electricpirate said:
Here's the thing that I find fascinating, Halo:CE isn't really that non linear. There are only 2 levels that contain any real non linearity, "Halo" and "Silent Cartographer. It's no coincidence they are fan favorites though
. But the rest of the game follows the "Fat pipe, Thin Pipe" design of H3.
What's really cool, is how they make it feel less linear. In "T+R" a marine tells you that you can either go in full force or sneak around the side. In "AoTCR" you cross the canyons you later fight in. In "the flood" you have a wide open area,but little direction. Even though it's linear, being on the edge of being lost makes it less so.
Crows nest in H3 tried similar tricks, but in that level they came off as more backtracking.
what I'd love for Reach to do, is to embrace more non linearity akin to "Halo" and "Cartographer" and rely less on tricks like CE did.
I agree with you that Halo:CE really isn't non-linear, and on enjoying the openess in those 2 levels, but at the same time the cartographer and Halo were still linear in the end, too.
The level "Halo" gave you 3 linear objectives that needed to be accomplished, but let you decide which one to tackle first and it let you decide where you wanted to begin each objective. All games are linear. They have to be. You have a starting point, and ending point. No way to get around that, unless you are doing some weird open-ended game that would require too many resources and end up ruining the actual gameplay. It's all about methods. How am I gonna get to where I'm supposed to go. The tricks as you call them in CE worked for me. I'm gonna say that I loved "Assault on the control room" and "Two betrayals" probably the most out of all the levels and they were pretty linear.
What those two levels did give you was the feeling of exploration, the feeling of discovery, and bad ass music that chimed in at really good points, along with cool little mini-cut-scenes that drew you into the world even more. I always loved going to the edge of that underground platform in "The Cartographer" (the one that shows you kicking a pebble off the edge) even though I didn't have to, simply because it always drew me into the game even more. I loved seeing the underground bridge activated in "Halo." Additionally, I never felt overwhelmed with enemies. Sure, there were a lot, but instead I felt like it was my time to shine. I'm tired of feeling overwhelmed in the Halo games. I want to beat the shit out of stuff, which is why i hate Hunters now. They've turned into brutes. I'm the protector of my soldiers, not some sissy that gets pinned down in a corner.
Another thing HaloCE did really well is, despite the fact that you were within a linear level and couldn't access certain areas and doors, you felt like those places behind the next door, or just beyond the horizon, existed. A bunch more covenant unaware of your presence are on the other side of a wall or below you in more underground structures. In the next canyon/valley that doesn't even exist in the game, there are more marines fighting it out. So you had the feeling of a big world within a linear level.
I don't necessarily need real intelligent AI, I just want multiple paths to get to where I'm going, each that provide a different challenge or obstacle, and that is what Halo:CE did. Usually it was just in the form of enough space that I could go different ways if I wanted. And sure there were the bottlenecks and tight spots that you had no choice but to go through, but the changes in pace were nicely done. I almost like AI that responds the same way everytime, because once I get used to it (by playing through enough times), then I get to start having fun in my own way, the way I am gonna break them down. It becomes my game and my strategies, and not with the way the AI responds. In my head I have already gone through the motions of what I'm going to do. Elite pops out over here (sticky) 3 grunts over here (3 head shots) a banshee is gonna fly in at this point (stick if possible or just pistol it down) hunters run around the corner in the distance (snipe them down before they have a chance to see me).
The story definitely carried the game as well. On every mission I was pumped about what I was doing. Escaping the Pillar of Autumn, exploring Halo, discovering the Flood, saving captain Keyes, and doing all kinds of sneaking around on ships and within cool structures. I haven't been too into the earth/city levels. I see buildings like those all the time. Put me in space where things are foreign and have a certain mystique about them.
I also didn't like ODST because the enemies path too much. I dont get to decide which group i'm gonna mow down, or how I'm gonna systematically eliminate everything one by one. All encounters just ended up being a big mess of mobs, me with no shield, and a shitty pistol to try and deal with them. That's just not fun for me, maybe for others. I like groups that I can eliminate one by one, not just a big mess. Even in Halo:CE most encounters, everything was in groups (even if they were large groups), but they had their area to hold and I was free to experiment with how to take them down, and i could repeat those experiments, especially the really awesome ones with hero-like results.
