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Halo Xbox One "Legitimate", No Longer A Trilogy, Now A Saga

Caja 117

Member
You know why. If they just copy the game and change almost nothing, people will get tired and lost interest.



CoD has a campaign? People play CoD for the MP, I don't think it's fair to compare it the way you did.

People play Halo for the MP as well, Im not sure what are you talking about, before Halo Reach, Halo was always number one on the xbox live charts. Even like that, a game Doesn't need to change its core gameplay to have an appealing SP, games like Ass Creed, Gears of War, Uncharted, change very litle of the core gameplay and they still have very enjoyable SP.
 

FyreWulff

Member
People play Halo for the MP as well, Im not sure what are you talking about, before Halo Reach, Halo was always number one on the xbox live charts. Even like that, a game Doesn't need to change its core gameplay to have an appealing SP, games like Ass Creed, Gears of War, Uncharted, change very litle of the core gameplay and they still have very enjoyable SP.

Halo 3 was dethroned from #1 by CoD4.

Halo 2 was permanently #1 because it was a good game, but also because every other OXBox Live's game's live interface was terrible compared to Halo 2's. Halo 2 essentially became the new Xbox Dashboard for OXbox owners due to it's Y menu.
 

Caja 117

Member
Halo 3 was dethroned from #1 by CoD4.

Halo 2 was permanently #1 because it was a good game, but also because every other OXBox Live's game's live interface was terrible compared to Halo 2's. Halo 2 essentially became the new Xbox Dashboard for OXbox owners due to it's Y menu.

No, Even by the time MW2 was out, Halo 3 was in number one, you can go and check on the numbers in Major Nelson webpage, they should still be there, Believe it, because a lot of CoD fans tried to argue this without knowing the number were there


This is one week a month before MW2 was released:
majornelson.com/2009/10/06/live-activity-for-week-of-sept-28th/

I Couldn't find the wrap up for that year, but, in that webpage also had a top 10 xbl chart of the year and Halo 3 also was on top.

This is for 2008

Http://majornelson.com/2009/01/04/the-top-20-live-games-of-2008/

2009
http://gamerant.com/top-xbox-live-games-2009-robk-6222/
 

DesertFox

Member
I've been with the series since 2001 but after Halo 4, my interest is waning. The campaign of Halo 4 was meh - uninteresting enemies, uninteresting characters (especially Palmer) and Spartan Ops season 1 ended in a story abomination that makes me seriously consider never even playing Halo 5.

As far as multiplayer - they improved some core mechanics over reach (Firing, moving, etc.) but at the cost of adding more armor ability crap, new 1 shot kill weapons, gimped vehicles (plasma pistol on spawn) and adding COD perks. All of these additions are totally unnecessary.

Not sure I have faith in 343 to restore Halo to what it is - instead of further chasing the COD players (and failing to impress either crowd).
 

EGM1966

Member
What is wrong with MS spokespeople at the moment? Why the need to even say this? Halo has already had offshoots and the core fans clearly like most stuff in the Halo Universe be it books, offshoot games like ODST / Reach or whatever.

I'm worn out on the franchise personally but clearly lots aren't and I just don't see why there would even be a need to state something like this. It's defensive where there's no need to be defensive - and it just sounds silly - all this trilogy/sage rubbish. This isn't Lord of the Rings or anything set in stone : they'll keep making Halo set games so long as they sell well and make up new stories (with or without MC) as they do so - why try and legitimize that fact somehow?
 
I've been with the series since 2001 but after Halo 4, my interest is waning. The campaign of Halo 4 was meh - uninteresting enemies, uninteresting characters (especially Palmer) and Spartan Ops season 1 ended in a story abomination that makes me seriously consider never even playing Halo 5.

As far as multiplayer - they improved some core mechanics over reach (Firing, moving, etc.) but at the cost of adding more armor ability crap, new 1 shot kill weapons, gimped vehicles (plasma pistol on spawn) and adding COD perks. All of these additions are totally unnecessary.

Not sure I have faith in 343 to restore Halo to what it is - instead of further chasing the COD players (and failing to impress either crowd).

Please get rid of Palmer. Sorry, she just seemed distracting and horribly flat. And also kind of annoying.
 
this is why no one likes halo 4. copying a franchise that no one cared about until the 4th installment was released? copying a franchise that took people 5 years to acknowledge? c'mon 343, step your game up.

What's really hilarious / sad is that Halo used to be one of the only franchises that could stand toe to toe with COD. Then for some reason 343i thought "Hey let's copy them" the moment they got their hands on the franchise, even if it meant trampling over core principles in the process such as starting all players on equal footing.

This isn't to say COD is bad, but clearly there were a large number of people who liked Halo when it wasn't COD. I simply can't understand thought process of taking a series which had been a trendsetter and starting to turn it into a clone of your competition. What, did 343i think to themselves "wow people like Halo a lot now, if we make it even more like COD we will triple those numbers"?

Because that would be stupid.
 
Jup, and Master Chief should have died at the arc. Would have been an epic ending to the series. Shame MS didn't have the balls.

"The Chief is back" is tbh a good ad tag line. I don't mind, though, just as long as I get a good halo game eventually.

Stinkles, it's great that you've learned lessons from Halo 4, I just really hope you've learned the right ones. Go back to Halo CE, play through it continuously, and don't play any other game (at least not Halo, and deffinately not any CoD), until it's practically done. For multiplayer, well duh. Don't play any multiplayer except that of Halo 2. Improvements are fine, but the soul of multiplayer as it was in 2 needs to be revived.
 
What's really hilarious / sad is that Halo used to be one of the only franchises that could stand toe to toe with COD. Then for some reason 343i thought "Hey let's copy them" the moment they got their hands on the franchise, even if it meant trampling over core principles in the process such as starting all players on equal footing.

This isn't to say COD is bad, but clearly there were a large number of people who liked Halo when it wasn't COD. I simply can't understand thought process of taking a series which had been a trendsetter and starting to turn it into a clone of your competition. What, did 343i think to themselves "wow people like Halo a lot now, if we make it even more like COD we will triple those numbers"?

Because that would be stupid.

Because 343 did something a Halo-maker should never do. They had focus-testers. Thing is, even this might have been fine if only the people tested hadn't been CoD people. Stop appealing to the masses, Frankie. The world loved bungie because bungie made halo for halo fans and for what halo always was. I know you want to make it your own, but you've got to do it with reverence for the project. Look at Eidos with Theif. I don't know how that game will turn out, but it is clear that they wanted to respect the series and it's fans. Go back to your roots. Scratch that, go back to Halo's roots.

EDIT: first double post. :/ sry
 

nbraun80

Member
I don't understand why people want firefight back so badly. It was boring to me. Od much rather have Spartan ops where there is some story and round after round of crap.
 
I don't understand why people want firefight back so badly. It was boring to me. Od much rather have Spartan ops where there is some story and round after round of crap.

Just really enjoyed it, nothing much else to understand or *get*, regardless of how flummoxed you may want to act. Playing with 3 friends online, seeing how far we could get on how high a difficult etc., it was just a really good time. While I enjoyed the cutscene episodes of Spartan ops, I just didn't get anything much out of the gameplay, I'd take back firefight in an instant.

Still love that Halo 4 campaign though, finished on Heroic today, whey.
 
I don't understand why people want firefight back so badly. It was boring to me. Od much rather have Spartan ops where there is some story and round after round of crap.

It's a cool idea, and could be done sooooo much better. Like, if it was done similarly to Gears 3 (maybe even have Epic help out on that, or borrow some people important to that game mode in gears 3), then that would be awesome. As it is, I find it fun, but I get what you're saying. Still, the thought of a Gears 3-eque survival mode could be really cool.
 

TheOddOne

Member
Honest question, what did people think of Spartan Op's level 'Apex'?

H4-SO-S1E10-Apex-02.jpg
 

Gui_PT

Member
I don't understand why people want firefight back so badly. It was boring to me. Od much rather have Spartan ops where there is some story and round after round of crap.

It was challenging. The enemies were smart and fun to fight. Spartan Ops is boring and repetitive and re-uses the levels so much it's depressing.

Let's not forget Firefight would go on forever. There was no limit. It would just get increasingly difficult. Spartan Ops are just a bunch of 15 minute missions on repeat levels.

The story in spartan ops isn't really any good anyway.

Edit: Apex was actually quite fun
 

Caayn

Member
I don't understand why people want firefight back so badly. It was boring to me. Od much rather have Spartan ops where there is some story and round after round of crap.
Firefight was a lot of fun, it offered more variation and replayability than SPOPS.. SPOPS isn't fun as it's the same button pressing mission over and over again, and the same four rotating maps. The story in SPOPS is bad(not bollywood bad, just normal bad) it had way more potentional.

"Hey let's just throw away this shield world into a sun, while there's still an entire Forerunner armada inside of it that we could have used against the humans" - Jull M'Dama.
 

clav

Member
I don't understand why people want firefight back so badly. It was boring to me. Od much rather have Spartan ops where there is some story and round after round of crap.

Firefight felt like an arcade mode. Score points and had a certain number of lives on different areas with quite a difficult but manageable AI.

Spartan OPs just felt like bots with multiplayer maps. Go to a box section to hide loading enemies in the background. Kill a whole bunch of them. Now go to the other side of a map in another closed room. Kill more enemies that just overwhelm you. Repeat x1000000000 times.

Part of the reason why Spartan Ops felt like a chore was the new enemy AI was not particularly fun, and the old enemies we've already seen from the past Halo games. The whole experience felt half-baked and actually unfair in terms of dying so many times.

No one really cares about Halo story for multiplayer. Just make the gameplay fun.


------------------

I think if 343 spends some time nurturing the AI and creates new enemies that are different from the original Halo series yet retain dynamic element of the enemies(i.e. no more formulaic killing flying Promytheans and then the rest), then perhaps there is a chance.

I don't know.

Add upgrades in campaign like Samus does for Metroid. A Master Chief that explores in an open-world rather than follows linear levels from stage 1 to stage last.

Remember how skulls were fun to find? I had fun finding them in Halo Anniversary.

Why not have that in campaign in some form but that changes the game in terms of abilities, not just silly MORE DIFFICULT SETTINGS?
 

LastNac

Member
I don't even know what I want from another Halo personally. Maybe a return to stranger in a strange land and more atmosphere.
 
Because 343 did something a Halo-maker should never do. They had focus-testers. Thing is, even this might have been fine if only the people tested hadn't been CoD people. Stop appealing to the masses, Frankie. The world loved bungie because bungie made halo for halo fans and for what halo always was. I know you want to make it your own, but you've got to do it with reverence for the project. Look at Eidos with Theif. I don't know how that game will turn out, but it is clear that they wanted to respect the series and it's fans. Go back to your roots. Scratch that, go back to Halo's roots.

When it comes to Halo, I think even Bungie struggled to understand what made Halo "Halo". And I think they captured that feeling to different degrees over the years, even if they never managed to nail it like they did with the first game.

And if Bungie struggled with this, how can you expect someone from outside to get it right? The fucked up development of H2 aside, I think the series' biggest failings have come from outsiders such as 343i taking over, or Sage screwing up the sandbox in Reach. In fact, almost any time I've read anything on the subject from 343i I find myself thinking "this is a person who has no idea what they're working with".

I don't understand why people want firefight back so badly. It was boring to me. Od much rather have Spartan ops where there is some story and round after round of crap.

Because it was challenging if you wanted it to be, and it gave you pretty much unlimited access to Halo's single player sandbox for you to go nuts with.

Really you could replace "firefight" with "MP" in your statement and "spartan ops" with "campaign" and it would make just as much sense, since your only reasoning is "I don't like it so why would anyone else?".

No matter what game mode you implement, some will find it boring. The question you should ask yourself is "why do (some) players like this?". It's not too hard to come up with answers for all the different modes.
 

Ushae

Banned
Can never have too much Halo. I guess as long as they keep the momentum of the story, I'll keep coming back to the franchise. There's still a lot of ground to cover in the forerunner arc.
 

Kuroyume

Banned
What is wrong with MS spokespeople at the moment? Why the need to even say this? Halo has already had offshoots and the core fans clearly like most stuff in the Halo Universe be it books, offshoot games like ODST / Reach or whatever.

I'm worn out on the franchise personally but clearly lots aren't and I just don't see why there would even be a need to state something like this. It's defensive where there's no need to be defensive - and it just sounds silly - all this trilogy/sage rubbish. This isn't Lord of the Rings or anything set in stone : they'll keep making Halo set games so long as they sell well and make up new stories (with or without MC) as they do so - why try and legitimize that fact somehow?

Probably using the terms trilogy and saga to make the games look like events that should be noticed.
 

nbraun80

Member
I guess to each his own, I'm just saying its weird to me for people to call spops repetitive and than praise firefight. It may just have to do with me being burnt out on these type of things like firefight, horde mode, zombies, etc. I wasn't saying other people can't enjoy it I was just curious what they like.

I do agree that the re using of levels was disappointing, but I think if they dedicated more resources to making it a nice side story with unique levels and missions it could be very fun.
 
Firefight felt like an arcade mode. Score points and had a certain number of lives on different areas with quite a difficult but manageable AI.

Spartan OPs just felt like bots with multiplayer maps. Go to a box section to hide loading enemies in the background. Kill a whole bunch of them. Now go to the other side of a map in another closed room. Kill more enemies that just overwhelm you. Repeat x1000000000 times.

Part of the reason why Spartan Ops felt like a chore was the new enemy AI was not particularly fun, and the old enemies we've already seen from the past Halo games. The whole experience felt half-baked and actually unfair in terms of dying so many times.

No one really cares about Halo story for multiplayer. Just make the gameplay fun.

I feel the same as you.

Agreed. The Halo lore is so huge that so many interesting stories could be carved out of it.
------------------

I think if 343 spends some time nurturing the AI and creates new enemies that are different from the original Halo series yet retain dynamic element of the enemies(i.e. no more formulaic killing flying Promytheans and then the rest), then perhaps there is a chance.

I don't know.

Add upgrades in campaign like Samus does for Metroid. A Master Chief that explores in an open-world rather than follows linear levels from stage 1 to stage last.

Remember how skulls were fun to find? I had fun finding them in Halo Anniversary.

Why not have that in campaign in some form but that changes the game in terms of abilities, not just silly MORE DIFFICULT SETTINGS?

THIS.
 
I thought Halo 4 had some story potential, but they really squandered the setting. And completely redo the Prometheans. They are terrible. Less interesting, less varied, more bullet-spongey, and just less fun than the Covenant in every way.

I'm not a fan of the loadouts. I think being able to choose your starting grenade, some perk-stuff, and secondary weapon is good, but being able to start with a DMR or Battle Rifle every single life? Shotguns only appearing as air drops? No way.
 
Awesome.

Sounds more like Bi yearly or maybe yearly releases.

Im down! Wish we had a Halo for XBox One launch, eveb uf it was just Halo 4 60FPS 1080 GOTY edition.
 
Awesome.

Sounds more like Bi yearly or maybe yearly releases.

Im down! Wish we had a Halo for XBox One launch, eveb uf it was just Halo 4 60FPS 1080 GOTY edition.

Disappointed as I was with Halo 4, it is a downright pretty game. I'd would definitely rebuy and actually finish the game if this happened.

Make it happen Frankie!

I thought Halo 4 had some story potential, but they really squandered the setting. And completely redo the Prometheans. They are terrible. Less interesting, less varied, more bullet-spongey, and just less fun than the Covenant in every way.

I'm not a fan of the loadouts. I think being able to choose your starting grenade, some perk-stuff, and secondary weapon is good, but being able to start with a DMR or Battle Rifle every single life? Shotguns only appearing as air drops? No way.

says everyone ever who has a drop of sense.
 

Blueblur1

Member
The day 343 realizes that OneShotKill weapons shouldn't be handed out like candy will be the day Halo has hope.

Oh, and when they start buffing vehicles again. Remember when they were relevant in Halo 2/3? After, it just became a game of tanks, and even those could be destroyed by a fucking sniper.

I don't like the way they've "balanced" vehicles either but let's not go crazy. All of the Halo games had vehicle balance issues. Vehicle balance has been far from perfect in every Halo game.
 
I know I just don't see them or how they can get rid of things like that now. They kinda alienated old school fans by introducing it and might alienate the newer fans they created if they get rid of iym

That could be an issue, sure, but I just don't really think it's big enough. If enough people say that yes indeed they have gone back to the good old ways, then there are a lot of Halo fans that would return. If you screw up trust, you don't fix it by continuing in the direction your going. That way, while some may be happy, most people will not, and nobody will respect you. 343 would gain my respect
(and my money)
by going in again but this time with more reverence for what halo is.

It's like a really good painting. Da Vinci could never quite paint another Mona Lisa, but nobody was asking him to. He was a great artist because he didn't try to just copy the Mona Lisa, instead he did what he did best, in the same style and same personality. Nobody who understands this is asking 343 to make another CE. If da Vinci had tried to copy the Mona Lisa, he might have gotten close, but it wouldn't be the same, and who would even care. 343 already recreated CE, and it was pretty cool, but they have to do something on their own, and they tried, but doing something your own without the proper respect and reverence and style and personality that made the original so great is simply going to result in a bad finished product.
 

Gui_PT

Member
I know I just don't see them or how they can get rid of things like that now. They kinda alienated old school fans by introducing it and might alienate the newer fans they created if they get rid of iym

If they remove AAs and personalized loadouts for Halo 5, I will punch my own gonads
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Those of you who say Halo 4 was a good game; how often do you play it?

4000+ H3 games.
500 Reach games.
100+ H4 games.

If I had the time, I would play H4 more often. I was in college when I had H3, and I was still in college during Reach. Now I work about 50 hours a week, and lead a much healthier lifestyle.

I don't want to trash Reach, but there is just something about Reach that just made me angry and depressed that a game I waited for so long wasn't half as good as the previous one. H4 was a steer in the right direction when it came to graphics, art, story, and even some aspects of MP. I trust 343 to get the MP right next time; they seem to care a lot about player feedback.
 
Honestly the only problems I have with Halo 4 multiplayer is that damned scoped rifle makes it impossible to even bother with other weapons since everyone else is using that to kill people from wide range and the other thing is the lack of Banshees in big team objectives. I also would like to see bigger teams.
 

reddmyst

Member
Halo is probably the only game that'll entice me to get the xbone. Although, I hope the new IPs would prove me wrong.
 

Tzeentch

Member
I thought it was amusing/sad that they knew the feedback from the Halo 2 Brutes was that bullet sponges were not fun ... and then made even more uninteresting bullet sponges for 4.

And Palmer. Ugh. They seem to have double-downed on that character though. Good luck trying to ram that martinet down our throats even if she is your writers Mary Sue. I'm a former Marine, she's just an insulting parody of a military officer.

Huh. Can't even get worked up over all this though. Halo 4 campaign was fun in a mediocre way, I enjoy the soundtrack (still listen to that occasionally), Spartan Ops had (squandered) potential, and it finally looked like the developers were taking graphics seriously ... but I'll just rent the next Halo games.
 
I thought it was amusing/sad that they knew the feedback from the Halo 2 Brutes was that bullet sponges were not fun ... and then made even more uninteresting bullet sponges for 4.

And Palmer. Ugh. They seem to have double-downed on that character though. Good luck trying to ram that martinet down our throats even if she is your writers Mary Sue. I'm a former Marine, she's just an insulting parody of a military officer.

Huh. Can't even get worked up over all this though. Halo 4 campaign was fun in a mediocre way, I enjoy the soundtrack (still listen to that occasionally), Spartan Ops had (squandered) potential, and it finally looked like the developers were taking graphics seriously ... but I'll just rent the next Halo games.

I REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAALLY hope they bring back brutes. The thought of not getting to take down a chieftain dude and steel his hammar is really disappointing.

The Brutes in Reach, I thought, were very well balanced.

Yes, please get rid of Palmer. Kill her off, if you have to. Seriously, she doesn't deserve a place in the story. I'm sick of people putting females in certain roles where they don't belong just to put a female in the story (not saying a female can't fill that role, or even well for that matter, but a guy would probably do a better job of not being so annoying. Not by default, but easier to work with in that role). The writers in 4 were just kinda bad.

My worst complaint about the characters in Halo 4 is just that they really didn't seem all that....halo-y.
 
If they remove AAs and personalized loadouts for Halo 5, I will punch my own gonads

The problem wasnt with personlized loadouts or the AAs IMO. The problem was that 343 felt like they need a lot of them to keep players invested with XP grind. If the personlized loadouts had just consisted of the BR/AR/Carbine with the Pistol and regular nades it would have been fine. But they needed more weapons in there so that they could have "unlock targets" kinda like CoD did.

So you end up with weapons that people should have any business spawning with like Sticky nades, PP, shotgun etc.
 

clav

Member
I don't know how to describe it but the soundtrack has too many moving parts, no real distinctive sections (except 117).

The track is a play on the original Halo theme along with the heavy string sighs, hence why the veteran players seem to like it.

Everyone misses the Marty piano.
 
Most people seem to dislike the soundtrack but I really enjoyed it

I don't dislike it, but I see why people do. It doesn't seem as epic and, like adventure-y and yet sad and yet kinda awe inspiring. Tbh I really think that the original score could have been done a lot better (great themes, bad orchestration). I know quite a bit about music. Davidge doesn't appear to know quite what he's doing. I can kinda see what he's going for (like with Green and Blue or whatever that's called), but he just kinda misses it. I wish they'd get someone more experienced in this. I have no idea if John Powell does video games, but I think he could collaborate with someone on this. Or Zimmer. He's done some, and he can be very good with capturing the tone of something someone else has done. Idk, Davidge was horrible, but they need someone a little more experienced. I mean, this is halo after all.

The track is a play on the Halo theme, hence why the veteran players seem to like it.

Everyone misses the Marty piano.

It is? Well, that may be part of it, but it really is a very good track. Ironic that Davidge had absolutely nothing to do with that particular tack.

---

Everyone misses the piano, eh? Good, point I do too. I think they also miss Marty's drums. I say "eh" because Hans Zimmer (who I mentioned above) is fantastic with piano and drums. He just hasn't done either for a while :(. I would die if I ever saw his name on the credits. And it isn't as if Microsoft would never go for that either. I mean, I doubt they will, but as of the whole Spielberg thing (limited as his role may turn out to be) MS doesn't seem to be all that afraid of the big boys in hollywood.

Also, Zimmer just really understands music very well.
 

clav

Member
I don't dislike it, but I see why people do. It doesn't seem as epic and, like adventure-y and yet sad and yet kinda awe inspiring. Tbh I really think that the original score could have been done a lot better (great themes, bad orchestration). I know quite a bit about music. Davidge doesn't appear to know quite what he's doing. I can kinda see what he's going for (like with Green and Blue or whatever that's called), but he just kinda misses it. I wish they'd get someone more experienced in this. I have no idea if John Powell does video games, but I think he could collaborate with someone on this. Or Zimmer. He's done some, and he can be very good with capturing the tone of something someone else has done. Idk, Davidge was horrible, but they need someone a little more experienced. I mean, this is halo after all.



It is? Well, that may be part of it, but it really is a very good track. Ironic that Davidge had absolutely nothing to do with that particular tack.

---

Everyone misses the piano, eh? Good, point I do too. I think they also miss Marty's drums. I say "eh" because Hans Zimmer (who I mentioned above) is fantastic with piano and drums. He just hasn't done either for a while :(. I would die if I ever saw his name on the credits. And it isn't as if Microsoft would never go for that either. I mean, I doubt they will, but as of the whole Spielberg thing (limited as his role may turn out to be) MS doesn't seem to be all that afraid of the big boys in hollywood.

Also, Zimmer just really understands music very well.
Zimmer also did MW2, which really sounds like a play with the Dark Knight soundtrack.

Halo becoming like COD oh no
 
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