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Monday, January 03, 2005
Just not sure about Halo2 After living through GTA for the last few months, I finally started playing it like a game, rather than a way of life. By doing that, I finished it pretty quickly. (which reminds me, I gotta write down the blog posts about the Riot levels and how the jetpack hurts gameplay). I've written a few posts that pissed people off. Very few, actually, because I'm a pretty amiable guy in general (although, the Apple guys probably have me on a bad list by now). Either way, I'll probably upset some people on this one. I've started playing Halo2 now, and I just don't get it. I mean, I'm running around again, shooting things again. Remember how Halo (the first one) started off with you on a space ship being overrun by the alien baddies? Guess how the second one starts out? Don't get me wrong, I like being able to wield two weapons (although I don't see why that's better than wielding all the weapons I pick up, a la Doom, Quake, GTA, and just about any other action game), and I like being able to drive vehicles without worrying about their physics model. And, sure, it's pretty and all that. . . but. . . it's the same old stuff. I mean, okay, I'm not very far into it yet. I haven't found out what the "flood" is or any of the cool storyline. But I guess that's the point. I've got almost no interest in finding out about the storyline. The game is linear as all hell, with the same baddies jumping out at you and the same weapons all over again. I think it's the linear thing that really gets me. Maybe three months of GTA has spoiled me to linear gameplay, but it just feels like . . this is gonna sound weird . . it feels like a street luge game. There's only one direction to go, and if you go fast, you don't even have to worry about obstacles in your path. A couple of times, I just ran past the wall of teeming enemies that stood as the only thing between me and my goal. Of course, then I just ran through the next wall of teeming enemies that stood as the only . . . blah blah blah. Oh, and yes, I am playing on the "easy" difficulty level. Rail on me all you want, but I don't think a bad game is made better by me dying more often. Now, despite the "sameness" of the game, I really do like the cutscenes. Remember back in the old days of graphical text adventures? Back in those days, the gameplay would be the same in every level, but you'd play through just to see the cutscenes. Like letting Leisure Suit Larry walk out into traffic because they had that cool LSL factory floor cutscene. On the games with bad puzzles or graphics, people didn't play for the games, they played just to get to the cutscenes. I feel like I'm doing that now. I'm not playing because I enjoy the game. I'm playing so that I can get to the cool bit. But I'm progressively more afraid that the cool bit is going to be just like the other bits. Like the story is the only thing that makes this one any different from Halo1. Am I wrong about this? Is there light at the end of the "Day on the beach" level? Say it's not all just running through a linear path, shooting down the same old guys. Say it ain't so! - posted by BrandG @ 11:56 PM  
Comments:
A few thoughts : Yes, a bad game is not made worse by dying more, but a good game can be made worse by removing all challenge.
Dual-wield is cool, there are new aliens to fight, you get to play an alien (including camo armor), new vehicles (including more flying which I love), and the ability to play online. I don't to sound like a shill for the game, but I know I have enjoyed it! /TT
Regarding challenges. I agree that if a game is good, a difficulty level can make the game more challenging. But, from what I can tell, a higher difficulty level would just mean that the enemies take the damage of one hit for every two. I mean, the game itself wouldn't fundamentally change.
If you've played CounterStrike, you probably know how much tactics comes into it. Knowing the map, checking the corners, knowing your weapons, these are all crucial features to the game. In Halo2, it seems like there are only three weapons, single-shots, rapid-fire ammo-guzzlers, and overheaters. Also, it seems like there's no real knowing the map, because they are all just linear paths. This kind of stuff won't change with a difficulty level, which is why I say the only difference would be how often I die. I guess dual-wield is cool, but I hate having so much of my screen occluded by those huge freaking weapons. I haven't got to any new weapons (except for the dragonfly things that I really hated). I haven't seen the camo armor, or the new vehicles, so I guess the game could pick up. It just doesn't feel like it's any better than Halo1. Maybe it is just me, maybe I'm just not into the same run-and-gun FPS's that are all around, but I think I had more fun playing Doom3. At least there, there was a horror element to the game. By the way, I'm totally prepared to admit I'm wrong. I mean, I feel kinda bad writing a semi-review without having played through the game. Still, I just can't shake the feeling that I'm playing just to get through it.
Okay, so this is the second post saying that it's all in my head, and the game is just fine. Cool. I can take that.
Although, I notice that both of you have referred to it's use as a network game. Is that really what this is about? Is the appeal really just that it's a great party frag game?
You're feelings about Halo 2 are resonating across the gaming industry as a whole.
It's more of the same, prettier, but that's just about it. I think current issue of PCMag has made a reference to this, that they're trying for some "creativity" by making some forums for the best game makers to meet and discuss what's on their plate. Well, we all know gaming has become BIG BUSINESS. Now some of these games (have you see the list of help for GTA??? it's huge!) have become huge production houses. These people all want to make something that works, so if it ain't "broke, don't fix it" is pervailing. I has to as these games are become more complex. Larger complexity that is, more "bad guys" or more "guns to blow up bad guys", or more arenas or areas to explore. But I think GTA is linear (not as Halo 2 of course), as well. There are parts of the storyline that come together that you can't progress past until you finish, for example, running that hoopty(sp?) race with Cesar. At least for me, there was no way out until I beat that one, straight. Oh well. Still better than your typical run through this gauntlet and arrange this puzzle one way to progress. That being said, I think the next step up (other than better game boxes) is to start mixing some of the story lines. For example, why can't we use one gigant city in different types of games? GTA's city could work for same other "alien invading" type of games out there. Perhaps one company could focus on building the cities, and sell city plans to game makers, where they can focus on cut screens and game play. I don't know, but I know there's one thing is for sure, there's a lot of redudant teams in the gaming industry that perhaps some sharing could free up for more detail somewehre else. Wouldn't it be cool if in GTA your character could go around breaking into many homes, instead of just one or two there or there sprinkled around the town? Just some thoughts, nice blog.
Oh, thank God. I was starting to get that nervous suspicion that I was losing touch with gaming in general. Like when you hear kids gushing about the lastest Pokemon Mauve, and you think, "What the hell? If that's a good game, maybe I'm too old. Maybe I'm losing touch with games."
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I mean, I was watching G4 earlier and they just ejaculated joy about Halo2, without ever talking about the things they liked, or what made it better than, just for arguments sake, Halo1. I'm not saying it's a bad game, I'm just saying that it's the same game I bought several years ago, and I was starting to think I'm the only one who wasn't blissed out about it. >>"But I think GTA is linear . . . There are parts of the storyline that come together that you can't progress past until you finish" I see what you mean, and you're right about that. But in GTA, these limitations are storyline choke points. If you decide to completely ignore the story, you can still go to the tournament races, courier missions, pimping, vigilante, paramedic, cab driver, etc. I suppose that in any game where you have a story, one thing has to come before another one (the causality of gameplay). Therefore, there is a certain amount of linear gameplay. But in GTA, you can go anywhere, you can play any number of other minigames before you do the chokepoint missions. In Halo2, you can't even step off the path. I like the idea of mixing resources from games. A kind of abandonware sharing. What if, after GTA makes a googleplex of dollars, they decide to offer certain licences. At the fifty-dollar license level, they would give you access to all the textures, meshes, and animations used in the games. People could build new games on their own, using these assets, but they would have to make their own engine. At the $1,000 level, they give you the source code for the engine used for the PS2 game, as well as all the links, meshes, animations, and textures. That way, you could start off from day one, making your own mod of GTA. At the $2,000 level, they would give you access to all the ports, so that your GTA game would work on PS2, XBox, and whatever other platforms they support. Now, assume that everybody did this, and you could mix and match the licenses. You could do a mecha-robot battle game with the GTA maps, cars swerving in the streets to avoid the robots, gangsta's firing AK's up at the invaders, that kind of thing. Might be cool to play Master Chief, blowing hell out of the Covenant as it overruns Los Santos. Use the turf warfare map as a way of showing Covenant penetration. Now that would be a cool Halo mod. :) << Home 
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