• 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 |OT14| They call it Halo

Fuchsdh

Member
Hmm, I think Reach's soundtrack wasn't that great to listen to outside of the game, but as far as atmosphere is concerned, it does a really good job at making you feel like you're on another planet. The colours and sounds are all just a little alien and far-off sounding, which contributed to the mood they were trying to go for. "From the beginning you know the end" type deal. The main theme percussion is kick-ass, though.

I loved the music played in New Alexandria (especially the night sections), Long Night of Solace, and Pillar of Autumn. The skyboxes and set-pieces in the game are just beautiful, and the "almost" Halo sound really added to that. Made the whole game feel somewhat sad and mysterious, despite what it was.

I definitely appreciate Halo Reach's OST a lot more than I did initially. I think part of it is what you mentioned--there's a sense of "alien" that was missing in basically all the OSTs after the first one (the excellent CEA orchestrations of some of that music is awesome.) I'm not sure what process went into it, but that weird pitch-shifting electric didgeridoo sound they use a lot in the Pillar of Autumn finale is second only to the blaster beam in awesome electronic sounds.

TLDR: I think Reach ultimately earns its spot in the Halo pantheon of uniformly good music, it just suffers a little from not being as fresh as CE, as wide-reaching as 2, as epic is 3, and as stylized as ODST.

EDIT: I also really love the slightly more integrated use of themes in Reach. O'Donnell has never been a leitmotif guy, but I loved the four note angry boat horns that got more and more baroque as the game got on. I mean, listen to that swag. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcbM9Pm7yOQ
 

GrizzNKev

Banned
This is going to seem incredibly selfish of me, but I need some cheering up. HaloGAF, today's my birthday, and I've been depressed as hell throughout the entire day. Say happy birthday to me, or something.

Happy birthday,

You now owe me a sentence on my birthday.
 

Enfinit

Member
Are the weapon spawns on Abandon Dubs every minute? Was just playing Slayer Pro and got the sniper at the start of the game. About 1:10-1:15 from me picking it up, I get sniped.

It's actually there all the time. You grab it from the beginning, and you can just run back there at any point and pick up ammo from the invisible weapon stache*.

*only available to red team
 
Happy Birthday Dax!

Unless you're celebrating anniversary's of your 21st bday, you have no reason to be depressed yet! :p

I guess so, but let's just say I've been having an...episode for most of the day. Sometimes I wonder if there's something extremely wrong with me beyond what I'm going through. :/
 
Am i the only one that doesnt like Halo 4's OST?

It's weird, I think the small music beds throughout the campaign and Spartan Ops are awesome, but I thought the full-length songs that are appropriately found on the actual soundtrack were really disappointing. The main pieces of music just sound like your standard 'trying to be epic but just feels hollow' movie soundtrack stuff. If someone played me the soundtrack before I really knew what it was for, I would have never guessed it to be for a Halo game.

There are a couple good tracks on there, but even putting aside the fact that it doesn't sound Halo-ish, the music in general just doesn't grab me - just sounds very run-of-the-mill.

But again, the stuff you wouldn't find on the actual soundtrack, those 'encounter' loops, I think those are awesome...go figure.
 

heckfu

Banned
You know this tune already, but I'm off work in 10 minutes. Breaking my diet and binging on some Taco Bell but after I vomit from the drastic change in food I'll be on Halo 4 for 3-4 hours I'd guess.
 
I definitely appreciate Halo Reach's OST a lot more than I did initially. I think part of it is what you mentioned--there's a sense of "alien" that was missing in basically all the OSTs after the first one (the excellent CEA orchestrations of some of that music is awesome.) I'm not sure what process went into it, but that weird pitch-shifting electric didgeridoo sound they use a lot in the Pillar of Autumn finale is second only to the blaster beam in awesome electronic sounds.

TLDR: I think Reach ultimately earns its spot in the Halo pantheon of uniformly good music, it just suffers a little from not being as fresh as CE, as wide-reaching as 2, as epic is 3, and as stylized as ODST.

EDIT: I also really love the slightly more integrated use of themes in Reach. O'Donnell has never been a leitmotif guy, but I loved the four note angry boat horns that got more and more baroque as the game got on. I mean, listen to that swag. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcbM9Pm7yOQ

SO excellent. That's probably one of my favourite tracks in the game, it's so ominous, "almost" Halo. You know exactly what's about to go down, it's just about getting there. That deliberate sacrifice. I know they may not be loved around GAF, but I've always loved the spinoffs in their own way. The mainline games are amazing, yes, but ODST and Reach's campaigns were special for different reasons to me. Still think it's crazy that the whole team dies throughout the game. ODST and Noble team-like spinoffs are so damn welcome. Noble >>>> Majestic > Crimson.

You know the music. Time to dance.
 
Hopping on the Reach hype train: I remember watching someone stream the campaign early. Literally everyone in the chat started crying when Jorge died. :lol

The dude playing it was more of a CoD fan and actually didn't like Halo, but was going through it to be nice and show it to people. It was on Heroic. The very definitely final Field Marshall you fight before the MAC segment took him a bunch of tries, but when he finally nailed it he must have teabagged and punched the thing in the face for a damn minute straight. Everyone in the chat loved it.
 
Bring in the guests.



Halo in 2013.

As requested. (At least, I hope this is what he was asking for.)

Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlgmqHpBkU

(As always, all snark is purely for humor's sake.)

Lyrics:
-------
Ma chum MademOddOne, it is with deepest pride
and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight.
And now we invite you to relax, let us pull up a
lobby as our matchmaking proudly presents -
your beginner!

It's your Guest! It's your Guest!
Put your service tag to rest
Drape your headset 'round your neck, cherie
'Cause we'll provide a pest
Immature
Fraying nerves
Why they play, we can't observe!
Try to teach them. (That's ambitious)
Don't believe me? Form militias!
Can't play King - never score!
After all, it's Halo 4
And the gamers here all think the 2nd's best
Go on, pull up your menu
J.I.P. and then you'll
BR Guests
Teabag Guests
BR Guests!

They'll say "NooB!"
And betray
When you win it's "So? You're gay!"
They'll prepare and serve with flair
A homophobe's communiqué!
You're alone
And you're scared
But the randoms aren't prepared
They're all gloomy and complaining
While the software's entertaining
They tell jokes! Act like dicks
When they're 12 they sound like chicks
And they're all a waste of space - that you can bet
Come on and kick their ass
You've bought your own map pass
So BR Guests
If you're stressed
It's Team Doubles we suggest
BR Guests, BR Guests, BR Guests!

Life is so unnerving
With no server, who is serving?
It's the Host without a soul we wait upon
Ah, those good old days when ranks were useful...
Suddenly those good old days are gone
Ten years we've been bitching
Needing so much more than flinching
Needing ranked playlists, a chance to use our skills!
Most days we just camp around with Maulers
Laggy, bad and lazy
Now Infinity's too crazy!

It's a Guest! It's a Guest!
Xbox Live, I must protest!
We've been bored but keep the Ford™
I've seen their TrueSkill (No contest!)
Just desert, then you're free
Quit the match, be absentee
While the guests drive games to ruin
You'll be searchin' for a new one
DMR, sniper shot
Active camo? Camp one spot!
All those sales, we know that Microsoft's impressed
We've got a lot to do!
(Like shut down Halo 2)
For what? You guess!

You can guess!
(You can guess!)
You can guess!

BR Guests! BR Guests!
Living Dead? Go and infest!
It's been years since we've had any Bungie news
And you're obsessed
With Halo, hard to please
but you'll still play 343's
While the overshield's still glowing
Let us argue on de-scoping
Maps
out
sourced,
one by one
Haters shout, "Enough! I'm done!"
Yet they won't turn off games they claim to detest
Tonight you'll drop plus eighty (+80)
Which will boost your K/D
BR Guests!
BR Guests!
BR Guests!
Please, BR Guests!
 

HTupolev

Member
Played some ODST Firefight earlier. I love that lighting, those night explosions are so great. Can't wait for Halo 4: ODST!

If you like the Halo 3 engine lighting model, Halo 4 isn't exactly going to provide it. That look the game has is graphically expensive, and is the primary reason that Halo 3 pushes so little detail and runs at a low resolution (compared with, say, Reach).

It's almost comical how bad the Halo 4 approach to HDR is compared with Halo 3's. The game presumably has poor range, or else they (hopefully) wouldn't be blooming up everything that's barely at white level with a heavy fog. Halo 3's engine lets you be selective, which allows brightnesses to be differentiated and makes sure things look shiny rather than foggy. Details also get preserved reasonably well. Like, this:

ie6Auu1HT4Oyt.jpg

Am i the only one that doesnt like Halo 4's OST?
Individually, tracks are pretty good. There's also sometimes pretty good resonance between music/sound and visual style, perhaps most notably on the level Forerunner.

The big issue is that there doesn't seem to be a strong, unique central style to it. I know what Halo 1 music feels like, I know what Halo 2 music feels like, I know what Halo 3 music feels like, I know what bizarre amazing Marty sax feels like, and I know what Reach music feels like. Heck, I even know what CEA music feels like. What does Halo 4 music feel like?
 

FyreWulff

Member
I wish Halo 3 had the ability to switch memory units and/or the removal of the 100 save file limit.

Man why did you have to remind me. My carefully selected selection of 100 files. Voting the lesser ones off the island to make room for the new favorites.

I did the alternate tag trick to save the really good ones, but that limit was really annoying. I prefer waiting the 15 seconds for Reach to enumerate the files than having to do the storage/name swap
 

J10

Banned
Okay, what was 343 reasoning for putting the Plasma Pistol as loadout choice? Why would they do that? It completely ruins vehicle gameplay.

To give you more shit to unlock, same as with the perk that negates the effects of Plasma Pistols on vehicles, convolution be damned. It's all about giving the player choices.
 
I don't think I'd mind it as much if they significantly nerfed their effectiveness on vehicles and just gave those roles to on-map weapons. Maybe reduce Plasma Grenade effectiveness to vehicles to about a quarter of the damage it does now, but leave vehicle-destroying potential to the Plasma Launcher or something similar. Have the Plasma Pistol EMP only slow down vehicles a little rather than stopping them completely, but leave full-fledged EMP functions to things like the Grenade Launcher.
 

Madness

Member
343 should hire the person responsible for writing Sovereigns lines in Mass Effect. The Didact or a precursor could make great use of that style of writing.

"You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."

Don't know if this was answered but that was drew karpyshyn and he retired from BioWare and games. He was lead writer on ME1 and left midway through ME2 to write for the the Old Republic game being made at BioWare Austin. He retired from games shortly after.

Also, you can't pin any blame on ODST. It was a hell of an expansion. It's Microsoft's fault they're greedy. Besides, Call of Duty had hit it big with CoD4:MW and it would be no surprise for mw2 to be a hit. It was like going from Halo 2 to Halo 3 for the cod franchise.
 
Don't know if this was answered but that was drew karpyshyn and he retired from BioWare and games. He was lead writer on ME1 and left midway through ME2 to write for the the Old Republic game being made at BioWare Austin. He retired from games shortly after.

Also, you can't pin any blame on ODST. It was a hell of an expansion. It's Microsoft's fault they're greedy. Besides, Call of Duty had hit it big with CoD4:MW and it would be no surprise for mw2 to be a hit. It was like going from Halo 2 to Halo 3 for the cod franchise.

He's such a good author. His Star Wars books are great
 

FyreWulff

Member
Because I'm bored and dropped into Reach Firefight to blow off steam from being defeated by southern rock again

Reach:

7339 players online according to top menu

Standard
Team Slayer : 1326
Team SWAT: 714
Team Snipers: 361
Living Dead: 550
Invasion: 157

Evolved
Super Slayer: 43
Team Objective: 32
Rumble Pit: 143
Double Team: 111
Big Team Battle: 623
Multi Team: 149
The Arena: 13

Anniversary
Classic: 198
Firefight: 42

Community
MLG: 48
Grifball: 220

Cooperative
Campaign: 21
Score Attack: 46
Firefight: 179
 

Computer

Member
Because I'm bored and dropped into Reach Firefight to blow off steam from being defeated by southern rock again

Reach:

7339 players online according to top menu


The Arena: 13

Anniversary
Classic: 198
Firefight: 42

Community
MLG: 48
Grifball: 220

Cooperative
Campaign: 21
Score Attack: 46
Firefight: 179
I can finally get onyx!
 
Don't you just love it when you get 3 choices, all of them infinity doubles? Its like 343 just wants to feel your pain.

Silly, just drop out and let JIP do it's thang for the poor saps you left!

So, the halo 4 legendary ending doesnt unlock in coop?.

Don't think so.. ;[

The Arena: 13

Pretty respectable for the premier competitive playlist.

Anyone down to get an Onyx on a new account and perhaps sell it for Microsoft points?
 

FyreWulff

Member
For comparison:

BLOPS2

Total online: 90,783

Core
Team Deathmatch: 22,784
Multi-Team: 651
Merc Mosh: 341
FFA: 3,014
Domination: 7,960
Ground War: 3,483
Demolition: 2,470
Kill Confirmed: 4,655
Hardpoint: 1,295
HQ: 720
CTF: 510
Search and Destroy: 5,236 (Party Chat banned)


Hardcore
Team Deathmatch: 16,453
Search & Destroy: 2,718
CTF: 2,340
Kill Confirmed: 8,719

Party Games
Gun Game: 1,205
One in the Chamber: 641
Sharpshooter: 242
Sticks and Stones: 966

Revolution DLC: 3,434 (I don't know if this has sub playlists, it asks me to buy the DLC when I try to look at them)

Leagues
Champions: 1,168
TDM: 1,016



Percentage of BLOPS2 players playing "ranked": 2.4%. Does anyone have Arena's population in Reach about 3 months after it came out?
 

IHaveIce

Banned
It's actually there all the time. You grab it from the beginning, and you can just run back there at any point and pick up ammo from the invisible weapon stache*.

*only available to red team
wait.. is this true?
That would explain many games.

And yes Happy Birthday Dax!
 

CyReN

Member
I'm quite amazed by this.

In Halo 4 on a 14-Day trial account you can remove a file on your fileshare, but can't upload it.
 
I'm quite amazed by this.

In Halo 4 on a 14-Day trial account you can remove a file on your fileshare, but can't upload it.

Wasn't that the same with previous Halo games?

Spartan Ops out yet? Last two weeks it has been early

As far as I remember only one chapter launched early, not sure which one, hahaha. It should be up in about 1 hour and 10 minutes. A good way to know is to see the countdown from the challenges.
 

Killer

Banned
It's been a while since I last played Halo 4. Do we know when the TU gonna drop? I might give it another shot before my gold subscription runs out.
Edit: list of fixes would be cool.
 
Top Bottom