humans? Why did he have Force powers? The Didact in the books is not an evil character, though that could be taken as a matter of perspective. But if they wanted the Didact's motivations to be understandable from a certain point of view, why make him look and sound like a clichéd villain?

Also: Why was the Librarian also there - what's she been up to, she wasn't locked up - and why did she only appear that one time? What did she do to the Chief, and why didn't she tell him or us what she did? And why did she disappear after, and where did she go? I thought her cameo and actions were downright comic.

A:
First part can be answered in the terminals. It was a mistake on 343's part to not explain this shit in game. Also, we still need to read Silentium

Librarian wasn't there. It was her memory. Think about it like Halsey:Librarian Cortana:Librarian memory. She did some genetic shenanigans to the Chief that made him immune to the Composer. It's why he wasn't zapped along with everyone else.




And as for the ending:
What happened when the Chief triggered the bomb? That scene with Cortana confuses me greatly. I have no idea what time/space continuum it takes place in, why the Chief wasn't nuked, why Cortana could touch him, and why after she goes away the Chief is still floating and in good shape. I just didn't follow that at all. I assume it's related to the little unexplained static charge the Librarian hit the Chief with, but I need more to go on than that.

I also laughed out loud when the multiple Cortanas arose from the bridge to snare the Didact. Something about the image was random and comic to me and it just didn't work.

A:
This was unclear and not handled well. The way I understood it, is that Cortana had control of the light bridge. So when chief detonated the nuke she encased him in a bubble of hard light. Life size cortana was probably a hardlight manifestation of her. Which is why she could touch. The librarian had nothing to do this all this. It would have been better if they showed that it was a hardlight bubble, and more importantly, if the nuke had detonated... not 2 feet from chiefs face. But whatever. Handled poorly.

So, yeah. I didn't care for the actual story, which was a big deal considering how high 343 raised the stakes in the story, on both personal and galactic levels. Their story telling has come a long ways, but the actual story left me unsatisfied and baffled.

I have all but one termnal unlocked on Waypoint, but have not watched them.

Edited in my explanations
 

Coux

Neo Member
Ugh. I don't see how you guys can abandon H4's MP for CoD's.

IMO, CoD's is just a constant clusterfuck of OP killstreaks raining death from above, cheap kills, imbalance, and overall annoyances.

I think I've had my fill of the CoD series. It's just gotten completely repetitive to me. It's the same thing every time.
 
Fuck no. Halo 3 > Halo 4.

Steaming piles of shit are better than Halo 3.


-------------

I've played 3 missions of Spartan Ops, but something that's odd about a mode that's supposed to be narrative driven, is that the missions themselves appear to have zero narrative connection. Touch down cause there is "bad guys" here, kill them cause they are the "bad guys", leave.
 
Sorry for being truly disappointed by this Halo game. I have been so damn devoted to this series from the start. The fiction, the universe, the mp, all of it. I bought every game, every book, and most every piece of fiction outside of the games. I put up with Reach simply because I felt that the Halo game that would rekindle my love for Halo was just over the horizon. The spark was waiting to be lit, believe me. I wanted to come into Halo 4 and just fall in love with Halo again. I wanted to love Halo and give it praise like I gave to Halo games through the Halo 3 days. I truly believed it would too. Halo 4 had all the right ingredients to make me fall in love with Halo again. It is just unfortunate that this game did not manage to do that. I put up with a game I did not enjoy for 2 years before, I can not waste my time and do it again.

Some of you love this game, good for you. I am glad that other Halo fans are enjoying it so much. I just wish I could share your feelings. I won't judge you for loving this game and what 343 has done with it, so please don't feel the need to bash me because our viewpoints differ.
 

daedalius

Member
I'm just genuinely curious; for anyone to answer. Did you actually feel like there was a lot to explore on Requiem? Did you get a sense of mystery or a sense that there was something greater going on?

Maybe I'm the only one in this regard, but Halo has always been moderately grounded in science fiction. I really feel like it's moving away from the science aspect of science fiction.

Any science, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.
 
Edited in my explanations

Something about your second answer.
I don't really like that they introduced terminals because it's stuff that should be actually exposed to the player in the game in my opinion. In Halo 3, I think a lot of people wanted to find out about the Forerunners, their history, and Flood connection, but in the game we got next to nothing, and they stuffed a really awesome story in the terminals instead. It's honestly the only real good piece of narrative in the game, and it's hidden in text terminals. I haven't watched the Halo 4 terminals yet, but it appears that it also holds important and interesting plot information that should've been featured as a part of the main narrative.

I have no idea why I spoiler tagged that, but it's already done at this point.
 
Steaming piles of shit are better than Halo 3.

So now every Halo game after Halo 2 was crap? Is this a generally accepted opinion on HaloGAF?
What the fuck, how am I finding out about this now?

I thought the general consensus was that Halo 3, while not as good as Halo 2, was still amazing? I really, really enjoyed my time with it.

And Halo 2 had its share of problems (that were fixed in Halo 3): modders, lack of veto and so on.
 
I've been doing the math in my head. $30 dollar trade-in value for Halo 4, + 30% traded towards new game($9), plus 10% for Power-Ups card($3). Seems like a good deal!

If you are being serious and did buy it from Gamestop, you can just return it for full retail price and put it towards Black Ops 2. That is what I did. 7 day return policy, so you would have to do it today.
 

IHaveIce

Banned
I also am being honest, some friends and I abused the hell out of the complex glitch today in Oddball.

Got my first hate messages, hilarious
 
So now every Halo game after Halo 2 was crap? Is this a generally accepted opinion on HaloGAF?
What the fuck, how am I finding out about this now?

I thought the general consensus was that Halo 3, while not as good as Halo 2, was still amazing? I really, really enjoyed my time with it.

And Halo 2 had its share of problems (that were fixed in Halo 3): modders, lack of veto and so on.

The general consensus of GAF is probably that Halo 3 is good, but not as good as Halo 2. I defer from that consensus, I dislike Halo 3 a great deal. I like Reach more than Halo 3, though it has a massive list of issues as well. I'm really enjoying Halo 4.

Why can I not see what playlist people on the friends list are playing?
 
So now every Halo game after Halo 2 was crap? Is this a generally accepted opinion on HaloGAF?
What the fuck, how am I finding out about this now?

I thought the general consensus was that Halo 3, while not as good as Halo 2, was still amazing? I really, really enjoyed my time with it.

And Halo 2 had its share of problems (that were fixed in Halo 3): modders, lack of veto and so on.

It is. Of course you still have some who disagree.
 

Amazing Mic

Neo Member
First time playing w/ randoms in months. Teammates first words: "I have a boner."

GG Matchmaking.

Used to hate teammates in Party Chat, now I find it a necessity for my own enjoyment. Sorry to the 5% of teammates that are actually competent.

Also: harder matches after 20 games than I ever had in Reach TS. Not sure if skill matching works that quickly or if I've just lost a step.
 

Tawpgun

Member
Wetworks specialization~! :D

You didn't get operator? You fool.

Sorry for being truly disappointed by this Halo game. I have been so damn devoted to this series from the start. The fiction, the universe, the mp, all of it. I bought every game, every book, and most every piece of fiction outside of the games. I put up with Reach simply because I felt that the Halo game that would rekindle my love for Halo was just over the horizon. The spark was waiting to be lit, believe me. I wanted to come into Halo 4 and just fall in love with Halo again. I wanted to love Halo and give it praise like I gave to Halo games through the Halo 3 days. I truly believed it would too. Halo 4 had all the right ingredients to make me fall in love with Halo again. It is just unfortunate that this game did not manage to do that. I put up with a game I did not enjoy for 2 years before, I can not waste my time and do it again.

Some of you love this game, good for you. I am glad that other Halo fans are enjoying it so much. I just wish I could share your feelings. I won't judge you for loving this game and what 343 has done with it, so please don't feel the need to bash me because our viewpoints differ.
Halo 4 has the right ingredients to make you fall in love. They're just mixed with other questionable ingredients. 343 needs to make another Halo 4 cake, but with multiple offerings.
 

Seance

Banned
Sorry for being truly disappointed by this Halo game. I have been so damn devoted to this series from the start. The fiction, the universe, the mp, all of it. I bought every game, every book, and most every piece of fiction outside of the games. I put up with Reach simply because I felt that the Halo game that would rekindle my love for Halo was just over the horizon. The spark was waiting to be lit, believe me. I wanted to come into Halo 4 and just fall in love with Halo again. I wanted to love Halo and give it praise like I gave to Halo games through the Halo 3 days. I truly believed it would too. Halo 4 had all the right ingredients to make me fall in love with Halo again. It is just unfortunate that this game did not manage to do that. I put up with a game I did not enjoy for 2 years before, I can not waste my time and do it again.

Some of you love this game, good for you. I am glad that other Halo fans are enjoying it so much. I just wish I could share your feelings. I won't judge you for loving this game and what 343 has done with it, so please don't feel the need to bash me because our viewpoints differ.

:'(

I feel exactly the same. Maybe there will be some kind of TU to overhaul some of the major issues, but i don't have my hopes up...
 
Don't worry though, it was totally balanced in internal testing. Beli343.

I have said this while playing with people but it should have taken one competent play test to tell that the red X when you die needed to be in the game. In my first match I said it probably 3 times. You would think after a couple playtests of people yelling "one shot on my X" they would have thought "shit we should probably have an X".

Edit: Not trying to be on the downer bandwagon and I am sure it has been said multiple times already. Just throwing in my 2 cents on an annoyance of mine.
 

BigShow36

Member
I have said this while playing with people but it should have taken one competent play test to tell that the red X when you die needed to be in the game. In my first match I said it probably 3 times. You would think after a couple playtests of people yelling "one shot on my X" they would have thought "shit we should probably have an X".

When your gameplay testing consist of Halo honor and guys running in straight lines spraying the AR, very few issues come up.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Geez, this thread is pretty laughable at times.

I'll be on later enjoying Halo 4.

We need two Halo 4 threads. Hater thread and a thread for those who want to find people to play with and discuss the game without complaining and complaints.
Criticism is fine, repeating the same things again and again is not. At least, such discussions tend to go in circles.
 
I have said this while playing with people but it should have taken one competent play test to tell that the red X when you die needed to be in the game.
I imagine it was more that after one game with personal one-hit kill ordnance and instant respawn they realized it was bad when the screen was flooded with red Xs.
 

Tawpgun

Member
Inf Slayer and such are fun in a casual sense.

Slayer Pro scratches my competetive itch.

We still have the league coming up. Keep in mind these can be our own settings.

It's enough to keep me satiated until 343 addresses the issues. If nothing significant is done by New Years, I'm gonna panic and freak out.
 
We need two Halo 4 threads. Hater thread and a thread for those who want to find people to play with and discuss the game without complaining and complaints.
Criticism is fine, repeating the same things again and again is not. At least, such discussions tend to go in circles.

2 threads, are you kidding? Just because you can't stand seeing people with opposing viewpoints doesn't mean their discussion means less than yours.
 

ElRenoRaven

Member
I'll do the gameplay later. But in short, my take on Halo 4's story.

First, they did a great job establishing and building characters. Aside from Johnson, the Chief and Cortana, Bungie didn't really create any human characters that resonated with me, or even had clearly defined character traits. They were just kind of there.

Laskey (sp?), the asshole captain of the Infinity and a few other side characters felt much more authentic. It was helped by excellent voice acting, but the added animation detail sold a lot of nuance as well. I have a lot of problems/questions with the actual story, but the way it was told is really commendable. As a side note - having Taylor and Downes record their lines together paid dividends. Their relationship was the heart of the story and it worked.

I also enjoyed the way the Chief was portrayed, in particular his physicality. This the first game where you really feel like a walking, powerful tank of a man. It was sold in game and in the cinematics very well. In particular, the way the Chief inspired both awe and apprehension - even misunderstanding - in those around him was very well done. 343 captured what it means to be a Spartan from more angles that Bungie ever attempted.

That said, I was disappointed in the story on multiple fronts. I'll spoiler tag here strategically. I know this could go in the story thread or the OT or wherever, but here I am.

When 343 first revealed Halo 4, and we saw what we now know was Requiem, I got excited to explore the place. What was Requiem? What was its purpose, who built it, and why? So I was surprised at the total lack of curiosity about those questions; I still don't know what Requiem was for. It was just a setting.

The first part of the story sets up the urgency with which the Chief wants to get Cortana to Halsey and get fixed up. Then we meet the (spoilerz!)
Didact, and Chief’s motivation shifts to stopping him. But that shift took place before I had any idea what the threat was, and I didn't follow how they knew what it was either. It was just some dude in a huge ball with Force powers. So there was this long period of time in the Campaign when I was confused about why he took priority over saving Cortana; it was established why saving Cortana was critical long before I knew why stopping the Didact was more important.

And then we get to the (spoilerz!)
Didact himself. There was a lot of build up, but I'm still not sure I follow anything about his story. Why was he locked up, and why on Requiem? Why did he immediately turn to zapping humans? Why did he have Force powers? The Didact in the books is not an evil character, though that could be taken as a matter of perspective. But if they wanted the Didact's motivations to be understandable from a certain point of view, why make him look and sound like a clichéd villain?

Also: Why was the Librarian also there - what's she been up to, she wasn't locked up - and why did she only appear that one time? What did she do to the Chief, and why didn't she tell him or us what she did? And why did she disappear after, and where did she go? I thought her cameo and actions were downright comic.

And as for the ending:
What happened when the Chief triggered the bomb? That scene with Cortana confuses me greatly. I have no idea what time/space continuum it takes place in, why the Chief wasn't nuked, why Cortana could touch him, and why after she goes away the Chief is still floating and in good shape. I just didn't follow that at all. I assume it's related to the little unexplained static charge the Librarian hit the Chief with, but I need more to go on than that.

I also laughed out loud when the multiple Cortanas arose from the bridge to snare the Didact. Something about the image was random and comic to me and it just didn't work.

So, yeah. I didn't care for the actual story, which was a big deal considering how high 343 raised the stakes in the story, on both personal and galactic levels. Their story telling has come a long ways, but the actual story left me unsatisfied and baffled.

I have all but one termnal unlocked on Waypoint, but have not watched them.

Like I've said before it's like you can read my mind. Your complaints are exactly the same complaints I had about the campaign's narrative.


Geez, this thread is pretty laughable at times.

I'll be on later enjoying Halo 4.

Yes because god forbid others don't agree with you and don't think this is the greatest game since sliced bread. you know I'm so goddamn sick and tired of the attitudes like yours. I really fucking am.
 
Top Bottom