Originally Posted by HaRieL  This is a post from b.net and this guy f.cking nailed it
ExAngelus- hate this game. First of all, I bought a 360 for the sole purpose of playing Halo 3. But everything about this game disappoints, from the graphics, to the lack of standard features, right down to the ridiculous physics and spawn systems. With an unlimited budget of money and time, Bungie completely befuddled everything to the point of sheer frustration with this game.
Look at the E3 2006 announcement trailer. Even Microsoft haters must admit it looks fantastic. Everyone was so excited to see our beloved Halo franchise in a realistic environment. But then, as time went by, Bungie routinely released worse and worse images of the game. Now the texturing and lighting are the only things about this game that are pretty at all. The geometry just plain blows, no depth of field, and lets not even mention the jaggies everywhere. I know anti-aliasing is cutting edge and all... riiiiight.
But graphics don't make a game right? What about a game that kills my 360 as soon as I put it in the disc drive? Yes, Halo 3 gave my (and many people's) 360 the red ring of death within 6 hours of using it. So I sent it off for repairs for a few weeks, and thats where the story really takes off. Having spent only a few hours with my most anticipated game of all time, I was eager for more, and so I turned to the Bungie.net forums to see how everything was going.
EVERYONE (edit: sorry, not everyone, but a majority of both people I've encountered on B.net and XBL) had problems with this game, from scratched discs to red rings like mine. The only people who weren't rightfully disappointed were the idiot fanboys who wouldn't know a quality game if it came up and bit them in the face.
For all the crap haters talk about forge not being a true map editor, it's actually a really good idea... or at least it was until you couldn't place all the weapons and items on all of the maps, thus making it impossible to create what you really want to. The novelty wears especially thin when, lo and behold, the custom games browser (CGB) that was so highly touted failed to be included. Instead Bungie opted for their -blam!- as folk matchmaking system again. If I am in the mood for capture the flag, I don't want to play oddball. EVER. Imagine that.
Aside from that, if I want to go into a custom game on one of the user forged maps (some of which are pretty damn cool) I have to first download the map and gametype from b.net, then assemble enough players from my limited friends list that want to play the same thing as me at the same time. Try to get 16 out of 100 people to agree on their favorite flavor of jelly bean, let alone want to play the same type of game as you on the same map at any given time... and you see the problem here. Every other game has a CGB, but for the sake of being different once again, Bungie has screwed us.
This is all annoying, but I could get over it, like I did with halo 2, if the matchmaking was fun. Halo 2 was FUN. I mean, I played that heavily all the way up until 11:30 on September 24th. But Halo 3 fails at even that. Its just frustrating. for starters, the maps are garbage. Why, oh why, would you put in shield doors? Its Halo, not the boy scouts, why are you encouraging camping in a fast-paced FPS? They don't even make sense; a man can run, but cannot toss a grenade or punch, through them? A vehicle creeping along cannot pass? And most obscene is that a grenade or rocket explosion won't phase a player on the other side of the shield door, but a fusion core explosion or grav hammer has no problem killing a player from across the threshold? I know this isn't exactly a realistic game, but could we have a little more consistency and a little less bullspit?
The shield doors are really only a minor part of it, but a great example of poor design. Perhaps most glaring is the spawn system, which puts enemy players either directly behind you, or directly in front of you when you are vulnerable from having just dispatched their teammates. It is the most frustrating thing to finish off one or two opponents with great skill and maneuvering, only to be killed an instant later by their teammate who just happened to respawn right on top of you. Who Beta tested this game? Oh wait, we did, and in three weeks we reported the bogus faults that Bungie couldn't find and fix in three years.
Wait did i say the most frustrating thing? I meant second most, because number one would be the melee system that rewards the player that is slower on the draw... or at least it seems that way in every instance. Not just that, but some players are able to lunge 10 feet with their beat downs, while others won't even take one step forward. This, coupled with a sniper rifle that just plain fails to cause damage with direct, blood spilling hits, makes what should be a rewarding gameplay experience into an inconsistent, unpredictable crapshoot.
But clearly that is not the fault of Bungie's poor programming, as the forum moderators and fanboys are quick to point out. Rather, these issues stem from lag, host advantage, and a whole other laundry list of variables that are par for the course in all online games. Really? Not online games with dedicated servers, dedicated servers that lesser titles on other consoles seem to have, but the flagship, quintessential FPS juggernaut from the most affluent company in the industry seems to lack. Apparently the revenue from the most profitable media release in history cannot fund those dedicated servers, ones I'm sure Microsoft in all of its infinite wisdom could manufacture cheap enough to still turn a profit, albeit perhaps not as great.
Many former Bungie/Halo fans, myself included, tried at first to post sensible topics on the b.net forums addressing some if not all of these problems. Polls which overwhelmingly favored the addition of a CGB were locked. Threads about the inexplicable ineffectiveness of the sniper rifle and melees were met with flaming from fanboys claiming we just didn't know how to use them. And God forbid you start a topic about the sub par graphical quality, lest you be labeled a heretic, shallow, and devoid of appreciation for what really makes a game good. This demeanor is carried not only by the fanboys themselves, but by the Bungie moderators and staff, who in the face of such overwhelming evidence that the game has SOME flaws, scoff at our attempts to get these issues recognized and addressed properly. we asked, petitioned, polled and begged nicely. Now we are vehement in our conviction that they have lost sight of our best interests. And our disposition is no longer congenial.
Listen loud and clear Bungie: Just because you made the game, does not mean it is perfect. And since we paid you to make it for us, we have the final say in what we want included. Basically you were commissioned by us to make Halo 3, our dollars form Halo 2 were a down payment, and our franchise loyalty was the contract that you would be compensated for delivering us the product. You GAVE us nothing, no labor of love, no present to your fans. We paid you, and you failed to deliver. Don't for a second think it was anything other than a business transaction.
So when all is said and done, what do we have? A game with all the potential and every opportunity to succeed. A game that wanted nothing for resources and had an already tried and true formula for success. A game that, despite having everything going for it, forgot to ship with the one thing that is necessary for a title to succeed: reliable, fair fun for its users. A player shouldn't have to learn to navigate the bull and the cheapness of a game to win. In fact, they shouldn't even have to be great at the game to enjoy it; as long as the experience is fun, the game has done its job. Even when you win at halo 3 MP, the whole process was such a pathetic collection of WTFs and bullspit that you can't savor your victory. At being fun, Halo 3 fails.
(I wrote this for something else, don't think I spent all this time to post here, but i'm just another in the ever increasing line of disgruntled fans)
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From page four, from me to some of you:
I enjoy posts that personally attack me. "Simpleton troll" for example, or perhaps that my sentence structure, while infinitely better than a certain poster's, elevated me to "juvenile moron status." Bear in mind, when using the term fanboy, i refer to a faceless entity not so different from our beloved MC, one who stands for many things to many people, but does not embody any certain individual to a tee.
All sarcasm aside, it seems that all the major players from B.net have rallied to this thread. And although their opinions don't necessarily agree with mine, I applaud the overall respect we have maintained throughout this discourse (with the obvious exception of a few posters). Some of you were veterans here when I started my FIRST B.net account way back when H2 shipped, and its great to see you still support the proactive and reactive renovations our series must perpetually accept in order to stay on top of the genre. And I think, deep down, that's what we all want. My original topic was written in anger and frustration at what seemed like a hopeless cause, but due to subsequent posts I am seeing more and more reason to hold on for Bungie to fix this mess. We shall see what this week's update holds. |
11-28-2007
Join Date: Oct 2005
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