Why is there so much hate on halo: reach!?

[Caboose The Ace]

^

 

I know the feeling.

 

The reason I got into Star wars was the EU.... Then one day Disney scrapped it all, it was like a slap in the face.

All the books, the comics the games, all nothing, none cannon....

[HSN6592]

I don't know; but what I do know that halo reach is one of my favorite games I love it

[Wirednutt69]

 

So. . . How come Spartans can fall from space, but not jump from too high a place or fall off a cliff without dying and going back to the most recent checkpoint?

 

I'm not taking it too seriously at all; when there is fans who have sunk hundreds of pounds and hours into buying books, comics, games an othe media, being told by a company- indirectly (Like Reach) or directly (Like Disney and Star Wars) that everything was worth pretty much nothing is a giant "**** You" to those fans.

 

Conversely, falling from space makes sense; MJOLNIR armour is equipped with a gel layer that hardens on impacts (Like bullets, falls eye) to absorb shock damage while retaining mobility.

 

-Read and watch halo media

-MCU

-Write my own science fiction

-Do physics stuff

[Twinreaper]

Halo Reach is hated for many reasons. Most of the hatred stems from either of two positions...

 

1. It doesn't follow strict canon.

2. Drastic mechanic changes

 

One thing that is sorely overlooked and generally misunderstood about video games is that just like it's media brother the movies, games also need to be adjusted to bring a certain level of playability to them and make them overall understandable to the wider audience. For example, let's look at the X-Men movies. The movies did not in any follow the original comic yet the movies did flow and allowed the wider audience who was not familiar with them, enjoy them.

 

Now look at Halo. Had Reach been designed and adhered to the strict book canon, it would have made telling the story a challenge and would not have allowed a generally wider audience to enjoy it as much or understand the story.

 

Now let's look at the other side of things regarding mechanics. Halo Reach as stated many times Bungie, represented the Halo game they wanted to make from the beginning. Mechanic wise, Reach was a drastic "All in one shot" departure from the core mechanics we had in Halo 1-3. What they started in Halo 3, they finished with Halo Reach. Had Bungie began to impliment items such as sprint, or drops in Halo 2 and continued to add on slowly...we wouldn't have the huge amount of backlash we did.

 

Surfice to say, big change in one shot scares a lot of people and breaks the fundamental expectations players have going from title to title. But just as movies go, change is required to keep games relevant and freah. Although I will always love Halo 2 the most, I certaintly would NOT like future titles to be a simple copy and paste of a previous game with pretty new paint applied.

[BaconShelf]

 

So. . . How come Spartans can fall from space, but not jump from too high a place or fall off a cliff without dying and going back to the most recent checkpoint?

 

I'm not taking it too seriously at all; when there is fans who have sunk hundreds of pounds and hours into buying books, comics, games an othe media, being told by a company- indirectly (Like Reach) or directly (Like Disney and Star Wars) that everything was worth pretty much nothing is a giant "**** You" to those fans.

 

Conversely, falling from space makes sense; MJOLNIR armour is equipped with a gel layer that hardens on impacts (Like bullets, falls eye) to absorb shock damage while retaining mobility.

 

-Read and watch halo media

-MCU

-Write my own science fiction

-Do physics stuff

 

 

Gameplay does not equal canon.

 

In lore, banshees can easily best a modern jet for speed, and grunts and jackals feed upon humans that they're attacking- hunting them down like a wolf pack. Otherwise, the game would be far too gory- a plasma pistol should cause third-degree burns at a glancing shot, and bullets should be near-useless. But that wouldn't be fun to play (unless you're a mythic kind of guy) so it's toned down.

 

Plus, both times John has fallen from space, he had a heat shield- A forerunner door from the Keyship in H3 and a action of the Dawn in H4. Noble Six had a reentry pack desogned to help him fall into the atmosphere.The only other Spartans to fall from space were Blue Team, and a good four of them died on impact, another few were heavily injured and a couple more were minor injuries.

 

Halo Reach is hated for many reasons. Most of the hatred stems from either of two positions...

 

1. It doesn't follow strict canon.

2. Drastic mechanic changes

 

One thing that is sorely overlooked and generally misunderstood about video games is that just like it's media brother the movies, games also need to be adjusted to bring a certain level of playability to them and make them overall understandable to the wider audience. For example, let's look at the X-Men movies. The movies did not in any follow the original comic yet the movies did flow and allowed the wider audience who was not familiar with them, enjoy them.

 

Now look at Halo. Had Reach been designed and adhered to the strict book canon, it would have made telling the story a challenge and would not have allowed a generally wider audience to enjoy it as much or understand the story.

 

Now let's look at the other side of things regarding mechanics. Halo Reach as stated many times Bungie, represented the Halo game they wanted to make from the beginning. Mechanic wise, Reach was a drastic "All in one shot" departure from the core mechanics we had in Halo 1-3. What they started in Halo 3, they finished with Halo Reach. Had Bungie began to impliment items such as sprint, or drops in Halo 2 and continued to add on slowly...we wouldn't have the huge amount of backlash we did.

 

Surfice to say, big change in one shot scares a lot of people and breaks the fundamental expectations players have going from title to title. But just as movies go, change is required to keep games relevant and freah. Although I will always love Halo 2 the most, I certaintly would NOT like future titles to be a simple copy and paste of a previous game with pretty new paint applied.

 

Most of the story inconsistencies in reach come from times/ dates and the Autumn; the former stretching te battle (inexplicably) to several months and the other saying the ship was in two places at once.

 

Changing the Autumn to an ODP generator and having an officer get Cortana's fragment would not change gameplay in the slightest (unless the skybox is gameplay) and allow the anon to be consistent. As for te times, condensing the entire game to a week instead of three months would be ample time for a battle of such scale; have WC and ONI on two days, Nightfall, ToTS, LNoS, Exodus and NA to take place over the next two days all following each other and then have The Package/ Autumn/ Lone Wolf on the fifth an sixth days. Done and done- story affected? Nope (Not for those who don't care anyway) but the people who care about this are happy.

 

The crucial difference between this an Xmen is that the films are not a part of the comic continuity; if they said Reach was not part of the mainstream continuity, nobody would complain. But the games and expanded universe are one and the same so demand that both be kept consistent.

 

Anyway, Reach could have followed TFoR and First Strike to the letter and given lore fans a good retelling of those events while giving te non-hardcore fans a good introduction to other Spartan-II's, Johnson (Aboard the Circumference) and explain how they got back to Earth and destroye Unyielding Heirophant; this would have probably done more good at allaying a lot of confusion over John's return from I04 and Johnson's Survival as well as introduce Blue Team, who some fans genuinely have never heard of until the recent H5G poster.

[Twinreaper]

They actually did say previous times, that the games are NOT canon and are independent from the books and lore that followed after Halo CE. If you go back and watch the Reach VidOC series, even Staten says that the games are the games, and the books are the books. The only reason they went ahead to patch the whole thing with terminals is because impatient nutty fanboys cant just accept that the games would either be too long or too short if they went strictly by book.

 

Id like to see you layout the capaign for Reach mission by mission going by book ONLY, and see how much gameplay you actually get out of it without confusing non experienced players with the continuity of it all.

[BaconShelf]

They actually did say previous times, that the games are NOT canon and are independent from the books and lore that followed after Halo CE. If you go back and watch the Reach VidOC series, even Staten says that the games are the games, and the books are the books. The only reason they went ahead to patch the whole thing with terminals is because impatient nutty fanboys cant just accept that the games would either be too long or too short if they went strictly by book.

 

Id like to see you layout the capaign for Reach mission by mission going by book ONLY, and see how much gameplay you actually get out of it without confusing non experienced players with the continuity of it all.

 

-Skirmish aboard the UNSC Circumference=1 level

-Blue team defending ODP

-Blue team stealing banshees and infiltrating covenant camp with a nuke

-play from the numerous Spartan-IIs assigne to differen tasks;

-One team rescuing Whitcomb

-One team helping/ rescuing Charlie company

-One team heading to CASTLE

-Skirmish inside the CASTLE bunkers/ T-A mines

 

*cut back to 117 POV*

-Skirmish aboard Ascendant Justice

-Liberation of Halsey and castle base (extracting them)

-Boarding and destroying Unyielding Heirophant

-End

 

That's ten levels. You could even throw in a level showing John's training and/ or getting the MJOLNIR MKV armour as a tutorial level, too.

 

Anyway, you misinterpreted the statement, being that games override book canon where applicable. Problem is, thi was only said around the time reach came out- the time when it was readily apparent that Bungie didn't really giv a **** about their lore but rather a Things! Excitement! Story.

Edited May 7, 2015 by BaconShelf

[Twinreaper]

This is why you are not a developer.  Wow good job stating a vague description of the levels.  Try this, lay it OUT...I mean the whole thing.  Describe the cut-scenes to explain what is going on, the actual walk-through of the levels. Do you think players know who Blue team is?  Who is Whitcomb, what is Castle....what exactly IS going on and why is it happening?  You miss these fundamentals...

 

Simply put...wading through an enormous amount of dialog and cut-scenes with only a handful of action does not a good game make.  Besides which, it's a game, not life.  You guys take this all this stuff WAY too seriously.

[BaconShelf]

Give me some time, then. Either way, you obviously don't give one about the story, so I don't see why you care.