half-life 2 sucks

[Kuciwalker]

Wait, when did you have to think beyond, "shoot stuff" in Halo?

Does this really have to be spelled out? You have to choose what to shoot, in what order, how to move from cover to cover, how to engage the enemy (gun, melee, grenade, in some combination), etc.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Then why not just update DOOM2 forever and be done with it if we aren't going to vary the game play and style a bit? At it's heart Halo really isn't anything but a Doom 2 with a face lift. I'm cool with that, still fun but not the only way to go about things.

DOOM 2 wasn't truly 3D and didn't have the AI and level design of Halo games.

More like they realize combat is one trick, added anther one, and hence didn't create a one trick pony.

The problem with this is the combat is not one dimensional. If you play Halo on any reasonable difficulty, it's strategic and deep and not simply point and shoot. Turn on metascoring and difficulty adjustments for more fun if you wish.

Half-Life 2 has one-dimensional combat and one-dimensional puzzlesolving, combining it doesn't make a two-dimensional game -- it makes a game with two aspects not good enough to make it on their own.

[Asher]

Originally posted by mactbone

Wait, when did you have to think beyond, "shoot stuff" in Halo?

Heh. Try playing Halo on Heroic of Legendary without a strategy other than "shoot stuff".

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Wait, when did you have to think beyond, "shoot stuff" in Halo?

Does this really have to be spelled out? You have to choose what to shoot, in what order, how to move from cover to cover, how to engage the enemy (gun, melee, grenade, in some combination), etc.

Not to mention weapon choice. Halo was the game that popularized that strategic element too.

Halo is a lot deeper game than a lot of people realize. I think it's because a lot of people play it on Easy (as I suspect Agathon did, for instance) and then whine when all they had to do was shoot stuff without thinking.

When you crank up the difficulty you encounter squad tactics, you need to conserve your ammo, you need to use proper guns against proper types of enemies, use various grenade types wisely, use your equipment wisely, use the unique AI of each creature type to your advantage, etc. It's far more cerebral than people would know by playing it on Easy or Normal.

[Lorizael]

What does increasing the difficulty level in Halo technically do?

[Kuciwalker]

You have less health, enemies have more, and you face higher-level enemies.

Easy and Normal are really both adjusted the other way from Heroic, so you can pretty much play them without thinking. Halo is supposed to be played on Heroic. You can use the tactics Asher mentioned on Easy and Normal, they're just completely unecessary.

[Asher]

It also adjusts the enemy AI. They have bona-fide squad tactics (they yell "COVER ME" etc).

[Solver]

Originally posted by Asher
When you crank up the difficulty you encounter squad tactics, you need to conserve your ammo, you need to use proper guns against proper types of enemies, use various grenade types wisely, use your equipment wisely, use the unique AI of each creature type to your advantage, etc. It's far more cerebral than people would know by playing it on Easy or Normal.

That's something that is true in many games. People who play on Easy or Normal rarely get the full quality of a game. Most existing FPS games really let you do whatever you want on those levels. Heck, in HL2 on Normal most enemies will go down to a shotty blast...

[Wiglaf]

The whole idea that Halo is great because the enemies say "cover me" and you need to conserve ammo/use cover sometimes is pretty amusing.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
The whole idea that Halo is great because the enemies say "cover me" and you need to conserve ammo/use cover sometimes is pretty amusing.

It is unless you think about it. It's not that they say it, it's that they actually do it. Shooting games aren't just about shooting things, they're strategic in their own right.

Halo's AI is one of the reasons it's as good as it is.

[Patroklos]

When you crank up the difficulty you encounter squad tactics, you need to conserve your ammo, you need to use proper guns against proper types of enemies, use various grenade types wisely, use your equipment wisely, use the unique AI of each creature type to your advantage, etc. It's far more cerebral than people would know by playing it on Easy or Normal.

This is no different that HL2, and if tactical choices (I think thats what you meant by strategic) is what you are grading by FEAR beats both.

Halo has no more inovative weapons choices, and if fact most of the weapons in Halo I don't ever use (same with HL2).

And as far as the enemies, Halo3's AI is nothing special. All but two classes of enemy just sit there and let you shot them (great unique AI ), one just runs around and convieniently stops in the middle of firefights and growls at your for 3 seconds, and the other just charges you and occasionally shoots a beam with a ridiculous charge time.

Tactics? Hell, I can increase the hit points on any game and make you have to use cover/conserve ammo. Halo is and always will be a semi mindless shooter with cool graphics. I find it fun, no need to invent things to praise it on.

Installing Orange Box now

[Kuciwalker]

This is no different that HL2, and if tactical choices (I think thats what you meant by strategic) is what you are grading by FEAR beats both.

FEAR came out years after Halo, Patty.

Halo has no more inovative weapons choices, and if fact most of the weapons in Halo I don't ever use (same with HL2).

Halo's innovation was that you had to choose in the first place. Most FPS before then just let you carry 1 of each gun.

[Wiglaf]

FEAR came out years after Halo, Patty.

He refers to Halo 3, as I'm sure you know?

I also fail to see how forcing the player to pick guns adds so much strategy to the game. Seriously, explain this. I can see picking a short range gun and then realizing "damn I should've picked the rifle." That's not strategy at all. It is in fact the opposite of strategy

[Quillan]

You seriously do not see how forcing choices adds to the strategic element of the game? Look at it like this (from the original Halo perspective, which is the only once I've played). You can carry 2 guns, no more. Each gun has its own uses, strengths, and limitations. Some are better against certain types of critters than others. For example, the hunters have vulnerable spots where they'll die to a single bullet from a human pistol or sniper rifle, but none of the Covenant weapons will do that to them. The Flood are far more resistant to the plasma weapons of the Covenant than they are to the human projectile weapons. The rocket launcher is incredibly powerful, but has little ammo and can be very dangerous to the user if you aren't careful. The sniper rifle suffers greatly from limited ammo but can kill most enemies in a single shot. What do you carry?

You tend to go through the game picking a pair of weapons for general use, and remembering where all the special weapons are located. Then you move carefully, so when you come across a pair of hunters you can backtrack to where the rocket launcher was lying, use it to kill them, then switch back to your GP weaponry.

This was one of the things I liked about Halo. HL2 was very old-school in this regard as it allowed you to carry everything at once, which most games no longer do. I think the most restrictive one I can recall playing was probably VietCong; you could only have one long arm and one pistol at a time, though you could collect ammo for all the others you came across.

[Kuciwalker]

He refers to Halo 3, as I'm sure you know?

But we had been talking about gameplay mechanics that dated back to Halo 1.