Seriously though, you’ve got to think about what you’re competing with. The FPS genre is spiraling out of control, what with every game trying to be the same. Every FPS nowadays wants to be a, “Realistic, gritty, bloody, war simulator.” Even Halo is slowly falling into this trend. Think about it. From Halo CE to Halo 3, the games had a generally happy and epic feel. Colors were vibrant, environments were full of life, trailers had a feel-good tone to them, the music was generally happy, etc. Then came Reach. Reach tried to be a realistic, gritty game. Colors were dulled down to the point where it was boring. Grunts weren’t funny anymore. The music had a weird feel to it. There were core gameplay mechanics based on realism. The trailers were CG. 99% of the maps in MP are dull gray, dull blue, and dull green. This is mainly because of the sheer laziness behind Reach’s development, but you get what I’m trying to say.
During Halo fest, the (Art director?) for Halo 4 said something along the lines of this: “The Halo fanbase is maturing, so the art has to as well.” He was referring to Chief’s new armor when he said that. My heart sank to the floor. We don’t need another “Gritty, realistic, sad” Halo. If everything in Halo 4 looks like Chief’s new armor, I’m rage quitting the Halo saga. Chief’s new armor looks terrible. Bring the happiness, the feel good tone, the great music, the humor, and the simplicity back to Halo. Halo was doing fine with its own formula, so why try to blend it in with all the other games?
I didn’t mind Reach’s gritty feel. It suits the feeling of that game in particular, the Covies are invading a planet. Time for all out war. But, I also agree that Halo needs to stay unique. I will be extremely upset if Halo 4 or something has final killcam, killstreaks, etc. Halo doesn’t steal ideas, unlike some games.
> I didn’t mind Reach’s gritty feel. It suits the feeling of that game in particular, the Covies are invading a planet. Time for all out war. But, I also agree that Halo needs to stay unique. I will be extremely upset if Halo 4 or something has final killcam, killstreaks, etc. Halo doesn’t steal ideas, unlike some games.
Halo doesn’t need to stay in a rut all the time, utilising other ideas is the way forward for Halo. 343 wouldn’t be stealing ideas anyway. The ideas aren’t copyrighted so they can be used by other companies and wouldn’t be classified as stealing.
Although this isn’t really on-topic with your subjet, I was honestly kinda disappointed when frankie said they’d found many great gameplay mechanics, but they had to be cut because it wasn’t “halo” enough. Limiting your creativity for repetition’s sake isn’t a good idea. imho, I don’t give a -Yoink- what they do, as long as it enhances the gameplay, or makes it more fun/interesting/less dull.
Yeah, I agree. We don’t need Halo to become another CoD game with a little science-fiction added in…
> Although this isn’t really on-topic with your subjet, I was honestly kinda disappointed when frankie said they’d found many great gameplay mechanics, but they had to be cut because it wasn’t “halo” enough. Limiting your creativity for repetition’s sake isn’t a good idea. imho, I don’t give a Yoink! what they do, as long as it enhances the gameplay, or makes it more fun/interesting/less dull.
Agree with this too, although I do have to say that they need to be careful with what new ideas they implement in the next few Halo games. Armor Abilities and bloom were both good ideas that went terribly wrong in the end.
> > > From Halo CE to Halo 3, the games had a generally happy and epic feel.
> >
> > Getting specific here, but what about the Flood is happy and colorful?
>
> Yeah, I didn’t think Floodgate was very happy, Halo 3 didn’t have a very happy feel.
Are you joking? Halo 3 was the prettiest, happiest, and shiniest of all.
> > > > From Halo CE to Halo 3, the games had a generally happy and epic feel.
> > >
> > > Getting specific here, but what about the Flood is happy and colorful?
> >
> > Yeah, I didn’t think Floodgate was very happy, Halo 3 didn’t have a very happy feel.
>
> Are you joking? Halo 3 was the prettiest, happiest, and shiniest of all.
That game had more of a tense feeling, the good tense.
I want a perfect balance in between realism and sci-fi. I want bright and vibrant colors, but I want awesome looking armor with ammo pouches and equipment that Spartan/soldier would use. Halo is different, and it should stay different. I consider myself a hardcore gamer, but games lately haven’t been as good as they used to be. We’re playing super realistic war simulators, when really we should be playing games to have fun and laugh. I grew up playing Zelda and Halo, and I’m glad to see that Zelda is sticking with its cartoonish look, and I hope Halo tends to stick to it’s epic sci-fi feel.
> > > > > From Halo CE to Halo 3, the games had a generally happy and epic feel.
> > > >
> > > > Getting specific here, but what about the Flood is happy and colorful?
> > >
> > > Yeah, I didn’t think Floodgate was very happy, Halo 3 didn’t have a very happy feel.
> >
> > Are you joking? Halo 3 was the prettiest, happiest, and shiniest of all.
>
> That game had more of a tense feeling, the good tense.
I felt it was anti-climatic, and everything was colorful, shiny, waxy, and multiplayer character models look like starbursts or skittles. I heard of taste the rainbow, not wear it.
> I want a perfect balance in between realism and sci-fi. I want bright and vibrant colors, but I want awesome looking armor with ammo pouches and equipment that Spartan/soldier would use. Halo is different, and it should stay different. I consider myself a hardcore gamer, but games lately haven’t been as good as they used to be. We’re playing super realistic war simulators, when really we should be playing games to have fun and laugh. I grew up playing Zelda and Halo, and I’m glad to see that Zelda is sticking with its cartoonish look, and I hope Halo tends to stick to it’s epic sci-fi feel.
I want the bright vibrant colours that we had in Halo 1-3. In my mind those are actually far more realistic than the sepia filter waked onto many of todays games. I don’t really get the point about the armor though. How is that an indication of, well, anything other than the armor?
I agree. Halo Reach is the fist Halo that I could actually get bored of. It still takes me hours of playing or maybe its just a bad day but either way Reach was the first Halo that I could get bored of. The colour gets sickening, the gameplay gets boring and the Covenant are almost annoying with their alien languages, the Covenant are not fun anymore either, no more grunts screaming “AAAAAHHH THE DEMON!!!” and “THERE EVERYWHERE!!!”. Halo needs to be one of the games that stick to what the long time fans love.
Also I found the DMR to be really dull. The BR was so much funner.
i kinda liked reaches feel because reach was dying and i kinda wanted it too be more gritty HOWEVER halo 4 is gonna be on a forerunner world i TOTALLY agree with the OP it needs too be colorfull vibrant something you want to go back and play again and again halo reach i swear the only campaign level i will now play is winter cause its short the levels dont have the emotion that halo ce - 3 gave me it needs to be HALO not REACH reach is dead and now glass and thats what that gritty war torn feel needs too be
I guess it all depends in the mood they’re trying to set. I agree with some other posts, Halo 4 should have a fine balance between gritty realism, and colorful environments. If you look at the [(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAKmu2yn3Fk)]Concept Art]([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAKmu2yn3Fk) trailer, there are times where you could go from realism, to colorful.
Examples:
At 0:26 of the vid - Gritty, dark
0:34 - Colorful
0:40 - Colorful
0:50 - Mixture of both
0:56 - Colorful
etc, etc, etc…
<strong><strong>Edit: Argh, how come I can’t put named hyperlinks! >.<</strong></strong>
> Seriously though, you’ve got to think about what you’re competing with. The FPS genre is spiraling out of control, what with every game trying to be the same. Every FPS nowadays wants to be a, “Realistic, gritty, bloody, war simulator.” Even Halo is slowly falling into this trend. Think about it. From Halo CE to Halo 3, the games had a generally happy and epic feel. Colors were vibrant, environments were full of life, trailers had a feel-good tone to them, the music was generally happy, etc. Then came Reach. Reach tried to be a realistic, gritty game. Colors were dulled down to the point where it was boring. Grunts weren’t funny anymore. The music had a weird feel to it. There were core gameplay mechanics based on realism. The trailers were CG. 99% of the maps in MP are dull gray, dull blue, and dull green. This is mainly because of the sheer laziness behind Reach’s development, but you get what I’m trying to say.
>
> During Halo fest, the (Art director?) for Halo 4 said something along the lines of this: “The Halo fanbase is maturing, so the art has to as well.” He was referring to Chief’s new armor when he said that. My heart sank to the floor. We don’t need another “Gritty, realistic, sad” Halo. If everything in Halo 4 looks like Chief’s new armor, I’m rage quitting the Halo saga. Chief’s new armor looks terrible. Bring the happiness, the feel good tone, the great music, the humor, and the simplicity back to Halo. Halo was doing fine with its own formula, so why try to blend it in with all the other games?
Sorry, but I liked the realistic feel of Halo Reach. It was more in tune with the expanded universe, in my mind. And of course, Halo Reach was meant to be a more human story, which I think it achieved.
Also:
None of Halo Reach’s trailers were CG. Halo 2 and Halo 3 had more CG trailers than Reach.
What about the old Halo music and art direction was “happy”? It was more focused on the Forerunner mystery, but I would hardly say “happy”. The main trilogy was a Space Opera. Reach is a grounded, more hard sci-fi kind of story.
Only Forge World maps are grey, blue, and green. Among Reach’s maps, each is unique in its color pallet.
Reach’s development was in no way lazy. Bungie made heavy investments into new technologies and software. They completely reconfigured the game engine, used ZBrush to make more realistic assets and characters, got their own mo-cap studio. What about any of that is lazy?
If you don’t like the direction Halo 4 is headed, then fine. “Rage quit”, you won’t be missed.