/vr/ - Retro Games

Because its too kino

?
eh a pertty cool guy

it's hard not to seethe over one of the dullest franchises in the history of FPS franchises. Seriously each episode following the space marine and his pals from the UNSC as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the slow gameplay, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of mechanics, all to make movement molasses, to make bullets seem magnetic.

Perhaps the die was cast when Bungie vetoed the idea of Apple funding the series; they made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody, just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for directx. The Halo series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-Perfect Dark series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to with 343i.

>a-at least the single player was good though
"No!"
The level design is dreadful; the single player was terrible. As I played, I noticed that every time I went for a walk, the designer instead put an un-involved corridor in my path.

I began marking on the back of an envelope every time a corridor was encountered. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Bungie's mind is so governed by cliches and flat topography that they have no other style of gameplay. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Halo by the same Jason West. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are playing Halo at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to play Call of Duty." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you play "Halo” you are, in fact, trained to play Call of Duty.

"I wanted to make a party game with shooter mechanics...I really wanted it to be as simple as possible, I wanted it to be as accessible as possible"
-Hardy LeBel, lead designer of halo CE

It's Quake, but in slow motion.

Xbox was the best console of its gen (and best Xbox console).
People who didn't have one take their envy out on Mister Chief.

>>7114002
haha

Never played FPS games prior to Halo, was never really interested, I enjoy the game at face value and don't give a crap about the multiplayer.

Halo was tight as fuck and 2's multiplayer was iconic. Sour grapes is the only plausible explanation for hating on either of them

>>7113865
eh kills aliens and dosen't afraid of anything

better tgan GoldenEye and Perfect Dark

>>7113865
Because it was fun and showed console FPS were viable.

>>7114002
it makes no sense. cod has always been gay a true halo player would never go and play cock of doomie you're gay for even implying 1v1 me faggot lockout slayer no gay mlg shit

>>7113865
On /vr/? Because pic related. It's literally synonymous with everything /vr/ isn't about

When he became popular, he not only attracted many fans, but also contrarians.

halo is a pretty cool guy, he ruins /vr/ and doesn't afraid of anything

Because Halo is Marathon with all the pretension and none of the charm.

>>7113865
I personally enjoy the Halo games for what they are, but even at the time of release, among the PC audience they were controversial, as their release marked the end of PC dominance over the FPS genre.

Consoles had FPS games before (Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, MoH come to mind) but for whatever reason, those that came before were nowhere near as influential as the Halo series.

After Halo released, you started to see the following:
>2-weapon limits (previous games like Half-Life and Doom let you carry an entire arsenal)
>Regenerating health/armor system instead of healthpacks
>Slower, floatier movement, with gratuitous autoaim (easier to control with a gamepad)
>Matchmaking systems instead of dedicated servers + server browser

What really upsets people is that this didn't only affect console games. Halo's success led to FPS games becoming multiplatform as a matter of course, with console as the new primary platform. Subgenres with limited appeal to console players (such as arena FPS) completely disappeared from the AAA scene. Countless series dumbed down their design (technical and otherwise) to work on consoles and appeal to console audiences; see Deus Ex IW for a prime example of this.

Ultimately, Halo "dumbed down" some core FPS mechanics for the sake of accessibility, and its influence is still clear today. To those of us who miss the era of arena shooters and hate the movement away from dedicated servers/modding tools/server browsers towards matchmaking (pioneered in Halo 2), this influence is generally seen as bad. That's why people seethe over Halo.

>>7113865
>Why does he make people seethe so much?
If I had to guess it's because Halo was a big reason normie dude bros got into gaming and anons didn't like them encroaching on their territory.

>>7113865
same problem as botw.
marketing and word of mouth made it seem like the best game ever, but once you play it you discover it kinda sucked.
it legit made it seem like reviewers got paid to shill it and for everyone else it was their "first fps".

if anything halo really nailed it home that if a game REALLY popular, there's probably blatantly wrong with it to appeal to the masses. in this case 2 weapons only, slow/floatly movement, auto aim, regenerating health, poor ai and linear/repetitive level design.

>>7114686
>for everyone else it was their "first fps".
No that was doom

>>7114686
>poor AI
False as fuck

>>7113865
quakedads seethe over halo because they think it was the end of the genre as they knew it.

halo lorefags seethe over chief because they jerk off to the covenant porn and identify as the squid faced samurai faggots while doing it.

>>7114726
>Literally kills arena shooters dead
>Haha, the deluded quakedads
This is why adding 6th gen to /vr/ was a mistake. There should be a separate board for it and keeping /vr/ locked at 2000 year mark, rather than the endless chase after "muh retro"

>>7114080
It's Quake, but if it had entirely different gameplay, level design and story/setting.

>>7114686
>in this case 2 weapons only,
This isn't a bad thing. Halo isn't fucking Doom and wasn't trying to be.
>auto aim
Turn it off you lazy nigger
>regenerating health
Not a bad thing, it forces you not to play like a retard
>poor ai
lmao wrong
>linear/repetitive level design
Yet PCucks jerk off over Half-life, the most linear FPS every made.

>>7114002
based

>>7114770
halo was an arena shooter anon.

just because you couldn't carry more than 2 weapons and had a shield doesn't change the fact that it had almost all the hallmarks of an arena shooter.

>>7114887
>regenerating health
>Not a bad thing, it forces you not to play like a retard
It enables playing like a retard.

>>7114669
What makes that stranger still is Goldeneye sold more copies then Halo and the respective consoles too, weird really.

>>7115179
>a mechanic that forces you to use cover when you're hurt really bad enables you to play like a retard.
not him but do the people who complain about this type of shit play on easy or something? because it doesn't matter as much on higher difficulties.

i bet you complain about hitscanners too.

>>7115195
You shouldn't be taking damage in the first place and regen allows you to just wait and heal behind cover to make up for your shitty playing.

>>7114231
This

>>7115202
>You shouldn't be taking damage in the first place
you're absolutely right and that's why you're supposed to use COVER which i know seems to be such an alien concept for you.

>>7115234
That's not what he means. Regen health means you aren't properly punished for making stupid mistakes.

>>7115253
dying because you thought you could be rambo is not properly punishing you for failing?

health regen is rarely the way most people complain about it on anything above easy or normal and in some games like CoD it's practically non-existent on higher difficulties since most enemies can one-shot you on hard or veteran.

>>7113865
>Doom/Quake fans
Not Doom or Quake, two weapons, pace is slower, health regen in 2
>Pathways/Marathon fans
Absolutely HATED that Bungie left Mac in the lurch and went to work for Microsoft
>CoD/Gears fans
Natural opposition on MP side and probably disliked the shit talking their single player campaigns got in comparison
>Halo fans
Early on there were high expectations for unified world vision, but the books went one way, games another and there was never any enforced art direction or plot; this was compounded when 343i took over and everything went even further into the hole

>>7115594
>there was never any enforced art direction or plot; this was compounded when 343i took over and everything went even further into the hole
going through the MCC i can confirm this.

1, ODST, reach & 4 play pretty different from 2 & 3 and the artstyle is all over the place.

>>7115684
Yeah it's pretty crazy. Setting the book stuff aside, the art shifts essentially happened every game with only 3 and ODST bearing out in visual similarity, and the adherence of gameplay to balance for multiplayer meant the story's finer details can't hold water.
>CE
>Assault Rifle, Pistol, Shotgun all powerhouses
>2
>Assault Rifle replaced with Battle Rifle, Pistol is the most laughable pea shooter compared to CE's hand cannon, Shotgun is gimped shit
>3
>Assault Rifle is suddenly back with half the ammo+2, Pistol and Shotgun are slightly better garbage now
They should have kept SP weapons distinct from MP, in my opinion

>>7116206
aside from the original CE & H2 they've at least tried to keep the artstyle consistent in recent years with the hopes of infinite being a more unifying style

CEA & reach have a more realistic artstyle and UNSC stuff tends to be more closer to modern military in terms of looks

H2A, H3 & ODST have more or less the same artstyle which people tend to identify with halo or is iconic enough at the very least where the wars games tend to copy it

H4 & H5 have a more generic high sci-fi look that has more in common with mass effect or tron than halo and spartan armor looks garishly overdesigned

>>7115253
>Regen health means you aren't properly punished for making stupid mistakes.
>what is going guns blazing, getting your shield killed in a few seconds and dying instantly
Why do Halo critics always talk like they've only played on easy or only know Halo secondhand?
>Penny Arcuck
I swear to god those unfunny niggers are the root of Halo getting shit on.

>>7116371
>Why do Halo critics always talk like they've only played on easy
because most of them have this mindset that cover is for pussies and think that they're the star of their own action movie.

as i said earlier i genuinely wouldn't be surprised if these guys were the same people who cry about hitscanners being "artificial difficulty".

>>7113865
I like it. I replay it every couple years.

>>7113865
He doesn't talk like a bitch like they are used to.

it’s just old gen x geezers who get mad because it’s not doom, not my childhood therefore bad

also this site doesn’t like it when people enjoy things that they personally don’t

>>7113865
Because all the numales who played shooters like doom and quake were bullied off xbl by chad 12yr old bois

>>7113865
What's a good website to download Xbox games?

>>7116206
>>7115594
honestly i don't get the appeal of halo's EU. what i've seen is either really boring or ruins the games in some way or another.

>>7114002
>it’s certainly the anti-Perfect Dark series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement.
get your eyes checked m8, the halo, truth and reconciliation, cartographer, and assault on the control center missions were the best of the bunch in terms of wonder. After that it is AIDS until the last one.

When I was younger I ree'd about how it was dummied-down shit compared to Doom and Quake despite never playing them.

As I got older, I stopped caring about it entirely.

Then, I played the games and found they were fantastic.

>>7113865
Unironically speaking, what exactly makes the Xbox a console so hard to emulate?

>>7113865
Hard to explain
I think because its a good shooter and a peaceful environment that isn't like copying real life. Like battlefield or cod.

>>7118567
Halo is fun,, it's a good co-op shooter to get messed up with your friends and play together. I'd argue that other developers took the regenerating shield concept way too far and that's why so many fps gatekeeping nerds hate it. I will agree with them on the point that regenerating health ruined a ton of modern tactical shooters, though.

Started/popularized the trend of 2 weapons and regenerating health that helped ruin FPS games for the next 15 years.

>>7118567
Do that more, you'll find having an informed opinion based on what you've actually played makes you more informed than others. Halo in particular seems to get shat on by people who only played it pnce for one level or even not at all.

>>7119257
Blame the trend chasing publishers and developers for that. Halo didn't force them to do shit.

>>7114669
Most respectable opinion I’ve heard on disliking Halo

>>7113886
who doesn't afraid of anything

>>7118264
Its been awhile since I read them but generally speaking I found the Nylund books in line with Bungie's story, and they had fun power armor antics. Contact Harvest was also alright, but Cole Protocol and The Flood were rather poor.
I can only speak a little bit to the ones written under 343's reign. IMO the Forerunner stuff was better off as a mystery, and Karen Traviss' novels were incredibly poor and against the spirit of what she was handed. Spartans acting like stormtroopers, Halsey going from confident bitch to limp wristed hysterics, that kinda thing.
The extended stuff like the anime or comics, I can agree with you there. Again they fall prey to inconsistency in both plot and art.
Its just a shame, as I think the setting has a lot of potential but no one has really taken full advantage yet.
>>7116368
It'll be interesting to see where the series goes from Infinite. I wonder if any of the rumors about Microsoft cracking down on 343 are true.

Shields are gay and only the magnum and sniper rifle are able to get headshots lol. It's fun when you're young and playing with friends, but as an adult it is hard to take it seriously.

>>7113865
Halo would rape Samus and make her his bitch for life if the two ever met.

>>7113865
It doesn't irl. I've only seen complains and screeching on 4chan, it's a meme desu.

>>7122203
you mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL-mR79GErU

>>7114669
2-weapon limit, regenerating health, autoaim, and slower movement happened because of COD/Medal of Honor games.

Halo 1 didn't even have regenerating health. It had a temporary shield (that dropped to nothing in 2 hits if you played on anything but easy mode), and you had health. The shield could regenerate but it only meant you didn't lose health if you got attacked by an enemy you didn't see. Health did not regenerate, and you actually did have to backtrack for health packs sometimes, or try to reach the next checkpoint with only your shields left.

It was Halo 2 that had fully regenerating everything, but it copied it from the other games.

>>7121163
i honestly wouldn't mind seeing microsoft disband 343 and hand halo off to id or arkane at this point

>Halsey going from confident bitch to limp wristed hysterics, that kinda thing.
given that the only times you see her in games are reach, 4 & 5 i didn't really notice anything different but it's weird how she's this war criminal all of the sudden when the UNSC was fully aware of the spartan 2's origins.

>Spartans acting like stormtroopers
think of it like super sayian in dragonball and how it stopped being special.

chief was a badass because he was essentially the last of his kind once they retconned a bunch of his old spartan 2 buddies alive and brought in the spartan 4s almost everything that made chief special wasn't special anymore.

>>7119257
>>7120801
the funny part is that the genre was already moving away from the quake & doomclones well before halo came along with half-life, MoH and a few others.

if it wasn't halo >>7114669 along with most quakedads would be bitching about something else.

>>7115191
I think it was Halo 2 and Xbox Live that really made the impact. Before that, Halo was just another good console FPS with really fun split-screen multiplayer. Probably would be remembered just like Goldeneye if they stopped there.

When I got an Xbox for Christmas 2002, I also got Halo and a few other games. I hardly played Halo for the first couple of years, as it seemed like just another generic FPS with pretty graphics and repetitive level design. Really I spent most of my Xbox time on JSRF, Sega GT 2002, and MGS2. Halo was for when friends were over and we wanted to play something splitscreen.

Halo 2 and Xbox Live changed everything. The hype around it was absolutely massive when it launched in 2004, and the launch was unbelievably successful. I was in middle school at the time and nearly every kid at school got an Xbox and XBL after Halo 2 released. Before Halo 2, the Xbox was still trying to find its niche and was known as a console for PC crossovers and Sega sequels. The PS2 was kicking its ass (and ultimately still did, in the end, if sales are anything to go by), but Halo 2 marked a turning point in the industry.

But I also think >>7124115 is right: if it weren't Halo 2, it would have been another game. The worst influences all came from XBL (forced matchmaking, DLC, no dedicated servers/modding) and the changes specific to make FPS work well on console (autoaim, slower movement, etc). These changes were inevitably coming, the console market was just too large.

>>7120801
Thanks, but like I said, I don't even dislike Halo: I had a blast playing it with friends when it came out, and hung out at the local gaming cafe for the Halo 2 release. The addition of vehicles + arena FPS mechanics makes for a lot of fun, and Halo is the most populated FPS with these features (UT2004 being a distant 2nd, with Tribes being an even more distant 3rd). I only wish that these sorts of games had more players.

>>7124236
pic related, the Halo 2 launch in 2004

>>7114669
There have been multiple arena shooters made after Halo. The reason you never see them anymore is because you niggers keep going on about how much you want a new arena shooter but then insult anything that isn't a 1:1 copy of Quake 3 because what you really want is a fucking time machine to go back to when you were actually happy and not some whiny nimrod who can't deal with the fact it isn't 1999 anymore.

>>7124324
>you niggers keep going on about how much you want a new arena shooter but then insult anything that isn't a 1:1 copy of Quake 3

I agree this is a major problem in the AFPS community. Part of the reason the genre remains dead is the devs listen to those people too much, along with trying to chase the eSports dollar, instead of making shit that's actually fun. The "it has to be exactly like Quake 3 CPMA" tryhards have always been an audience of 1000 people total, and "eSports" people are all too busy playing CS, Valorant, or CoD already.

The main draw of most arena FPS games was actually their casual and modding communities, which are completely ignored by modern devs and most remaining players. Most didn't play the tryhard shit like Quake 3 duels, they were doing FFA on Simpsons maps or playing Rocket Arena.

Halo came the closest to recognizing this fact about the AFPS audience and that's probably why it has so much staying power. It has customization options (Forge, custom gamemodes, etc) that other "modern" games in the genre lack, and just seems to focus more on fun, in general.

Unreal Tournament 4 also seemed like it was going to break this trend, by focusing the game around custom content, but it stopped development in pre-alpha when Epic moved all their resources to Fortnite, which was unfortunate.

I'm less upset that it isn't 1999 anymore and more upset about the direction the industry (and community) has taken in general since then. The future in 1999 looked really bright; it was the glory days of modding and nascent game communities forming online. Since then, everything has become consolidated and sanitized, going from the beautiful anarchy of self-hosted mods, dedicated servers, and forums, to a highly-controlled system of workshop mods (if any at all), matchmaking (with preset playlists), and "official subreddits" being where 99% of discussion occurs.

>>7124324
basically this.

i can't even begin to count the amount of arena shooter revivals that have come & gone because quakedads slept on them because they didn't have "quake" or "unreal" in the title.

people like to blame the halos & call of dutys for why arena shooters are dead but the reality is that nobody but the 900 or so people who still cling on to Q3 or UT actually want them and even then their not gonna want to play the because they aren't 1:1 recreations of what they're used to.

QC & UT4 were the last best attempts at a revival and they're fucking dead.