Halo Poll (the real one)

[Brett]

To me the 2nd Halo was a disapointment due to when you feel you are halfway through the game, It was the end and it left you hanging right there. The game was much shorter then the 1st one, Kinda was like a tie over (Kinda like when Microsoft canme wou with Windows ME to hold over between '98 and XP) lol

[slowrolla97]

I dont car about the campain part of eather game. Never even played campain on the 2nd one. Halo 1 is the shit, will be the shit forever and owns everyone. I still play halo 1 on XBC. If you want some look out for the sTk tag....that is all

[JKNOUSE]

i still play halo one on the computer lol no one can yell at u and well the magnum is pimp lol

[§treet_§peed]

I love Halo...i have beaten the first one and the second one on Legendary..i only get to play it when i go over to my friends house..but i do play it a shit load on Xbox live when i'm there... Zyn Apropos is her, well mine as well be my name cause i'm the only one that ever plays it lol...on her old xbox i had her ranking up to 35 but i haven't played any ranked games on her 360 until last weekend and already up to like level 15 lol

[ubers2k]

SANTA MONICA--Nothing says "summer" quite like a media summit for video games, which is fortunate, because the 2007 E3 summit conference is in full swing in sultry Santa Monica. Among the list of games being shown at the event is Halo Wars, the Xbox 360 real-time strategy game from Age of Empires developer Ensemble Studios. Halo Wars is, of course, based on the Halo universe, the sci-fi world in which Bungie's Master Chief battles the alien armies of the Covenant (and sells millions of video games).

This is the first time we've been able to see the actual game in motion, and it looks very promising. The demonstration we saw took place on a planet that looked much like the mountainous, forested outdoor environments from the previous Halo games, and much of the action could've come right out of a Halo level, even though the game's story apparently takes place about 20 years before the events in the first game. Apparently, the game's single-player campaign will follow the crew of a single support ship through a campaign against the Covenant aliens.




Click to enlarge!



Our demonstration opened with a dropship buzzing through a craggy and picturesque river valley, escorted by a pair of Hawks, a brand-new attack chopper vehicle with dual mounted cannons on either wing. The dropship swooped into a human base where several structures had already been built, then dropped off its crew, a small squad of marines, who joined up with another infantry squad that had been on the ground waiting. The combined infantry forces went off to take on a nearby contingent of Covenant goons--grunts (the stubby-limbed, shrill-voiced alien troops that Master Chief encounters early in his adventures) armed with needler weapons and brutes (the taller, lankier aliens) with energy blasters. Unfortunately, the Covenant troops we saw were especially effective against infantry enemies, so they butchered the human squads quickly. To counter these anti-infantry foes, we commissioned some warthogs from our vehicle depot, one of the structures the humans can build for their base. The four-wheeled attack vehicles came tumbling out of the blocks and made short work of the aliens. They blasted the aliens to bits with the rear-mounted minigun and plowed right into them, which sent them flying.

Apparently, though the game has been in development for about two-and-a-half years, much of Ensemble's time has been spent working on the control scheme to make sure it feels right and is streamlined enough to work on a console controller. In fact, one of the team's primary goals was to make the game fully playable using only the left analog stick and the four face buttons on the Xbox 360 controller, though we're told that other functions can be accessed by using other parts of the controller. The basis of the control scheme seems to be the A button, which can be used to select individual squads (companies of infantry or various vehicles) by hovering your cursor over them and pressing the button. However, you can also double-press the A button with the cursor over a specific unit to select all units of that type you control. You can also press and hold the A button group-select units as you would in a PC real-time strategy game by "clicking and dragging" over an area with your mouse.

Apparently, the game will use a radial "circle menu" to perform most of the other actions in the game, including building structures, units, and vehicles. For instance, clicking the vehicle depot opens the circle menu with the various types of vehicles that were unlocked and could be built. Though the game will apparently focus strongly on combat, you'll be able to quickly jump back to your base by tapping the D pad on your controller in case you need to build more units or defend yourself.

We then watched several other vehicles in action that were commissioned at the vehicle depot, including the wolverine, a rocket-launching tank; and the scorpion, the heavy-duty battle tank from the Halo shooter games. We watched these vehicles brought into play against a contingent of Covenant infantry supplemented by powerful vehicles taken right out of the Halo games. Specifically, the flying phantoms will make an appearance in the game as formidable flyers that can wreak havoc on ground troops until they're brought down by the surface-to-air missiles of the wolverine. The Covenant will also have ghosts, the low-flying, one-man, armed hovercraft vehicles from Halo 2, and these vehicles can cause serious damage to undefended infantry unless the human foot soldiers have cover from Scorpions.




Click to enlarge!



Just as the pitched battle was turning in favor of the human forces, a brief cinematic sequence introduced the scarab, an absolutely gigantic Covenant unit that looks like a giant, armored beetle all in Covenant purple. But this bug had a nasty head-mounted laser that cut through the human forces like chaff until the humans unleashed an even more-powerful weapon, a targeted orbital strike from a space satellite that targeted and zoomed in on the scarab then bombed it back to the Stone Age in a hail of spectacular fire.

Though we still know very little about Halo Wars' gameplay and single-player structure, it's clear that the game is being created by some devoted Halo fans. Many, many little details have made their way from the Halo games to Halo Wars, from the squealing grunts (who can be sent flying with a powerful blast, just like in Halo) to the physics of the Warthog, including the way it fishtails on tight turns, as well as the way the infamous four-wheelers can clear chasms by jumping clean across them. We're told that other little details and touches from the Halo series will also appear in the game. For instance, you can expect to see the energy sword from Halo 2 make an appearance. We're also told that the game will use a rock-paper-scissors balancing scheme among its units so that combined forces will usually win the day against an army of tanks. We were unfortunately given very few details about Halo Wars' multiplayer other than the fact that it will support co-op mode through the single-player campaign and that it should offer the same kind of robust multiplayer features you'd expect from a long-lived Xbox 360 game on Live.

-GameSpot

[BuBBa DRiFT]

Halo 2 is about 10 times the game halo was.

i really hope i never see you in person.

[BuBBa DRiFT]

This is my partaking of this Halo conversation. Warning, very nerdy.


I played Halo 1, Halo 2, and the Halo 3 Beta religiously.


Halo 1 was a landmark in gaming. It introduced the regeneration of health concept, it introduced tactics of long range, as well as close range, while still staying neutral between over the top arcadey blow em up (unreal, quake) and being too tactical (rb6).

Halo 2 straight up bombed. The autoaim is retarded, I know people who seriously started playing at my house alone who can 4shot like nothing. Its crazy. Halo 2 is just a game where it takes no physical skill, its all out smarting your enemy and working as a team. In Halo 1, especially on the pro level, it wasnt completely unbelievable to hear about Walshy getting a Killtacular off Team DM, or Strangepurple getting a 6 shot double kill on the OGREs. Sure, the nifty new graphics and new style of gameplay was great, but it was too much of a change. They took out everything that made Halo 1 fun, besides the 8 on 8 gameplay, but that lost its luster fast, especially after Big Team Battle and Major Clanmatch were introduced. What made Halo 1 fun was the fact that to get GOOD games, you had to put effort into it, halo is like sex, easy sex with one girl is only good for so long, then it gets boring. Ive been on both sides of this analogy

Halo 3 beta is what Halo 2 SHOULD have been. Its brought back characteristics of Halo 1, but its still its own game. Less autoaim, minor adjustments to the game physics, and wayyy better graphics. New ideas, new controls, its going to be a great game. Halo 2 was rushed, and they learned from their mistakes, now its time for Halo 3 to close out the trilogy in style. But we must all remember to pay homage to the great Halo 1.

[Mr.MuayThai]

This is my partaking of this Halo conversation. Warning, very nerdy.


I played Halo 1, Halo 2, and the Halo 3 Beta religiously.


Halo 1 was a landmark in gaming. It introduced the regeneration of health concept, it introduced tactics of long range, as well as close range, while still staying neutral between over the top arcadey blow em up (unreal, quake) and being too tactical (rb6).

Halo 2 straight up bombed. The autoaim is retarded, I know people who seriously started playing at my house alone who can 4shot like nothing. Its crazy. Halo 2 is just a game where it takes no physical skill, its all out smarting your enemy and working as a team. In Halo 1, especially on the pro level, it wasnt completely unbelievable to hear about Walshy getting a Killtacular off Team DM, or Strangepurple getting a 6 shot double kill on the OGREs. Sure, the nifty new graphics and new style of gameplay was great, but it was too much of a change. They took out everything that made Halo 1 fun, besides the 8 on 8 gameplay, but that lost its luster fast, especially after Big Team Battle and Major Clanmatch were introduced. What made Halo 1 fun was the fact that to get GOOD games, you had to put effort into it, halo is like sex, easy sex with one girl is only good for so long, then it gets boring. Ive been on both sides of this analogy

Halo 3 beta is what Halo 2 SHOULD have been. Its brought back characteristics of Halo 1, but its still its own game. Less autoaim, minor adjustments to the game physics, and wayyy better graphics. New ideas, new controls, its going to be a great game. Halo 2 was rushed, and they learned from their mistakes, now its time for Halo 3 to close out the trilogy in style. But we must all remember to pay homage to the great Halo 1.

AYE MEN!!!!!!!! Halo CE is the shit!!!!!!

[DaMaGe ZWK]

I would have to say my favorite is halo 8 the downward spiral....

[Turbo Terrance]

THE HALO 3 BETA WAZ SICK ASS HELL..... DONT FORGET ABOUT THAT!!!!1

[KNHTRDR]

H1 was land mark H2 rushed like jj alfano stated but its the one I played the most as far as milti-link and on-line so I have to go with H2 and cant wait for H3!

[Mr.MuayThai]

H2Blows!!! Actually that was my xbox's name for the longest time! I used to play on XBC all the time with xAlexanderx & I was Rainmaker. If anyone play's XBC let me know! we will hook up sometime and chill!

[_Christian_]

halo2 ftw. hit me up on XBL. gamertag: FufiST0L3urK1LL

[ubers2k]

Not that we're keeping track or anything, but the release of Halo 3 is just 46 days (roughly 1,100 hours, or just over 66,000 minutes) from now. Yeah, OK, just like the rest of you, we're excited about the release of what is surely going to be one of the biggest releases in an already jam-packed year for games. To help assuage our anticipation of the upcoming release of the third game in the Halo series, we recently spoke with Frank O'Connor, writing lead at Bungie Studios, to get some insight into how the final stages of development are going for the game. We also dove in for some details on the recently announced four-play cooperative play for the campaign mode and found out how the Bungie team has been tweaking the game since the Halo 3 multiplayer beta program ended in early June.




It won't be long before Master Chief is blasting his way through your
Xbox 360 in Halo 3.



GENERAL

GameSpot: How's development been going?

Frank O'Connor: I'd have to say, all things considered, very smoothly. You can attribute that to excellent planning and production, as kind of a general impetus among the staff to ship something special and ship it on time. The main challenges and pressures have been, as ever, internally generated.

GS: Why didn't you show playable at your E3 briefing?

FO: The gameplay demo that we did behind closed doors of a single, playable level was something we felt would work well in the more intimate setting of the meeting rooms. On stage, on a big screen, a lot of the nuance and impact of the combat we showed would have been lost and an important part of that demo was the chance for those smaller audiences to ask detailed questions--again--impossible during a live stage show.

We chose instead to run a "music video" of sorts, to paraphrase our composer Marty O'Donnell, and just give a taste of Campaign. In hindsight, I think we made the right choice. We knew we had plenty more to show and tell. We still do, as a matter of fact.

GS: What have you made of the rabid speculation going on around the Internet on the game?

FO: Same as any developer. We watched as misinformation, both hilarious and tragic, spread like wildfire. Not to mention the occasional guess where someone nails it.

CAMPAIGN

GS: Is the single-player portion of Halo 3 finished? If not, what aspects of the campaign are you still working on?

FO: At the time of this interview, I would say 99 percent done. Right now, the only things we can do are polish difficulty, tune some minor gameplay items, and fix those lingering bugs.

GS: Has it turned out the way you expected? Or did it evolve into something else throughout the course of development? How much did player feedback affect it?

FO: Player feedback largely reflected our own internal criticisms of our game. With that in mind, we set about fixing the things we didn't like about Halo 2, reinserting some of the stuff that made Halo 1 cool, and inventing some new stuff that should ensure Halo 3 is everyone's favorite Halo--fingers crossed.

GS: The Arbiter showed up in the E3 trailer. How will he figure into the game this time? Will you play as him or--for that matter--anyone else besides Master Chief?

FO: We recently announced a four player co-op mode wherein one of the playable characters will be the Arbiter. When playing solo Campaign, the Arbiter will accompany you on many of your missions, this time controlled by artificial intelligence.

CO-OP

GS: How important was it to have co-op in the game?

FO: Very important. It's something we've always had in some form in Halo, and it was only natural to want to expand that feature to Xbox Live and throw in something extra: four player co-op.




Take one Spartan, add two Elites and an Aribiter and what do you get? A recipe for four-player co-op fun.



GS: How did that affect the development cycle?

FO: Obviously, it has been challenging. A lot of development, design, engineering, and test work has gone into making it a reality. But it has always been in the plan, so it affected the development cycle as much as any other planned element.

GS: Why extend co-op to four players this time? Come on, four Master Chiefs?

FO: Nope. One Master Chief, one Arbiter, and two brand-new Elites: N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham, respectively. Only one player actually plays as a Spartan in co-op. And yes, that would be the host.

GS: How are you balancing the four-player gameplay? Will the difficulty scale increase with the number of players in a co-op game?

FO: We've actually included a whole layer of ways to make co-op more challenging. But the first and most important step for players is to forget that easy and normal even exist. If you have any chutzpa at all, you might as well forget heroic while you're at it. Real men (and ladies) play co-op on legendary. We'll reveal more about the other stuff later this month.

GS: What were the technical challenges of getting cooperative play to work online at all, much less with four players?

FO: Obviously, performance is a big deal. But the most challenging aspect is making sure that four separate consoles running four separate games are communicating fluidly and perfectly, so that each player enjoys a seamless experience. To keep the game in sync while tracking all that geometry and AI is a significant task.

MULTIPLAYER

GS: What kind of feedback did you get from the multiplayer beta? Did you make any significant changes to the game based on what players loved or hated?

FO: Although we gathered tremendous amounts of hard data to improve networking and matchmaking, we also made careful notes of trends, preferences, and techniques. As a result, almost every aspect of multiplayer has been touched to varying degrees. Some changes will be subtle and some very obvious--but beta players should at least feel at home.

GS: You've mentioned the multiplayer in Halo 3 is visually less complex and impressive than the campaign. What graphical corners did you have to cut to keep performance consistent in multiplayer matches?




The multiplayer beta helped Bungie gather a tremendous amount of data for use in fine-tuning the online experience.



FO: Actually that's a mischaracterization. We would never state that our MP levels look "less impressive" since they all look pretty darned nice. What we have said is that MP maps require a different, cleaner aesthetic as a baseline in order to achieve a good balance of visibility, playability, and clarity. We certainly don't go as bananas with atmospherics and cover as we do in Campaign, but the overall aesthetic of the game should not be jarring when switching from MP to Campaign; it should feel familiar and correct to Halo's visual style. So in fact, we don't cut corners at all. We carefully plan line of sight, elevation, and so on, and let our artists build beautiful new multiplayer spaces.

GS: Thanks for your time.

[Mr.MuayThai]

^^ You can have four player co-op. . .

Im so excited