Halo 3

[PEACEandLOVE]

9 days left. Who's ready to finish the fight? For real, those brutes are gonna get OWNED.

lol, Agreed!

I actually missed out on the first game... but I thoroughly enjoyed the second one, however at the time the cliffhanger ending was more of an annoyance than anything to me. I did enjoy the fact that you played as the enemy and it got more in depth as to the thought processes of the covnant and such, and the Arbiter's character is just plain awesome, XD... and as a closing note...

NEEDLERS PWN!

[PEACEandLOVE]

Needlers pwn indeed. And yea, the arbiter was awesome. I played the first one, it was pretty good, but I don't get how people can say it was better than the second...

[RobM]

You are aware that Halo 2 is actually Halo 1b.

Ah, this is a rant you've not heard before - pay attention, there may be a test later.

Slight screw up by Bungie. They decided that Halo 3 was too good for the Xbox, so they just... you know, made another one as a filler. Seriously, check out the Old Halo 2 trailers and you'll see it was 80% set on earth with the all-out massed invasion of Earth, huge armies fighting across a dozen continents, artillery duels being held over whole cities, dogfights in the air.

Instead, we got a pile of tosh. I'm sure there will be people who feel Halo2 (As it is) was a better game than 1, I think thats very, very wrong. It was an awsome game, the new shield/armour system worked great and the introduction of the Brutes came off well - but that was where it ended. Everything that was NEW in Halo2 was unfinished, the new human guns were lame and unbalenced compared to the masterpiece of Halo1 where the pistol was equal to the shotgun and the missile launcher, alien weapons less so, but still awsome.

Halo2 is nothing short of a cop-out, cash-in they REALLY made hastily to make money while waiting for the Xbox 360. Orders probably from their bosses at Microsoft that they needed a good game for the 360 and Halo2 (As it was) went too far in terms of plot and game development for them to make a Halo3 (Halo4 as it will be known) in the two years left.
So, they made a cash in game at the last minute.

For example: Remember the Old Halo2 trailers, set on Earth during the planetary fighting, alien artillery being wiped out by human bombers, you running through this medic-camp with medics and surgeons doing CPR to wounded soldiers before the MasterChief jumps onto a passing 'Ghost Mk2' and goes off on this long chase sequence down a raised highway before being surrounded by Brutors and armed with nothing but a sticky-grenade? It's probably on YouTube if you havn't.
That WAS Halo2, all of that is now in Halo3 - coincidence?

Halo2's plot had several huge holes in it because it was really hasty (IE: They couldn't let it undermine the invasion of Earth they'd already programmed several levels for in the game they'd postponed) so they rushed off to a new Halo. Playing as the Arbiter, do you remember a bit after you've gone through 'The Wall' level and started walking towards the Library there's a large, human troopship (Exactly like the Pillar of Autumn) getting shot down by ground fire - then suddenly there's hundreds of human-flood armed with tanks and jeeps? That was part of the hastily written plot they'd come up with, but changed at the last minute without actually being arsed to remove this unknown troopship, not to mention it'd be hard to remove all the human-flood and human vehicles - so they left it in despite the fact it no longer made any sense. And no, the ship wasn't the Amberclad, thats a different vessel class and you see it crashing into the Covenant city later on whereas this Piller of Autumn ship is something you have to drive through later in the level, it's burning and gutten as you pass(Right through the engineering deck, identical to the one from Halo1 because it IS the same level, just on fire).
They were that desperate to get the tanks back into the game.
Covenant vehicles were only partially programmed. Yup, they were bugged, there were two covenant vehicles that they weren't able to finish, so they left them - didn't rewrite the instruction manuel, look them up, they're the covenant troop ground-carrier. The only level they're in is the second level, the human city. Driving through the underground highway you meet a column of three of them - they can't be interacted with, the turrents don't fire and there's no-one riding them, just one unarmed elite driver. You can't destroy them by shooting (because that wasn't programmed) but if you shoot the driver they instantly self-destruct. I repeat, the programmers couldn't get them to work it was so rushed to make this cash-in sequel >.<
The Pelican/Orca transports. Did you notice the dropships no-longer gave you a lift? They weren't finished, Bungie tried encoding a new armed variant with missiles on the wings and a gun turret at the back - they didn't work. The Sarge gets a free lift around in them, because they didn't want him walking around too much. That why you crashed the first time landing, they could do a cut-scene but not a proper working dropship to fly you around. Foehammer must be crying in her sleep.

Halo2, great game but GIMICKY. Thats my word on it, the game had one purpose - let you do cool things like use a laser-sword, drive a Covenant Mortar-Tank, test the new characters and weapons (Ie: Brutors and new human guns), play an Elite... It's all good fun and I loved Halo2 - but I feel cheated.

Halo3 is probably going to be the best 360 game and despite some fierce PC competition from STALKER: Shadows of Cherynobryl, Bioshock/Rapture, RISE (I think thats what it's called) and Quake Wars... It's probably STILL going to be the best FPS this year.
So yeah, I AM looking forward to Halo3 a lot, I just wish rather than a cheap-ass rip-off I'd have played it two years ago because... It WAS almost 1/3rd finished by then, if they hadn't had to spend most of the time re-coding it for the much more complex 360 we'd have had it already!

[PEACEandLOVE]

Seiously... I read all that... Now my eyes are on fire. For real, I'm sure all of that is true, but the only part I cared about was the fun part. Seriously, Halo 2 might have been rushed, or gimiky, but the fun was all that mattered to me. But, that was a lot of stuff, I never even realized that before. Sure, I saw that one trailer, but never thought much of it. Same with the carriers and all the rest of that stuff. Anyways, I'll definately agree that Halo 3 will be the best FPS of the year.

The fact that a pistol was equal to a shotgun readily points out to me, a gun nut, that tere were real balance issues in Halo 1. You don't GET that kind of friepower in a pistol, even if it IS supposed to me a .44 magnum. The higher-end magnums (.454 Cassul and .500S&W) are equal to it, but such bullets are far to large and too powerful for semi-automatic pistols.

[RobM]

Baka~

I think you missed the point - the point wasn't to create a heirarchy of weapons where the pistol is at the bottom (Along with the wrench, like it is in most games) where the final weapons your pick up at the end are the BFG-9000 or the gauss cannon. The idea was to create equalised weapons with TOTALLY different rules and tatics.
If you havn't played the game a lot (Something you neither confirm or deny in your post) or any first person shooters for that matter, you might not readily see the point.

It's simple, to make the weapons radically DIFFERENT and balanced and create tatical gameplay.
Balancing a pistol to a machinegun or shotgun isn't easy and in the first game they did it SO WELL. Second game was the same idea, but done less well.

Lemme, in the politest way I can - and I don't wish to seem rude or patronising for this segement, explain how the pistol was equal and in the right hands, better. If thats what makes it hard for you since you seemed clued up on guns; It's sci-fi.

The pistol has a magazine of 12, explosive bullets with high shield penetration and a second-stage propulsion, the crosshairs on the screen, individual to each gun was a tiny circle and the pistoil had a zoom. Headshots also do extra damage.
Someone armed with a pistol was capable of VERY ACCURATE shots, each one doing large, explosive damage which quickly took down your shield or armour in seconds. Someone skilled at moving and shooting with the pistol could kill most people at medium range with ease with headshots and if you play the game you'll see thats it's acceptable.
Machine gun has a magazine of 50 caseless rounds. Less penetration, but more of them. It also has a larger circle for a cross-hair - almost four times bigger. When firing the pistol the bullet is garanteed to land within the tiny cross-hair, machine guns cross-hair is bigger - IE: Harder to land hits with every bullet, especially at range. Every bullet (a small thing) flies on a path randomly within a certain variation. It's a tommygun being fired from the hip. The pistol somewhere within the 50-ring, the machinegun anywhere within the 50, 30 and 20 rings.
The rocket-launcher is a two-shot weapon with a long reload time. Does HUGE damage and even a near-miss can kill you, but the projectiles are slow moving and at medium and long ranges they can be dodged provided you see the approaching puff of smoke quick enough.
Shotgun has (I think) an eight round, flap-breach loading chamber, and a short range only. Large cross-hair but that works in your favour because anything in that crosshair gets hit - the more of them emcompassed by it, more damage is done. It's great against all targets, but has a slow rate of fire, slower reload time than all other weapons (since if has to be done one shell at a time, rather than a whole magazine), requires you to close to the target to really pepper them effectively.

The first Halo - and to a much less extent, but worth mentioning, the second - was made great because it was so balanced. Weapons required tactics and a guy with a shotgun was VERY dangerous, but the pistolier would beat the newb every single time if they used the right tatics. Too bad they changed all the weapon dynamics in the second game, it wasn't an improvment and I wanted my old weapons back (Even if they did correct the naming error and corrected the 'machinegun' to 'assault-rifle').

Please don't confuse Halo with Doom1, I'm not saying that what you're doing, but if you think that the biggest guns in the game ought to beat the others I'm saying that Halo is designed to plausably be different from other games in this respect.
I PRAY that the Halo3 Multiplayer will be as balanced as the first because that is about as much fun as you can have with four people whilst still wearing pants.

[Spankofox]

Besides, I don't think that it was intended to be a .44 magnum, it doesn't look like one, kick like one, nor does it have 6 shots as RobM pointed out in his last reply, but I don't really know. But whatever... Whos played the Beta?! SNIPER RIFLE YAAAYYY!!!! Look what you guys did, now I'm all exited! XD

This week I'm buying a 360 elite, so I'm pretty exited to try it out. I don't have an x-box live account because my room-mate had an account; I always just played on his, but I'm getting an account this week. Does anyone want to swap account names when the game comes out?

[PEACEandLOVE]

Originally Posted by Urzu7

The fact that a pistol was equal to a shotgun readily points out to me, a gun nut, that tere were real balance issues in Halo 1. You don't GET that kind of friepower in a pistol, even if it IS supposed to me a .44 magnum. The higher-end magnums (.454 Cassul and .500S&W) are equal to it, but such bullets are far to large and too powerful for semi-automatic pistols.

Gun nerd... Any ways, I kinda missed the uber pistol. I'm pretty sure they just toned it down for double weilding. But yea, I remember the first time I pistoled a hunter in the back in halo 2. I was like "..." then I got crushed... But it was all good, I just blasted him with my sniper.

Not all magnums have six shots, it can range anwyere from five to seven to nine in the .357 Desert Eagle (Horrible combat weapons, I might add).

I accept your point, and yes I have played through the first Halo, but I wasn't particularly impressed with the gameplay.

I'm not confusing Halo with any other games, I'm just making my own point, I'm not trying to piss anyone off. But here's a question for you: Realistically speaking (Yes, it's a game, I know), why wouldn't they have the other guns firing his awesom pistol ammunition? Who sends people out with a sidearm that is arguably more effective than what should be their primary weapon? It just doesn't make sense to me, and that's why my point stands.

That be said, Bungie still pwns hardcore, and Master Chief is awesome. And someone needs to get Cortana and Durandal together sometime.