ODST Impressions.

[Sephirius]

The worst thing is that gameplay wise, ODST could have simply reskinned the pistol as a sniperized, single shot, silent BR and avoided almost all of these problems.


It makes sense too, because it always struck me as odd the the future military's only sniper rifle is a .50 cal.

To be fair, it's a 14.5mm sniper rifle with saboted 12.7mm projectiles. In one of the novels there's something about different subloads for different purposes. Maybe they only need one?

[Artemas]

To be fair, in halo there are plentiful numbers of critters that are about as tough as a light vehicle. An anti-material rifle would sure be handy then.

But yeah, sniper pistols are stupid, especially when the assault rifle handles more like an smg, then an actual rifle.

[Darth Wong]

Who gives a shit what calibre the guns are? Judging by the effect a direct hit has on an unshielded Brute's face, they must be using rubber bullets.

Seriously, Halo's worthless "must drown the enemy in a rain of bullets to hurt him" weapons are so incredibly annoying that they ruin the game almost by themselves. It's so goddamned stupid; if humanity actually had weapons this useless and they were fighting the goddamned Covenant for years, they would have deployed more powerful weapons. Is this so hard for Bungie or the legions of Halo fanboys to grasp? In what kind of world can you hit a goddamned enemy in the face with a bullet from a sniper rifle and have it not kill him? Oh look, I hit him right in the fucking face, but it just knocked off his helmet! Oh yeah, that makes sense. OK, now I hit his unhelmeted head with another round, and ... he just staggers a bit! What the fuck? It takes three fucking rounds in the head from a .50cal sniper rifle to take down one goddamned HaloSasquatch?

[Darth Wong]

To be fair, in halo there are plentiful numbers of critters that are about as tough as a light vehicle. An anti-material rifle would sure be handy then.

If they wanted to make them that tough, they should have given them all shields. Simply making their flesh able to resist .50cal rounds is monumentally stupid.

But yeah, sniper pistols are stupid, especially when the assault rifle handles more like an smg, then an actual rifle.

Remember the old demo for Halo 2, where it appeared that Master Chief would get a useful rifle? And then discovering that the actual Halo 2 didn't have that at all? It seems to me like some Halo fanboys saw the demo and complained that the weapon didn't act like they expected it to.

[Stark]

It's a holdover from the oldschool shooters Halo derived from. The games have just been so conservative they totally missed the move away from twitch play and lead hoses and hitpoint grinding in shooters.

Didn't someone say ODST still had circlestrafing? It's clear Bungie just missed the last ten years of genre change.

[Darth Wong]

It's a holdover from the oldschool shooters Halo derived from. The games have just been so conservative they totally missed the move away from twitch play and lead hoses and hitpoint grinding in shooters.

Didn't someone say ODST still had circlestrafing? It's clear Bungie just missed the last ten years of genre change.

I recall reading that the new firefight mode was inspired by the Nazi zombies in CoD5, so they can't have totally missed it. They just don't seem to be interested in emulating it. Either they're stuck in the past or they're listening too much to their loyal fanbase which resists change (the same mechanism which caused the decline of Star Trek).

[Stark]

The firefight thing is clearly derived from the coop gametypes like L4D and Horde and CoD, but it's like the UT98 version of it. Even when they take ideas they stick to the same game flow, enshrined in buzzwords like 'golden triangle' (shit weapon balance everything is the same) and '30 seconds of fun' (game is repetitive and easy).

I'm not sure if the retarded conservative fanbase created Bungies attitude or if Bungies marketing created the retarded fan expectations.

[Oscar Wilde]

Bungie developed a fanbase, and seems to cater to the "hardcore" side of the fanbase, who ask for things like weapon nerfing (because the only l33t and pr0 weapon is the battle rifle) and small maps.

Basically both strak.

[Pulp Hero]

Remember the old demo for Halo 2, where it appeared that Master Chief would get a useful rifle? And then discovering that the actual Halo 2 didn't have that at all? It seems to me like some Halo fanboys saw the demo and complained that the weapon didn't act like they expected it to.

I missed out on a lot of the hype around Halo 2, are you talking about the Battle Rifle and how it had a single shot while scoped and burst when unscoped, or something else?

To be fair, in halo there are plentiful numbers of critters that are about as tough as a light vehicle. An anti-material rifle would sure be handy then.

But yeah, sniper pistols are stupid, especially when the assault rifle handles more like an smg, then an actual rifle.

My point about the rifles in two-fold and deals with both gameplay issues and with background issues.

1) Why exactly is a 12.7mm rifle the only sniper weapon used by humans? The UNSC was around and operating against rebels and terrorists long before the Covenant showed up (the SPARTAN II program was started for counter-insurgency, not alien killing) and having only an ultra-high powered weapon for use in counter terrorism operation sometimes involving hostages or in urban centers seems dumb. After the war started, obviously high powered rifles would be the weapons of choice, but an intermediate sniper or DMR rifle still has a use, especially considering that even with future technology and materials to help out, a 12.7mm sniper rifle is going to be FUCKING HEAVY to lug around- although you wouldn't know it from any of the cutscenes where ODSTs are swinging them around one handed.

2) I can deal with the MC accurately firing a 12.7mm rifle from the hip while standing up. I don't like it, and it still rankles me, but I can at least rationalize it. With the ODSTs, this should not be the case. All this talk about ODSTs being weaker than the MC and having to play with them differently- and the only change we get is Halo: CE styled shields and slightly more recoil on the SMG. How hard would it be to have the sniper rifle be inaccurate until your character stopped moving and aimed with the scope. (Because I don't know about anyone else, but I used the sniper rifle on brutes the same way I used the shotgun on buggers.)

[Darth Wong]

Remember the old demo for Halo 2, where it appeared that Master Chief would get a useful rifle? And then discovering that the actual Halo 2 didn't have that at all? It seems to me like some Halo fanboys saw the demo and complained that the weapon didn't act like they expected it to.

I missed out on a lot of the hype around Halo 2, are you talking about the Battle Rifle and how it had a single shot while scoped and burst when unscoped, or something else?

In the E3 preview movie, you could see him shooting enemies with his rifle, and it was quite lethal. It wasn't just another useless Halo weapon with slightly better accuracy and a different noise. Unfortunately, the actual battle rifle in the game did not behave like this at all, and its three-round burst performed exactly one function: to use up your ammo faster.

[Oscar Wilde]

The battle rifle also performed the task of giving the "hardcore" players a gun to fap to.

[Stark]

You mean a gun that didn't miss 80% of the time AND had an effective range greater than 5m?

I guess that makes everyone who plays Modern Warfare 'hardcore'. Is it ironic that I doubt anyone will even think about ODST after MW2 comes out?

[TheMuffinKing]

You mean a gun that didn't miss 80% of the time AND had an effective range greater than 5m?

I guess that makes everyone who plays Modern Warfare 'hardcore'. Is it ironic that I doubt anyone will even think about ODST after MW2 comes out?

To be fair, the hype around MW2 means that seemingly EVERY game will be irrelevant upon its release.

[Stark]

Don't be absurd; it's a particular subset of shooter. It's just playing for the same market as a Halo game. It's not going to affect Tropico 3, or arguably even Borderlands.

Where do you go to get hype, anyway? I'm aware of upcoming releases and game features, but aside from automatically ignoring banners at EB I'm not exposed to any more hype than you'd expect for 'new iteration of successful MP franchise'.

[General Zod]

Don't be absurd; it's a particular subset of shooter. It's just playing for the same market as a Halo game. It's not going to affect Tropico 3, or arguably even Borderlands.

Where do you go to get hype, anyway? I'm aware of upcoming releases and game features, but aside from automatically ignoring banners at EB I'm not exposed to any more hype than you'd expect for 'new iteration of successful MP franchise'.

There's the usual suspects, Joystiq, Kotaku, IGN, etc. I don't actually seem to remember seeing a lot of excessive hype for ODST though.

[TheMuffinKing]

Don't be absurd; it's a particular subset of shooter. It's just playing for the same market as a Halo game. It's not going to affect Tropico 3, or arguably even Borderlands.

Where do you go to get hype, anyway? I'm aware of upcoming releases and game features, but aside from automatically ignoring banners at EB I'm not exposed to any more hype than you'd expect for 'new iteration of successful MP franchise'.

There's the usual suspects, Joystiq, Kotaku, IGN, etc. I don't actually seem to remember seeing a lot of excessive hype for ODST though.

This and the various forums I frequent. Admittedly yes, this hype does apply to a specific subset of gaming, I just got all swept up in the anticipation of this game, this fact has caused me to ignore other releases and makes me sound like a douchecock fanboy.

On the other hand, MW2 appears to be summer blockbuster movie of FPS, I just hope it doesn't end up disappointing me like ODST did.

[General Zod]

This and the various forums I frequent. Admittedly yes, this hype does apply to a specific subset of gaming, I just got all swept up in the anticipation of this game, this fact has caused me to ignore other releases and makes me sound like a douchecock fanboy.

On the other hand, MW2 appears to be summer blockbuster movie of FPS, I just hope it doesn't end up disappointing me like ODST did.

MW2 has actually been developed as a full new game, not just a retarded sort-of expansion. Plus the first MW was pretty good, so I'm hedging my bets that it doesn't suck nearly as much as ODST.

[CaptHawkeye]

In the E3 preview movie, you could see him shooting enemies with his rifle, and it was quite lethal. It wasn't just another useless Halo weapon with slightly better accuracy and a different noise. Unfortunately, the actual battle rifle in the game did not behave like this at all, and its three-round burst performed exactly one function: to use up your ammo faster.

I thought I was the only one who noticed how promising that demo looked vs. what we actually got. That demo looked really cool because it showed a big, open city you could explore like ODST. (Or at least comparable to H:CE's "big levels".) With weapons that now seemed to make sense. Did you notice the Grunts in the demo who got shell shocked by a grenade in a tight space?

Then all that shit dissappeared. Presumably because Bungie couldn't make it work, or Microsoft cited their worthless demographics charts and told them lose it.

Anyway, it seems to me that Bungie is planning to distance itself from Halo. I saw an article on Gamespot a little while ago where Bungie's execs basically said that they left Microsoft because MS wanted them to just keep making Halo forever. They're making Halo: Reach as a final goodbye to the series but you're right when you say this whole situation reeks of Star Trek's decline.

Microsoft is handing the entire franchise over to an in house development team who's only job will literally be to keep making Halo for the next 10 years.

[Darksider]

Who gives a shit what calibre the guns are? Judging by the effect a direct hit has on an unshielded Brute's face, they must be using rubber bullets.

Seriously, Halo's worthless "must drown the enemy in a rain of bullets to hurt him" weapons are so incredibly annoying that they ruin the game almost by themselves. It's so goddamned stupid; if humanity actually had weapons this useless and they were fighting the goddamned Covenant for years, they would have deployed more powerful weapons. Is this so hard for Bungie or the legions of Halo fanboys to grasp? In what kind of world can you hit a goddamned enemy in the face with a bullet from a sniper rifle and have it not kill him? Oh look, I hit him right in the fucking face, but it just knocked off his helmet! Oh yeah, that makes sense. OK, now I hit his unhelmeted head with another round, and ... he just staggers a bit! What the fuck? It takes three fucking rounds in the head from a .50cal sniper rifle to take down one goddamned HaloSasquatch?

Honestly, what pissed me of more than the insane durability of the enemies, was the disparity between different ranks of the same type of enemy. On any difficulty lower than heroic, it's actually fairly easy to kill the basic Elites and Brutes. A single sniper shot to the head will take their helmet off and kill them. But then you face off against the higher ranked ones, and all of a sudden the sniper rifle looses half it's effectiveness, even after you shoot their armor off. I honestly don't understand why they thought it wouldn't be an SoD breaker to have two different members of the same fucking species be able to take differing amounts of damage just because their armor is a different color or their helmet has frilly shit on it. I mean, if they can make armor that's that durable, why don't they just fucking hand it out to everybody or something? The worst I remember encountering were the Brute chieftans with the hammers, and that "councilor" elite from Halo 2. That motherfucker could take three rounds from a fuel-rod gun to the face and not even flinch. I'm supposed to believe that a fucking politician gets armor that's an order of magnitude more durable than frontline combat troops? That's the kind of shit that makes me stop and think "what kind of retards am I fighting here," and it's grounded squarely in the era of the first 3D shooters like doom and wolfenstein. It's 2009 god dammit. Enemies should not become stronger by painting their armor a different color.

[Chris OFarrell]

Remember the old demo for Halo 2, where it appeared that Master Chief would get a useful rifle? And then discovering that the actual Halo 2 didn't have that at all? It seems to me like some Halo fanboys saw the demo and complained that the weapon didn't act like they expected it to.

I missed out on a lot of the hype around Halo 2, are you talking about the Battle Rifle and how it had a single shot while scoped and burst when unscoped, or something else?

In the E3 preview movie, you could see him shooting enemies with his rifle, and it was quite lethal. It wasn't just another useless Halo weapon with slightly better accuracy and a different noise. Unfortunately, the actual battle rifle in the game did not behave like this at all, and its three-round burst performed exactly one function: to use up your ammo faster.

Funny thing, when I first got HALO-2, on the first mission on that SMAC station, I grabbed a battle rifle...and spent about 20 minutes trying to work out what button I had to press to get it into single fire 'awesome' mode. I tried everything, read the manual back to front and even the other stuff that came with the game...

And finally bitterly realized they had dropped that feature.

Oh and one other thing that PISSES ME OFF speaking of zoomed weapons. Who the F*#( thought it was a good idea to keep ZOOMING YOU BACK OUT THE SECOND YOU GET HIT! I mean I'm fraken TRYING to line up a shot on some guy in the distance, putting a bullet into his head...and he hits me with a glancing hit that doesn't even dent my shields, BANG, zoomed back out. It is the most god damn annoying BS...

[Qwerty 42]

Funny thing, when I first got HALO-2, on the first mission on that SMAC station, I grabbed a battle rifle...and spent about 20 minutes trying to work out what button I had to press to get it into single fire 'awesome' mode. I tried everything, read the manual back to front and even the other stuff that came with the game...

And finally bitterly realized they had dropped that feature.

Oh and one other thing that PISSES ME OFF speaking of zoomed weapons. Who the F*#( thought it was a good idea to keep ZOOMING YOU BACK OUT THE SECOND YOU GET HIT! I mean I'm fraken TRYING to line up a shot on some guy in the distance, putting a bullet into his head...and he hits me with a glancing hit that doesn't even dent my shields, BANG, zoomed back out. It is the most god damn annoying BS...

I suppose it would make sense if getting hit had any sort of real damage consequences. If you were hit in the arm by a legitimate weapons round, you'd probably lose focus. But, since weapons in Halo are basically bug bites, the zooming out just becomes more of a nuisance than anything, really. Truthfully, zooming away from your target is almost a worse penalty than the actual damage you absorb from being shot.

[Xess]

I bought it, finished it and overall liked it. It's standard Halo, I was hoping for more changes than Halo 1 shields. For an overpriced expansion I liked it as much as possible, mostly I'm disappointed Bungie didn't do more with it. I'll probably get Halo: Reach then toss the franchise.

[Vympel]

Too funny not to post

I had no idea they made these sort of pretentious advertisements for video games. I've never seen one until now.

In any event, I like the point about how this advert is showing a battle sequence that has never been anywhere close to what actually happens in any of the games.

It's pretty freaking sad that the X360's flaghsip FPS franchise can't muster the kinds of action packed, choreographed set-pieces that superior games can - i.e. Call of Duty / Modern Warfare and Killzone 2, to be specific.

[CaptHawkeye]

I personally retired Halo as a game series I played after Halo 3. ODST looked promising at first, but I after listening to all the reviews from people who A. Aren't fanboys and B. Aren't fucking stupid, ODST just sounds like a big god damn scam. Full price for a 5 hour game with multiplayer content you already have? Fuck off. If Bungie wanted to finally push me away from a series I was an admitted fan of than they've done it at last.

Man it makes me sad. Halo's DESIGN looks so good. When you take a first look at the game it seems so right. The weapons seem to make sense, the armour that actually covers guys bodies, the big naval battles fought mostly beyond visual distance. The derelict Halos and creepy ancient alien ruins spread throughout the galaxy. (That would have been way better off recieving no backstory at all.)

Then you actually play Halo, and it turns out it's just Quake with space marines. I really liked CE, H2 was a step down, but H3 I considered a fitting finish. Maybe i'm drawing a hyperbole here, but even though I liked Halo, I never thought it deserved the attention it got.

[Darth Wong]

Sorry, but the weapons do NOT make sense. The weapons have in fact always been the weakest aspect of the game.