Oh that is pretty cool, hope he posts the same also here..
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Halo |OT13|
- Thread starter kylej
- Start date
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Oh that is pretty cool, hope he posts the same also here..
And now I'm remembering the campaign theater and file share from Reach. Always had Kat's butt somewhere in the top ten most downloaded or recommended.
xxjuicesxx
Member
tried playing dota2 last night. had no mouse cursor in game, googled it, seems to be a common problem with no fix yet.
Ascension is such a cool looking map
Zeouterlimits
Member
Yeah, it doesn't like my right mouse button.
The Librarian
Banned
Here's the second excerpt. This one isn't as complete as the one I posted before. I've got some more work to do, but here it is.
A Shaky Marriage
How levels behave with each other and with the story.
This particular criticism isn’t unique to Halo 4. To be fair, Halo games have implemented the now classic "rising action, climax, falling action" structure to varying levels of success, depending on your opinion of the levels themselves. However, except for one game in the series, a Halo game’s story climax has never correlated to its gameplay climax. Below I’ve broken down four Halo games based on this structure along with their story climaxes. Not listed are Halo 2 and ODST because their structure is different form the one the majority of Halo games employ.
For clarity’s sake, here is how I define the following:
- Gameplay climax: The overall size of the level’s encounters in comparison to all other levels, and the trend of the game’s encounter sizes before and after the level. That is, the noticeable expansion of encounter sizes before the level versus their noticeable shrinkage afterwards.
- Story climax: The point in the story that affects/changes everything that follows.
Halo: CE
a. Rising action: "The Pillar of Autumn (CE)" to "The Silent Cartographer"
b. Gameplay climax: "Assault on the Control Room"
c. Story climax: The reveal of the Flood in "343 Guilty Spark"
d. Falling action: "343 Guilty Spark" to "The Maw"
Halo 3
a. Rising action: "Sierra 117" to "The Ark"
b. Gameplay climax: "The Covenant" and more specifically, the battle outside the Citadel
c. Story climax: The defeat of the Covenant and the death of Truth in "The Covenant"
d. Falling action: "Cortana" and "Halo (3)"
Halo: Reach
a. Rising action: "Winter Contingency" to "Nightfall"
b. Gameplay climax: "Tip of the Spear"
c. Story climax: When the Covenant supercarrier is destroyed and the Covenant arrive en masse to invade Reach in "Long Night of Solace"
d. Falling action: "Long Night of Solace" to "The Pillar of Autumn (Reach)"
Halo 4
a. Rising action: "Dawn" to "Infinity"
b. Gameplay climax: "Reclaimer"
c. Story climax:
d. Falling action: "Shutdown" to "Midnight"
As one can see, the game that best weaves its story climax with its gameplay climax is unquestionably Halo 3.
Now, this all isn’t to say that I don’t like where the story climaxes are in past Halo games. The reveal of the Flood in “343 Guilty Spark” is one my favorite moments in the series. However, there’s a certain cadence that really adds to the game when, as the narrative increases in scope and risk, the gameplay grows and evolves to reflect that.
"The Covenant" is without a doubt one of the largest Halo levels, but Halo 3 meshes story and gameplay so well, everything can be narrowed down to a single encounter....
As the player exits a gate into a wintered path, the title card reads "Journey’s End." A few moments later you exit a short, icy cavern, and round the corner of a cliff to behold the Citadel and the huge snowy-icy field in front of it. Everything tells you that this moment is undoubtedly the culmination of all that has preceded it. The in-game dialogue: "Citadel in sight! Brutes are mobilizing everything they got." This is the Covenant’s final stand, and with its defenses gone, the death of Truth and the elimination of the threat the Halo arrays pose. Right after that, the music kicks in. You heard it before, relatively muted and in smaller snippets in previous levels, but here Marty’s stylized version of the iconic Halo theme bombastically plays through to its completion. Once the player destroys the Brutes’ defenses surrounding the Citadel and descends into the field, two Scarabs drop from orbit, kicking up dirt and snow as they land hard, and each complemented with its own Brute pack. The Covenant marshals air and ground forces with Banshees, Ghosts, and Prowlers. A Pelican arrives, and your surviving AI counterparts rally around you in anything from a mongoose with rockets to tanks and hornets. It is thematically, conspicuously, and most appropriately the largest encounter in Halo 3, and in the series to date.
Halo 4
Needless to say, it’s comparatively anticlimatic.
To be perfectly clear, I am not praising the story in Halo 3. It’s bad; especially compared to the marvelous one told in Halo 2. Truth was made into a two-dimensional villain and the Arbiter was sidelined. What I am praising, however, is Halo 3’s unrivaled weaving – within the context of the Halo series – of story and gameplay.
A Shaky Marriage
How levels behave with each other and with the story.
This particular criticism isn’t unique to Halo 4. To be fair, Halo games have implemented the now classic "rising action, climax, falling action" structure to varying levels of success, depending on your opinion of the levels themselves. However, except for one game in the series, a Halo game’s story climax has never correlated to its gameplay climax. Below I’ve broken down four Halo games based on this structure along with their story climaxes. Not listed are Halo 2 and ODST because their structure is different form the one the majority of Halo games employ.
For clarity’s sake, here is how I define the following:
- Gameplay climax: The overall size of the level’s encounters in comparison to all other levels, and the trend of the game’s encounter sizes before and after the level. That is, the noticeable expansion of encounter sizes before the level versus their noticeable shrinkage afterwards.
- Story climax: The point in the story that affects/changes everything that follows.
Halo: CE
a. Rising action: "The Pillar of Autumn (CE)" to "The Silent Cartographer"
b. Gameplay climax: "Assault on the Control Room"
c. Story climax: The reveal of the Flood in "343 Guilty Spark"
d. Falling action: "343 Guilty Spark" to "The Maw"
Halo 3
a. Rising action: "Sierra 117" to "The Ark"
b. Gameplay climax: "The Covenant" and more specifically, the battle outside the Citadel
c. Story climax: The defeat of the Covenant and the death of Truth in "The Covenant"
d. Falling action: "Cortana" and "Halo (3)"
Halo: Reach
a. Rising action: "Winter Contingency" to "Nightfall"
b. Gameplay climax: "Tip of the Spear"
c. Story climax: When the Covenant supercarrier is destroyed and the Covenant arrive en masse to invade Reach in "Long Night of Solace"
d. Falling action: "Long Night of Solace" to "The Pillar of Autumn (Reach)"
Halo 4
a. Rising action: "Dawn" to "Infinity"
b. Gameplay climax: "Reclaimer"
c. Story climax:
This one was hard to pin down, but if I had to name one it’d be the "fight" with the Didact in "Midnight." That or when he gets released from his cryptum.
As one can see, the game that best weaves its story climax with its gameplay climax is unquestionably Halo 3.
Now, this all isn’t to say that I don’t like where the story climaxes are in past Halo games. The reveal of the Flood in “343 Guilty Spark” is one my favorite moments in the series. However, there’s a certain cadence that really adds to the game when, as the narrative increases in scope and risk, the gameplay grows and evolves to reflect that.
"The Covenant" is without a doubt one of the largest Halo levels, but Halo 3 meshes story and gameplay so well, everything can be narrowed down to a single encounter....
As the player exits a gate into a wintered path, the title card reads "Journey’s End." A few moments later you exit a short, icy cavern, and round the corner of a cliff to behold the Citadel and the huge snowy-icy field in front of it. Everything tells you that this moment is undoubtedly the culmination of all that has preceded it. The in-game dialogue: "Citadel in sight! Brutes are mobilizing everything they got." This is the Covenant’s final stand, and with its defenses gone, the death of Truth and the elimination of the threat the Halo arrays pose. Right after that, the music kicks in. You heard it before, relatively muted and in smaller snippets in previous levels, but here Marty’s stylized version of the iconic Halo theme bombastically plays through to its completion. Once the player destroys the Brutes’ defenses surrounding the Citadel and descends into the field, two Scarabs drop from orbit, kicking up dirt and snow as they land hard, and each complemented with its own Brute pack. The Covenant marshals air and ground forces with Banshees, Ghosts, and Prowlers. A Pelican arrives, and your surviving AI counterparts rally around you in anything from a mongoose with rockets to tanks and hornets. It is thematically, conspicuously, and most appropriately the largest encounter in Halo 3, and in the series to date.
Halo 4
has you fighting Knights, Crawlers, and Watchers on Forerunner platforms while the Didact floats in the center and says stuff to you. And it all ends in a QTE fight. After I was done I remember thinking to myself, "Is that it?"
To be perfectly clear, I am not praising the story in Halo 3. It’s bad; especially compared to the marvelous one told in Halo 2. Truth was made into a two-dimensional villain and the Arbiter was sidelined. What I am praising, however, is Halo 3’s unrivaled weaving – within the context of the Halo series – of story and gameplay.
Halo 3's pacing is absolutely paramount, it reaches an absolutely beautiful peak when Forward Unto Dawn enters The Ark's atmosphere and delivers the equipment used for the last march of the human race.
Impeccable scene, best moment in the series to this date. All achieved through gameplay as well, absolutely beautiful. On that note, remove cut scenes from Halo 5.
Latvian Hitman
Member
Always!
Edit: let it be known that the post that saw me drop my junior status was a post about butts.
It's too separated off from itself. The middle space just isn't fun to fight in and you can end up going on a run on one entire side of the map and not cross paths with anyone. It's an awkward layout at best.
User 73706
Banned
I honestly thought Reach's gameplay and story climaxed in The Pillar of Autumn's MAC segment and the escape of the Pillar of Autumn. I have to say Reach had one of the best endings by far with Lone Wolf.
Yeah. I think the pacing at both the encounter and mission to mission levels are the best in the series from Sierra 117 through the Covenant. The set pieces are perfectly spaced out with more intimate infantry combat, and there's a steadily rising series of crecendos in terms of climactic battles. (The ending battle on the dam of Sierra 117 is topped by the Chopper/Wraith brawl in Tsavo, which is topped by the Scarab battle in The Storm, which is topped by The Ark.....)
I actually grew weary of the set pieces in Halo 4. The first Mantis gauntlet felt like a grind on the heels of the Scorpion's canyon romp. And the game never broken open into a big battle ground like it does in The Ark or The Covenant; the set pieces were more confined and scripted.
Lone Wolf really was a fantastic ending. Pretty brave from a gameplay standpoint and it really brought the story full circle.
Harvest seems like an oversize mashup of Narrows and Elongation. It actually feels a lot like Halo 4 (both campaign and multiplayer). If you're looking at if from a pure checklist standpoint it contains all of the necessary elements to be deemed a "good map" and yet the sum of its parts falls a bit short. I get the same feeling on a lot of Halo 4 maps. It feels like the designers had a flow chart of design and they did their job very well, but for some reason the maps are lacking the soul of a great multiplayer experience.
Steelyuhas
Member
Using an RT version right now. Very impressed with it, fast fluid, Windows 8/RT is a dream on touch, and the screen is gorgeous. My original plan was to pick up a Pro as a tablet and a replacement for a laptop, but now I have a desire to just pick up a RT version.
vincent vega
Member
yup, had a lot of fun with it too. I don't know why they didn't bring it back in the latest splinter cell
also, I just got halo 2 running on xlink kai. It's very fun despite the occasional lag
Yeah I loved the Reach campaign. I really dont understand what beef anyone has with it.
It's head and shoulders better then 4's campaign.
Halo 2 is still my least favorite campaign of them all. I also wasn't a fan of ODST's campaign, though I'll probably get burned at the stake for that comment.
My Campaign flow chart
Is a tight race between CE / 3 / Reach and then a pretty big drop and then ODST / 2
I also like fighting the flood, so what do I know.
Blue Ninja
Member
Only tried out the Crimson maps yesterday, but damn, didn't like them one bit. We were playing 4 player split screen, and one map had an absolutely horrible framerate.
As for campaign's, storywise, Halo 2 takes the cake. Gameplay wise it's between Halo 3 and Halo 1.
ODST is just in another category.
As for campaign's, storywise, Halo 2 takes the cake. Gameplay wise it's between Halo 3 and Halo 1.
ODST is just in another category.
HigherLevel
Member
I did in Pandora Tomorrow. Best MP experience outside of Halo 2/3 for me.
So most of us agree, through a combination of random ordnance, map design, and instant respawns Halo matches don't flow as well.
But there's something else that's missing, cool initial encounters.
The Pit is a perfect example. The rocket rush/camo rush at the beginning. Snipe v snipe battle. Narrows also had something similar. And who could forget the raining nades opening to standoff.
Halo 2 had the waterworks bridge, rush for rockets in coag, controlling a tower in Lockout etc
Look at the starts in Haven. Scattershot at bottom mid? Same in abandon. Only interesting starts in 4 happen in Solace because of the snipe fight and incinerator rush. Ragnarok too but that's remake.
Good static drops would really help the game
But there's something else that's missing, cool initial encounters.
The Pit is a perfect example. The rocket rush/camo rush at the beginning. Snipe v snipe battle. Narrows also had something similar. And who could forget the raining nades opening to standoff.
Halo 2 had the waterworks bridge, rush for rockets in coag, controlling a tower in Lockout etc
Look at the starts in Haven. Scattershot at bottom mid? Same in abandon. Only interesting starts in 4 happen in Solace because of the snipe fight and incinerator rush. Ragnarok too but that's remake.
Good static drops would really help the game
I preferred ODST's ending personally, riding the lift up into the New Mombassa daybreak, and then fighting your way out of the city had a bigger impact on me. I'd even say Halo 3's final level would have been perfect, if not for the sour taste left by 'Cortana'.
Well put, Halo 3 had it down.
Yeah, Halo needs to return to what it actually is. It simply isn't built to support loadouts or armour abilities. Equipment was the best way to approach the use of special abilities.
I always thought Halo 3 had the greatest peak but also the greatest fall in the franchise.
In my opinion, Cortana is the most claustrophobic and linear level in the Halo franchise. Which is just made painfully clear after the grand battle we experienced at the end of The Covenant.
I think my first playthrough of Halo 3 was on heroic but once I hit Cortana, I decided it wasn't worth it and finished the rest of the campaign on Normal.
The last level, Halo, was much better, but I never really liked the Flood-dominated campaign levels in the Halo franchise.
In my opinion, Cortana is the most claustrophobic and linear level in the Halo franchise. Which is just made painfully clear after the grand battle we experienced at the end of The Covenant.
I think my first playthrough of Halo 3 was on heroic but once I hit Cortana, I decided it wasn't worth it and finished the rest of the campaign on Normal.
The last level, Halo, was much better, but I never really liked the Flood-dominated campaign levels in the Halo franchise.
Steelyuhas
Member
Lone Wolf was incredible.
As much as I praise Halo 3, I gotta give the advantage to CE in this regard. At the end of Assault on the Control Room, Cortana gives you an urgent reason to go out. She doesn't explicitly explain why, but there's a sense of urgency. Then the story goes completely perpendicular to what the player was expecting, and the gameplay really reflects that. The gameplay shifts from a "clear an encounter space, move to the next area"; into "a clear a path for myself and escape". The fact that both the story and the gameplay go into a completely separate direction is quite impressive.
Also, something to add to your story-gameplay interweaving is something Ghaleon said a while back: Halo 3 used encounter to encounter story to advance the player. There's actually a reason to move through the forests of Sierra-117 and that is to gain allies. There's a reason to be moving down the highway of Tsavo Highway. Although the overarching story is basically just stop the Covenant, kill the Flood; the mission to mission and encounter to encounter story is stellar.
As we all know, the lack of large set pieces has to do with the 720p and in general increased graphics. As a question to all, would you sacrifice large gameplay spaces to have everything look nicer?
Hydranockz
Member
Pretty much. Well, I enjoy going for Sticky Detonator on Haven too. If Solace was symetrical and had a grav lift instead of the beam it would be near awesome.
Even asymetrical maps like High Ground were great. The rush to laser tower and camo were great because, even though the map was asymetrical, players could learn the good runs and have interesting combat moments.
Yeah, I would have taken Reach-level graphics in Halo 4 to have a more expansive approach to Requiem. Definitely one of the coolest Forerunner installations in a Halo game, but we could explore it even less than Delta Halo.
Random fun bit we discovered on Reclaimer during one of the FUD co-op nights: you can actually jetpack to the bottom of the reactor room where Cortana is taken from you. Down there any allies are invisible unless they have Promethean weapons, in which case you can see the orange lines floating around.
I believe it's one of the most competitive 2v2 console games out there, it's right behind Halo CE in my book.
I'm hoping the new Splinter Cell delivers because they're bring SvM back.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
Halo 3 relied far too heavily on vehicle segments. Being in a vehicle gives you no advantage if all of the enemies you fight are on vehicles, it's just a boring bunch of strafing with a Ghost, driving in circles with a Warthog, or sitting back and picking everyone off with a Chopper. Half the game is spent sitting in a vehicle, and it gets incredibly tiresome.
Halo 4 feels like nothing happened. The premise was completely squandered, and for no good reason. If you're going to not only bring back humanity within the first 2 hours of the game, as well as a new group of Spartans, why would you not bother incorporating the Spartans into the story or gameplay? Why does Master Chief not meet any other Spartans except one line from the insufferable Palmer? Why is his only interaction with the Marines an obligatory "No way, it's him!" and then it's never referenced again? It's like they wanted to put Pelicans and Spartans in the game but didn't know how, so just brought back all of humanity into the story. The only mileage from it is one level with a target locator and a moving fortress, and they sacrificed the entire premise (Master Chief stranded on a mysterious planet related to a vital, largely-unexplored part of Halo lore, the Foreunners) for it?
Halo 4 feels like nothing happened. The premise was completely squandered, and for no good reason. If you're going to not only bring back humanity within the first 2 hours of the game, as well as a new group of Spartans, why would you not bother incorporating the Spartans into the story or gameplay? Why does Master Chief not meet any other Spartans except one line from the insufferable Palmer? Why is his only interaction with the Marines an obligatory "No way, it's him!" and then it's never referenced again? It's like they wanted to put Pelicans and Spartans in the game but didn't know how, so just brought back all of humanity into the story. The only mileage from it is one level with a target locator and a moving fortress, and they sacrificed the entire premise (Master Chief stranded on a mysterious planet related to a vital, largely-unexplored part of Halo lore, the Foreunners) for it?
Maybe something will happen to explain why the Didact was so eager to start converting humanity into Prometheans, hopefully not just "more Flood," but since we have no idea what it is and the game doesn't even drop any hints, all we're left with is Didact might be dead, Cortana is gone, Master Chief is on Earth).
scar tissue
Banned
After Ghaleon, you are probably the gaffer who 'gets' Halo the most.
I love your write-ups.
The battle for the citadel is the pinnacle of the Halo series, and 5 years and three (new FPS) games later, nothing has come even remotely close. It's a tragedy.
Hell, even Tsavo Highway and the Ark haven't been surpassed. Uplift Reserve was the only segment that was sorta close.
The beam IS a grav lift, it just looks wrong.
The Rocket Launcher in Burial Mounds is probably the most memorable rush spot for a weapon in an asymmetrical map for me. You had two teams spawning closely to their own rifles, so you're basically dependent on those guys to eliminate the enemy quicker so you had an easier access.
Bregmann Roche
Member
It turns out that kylej 'gets' Halo pretty well now too. I wish that wasn't true, but it is.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
Hate both of these levels, they're both what's so wrong with Halo 3. Excessive focus on vehicle-on-vehicle fights. So much of Halo 3 feels like it sacrificed the tight design of the previous two games for some sense of scale, but the gameplay doesn't back it up. Throwing literally a dozen Choppers, 4 Wraiths, and then a Scarab at the player might look cool, but is it fun? I'd say hell no. Halo 3 also has a terrible habit of "forgetting" to give the player ammo for power weapons, so you're stuck with a plasma pistol half the time.
I think they understood this for Reach, and scaled the game back. Unfortunately that worked against them, because in the storyline Reach was pretty much the biggest engagement of the whole war, so people kvetched about the lack of "epic moments." I'd take the pathos of Jorge looking down on the planet from space, the atmosphere of any Rookie section, or the tighter firefights of either game over any of Halo 3's "spam vehicles and call it epic" moments. Halo 3 completely forgets that it's all about buildup, and just wants to drop Scarabs and Wraiths on you at every opportunity. Remember the Scarab in Halo 2? You follow it across the city, it walks right over you, and then you finally get to jump on it and take out its crew while that cheesy rock version of the Halo theme plays. Whereas Halo 3 literally just drops them from the sky and tells you to circle strafe and shoot its legs, then shoot its glowing weak point. How "epic."
Hydranockz
Member
Well, kind of. The visual hinderance is just not fun at all. For a level that already has plenty of LOS blockers, I just hate that there is a giant flare on the map. It's function as a grav lift is slightly different too. It reverses the direction you go in, which is different from a plain ole grav lift.
The backtracking doesn't bother me much in that game just because usually there's a justified story reason, and they put effort into mixing it up (like Banshees on Two Betrayals.) That said, Two Betrayals is definitely my least favorite mission in the game, although learning to speed run past lots of te encounters made it better.
The Jorge scene failed because the audience had no real reason to believe Jorge had an amazing history with Reach outside of what we're told to believe.
ODST's atmosphere is an exception to the entire series, how on earth is it at all comparable to Halo 3?
Halo 3 had perhaps, the tightest firefights in the series, so...
Save_Us.Bravo
Believe.
BeliBravo.
Also, on an unrelated note, I'm compiling all that tier data this afternoon. Should be able to get a decent write-up pushed by this evening/night.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
Reach is Jorge's home. The Spartans in Reach are pretty weak characters, but at least you can feel something for Jorge (as obvious as it is that you're supposed to like Jorge). Halo 3 doesn't really have pathos aside from being the end of a trilogy. I'm glad we don't have to wade through any hospitals or whatever, but it doesn't really feel like anything. The Covenant just happen to be on Earth, again, so whatever. Go shoot them in this nondescript African setting. The piano music at the main menu is very inconsistent with the actual mood of the game. And this is a different criticism, but the only Forerunner installation encountered on the game, an enormous artificial star-shaped planet, and what do we get on it? A desert. Just, a desert. Enthralling. Right, and a grassy mountainous area nearly identical in aesthetic to the level "Halo" in Combat Evolved.
Halo 3's firefights feel like filler between the never-ending vehicle sections, and when they do, great ready for "Throw tons of Brutes at the player." I could probably find plenty of conventional firefights with mixed units if I really looked, but it just doesn't feel like they're the focus anymore. I only remember the frustration of endless vehicle sections, wide open areas that simply are not fun to fight through (destroying anti-air Wraiths on The Storm before you have the rocket Mongoose, downward fight with Scarab at the end after exiting the installation on The Ark, entrance to the first tower on The Covenant). They are very far from "tight," and they came to define what was so wrong with Halo 3 to me to the point that they overwhelmed the rest of the game. If you like those levels, you're lucky, because I really can't enjoy Halo 3 that much.
Halo 3's firefights feel like filler between the never-ending vehicle sections, and when they do, great ready for "Throw tons of Brutes at the player." I could probably find plenty of conventional firefights with mixed units if I really looked, but it just doesn't feel like they're the focus anymore. I only remember the frustration of endless vehicle sections, wide open areas that simply are not fun to fight through (destroying anti-air Wraiths on The Storm before you have the rocket Mongoose, downward fight with Scarab at the end after exiting the installation on The Ark, entrance to the first tower on The Covenant). They are very far from "tight," and they came to define what was so wrong with Halo 3 to me to the point that they overwhelmed the rest of the game. If you like those levels, you're lucky, because I really can't enjoy Halo 3 that much.
So you want weapons just handed to you instead of having to make a choice of whether or not to keep a certain weapon, because it is actually a rarity? And your last example makes no sense. Instead of an incredibly scripted Halo 2 Scarab fight, you actually get a dynamic fight with Scarabs. And only choosing one method to take down Scarabs is boring. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Garrett 2U
Member
Lol final kill cams are disabled in Infinity Slayer again.
Third time is the charm?
Third time is the charm?
Here, allow me to shit on an entire community by saying they don't understand the game.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
I never said anything about handing the player a weapon. But there aren't even power weapons in many of these situations. If you get knocked out of the vehicle, good luck, because you won't find a rocket launcher anywhere around here. Halo 1 already did it right, with plenty of great ammo placement and larger ammo capacity, but also giving you the choice of a Ghost or even a Scorpion. You can feasibly get through Assault on the Control Room with a rocket launcher and sniper most of the way. Rocket launcher ammo should be conserved, sure, but that means making your shots count. Which Halo Combat Evolved does just fine. In Halo 3, they're a precious resource so few that they don't even serve as consistently effective anti-vehicle weapons. You shouldn't be forced to limit yourself to 1 weapon because you're saving your Laser for that fight against 4 Wraiths, how is that fun? Say there's somebody who just likes to shoot power weapons as soon as they get them. They destroy a couple Choppers, and they're out of ammo. Now what? Well, according to Halo 3's design, screw them, have 5 more Choppers and a Wraith, hope you brought a cache of plasma pistols. When Halo 3 wants you to fight vehicles, you better get in a vehicle of your own, because there isn't going to be ammo around.
As for the Scarab, I'm talking about how Halo 2 earns its setpiece moments, rather than literally dropping them from the sky and calling it "epic."
This suggests that a lot of time and effort hadn't been put into finessing the vehicle sections.
(There has)
It's sad that in the following Halo games we never got any encounters even close to the scale of Halo 3's. Scarab battles were some of the most enjoyable moments in the Halo 3's campaign. The amount of different ways you can approach the encounter with the 2 Scarab's towards the end of The Covenant is pretty amazing. Depending on what kind of vehicle you're using the encounter can play out entirely different.
Warthog/Mongoose:
- Get a marine with a Rocket Launcher/FRG in the sideseat and face either Scarab head-on until it's temporarily disabled and you can board it.
- Launch yourself off one of the ramps and try to jump on top of the Scarabs.
Scorpion/Wraith:
- Shoot the legs of a Scarab until it's temporarily disabled, board it, fight off the enemies and destroy the core.
- Shoot the legs until it's temporarily disabled, shoot down the cover in the back and destroy the core while still in the Scorpion.
Hornet:
- Pilot the aircraft yourself, fly over to the Scarab, land on it and fight your way through the enemies.
- Pilot the aircraft yourself, fly to the back of a Scarab and try to shoot off the cover in the back, giving you a perfect shot at its core.
- Get on one the side 'seats' of the Hornet and let a marine fly you over to the Scarab. They will hover above one of them until you drop down onto it. They will even pick you up once you've destroyed the core of the Scarab.
I'm surely forgetting several ways in which you can approach it differently, but it still shows how people can experience it in a variety of ways. All this while being shot by two Scarabs, some of the enemies on the Scarabs, several Prowlers and half a dozen Ghosts.
I don't understand why Bungie went away from Scarabs when they were such a success in Halo 3. ODST started out with this trend by only making us fight it once during the entire campaign. Plus, that one encounter was incredibly limited when you compare it to the ones in Halo 3. The Scarab had no room to move around so it only spun around in circles and the only vehicle you had to your disposal was the Banshee so there wasn't much room for creativity. The only other team where you see a Scarab is during the final segment of the game and you don't even get to fight it. It fires its beam at the Elephant and just walks off. The Reach Scarabs are even more limited and only show up in cutscenes, as decoration in the distance (which I doubt 90% of the people even saw) or as walking platforms for Grunts to shoot their turrets from.
It was understandable for ODST to not have huge encounters mainly because the of the limited development time and resources but Halo Reach doesn't really have that excuse. The campaign takes place on the planet with the biggest military fortress of all the human colonies, yet we see nothing of that. From what we've seen it seems like Forward Unto Dawn itself carries more firepower in Halo 3 than the entire planet Reach does in Halo Reach. Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure we only see a single Scorpion Tank during the entire Reach campaign and we only use it to kill some turrets, Ghosts and Revenants during the span of 10 to 15 minutes. Compare that to the four Scorpions during the Halo 3 campaign which you use for an extended period of time against Scarabs, Wraiths, Ghosts, Prowlers, Choppers and a shitload of infantry. You can get a fairly good idea of the difference in scale between the two games.
The Halo 4 arrives and while some of the environments are huge in scale there's never really a big and versatile encounter anywhere in the game. The Pelican level is huge but all you can is a bunch of a bunch of stationary Phantoms from a mile away. The Star Wars level was enormous but you did nothing except fly past a bunch of turrets and shoot four lightbulbs. 343 did try to replicate a Scarab battle, though. Pretty much in the literal sense of the word because the Lych is very much like a re-skinned version of the Scarab. Sounds great, right? Yeah, it would be had 343 not removed everything about what made Scarab battles fun. The aircraft didn't move, it didn't shoot and was only accessible in two ways: either go up the lift or jetpack up to it. It was essentially another piece of geometry which had flown into the level pretending to be a Scarab. The most offensive part of the Lych is that when you destroy its core it drifts off until it's right above the canyon close by and completely evaporates. I wouldn't call it an explosions. It was just *poof* and the aircraft was gone. No satisfying explosion, no huge chunks of the it still laying around the map, no sense of danger of you getting killed if you don't get away fast enough. Just a boring, underwhelming, scripted poof.
I can't say too much about Spartan Ops as I've only played the first two episodes after selling the game, but it does seem to give us encounters on a bigger scale. It looks like they're just throwing a shitload of enemies at you without much thought behind it, though. I think that's the biggest issue with Spartan Ops encounters. The levels don't seem to be designed around a single really good encounter. Either they're designed around campaign, they're designed around multiplayer, or they're designed around a number of encounters so they can be reused down the line. They're just throwing a bunch of enemies into an environment for the sake of giving players a hard time regardless of whether the encounter has any depth or not.
Hopefully 343 will up their game in Halo 5 in terms of scale of the encounters and just the encounter design in general. I want to fight an "evolved" version of the Scarab. I want to be able to approach in a varying ways. I want to see this:
MaximumFlipFlop
Banned
Heckfu, stop being so abrasive. You're just mad you're part of the 99% here who think they know Halo.
Besides Biggy, you're the one who 'gets' Heckfu the most.
wow i can't believe this
- Status