Halo 3 Beta

[miffy495]

Well, it's live now. As I've been playing pretty much nothing but Crackdown and Guitar Hero on my 360 for quite a while now, I figured I'd give it a spin for variety's sake, despite never really having been into Halo.

Meh, it's a shooter. That's about all I can say about it. I booted up the game, played and won a few rounds, and then promptly booted Guitar Hero back up. I'm trying to see what all the fuss is about, I really am. I even made a point to use things like the Bubble shield to see what kinds of dimensions and strategy they added to the gameplay. I just came away feeling like it's nothing special. It was kinda fun for a couple of rounds, sure, but how it can be the staple of someone's gaming collection I have no idea.

I know there are a bunch of other Crackdown fans on the Thumb, and I was wondering how many of you have given it a shot. Could they or anyone who's been really into multiplayer Halo 2 back in the day please try to explain the appeal to me. I'm trying, really I am, but I just can't see what makes this game significantly different from anything else out there. I've got Perfect Dark Zero collecting dust somewhere and I think I may actually get a deeper multiplayer experience if I tried that out than I do with the Halo 3 beta.

[brkl]

I never understood Halo. It's just a bland shooter. Trying out Halo 2 co-operative mode is 30 minutes of my life I want back.

[toblix]

The only reason I liked Halo was because of the totally awesome car physics. There was nothing like it in any other game. But now that even text adventures have totally awesome vehicle physics Halo is pretty lame.

[Redwall]

I think that most of the Halo fanatics aren't really gamers in the traditional sense, they're just preteens/teens for whom the Xbox was their first console, and Halo was their first FPS. The one thing the Xbox did right was attract that crowd of pubescent boys who are concerned about appearing "hardcore"/"cool" but are still conditioned by conventional morality to not be comfortable playing, say, GTA, but are fine with killing aliens to save the world. (Of course, the Xbox turned off pretty much everyone else, so...)

[DanJW]

Halo went ballistic because it was the first console FPS that worked, with a decent control scheme and mechanics that fit the pace required of a console. As long it still feels smooth, that's all that's required really. Most devs making FPS games for console still haven't got it.

PS playing Halo on PC really shows you how different PC and console FPS are.

I watched a video of halo 3 yesterday and wound up thinking "it still doesn't look as much fun as counterstrike or quake".

[Aussie Ben]

I suppose the whole "playing any first person shooter ever causes me to get throbbing painful headaches" thing could be one reason why I'm not too interested in the genre, but I really don't find any FPS at all to be my cup of tea. My most enjoyable First Person Experience was Simpsons Doom. Attempting to play Perfect Dark Zero (which I got bundled with the console) looked like it would be fun and I got through level one and two but then the whole motion sickness kicked in again.

The only thing I remember about watching Half-Life 2 was seeing some guy sweeping with a broom. Halo 2 multiplayer was me trying to find that purple thing that killed everyone it touched, and then having to stop playing the game because of the whole feeling sick thing and looking like I'm quitting because I'm losing. It wasn't that at all, I think I was doing quite well.

So yeah. Me + First Person Shooter of Any Type = Not To Be

[Noyb]

I'm having fun with the beta, but then again I guess you can call me a fan of the multiplayer. (Bungie.net records me as having played 3,800 games of Halo 2 online )

The most fun I've had with Halo comes from playing multiplayer objective matches with a team of friends I know well. Something just clicks for me when I'm on a team that's communicating well, covering each other, adapting to the changing combat situations. It's much less enjoyable playing with random, profanity-spewing wankers online. After a certain skill level, a good bit of strategy is needed to succeed online: knowing the map, proper positioning, base assault/defense tactics, weapon strengths, etc.

To be fair, I was only into Counter-Strike for about half a year. I tried going back into it after Source came out, and got completely massacred, only killing about 4-5 guys in an hour of playtime. One thing Bungie got right in Halo is the matchmaking system, which matches you against another team at roughly the same skill level, which makes for tighter/closer matches after a bit of calibration period. I like that Halo is a bit slower, less twitchy than Counter-Strike or Unreal Tournament (which I also liked for a bit, but didn't stick with for nearly as long). Of course, by that same reasoning, I should be absolutely mad about Gears of War multiplayer. Didn't really give it enough of a chance, possibly because by that time Halo had been so comfortable and familiar to me.

I agree, Halo's single player is pretty weak both in terms of repetition and story. The first game was infamous for monotonous levels that were recycled heavily in the endgame. The second one tried to tell a deeper story involving religious dogma and civil war, but still fell into the old trap of hoping that the gamer will mistake vagueness for profundity. Not to mention the "ending" which wasn't so much a buildup to the sequel as it was waiting for the next level to load and seeing the credits instead.

[miffy495]

The most fun I've had with Halo comes from playing multiplayer objective matches with a team of friends I know well. Something just clicks for me when I'm on a team that's communicating well, covering each other, adapting to the changing combat situations. It's much less enjoyable playing with random, profanity-spewing wankers online. After a certain skill level, a good bit of strategy is needed to succeed online: knowing the map, proper positioning, base assault/defense tactics, weapon strengths, etc.

See, now that actually does sound kinda fun. Maybe not something I'd be completely willing to invest the required time to enjoy, but still fun. Problem is the matchmaking. As I'm new, it just keeps on pairing me with said "profanity-spewing wankers" and I just keep on mowing through them. Not so fun.