Those who don't learn from history are...

Games Other Halo
1

…doomed to repeat it.

Before reading any further, this thread concerns the CAMPAIGN and the campaign ONLY. Do not post anything in multiplayer please. I request you this.

EDIT: I posted this in Halo 4 to discuss what we do not want to see in H4, rather than just a free-for-all bashing of games, which then I would have put in GD. There is a big difference.

Let us take a step back and look at the Halo campaign. Most of it was done right, and it gave rise to many, many campaign replays even without the need of being an achievement hunter or whatnot. The campaigns were just fun. But there were some things that grinded everyone’s gears in the various campaigns, and highlighting the terrible design choices and various poor implementation.

Lets have a game by game analysis:

Halo CE:

  • I don’t think there is a Halo fan alive that won’t acknowledge that the copy and paste sections of this game were terrible. Granted, they padded out the game enough for it to be an amazing experience and made the sweet moments even sweeter, but we now have an expectation that developers are smart enough and not limited to making design choices like this.

  • Backtracking. Though this is very debatable. I personally found backtracking through a destroyed TnR and PoA really fun, but I think alot of people would disagree. Overall, it probably would be better to not backtrack levels, or at least keep it at 1 level rather than 3.

Halo 2:

Note: I am one of those guys who thinks Halo 2 was the most disappointing Halo game made and it hand’s down had the worst campaign. But I am not here to spread my hate, so I will keep it short and ignore everything that is not directly gameplay.

  • If CE was winner of the copy-paste awards, then Halo 2 wins most bland levels ever awards. There was some copy and pasting, but alot of the times the rooms seemed so bland and lifeless and it was another cheap way of padding out the game. These things get aggravating in a linear shooter and it really was a terrible offense for Bungie to continue down this path regardless of the backlash that CE received for its mistake.

  • Corridor. Everything was a corridor. I don’t know how they got this so backwards after CE. There were only a few times where the world opened up a little and allowed you to spread your wings and bust out some strats. Another mini-criticism was how long the vehicle dependent sections were. Delta Halo and the city levels come to mind when you constantly have to drive through tunnel after tunnel after tunnel.

  • I put away my other criticisms away for this; the city level. The E3 trailer was what I expected Halo 2 to be. It absolutely blew me away and I watched it over and over and over again looking for the small details (melee combo’s anyone?) and what I got instead was a long and boring corridor that did not even feel like a covenant invasion. I got the same feeling (or lack of) from Reach. Go watch the E3 gameplay and look how huge the level seems, then go play through the corridor that is Metro in H2… Terrible

Halo 3

  • Backtracking in Rat’s Nest. Seriously? Look at good linear levels like PoA and Cairo Station. They are tight, quicker and challenging on higher difficulties. This was chubby, long and too simple. Everything wrong about linear levels was demonstrated here (minus the jetpack brute part). And backtracking was the worst offense.

  • Floodgate. Why even have this mission? Well I know why. Because this was supposed to be the last mission of Halo 2. But why now in Halo 3. If there ever was a pointless mission it has to be Floodgate. It is not like anyone enjoyed fighting the Flood on that level… Speaking of Flood - Cortana. Did Bungie not get the memo that The Library was possibly one of the worst levels ever created? Did they try and outdo themselves by creating the real worst level ever? Cortana was a chore. It was ugly, boring and just so stupid.

  • DO NOT CUT INTO OUR PLAYTIME WITH RIDICULOUS DIALOGUE. You know what I am talking about. When you suddenly have a -Yoink!- attack and Cortana talks to you and you can’t move for half a minute… This is the stupidest idea ever and totally decreases replay value.

ODST:

  • Not sure. The only thing that springs to mind was how short it was and how MS/Bungie had the gall to charge it as a full price game.

Reach:

  • Armor abilities. “But you said no MP…” - thats right. What purpose did armor abilities serve in the campaign? Apart from a few obligatory jetpack sequences, none. If you are going to include something that breaks the game as much as AA, then make it worth your while to pick up something other than sprint.

  • TOO BIG. I see what they did. They lengthened the levels a little. It was not necessary, but when you have any other ability other than sprint, you can really see how long it takes you to get anywhere. Bad idea.

  • Bungie boasted that Reach had double the AI capacity of Halo 3. So where were the big battles? Where was the equivalent of that giant scarab battle in The Ark, when you and your buddies in tanks are trying to down the scarab and all those crazy choppers + grenade launching brutes? We like big battles. We like being outnumbered and forced to react quickly rather than just charge up a plasma pistol and then follow up with one bullet before running to cover. Reach was the worst offender of not having any real major battles.

Feel free to add your criticism to whichever Halo campaign you please. Criticism is of utmost importance. For 343, it allows them to see blatant mistakes and rethink their design choices. For us, it gives us a stick by which we measure future games. Did they improve on these fundamental problems, or did they repeat them again?

Go!

2

You’ve named every dissapointment I’ve had with the series, so it’s nice to see someone who can see past it and acknowledge that, at times, it’s depressingly bland and feels poorly executed.

But I still enjoy the series and would play them any day.

3

Only problem I had with CE was the library, other than that I would honestly say Halo CE is the best game I have ever played, and is worth the game of the decade award.

4

OP gets 9000+ internets for his criticisms of halo being 100% true. I would like to add that halo 4 should be completely new. 343i forget about halo, in fact what’s halo? now make a new game called halo and then magically remember that it is the fourth main game in the halo series, so put a 4 on the end of your finished product.

5

I dont see how Halo 2 was the worst campaign. The campaign was the longest and most difficult and it had plenty of open spaces and good architectural design. The vehicle parts were interesting and you got to use a variety of vehicles in different environments. Plus Halo 2 had the least backtracking of any game and by far the most interesting story line.

Halo 3 had two really good levels (the ark and the covenant) other than that it was pretty mediocre

Reach was just plain disappointing.

Ce was good but it was a little raw

6

> - Bungie boasted that Reach had double the AI capacity of Halo 3. So where were the big battles? Where was the equivalent of that giant scarab battle in The Ark, when you and your buddies in tanks are trying to down the scarab and all those crazy choppers + grenade launching brutes? We like big battles. We like being outnumbered and forced to react quickly rather than just charge up a plasma pistol and then follow up with one bullet before running to cover. Reach was the worst offender of not having any real major battles.

THIS. 1000x THIS. Or what about The Storm in Halo 3 where you’re fighting the scarab and there are banshees and ghosts and brutes everywhere trying to take you out…where was that epic moment in Reach?

7

> I dont see how Halo 2 was the worst campaign. The campaign was the longest and most difficult and it had plenty of open spaces and good architectural design. The vehicle parts were interesting and you got to use a variety of vehicles in different environments. Plus Halo 2 had the least backtracking of any game and by far the most interesting story line.

I am not going to start an argument. Don’t try to invalidate my opinion with your own. Incase you have not noticed, this thread is for criticism of games, not praise.

8

personally, i hate linear. halo 3 was VERY linear at times and annoyed me, halo 2 was VERY open in some places, and i see why you thought the levels were too long as i found myself exploring outside maps rather than finishing them, reach campaign had next to no replay value, as every encounter was always exactly the same, ce is fun, but not without problems.

9

> personally, i hate linear. halo 3 was VERY linear at times and annoyed me, halo 2 was VERY open in some places, and i see why you thought the levels were too long as i found myself exploring outside maps rather than finishing them, reach campaign had next to no replay value, as every encounter was always exactly the same, ce is fun, but not without problems.

Mind sharing those problems rather than dropping a vague statement? I think I addressed CE’s main problems.

10

I replayed Halo 2 again about a month ago and completely agree with what you said. It truly was the linear of all linear.

I feel like Reach did have a larger AI count than Halo 3. But they used it to bolster the infantry count, so that’s why there wasn’t any level that felt like those Big Battle engagements you were talking about. I don’t think using the AI in that way in Reach was bad, I really liked those engagements with 30 or 40+ infantry AI; although, Big Battle engagements (with a high number of vehicle AI)need to be added on top.

11

> - Bungie boasted that Reach had double the AI capacity of Halo 3. So where were the big battles? Where was the equivalent of that giant scarab battle in The Ark, when you and your buddies in tanks are trying to down the scarab and all those crazy choppers + grenade launching brutes? We like big battles. We like being outnumbered and forced to react quickly rather than just charge up a plasma pistol and then follow up with one bullet before running to cover. Reach was the worst offender of not having any real major battles.

What I think happened was that previous Halo games used multiple small waves of Covenant. Reach was the first game able to use large waves – yet we usually only got one or two per battle.

In Halo 3’s The Ark, immediately after the first wave finished, additional Covies would run out of a locked doorway sunk into the ground and continue attacking. And when you finally try to push forward after that, we get a third wave of Covies in the next area. Kill them – new wave with Hunters. Kill them – new wave on the slope to the next area. Five waves in two areas.

By contrast, Reach used fairly few waves, and most of them weren’t aggressive. Halo 3’s waves were slightly more aggressive – Brutes, prone to rushes and berserking, were far more frequent, and Hunters were more frequent and gave chase more often. Reach’s waves were, in nearly all cases, content to sit back and wait for you to come to them. (By meta-contrast, though, Halo 3’s waves were utterly clueless when you tried to engage them outside their combat range – “Hey, let’s just strafe very slowly and not get behind cover!” And Brutes were too stupid to keep their weapon hand behind cover when trying to protect themselves.)

The Package was an exception to Reach’s otherwise-dull combat, but more because: you were utterly alone; the environments were small enough to make the small waves feel larger; and the one section that was actually large also had the largest wave in the Campaign to match it.

> Feel free to add your criticism to whichever Halo campaign you please. Criticism is of utmost importance. For 343, it allows them to see blatant mistakes and rethink their design choices. For us, it gives us a stick by which we measure future games. Did they improve on these fundamental problems, or did they repeat them again?

Reach’s Nightfall tried to be a stealth mission. It failed miserably. No matter how well-concealed in a bush or an unintuitive place you are, you’re instantly located the moment you fire a shot, because the AI doesn’t “see”, it raycasts. And if you wait too long, Jun fires a shot – and then the AI sees you! (And never mind the fact that he always blows away a low-priority target, like a Grunt, with the very rounds whose high price tag he comments on early in the level!)

Halo 3’s Floodgate had Marines who were competent, but lacked common sense nonetheless. Somehow, in a playthrough, I saved Stacker plus two other Marines. We reach the end of the segment, where I’m about to drop down into a hole… And rather than following their seven-foot-tall best chance of survival, these Marines are instead content to wait inside of a factory in the middle of a Flood infestation, knowing that staying behind will either get them infected or glassed. Lolwut?

Kat can’t drive. Emile has no depth perception. Jun has ironically-poor aim. Carter is so bland, I can’t remember his irritating flaw! Jorge is fine, but slow. NOBLE Team seems hell-bent on killing Six.

I hate having to leave Marines behind. In Halo 3, they never followed you. In ODST, you never had enough seats on a vehicle, and they never opted to take a spare and follow you. In Reach, they were complete idiots and I never even noticed them because of that. I want to like my allies, and I want to keep my allies.

Most “defensive” situations in Halo feel like anything but. We’re supposedly defending Crow’s Nest, yet I’m the one attacking the Covenant, rather than them attacking me. We’re supposedly defending Sword Base, yet I’m the one traveling and rushing the Covies. Even when escorting Virgil in ODST, I didn’t feel like I was defending him; the Covenant always went after me, not him (until the damn annoying highway segments, that is!). The only memorably-defensive situations I know of were Reach’s Glacier and Halo 3’s Halo (when defending the ziggurat).

Those are all my criticisms. I don’t hate the campaigns as much as this post may make me sound, but the point of the thread is to point out flaws to hopefully be avoided.

12

> Halo CE:
>
> - I don’t think there is a Halo fan alive that won’t acknowledge that the copy and paste sections of this game were terrible. Granted, they padded out the game enough for it to be an amazing experience and made the sweet moments even sweeter, but we now have an expectation that developers are smart enough and not limited to making design choices like this.
>
> - Backtracking. Though this is very debatable. I personally found backtracking through a destroyed TnR and PoA really fun, but I think alot of people would disagree. Overall, it probably would be better to not backtrack levels, or at least keep it at 1 level rather than 3.

Totally agree with these points.

> Halo 2:
>
> Note: I am one of those guys who thinks Halo 2 was the most disappointing Halo game made and it hand’s down had the worst campaign. But I am not here to spread my hate, so I will keep it short and ignore everything that is not directly gameplay.

Now I personally disagree, in my opinion Halo 2 had the best Halo campaign yet.

> - If CE was winner of the copy-paste awards, then Halo 2 wins most bland levels ever awards. There was some copy and pasting, but alot of the times the rooms seemed so bland and lifeless and it was another cheap way of padding out the game. These things get aggravating in a linear shooter and it really was a terrible offense for Bungie to continue down this path regardless of the backlash that CE received for its mistake.

I disagree with the Chief’s levels. Some of Arbys levels were like this, but they get better as they go along.

> - Corridor. Everything was a corridor. I don’t know how they got this so backwards after CE. There were only a few times where the world opened up a little and allowed you to spread your wings and bust out some strats. Another mini-criticism was how long the vehicle dependent sections were. Delta Halo and the city levels come to mind when you constantly have to drive through tunnel after tunnel after tunnel.

I disagree.

> - I put away my other criticisms away for this; the city level. The E3 trailer was what I expected Halo 2 to be. It absolutely blew me away and I watched it over and over and over again looking for the small details (melee combo’s anyone?) and what I got instead was a long and boring corridor that did not even feel like a covenant invasion. I got the same feeling (or lack of) from Reach. Go watch the E3 gameplay and look how huge the level seems, then go play through the corridor that is Metro in H2… Terrible

Bungie did something really wrong with that trailer. They made something that was impossible for the original Xbox to run (they run it on a PC), just to build hype. That level was amazing, and the ending was perfect, but it was just a trailer. Also it lasts like ten minuets, who wants a level that short?

> Halo 3
>
> - Backtracking in Rat’s Nest. Seriously? Look at good linear levels like PoA and Cairo Station. They are tight, quicker and challenging on higher difficulties. This was chubby, long and too simple. Everything wrong about linear levels was demonstrated here (minus the jetpack brute part). And backtracking was the worst offense.

Agreed.

> - Floodgate. Why even have this mission? Well I know why. Because this was supposed to be the last mission of Halo 2. But why now in Halo 3. If there ever was a pointless mission it has to be Floodgate. It is not like anyone enjoyed fighting the Flood on that level… Speaking of Flood - Cortana. Did Bungie not get the memo that The Library was possibly one of the worst levels ever created? Did they try and outdo themselves by creating the real worst level ever? Cortana was a chore. It was ugly, boring and just so stupid.

I disagree. I think with Floodgate, it was short enough (like just under 20 mins first play through), and had enough humans fighting / elites fighting with you to make it bearable. It was the first flood level I actually liked.

> - DO NOT CUT INTO OUR PLAYTIME WITH RIDICULOUS DIALOGUE. You know what I am talking about. When you suddenly have a -Yoink!- attack and Cortana talks to you and you can’t move for half a minute… This is the stupidest idea ever and totally decreases replay value.

Totally agree.

> ODST:
>
> - Not sure. The only thing that springs to mind was how short it was and how MS/Bungie had the gall to charge it as a full price game.

I agree. ODST had some really good things in it.

> Reach:
>
> - Armor abilities. “But you said no MP…” - thats right. What purpose did armor abilities serve in the campaign? Apart from a few obligatory jetpack sequences, none. If you are going to include something that breaks the game as much as AA, then make it worth your while to pick up something other than sprint.

I think Jet Pack worked nicely in the campaign. I have no real problem with AA’s being in campaign.

> - TOO BIG. I see what they did. They lengthened the levels a little. It was not necessary, but when you have any other ability other than sprint, you can really see how long it takes you to get anywhere. Bad idea.

Totally disagree. I think Halo Reach got the length of levels spot on. ODST had them slightly too short, so did Halo 3. Halo 2 and Halo CE had slightly too long levels.

> - Bungie boasted that Reach had double the AI capacity of Halo 3. So where were the big battles? Where was the equivalent of that giant scarab battle in The Ark, when you and your buddies in tanks are trying to down the scarab and all those crazy choppers + grenade launching brutes? We like big battles. We like being outnumbered and forced to react quickly rather than just charge up a plasma pistol and then follow up with one bullet before running to cover. Reach was the worst offender of not having any real major battles.

I totally agree with this. I loved Halo Reach’s campaign, thinking there was not one bad level, but where were the epic global conflicts? I had less epic battles than even Halo 2 (or at least seemed to have less numbers in the battles).

> Feel free to add your criticism to whichever Halo campaign you please. Criticism is of utmost importance. For 343, it allows them to see blatant mistakes and rethink their design choices. For us, it gives us a stick by which we measure future games. Did they improve on these fundamental problems, or did they repeat them again?
>
> Go!

Of what you didn’t mention, I think the problems with Halo 3 was the story. It started good, right up to when Chief goes after Truth and sides with the flood. Is he an idiot? He sided with the flood in Halo 2 and does he not remember how that worked out?

Please 343, make a good campaign. Its up to you to provide something that truly blows me away.

13

Only talking about bad or good sides of the campaigns of each game gives a false appearance of how things actually are. That’s why whenever you make a thread try to bring both the good and the bad sides up. Because as of now, this thread portrays the campaign experiences of all Halo games as they were made by a bunch of amateurs who lack any capabilities to make a game. However, this is not the case with Halo.

Never have I been let down by a Halo campaign, even Reach I only found partially uninteresting, not awfully bad by any means. Backtracking or copied sections on campign levels may not be the best choice, but lack of time or resources was what caused Bungie to do this. And I must say that I find the way they executed it very good. Never have I felt bored when I have been running in the canyons of Two Betrayals or the corridors of Truth and Reconciliation or The Maw, only because they were the same levels. While the level design of Halo CE may not be the best of the industry, it’s something that will never get me bored to running throught the same corridors or canyons, even after all these years.

The campaign of Halo 2 was definitely a step down at least on the part of level design, but bland enviroments? I have always found lake of Delta Halo very attractive and the skybox Forerunner keyship in the middle of the giant dome illuminated by lights on all the High Charity levels breathtaking. Granted, the earth levels mostly had bland enviroments and skyboxes, but most of the skyboxes are breathtaking. I find the enviroments of Halo 2 campaign, in most parts, very nice. The only problem with Halo 2 was that it didn’t have much of open enviroments, that’s something they could have done differently and probably would have, hadn’t they been forced to scrap nearly the whole game half way through development. Bungie’s dreams at the time were far beyond their and the original Xbox’s capabilities, this is why we never got the city level.

While Halo 3 certainly wasn’t the best in the series, I still find it pretty entertaining. Sure, I sometimes get bored while running back and forth on Rat’s Nest, but I find no other problems in the campaign of Halo 3 except that it was too short and the combat was slow and a bit boring (granted, the latter was a problem with Halo 2 too and every other game in the series excluding CE). Still I find the campaign of Halo 3 entertaining and the skyboxes breathtaking (as always in Halo games).

I admit I find the flood levels in Halo 3 boring, but I have to go back to Halo CE for a while with The Library. It’s a level most Halo players would call the worst in the series. It’s not because the level itself was bad by any means, not even with the bit repetitive design (which I never had problems with). People’s dislike for the level comes from the difficulty. For more experienced players it’s a delighting change after the 343 Guilty Spark I find very easy. The Library is the only level ever in Halo where you actually have to fight for your life, there is no point in the level where you can just take cover and relax when your shields go down. If you start running backwards when you have shields down and a horde of Flood running towards you, you can’t just go back infinitely, eventually you’ll bump into another bunch of Flood. This is exactly waht makes The Library one of the best and most interesting levels in Halo’s history in my opinion.

I have to mostly agree with Reach, it never really showed the actual large amounts of AI. I also happen to find the way the gameplay was designed boring. The levels didn’t seem to have point in their objectives and most of the time I felt like I had no point doing whatever I ever was doing (come to think of it, I have no idea what the general point of the missions was). But the camapign was by no means bad, it had well designed levels and hadn’t it had bland artstyle, the game would have looked gorgeous.

So, telling what’s bad is important, but what also is important is to tell what they ahve done right. If we didn’t tell them what was executed correctly in the games, we would never get good games. Because if we tell what was done right, they will know better what they should do in the next installement. Because knowing what you should do is always better and more helpful than knowing what you shouldn’t do.