A few thoughts on Halo CE

[PHIL0S0PHY]

Recently I went through and played Halo CE again.

I wanted to see if my thoughts of Halo CE would be different now than it was when I was younger, the last time I went through the whole campaign was when I was 13 I think (20 now).

When I was a child I felt this game was amazing, the story was great, the flood was scary and awesome, and such. I didn't really pay attention to the music, or even the story(I thought the story was just fighting aliens, and I thought chief was a robot)

Have my opinions changed? Yes, in someways.

This time I played with all my focus and attention. I paying attention to story, music, level design, weapons, and what it felt like to fight the enemy.

So here are my thoughts on different aspects.

Story: is pretty shallow, but it does what it needs to do. My only gripe was that certain things didn't make since, I didn't really have questions about the Halo ring, but more about the Marines, and why they did stuff.

Music: Is great, and blends well with what is going on, it can even seem as if it is fading into the background, which is probably why I didn't notice it much as a kid. (Side not: I felt they used music at times to make up for a shallow story, because it seemed really loud during dialog)

Weapons: Bungie made each weapon have a unique purpose and experience while using it. They accomplished this really well. Every weapon feels very different, this is an aspect that wasn't paid attention to much in later games, now we have 8 of the same weapon with for different factions.

Levels: the first half of the game feels good. Some are very large, and can be explored, some are smaller, but feels good for the gameplay. Silent cartographer is, to me, the level that has all of Halo best level design. Assault on control room(without the flood) is kinda bipolar, it has a lot of repeating small rooms, and bridges which makes it not fun, but it gets better when the level opens up. Every mission after this isn't that good in terms of level design, because it has a lot of small quarters that are repeated quite a bit(library).

Flood: K feel they were introduced in s great way. You understood that this was threat, but it was mysterious. It accomplished that. The story made them scary, and the gameplay did as well. They are scary in gameplay only because they are overly difficult, even on normal. They are highly accurate, and they are relentless is shooting you. There aren't many weapons good against them, and you can't melee them, which makes them an annoying opponent. They game makes you afraid of them, but only because they are too difficult to fight. This is good, because the game wanted you to be afraid, but it also wasn't that fun on higher difficulties, so their should have been a balance of it. The later half of the game is mostly fighting the flood, and so it wasn't as fun to me, and I a few times considered just stopping, but I didn't.

So I still love the game, but I understand it isn't perfect. It has a lot of good ideas that were executed well, and other good ideas that weren't. Future games build on it and brought a lot of what made it good, dropped the bad, but also left behind certain things that made it great(I.e. unique purpose and experience of every weapon idea left behind.)

I still love Halo: CE. This is all my opinion, and I understand and respect if you disagree, so what do you think about what I have said?

[I_Make_Big_Boom]

Story: is pretty shallow, but it does what it needs to do. My only gripe was that certain things didn't make since, I didn't really have questions about the Halo ring, but more about the Marines, and why they did stuff.

 

More info in Terminals would've been great, ye.

 

 

Levels: the first half of the game feels good. Some are very large, and can be explored, some are smaller, but feels good for the gameplay. Silent cartographer is, to me, the level that has all of Halo best level design. Assault on control room(without the flood) is kinda bipolar, it has a lot of repeating small rooms, and bridges which makes it not fun, but it gets better when the level opens up. Every mission after this isn't that good in terms of level design, because it has a lot of small quarters that are repeated quite a bit(library).

 

I think what makes The Library stand out so much is its gauntlet-ness -- the unrelenting assault from the Flood is a very drastic difficulty change from earlier parts of the game. It was like having Left 4 Dead before zombie games were popular. Halo 2 and 3's Flood sections were the same way, but 3's were far less difficult.

 

Though I do agree the diversity drops off in the latter portion of the game.

 

 

Flood: K feel they were introduced in s great way. You understood that this was threat, but it was mysterious. It accomplished that. The story made them scary, and the gameplay did as well. They are scary in gameplay only because they are overly difficult, even on normal. They are highly accurate, and they are relentless is shooting you. There aren't many weapons good against them, and you can't melee them, which makes them an annoying opponent. They game makes you afraid of them, but only because they are too difficult to fight. This is good, because the game wanted you to be afraid, but it also wasn't that fun on higher difficulties, so their should have been a balance of it. The later half of the game is mostly fighting the flood, and so it wasn't as fun to me, and I a few times considered just stopping, but I didn't.

 

The relationship between the Flood, Covenant, and UNSC is a large part of the latter game half. Seeing AI battle against one another is always satisfying. The conflict between the factions made things feel more dire, and urgent.

 

 

So I still love the game, but I understand it isn't perfect. It has a lot of good ideas that were executed well, and other good ideas that weren't. Future games build on it and brought a lot of what made it good, dropped the bad, but also left behind certain things that made it great(I.e. unique purpose and experience of every weapon idea left behind.)

I still love Halo: CE. This is all my opinion, and I understand and respect if you disagree, so what do you think about what I have said?

 

I got nothing else to say except that I would've loved to have Halo: CE with Halo 3's attention to detail, and Halo 2's length. I prefer 3 out of the others because of its epic-ness though its lack of difficulty is what drags it down.

[PHIL0S0PHY]

 

Story: is pretty shallow, but it does what it needs to do. My only gripe was that certain things didn't make since, I didn't really have questions about the Halo ring, but more about the Marines, and why they did stuff.

 

More info in Terminals would've been great, ye.

 

 

Levels: the first half of the game feels good. Some are very large, and can be explored, some are smaller, but feels good for the gameplay. Silent cartographer is, to me, the level that has all of Halo best level design. Assault on control room(without the flood) is kinda bipolar, it has a lot of repeating small rooms, and bridges which makes it not fun, but it gets better when the level opens up. Every mission after this isn't that good in terms of level design, because it has a lot of small quarters that are repeated quite a bit(library).

 

I think what makes The Library stand out so much is its gauntlet-ness -- the unrelenting assault from the Flood is a very drastic difficulty change from earlier parts of the game. It was like having Left 4 Dead before zombie games were popular. Halo 2 and 3's Flood sections were the same way, but 3's were far less difficult.

 

Though I do agree the diversity drops off in the latter portion of the game.

 

 

Flood: K feel they were introduced in s great way. You understood that this was threat, but it was mysterious. It accomplished that. The story made them scary, and the gameplay did as well. They are scary in gameplay only because they are overly difficult, even on normal. They are highly accurate, and they are relentless is shooting you. There aren't many weapons good against them, and you can't melee them, which makes them an annoying opponent. They game makes you afraid of them, but only because they are too difficult to fight. This is good, because the game wanted you to be afraid, but it also wasn't that fun on higher difficulties, so their should have been a balance of it. The later half of the game is mostly fighting the flood, and so it wasn't as fun to me, and I a few times considered just stopping, but I didn't.

 

The relationship between the Flood, Covenant, and UNSC is a large part of the latter game half. Seeing AI battle against one another is always satisfying. The conflict between the factions made things feel more dire, and urgent

 

 

So I still love the game, but I understand it isn't perfect. It has a lot of good ideas that were executed well, and other good ideas that weren't. Future games build on it and brought a lot of what made it good, dropped the bad, but also left behind certain things that made it great(I.e. unique purpose and experience of every weapon idea left behind.)

I still love Halo: CE. This is all my opinion, and I understand and respect if you disagree, so what do you think about what I have said?

 

I got nothing else to say except that I would've loved to have Halo: CE with Halo 3's attention to detail, and Halo 2's length. I prefer 3 out of the others because of its epic-ness though its lack of difficulty is what drags it down.

 

I do like seeing those ai battles.

[Twinreaper]

As much as I personally like to see debates and thoughts on 15+ year old titles, CE is NOT one that can even be properly discussed.

 

CE was a 6 monthgame.  The game that was supposed to bē Halo, was completely scrapped and rewritten in 6 months time.  Normal engine development alone is a 3+ year venture and the netcoding end of it takes just as long in simultaneous  development.  Given the fact that this game was thrown together by a team of less than 10 people is astonishing in it's own right.

 

Trying to pick it apart and compare it to successors that had proper development time is like trying to debate a stone wheel versus a Hancook tire.

 

That being said, CE actually did multiplayer and story better than it's successors.  The proof is in the still recent 500+ multiplayer base that still exists and the numerous downloads available for þe title.

 

Also as a secondary thought, pretty graphics do not a good game make....aka Halo 4 & Halo 5 failed miserably because of the attention to detail and graphics, and less on story, replay value and good old fashion fun.  Halo has to quickly evolved as a whole and in that process it lost it's own identity.  It is now a basic copy & paste fps title just like CoD.

[PHIL0S0PHY]

As much as I personally like to see debates and thoughts on 15+ year old titles, CE is NOT one that can even be properly discussed.

 

CE was a 6 monthgame. The game that was supposed to bē Halo, was completely scrapped and rewritten in 6 months time. Normal engine development alone is a 3+ year venture and the netcoding end of it takes just as long in simultaneous development. Given the fact that this game was thrown together by a team of less than 10 people is astonishing in it's own right.

 

Trying to pick it apart and compare it to successors that had proper development time is like trying to debate a stone wheel versus a Hancook tire.

 

That being said, CE actually did multiplayer and story better than it's successors. The proof is in the still recent 500+ multiplayer base that still exists and the numerous downloads available for þe title.

 

Also as a secondary thought, pretty graphics do not a good game make....aka Halo 4 & Halo 5 failed miserably because of the attention to detail and graphics, and less on story, replay value and good old fashion fun. Halo has to quickly evolved as a whole and in that process it lost it's own identity. It is now a basic copy & paste fps title just like CoD.

 

Any game that comes out and is sold can be analyzed and reviewed. I wasn't analyzing or reviewing, just giving a few thoughts.

 

I wasn't comparing this game to the other Halos, just made reference to the others building of of it in some good and some bad ways.

 

I didn't say anything about the multiplayer. And nothing about the graphics

 

Though no matter how the game was developed, if it is put into the public, and especially if people buy it, it can, and needs to be reviewed, analyzed, and discussed just like any art.

 

It is commendable what they did, that doesn't give the game a free pass to be a 10/10. I know you didn't say it was perfect, though.

[Unease Peanut]

(I thought the story was just fighting aliens, and I thought chief was a robot)

 

 

Fun fact: The Master Chief was originally intended to be the last cyborg of his "kind" as is stated on the back cover of the original case. The first in-game chapter is called "AI's and Cyborgs first" referring to the Chief and Cortana having to abandon ship.

 

I was about 6 years old when I played CE for the first time and to this day I still find joy, be it nostalgic or not, in playing the campaign. Music still gives me fond memories and bumps.

[PHIL0S0PHY]

 

Fun fact: The Master Chief was originally intended to be the last cyborg of his "kind" as is stated on the back cover of the original case. The first in-game chapter is called "AI's and Cyborgs first" referring to the Chief and Cortana having to abandon ship.

 

I was about 6 years old when I played CE for the first time and to this day I still find joy, be it nostalgic or not, in playing the campaign. Music still gives me fond memories and bumps.

 

Me too, its fun to play and the music is great.

[PHIL0S0PHY]

As much as I personally like to see debates and thoughts on 15+ year old titles, CE is NOT one that can even be properly discussed.

 

CE was a 6 monthgame.  The game that was supposed to bē Halo, was completely scrapped and rewritten in 6 months time.  Normal engine development alone is a 3+ year venture and the netcoding end of it takes just as long in simultaneous  development.  Given the fact that this game was thrown together by a team of less than 10 people is astonishing in it's own right.

 

Trying to pick it apart and compare it to successors that had proper development time is like trying to debate a stone wheel versus a Hancook tire.

 

That being said, CE actually did multiplayer and story better than it's successors.  The proof is in the still recent 500+ multiplayer base that still exists and the numerous downloads available for þe title.

 

Also as a secondary thought, pretty graphics do not a good game make....aka Halo 4 & Halo 5 failed miserably because of the attention to detail and graphics, and less on story, replay value and good old fashion fun.  Halo has to quickly evolved as a whole and in that process it lost it's own identity.  It is now a basic copy & paste fps title just like CoD.

  

 

Any game that comes out and is sold can be analyzed and reviewed. I wasn't analyzing or reviewing, just giving a few thoughts.

I wasn't comparing this game to the other Halos, just made reference to the others building of of it in some good and some bad ways.

I didn't say anything about the multiplayer. And nothing about the graphics

Though no matter how the game was developed, if it is put into the public, and especially if people buy it, it can, and needs to be reviewed, analyzed, and discussed just like any art.

It is commendable what they did, that doesn't give the game a free pass to be a 10/10. I know you didn't say it was perfect, though.

 

@@Twinreaper