half-life 2 sucks

[Kuciwalker]

It's not just that you're forced to pick the right weapons to fight a given enemy, it's that you have to figure out how to make best use of what may be suboptimal weapons.

[Solver]

Halo isn't the first game limiting your weapons choices. Deus Ex did that even before Halo - and, in fact, made you also choose between carrying weapons and other stuff.

[Kuciwalker]

Hence "most FPS before that."

Deus Ex certainly didn't make it mainstream. After Halo, it's been increasingly adopted.

There's also Halo's health mechanic (taken to its logical conclusion in Halo 2), which has since made it into many games and is far better than straight HP.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by 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.

Different guns have done different things in every FPS game ever. All Halo does is make you backtrack to get the right gun for the right enemy.

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

The claim was that Halo 3 is innovative because it required a lot of tactical choices. He said FEAR does that much better. It's a non sequitur to then say that Halo 1 came out before FEAR.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Hence "most FPS before that."

Deus Ex certainly didn't make it mainstream. After Halo, it's been increasingly adopted.

There's also Halo's health mechanic (taken to its logical conclusion in Halo 2), which has since made it into many games and is far better than straight HP.

A non-straight-HP mechanic is another thing Deus Ex did. I agree it didn't make those things mainstream, as few future games were similar to Deus Ex in any real way. Deus Ex itself, though, was very popular, you can see its legacy in many games, too.

[Asher]

For all of its innovations, Deus Ex was just a mildly enjoyable game with a minimal following.

[Kuciwalker]

The claim was that Halo 3 is innovative because it required a lot of tactical choices.

The claim was that Halo [3] was good because it required a lot of tactical choices.

[Wiglaf]

As long as we agree plenty of games have done it before, or have done it better since the original Halo.

[Solver]

Originally posted by Asher
For all of its innovations, Deus Ex was just a mildly enjoyable game with a minimal following.

The fanbase following was okay. The issue is that other game designers didn't start creating games similar to Deus Ex.

[DrSpike]

HL2
Halo

[Harry Tuttle]

If anything, the only thing you need to beat Halo is to sidestep constantly. Bleh. And I agree that level design is crap. I was never impressed with 1 or 2. Plus the plot was incredibly dull. Halflife 2 has its faults, but it was far more interesting and difficult for me to beat than Halo 1 or 2.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DrSpike
HL2
Halo

Spike, Kuci and Asher's descriptions of HL2 sounds oddly like some of my reactions, in my worse moments, to HL. Though ultimately I came to appreciated HL for what it was.

Not having played HL2 or any Halo I cant add substantively to this discussion, but I find the overall tone, and even the specific words (Myst with guns, where did i hear THAT before? ) rather on the amusing side.

[Kuciwalker]

Spike, Kuci and Asher's descriptions of HL2 sounds oddly like some of my reactions, in my worse moments, to HL.

The difference is, I'm well familiar with shooters already

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Spike, Kuci and Asher's descriptions of HL2 sounds oddly like some of my reactions, in my worse moments, to HL. Though ultimately I came to appreciated HL for what it was.

You'd probably like HL2, and more than Halo I think.

[Solver]

LOTM, if you play HL2, you'll like it more than HL. Based on your reactions to HL anyway. HL2 has the things you liked in HL but gets rid of jumping puzzles for the most part - there is only one real jumping puzzle.