You beat me to it. Pretty hilarious.
Halo 3 Single Player Impressions Thread (AKA: NO GRAPHICS TALK)
- Thread starter Inquisitive_Idiot
- Start date
You beat me to it. Pretty hilarious.
Having now played Halo 3 past the ARK level all I can say is that I have had to lift my jaw from the floor on many occasions. It’s been one gob smacking set-piece after another for me, and yes if like nit picking graphics there’s plenty to find, like most games that is. However the positives graphically outweigh the negatives by a massive margin. Battling Scarabs, with Banshees, choppers flying everywhere, tens and tens of covenant on the ground with great vistas in the distance made me smile a great big smile (although that was a tough battle!). Some parts of Halo3 are utterly stunning and really I think it’s had a slightly raw deal on this front. But hey who cares, it’s a great game.
I've spent a little more time with the campaign now, just hitting the flood. I feel sorry for those of you who weren't impressed - personally I have to agree with the majority of reviews, this is just plain enjoyable. Maybe the hype got to some of you a little too much, which naturally leads to disappointment.
Lots of little bits and pieces keep getting thrown at you to make you think a little differently. An example would be fighting the giant Scarab tank, climbing in it and blowing up its core.
Another good sign would be that the levels seem to get better and better... to me this feels a little like Lost Planet, without that disappointing feeling.
And LOL at Zero Punctuation... I love Hyper magazine, but damn, that guy hates every game! Complaining about Heavenly Sword, Bioshock and Halo 3... if three of the years biggest titles are worth shooting down, maybe gaming isn't for him
Lots of little bits and pieces keep getting thrown at you to make you think a little differently. An example would be fighting the giant Scarab tank, climbing in it and blowing up its core.
Another good sign would be that the levels seem to get better and better... to me this feels a little like Lost Planet, without that disappointing feeling.
And LOL at Zero Punctuation... I love Hyper magazine, but damn, that guy hates every game! Complaining about Heavenly Sword, Bioshock and Halo 3... if three of the years biggest titles are worth shooting down, maybe gaming isn't for him
He didn't "hate" either Bioshock or Halo3, and as far as I know he was only reviewing the Heavenly Sword demo.And LOL at Zero Punctuation... I love Hyper magazine, but damn, that guy hates every game! Complaining about Heavenly Sword, Bioshock and Halo 3... if three of the years biggest titles are worth shooting down, maybe gaming isn't for him
He simply finds faults with games that don't offer much depth and are extremely over-hyped. I agree with pretty much all of the critique in his reviews, though I can still enjoy the games despite the flaws. Of course, he ratches up the angst a little bit for the comedic angle, but he makes some pretty inquisitive commentary that many other reviews miss.
Finding fault is basically his gimmick. He ranted about bioshock and called it game of the year.
I'm starting to really like the equipment, it's saved my butt multiple times on legendary. Deployable cover and bubble shields making taking out snipers much easier. I slowly am learning not to hit X to reload.
The marines can get annoying, I'd prefer if they stayed in the vehicle sometimes, they have a tendency to jump out, than jump in the driver seat and take off without me.
The marines can get annoying, I'd prefer if they stayed in the vehicle sometimes, they have a tendency to jump out, than jump in the driver seat and take off without me.
Halo 3's shotgun is a beast, but you have to be face-to-face for it to be a one shot kill. If you aren't getting a one shot kill with it, follow up your initial shot with a quick melee. You will drop who ever is unlucky enough to be in front of you.
This changes somewhat on Legendary because all the enemies can take much more damage. If you want one hit kills in Legendary, use a gravity hammer.
Yes, except for the Brute Chieftans (those with the really elaborate armor and head dresses - they are typically the last ones you have to fight). One of the things I like about fighting Brutes in Halo 3 is that the first shotgun blast usually knocks off their helmet and armor. Then they get really pissed off and roar for a split second before they charge you. That split second is all you need to finish them off with a melee or another blast. But you have to be quick and your aim has to be good, or else you're toast. It is quite intense.
For the chieftans, I wouldn't recommend face-to-face combat on Legendary unless you soften them up with grenades or some type of ranged weapon first. But it is fun to experiment. Try different things. For example, it is pretty funny to set a trip mine and then force the brute to charge you. Or force him to charge you, jump over him, then melee him in the back for a one hit kill (very hard to do but it's pretty satisfying).
For the chieftans, I wouldn't recommend face-to-face combat on Legendary unless you soften them up with grenades or some type of ranged weapon first. But it is fun to experiment. Try different things. For example, it is pretty funny to set a trip mine and then force the brute to charge you. Or force him to charge you, jump over him, then melee him in the back for a one hit kill (very hard to do but it's pretty satisfying).
Well, first of all, Halo 2 made a deeper impression on me back in 2004, perhaps because the Xbox Crystal (Halo 2 pack) was my first console ever and Halo 2 my first console game.
I don't know if my tastes are changing, for the better I think, but after finishing the game twice on a different difficulty I can only conclude that Halo 3 is not the best game of the series.
I liked Halo 1 and had a lot of fun with it of course, but the first Halo I played was H2 so much of the innovations it added to the genre were nothing special for me.
The post Rangers wrote in Dave Baumann's thread is the best I've ever read summarizing what made Halo 1 great and why it is a truly iconic game among FPS fans so it is "objectively" the best installment so far.
Halo 3 features new kinds of weapons and artifacts but some of the the novelties of the classic games are ignored.
The bestiary is not as varied as it was.... Where are the brilliant tacticians the Elites in Halo 2 were? Sending enemies on the Great Journey is not as rewarding as before for that reason.
There aren't equivalents to the Blue, Red, Gold, Black, White "Ultra", Honor Guard and Silver Gold "Praetors" elites and Brutes are not charismatic enough. They should add a new type of enemy or something.
I also miss the fact that your allies in Halo 2 were useful, even those sleepyhead and amusing Grunts. Now the companionship is lost because your comrades are quite useless most of the time now except in vehicles.
I can't remember how many times I tried to keep my allies alive in Halo 2, with satisfactory results and now I don't care. Maybe it's just that I'm aging..., I don't know.
The Arbiter is gone, it's just there for coop and the argumental thread. It'd be good if they added the possibility of playing with the Arbiter as the main character once you finnish the campaign mode (the active camouflage would be great in the Flood levels).
I love the sound.
I also like the new layout of the controls, especially the reload buttons. It should be the new standard for games featuring dual wielding weapons.
The new weapons and vehicles are good, and some of the old ones are still great.
The Shotgun is great against Flood as usual and in close combat. The SMG -they are so scarce and unavailable- is a beast when dual wielding, the Halo 1 classic rifle is a good overall weapon and the Battle Riffle from Halo 2 has saved my ass quite a few times.
Enemies drop a lot of Plasma Pistols but they are not as necessary as they were although they still keep their shield draining abilities.
The multiplayer of this game is top notch as usual. I prefer Call of Juarez MP for different reasons but it's an objective fact that the earth orbits the sun and that isn't.
All in all I like the game. My score would be a number just barely scraping 9. Satisfying game, yet it's FAR from being a masterpiece but is nevertheless a gripping experience.
I don't know if my tastes are changing, for the better I think, but after finishing the game twice on a different difficulty I can only conclude that Halo 3 is not the best game of the series.
I liked Halo 1 and had a lot of fun with it of course, but the first Halo I played was H2 so much of the innovations it added to the genre were nothing special for me.
The post Rangers wrote in Dave Baumann's thread is the best I've ever read summarizing what made Halo 1 great and why it is a truly iconic game among FPS fans so it is "objectively" the best installment so far.
Halo 3 features new kinds of weapons and artifacts but some of the the novelties of the classic games are ignored.
The bestiary is not as varied as it was.... Where are the brilliant tacticians the Elites in Halo 2 were? Sending enemies on the Great Journey is not as rewarding as before for that reason.
There aren't equivalents to the Blue, Red, Gold, Black, White "Ultra", Honor Guard and Silver Gold "Praetors" elites and Brutes are not charismatic enough. They should add a new type of enemy or something.
I also miss the fact that your allies in Halo 2 were useful, even those sleepyhead and amusing Grunts. Now the companionship is lost because your comrades are quite useless most of the time now except in vehicles.
I can't remember how many times I tried to keep my allies alive in Halo 2, with satisfactory results and now I don't care. Maybe it's just that I'm aging..., I don't know.
The Arbiter is gone, it's just there for coop and the argumental thread. It'd be good if they added the possibility of playing with the Arbiter as the main character once you finnish the campaign mode (the active camouflage would be great in the Flood levels).
I love the sound.
I also like the new layout of the controls, especially the reload buttons. It should be the new standard for games featuring dual wielding weapons.
The new weapons and vehicles are good, and some of the old ones are still great.
The Shotgun is great against Flood as usual and in close combat. The SMG -they are so scarce and unavailable- is a beast when dual wielding, the Halo 1 classic rifle is a good overall weapon and the Battle Riffle from Halo 2 has saved my ass quite a few times.
Enemies drop a lot of Plasma Pistols but they are not as necessary as they were although they still keep their shield draining abilities.
The multiplayer of this game is top notch as usual. I prefer Call of Juarez MP for different reasons but it's an objective fact that the earth orbits the sun and that isn't.
All in all I like the game. My score would be a number just barely scraping 9. Satisfying game, yet it's FAR from being a masterpiece but is nevertheless a gripping experience.
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Finally beat the game. Here's my thoughts - and I'd recommend avoiding if you haven't finished the game yet. I won't be explicit with story elements, but I'd hate to inadvertently ruin a surprise.
This really did bring back thoughts of playing Halo 1 again. I loved the first game, and didn't enjoy the second. So many epic little scenarios, with little battles snowballing into huge monstrosities. For the most part, the game is paced extremely well, in the way that you really do feel like the battles from level to level, and scene to scene, become more complex and epic.
I hated chapter 8 - that's the "flood hive" level. I would rather have played The Library again to be honest... it just felt cheap and nasty, with poor design and no purpose in the grand scheme of things. The last level was enjoyable though, if a little too much like a nod to the first game.
The battle scale in terms of number of enemies and allies, and things going on, was jaw dropping. To an extent, this was expected, but when I see people complaining about the graphics, it makes me a ltitle sad. It's kind of like people are complaining devs are branching out from corridor shooters with one or two characters on screen. There are some battles where there are, at a guess, 75 people and ships on screen at once... of note is the first time you fly the human ship with a gun, and dozens of banshees chase you.
My real concerns with the game were the numbers of sides in battle. In the first game, you ended up with four sides in an all-out war in these giant battles. What would end up happening is a door would open, and you'd have the covenant (Elites and Jackals) in an open battle, taking on the Flood in tanks, banshees and ghosts, while the mechanical drones ended up trying to take out the Flood and your marine allies, already in battle. So out you step, and you have dozens of different ways to go.
In Halo 3 there are no real battles like this - there are lots of different ways to approach a fight, but it's always Side A vs Side B. This is especially noticeable when the battle ends up into a pure human vs flood fight... the brutes are gone for good, kind of stalling my hope that there would be a giant glorious battle.
There are just so many weapons in the game, and they are nearly all adequate. It comes down to choice, with no "super weapon" overriding all others. The only exception I'd make is the plasma pistol, which I actually really liked in the first game, since you faced a lot more enemies with shields.
The only other thing that hit me while playing was that I definitely would have a hard time getting into the game if I didn't play the first one. There is very little by way of explanation of the different characters, events, or even controls when the game dumps you in. Sure, it's nice not to have your hand held, but still, I'd be lost if I didn't know what I was getting before playing.
Overall, it's a solid 9 in my mind. Im yet to dive into multiplayer in any depth, but I can't really see how anyone would be terribly disappointed in this game if they liked the first one.
Sure, it's got some pluses and minuses, but overall it's an extremely solid game.
And this hasn't bumped Bioshock from my GOTY so far But I do need to spend a little more time with that one, too.
This really did bring back thoughts of playing Halo 1 again. I loved the first game, and didn't enjoy the second. So many epic little scenarios, with little battles snowballing into huge monstrosities. For the most part, the game is paced extremely well, in the way that you really do feel like the battles from level to level, and scene to scene, become more complex and epic.
I hated chapter 8 - that's the "flood hive" level. I would rather have played The Library again to be honest... it just felt cheap and nasty, with poor design and no purpose in the grand scheme of things. The last level was enjoyable though, if a little too much like a nod to the first game.
The battle scale in terms of number of enemies and allies, and things going on, was jaw dropping. To an extent, this was expected, but when I see people complaining about the graphics, it makes me a ltitle sad. It's kind of like people are complaining devs are branching out from corridor shooters with one or two characters on screen. There are some battles where there are, at a guess, 75 people and ships on screen at once... of note is the first time you fly the human ship with a gun, and dozens of banshees chase you.
My real concerns with the game were the numbers of sides in battle. In the first game, you ended up with four sides in an all-out war in these giant battles. What would end up happening is a door would open, and you'd have the covenant (Elites and Jackals) in an open battle, taking on the Flood in tanks, banshees and ghosts, while the mechanical drones ended up trying to take out the Flood and your marine allies, already in battle. So out you step, and you have dozens of different ways to go.
In Halo 3 there are no real battles like this - there are lots of different ways to approach a fight, but it's always Side A vs Side B. This is especially noticeable when the battle ends up into a pure human vs flood fight... the brutes are gone for good, kind of stalling my hope that there would be a giant glorious battle.
There are just so many weapons in the game, and they are nearly all adequate. It comes down to choice, with no "super weapon" overriding all others. The only exception I'd make is the plasma pistol, which I actually really liked in the first game, since you faced a lot more enemies with shields.
The only other thing that hit me while playing was that I definitely would have a hard time getting into the game if I didn't play the first one. There is very little by way of explanation of the different characters, events, or even controls when the game dumps you in. Sure, it's nice not to have your hand held, but still, I'd be lost if I didn't know what I was getting before playing.
Overall, it's a solid 9 in my mind. Im yet to dive into multiplayer in any depth, but I can't really see how anyone would be terribly disappointed in this game if they liked the first one.
Sure, it's got some pluses and minuses, but overall it's an extremely solid game.
And this hasn't bumped Bioshock from my GOTY so far
But I do need to spend a little more time with that one, too.Actually, the second part of that level is very good IMO.
After you find cortana, there are no more stupid wall snipers, so it plays much better. You finally get to listen to Cortana rather than have all that cheesy visions. Also, then you destroy the reactor hell breaks loose and it's a very dynamic moment. But I'd agree that the first part of the level was horrible.
I remember the 9th level "Cpt. Keyes" in Halo CE. After you jumped out from the Covenant ship, there was a bunch of Elites and a group of Flood involved in a battle (they don't notice you if you don't do anything). I didn't join it and I was just watching it and thought it was a scripted sequence, because it looked so cool and believable! Flood won for the first time. I died after a while and got back to that point again. To my surprise, this time the battle was completely different and Elites won it! That was one of the biggest shockers for me in gaming in general - after years of scripts in other FP shooters that was unexpected.
So I agree with you, it's a shame there's nothing like that in Halo 3 campaign.
I started playing this beast today, I am playing this on a 1280x1024 monitor, and the game displays on full screen without any black bars. Usually when I play Forza 2 and DeadRising there are black bars up and down. Does this mean Halo 3 support 1280x1024 or that it just stretched low res?
Almost certainly an upscaled lower resolution as 1280x1024 is higher than 720p which they also upscale to. Dissappointing as I much prefer widescreen.
But what low res game can be upscaled without stretching? 1280x1024 is 5:4, and I am seeing circles without any notice of stretches
Lots of jagging but I will post screenies.
it's probably render 800*640(I think that's 5:4) instead, to keep the aspect ratio
http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=13176258&viewreplies=true&postRepeater1-p=4
There has been a thread about 1280x1024 users complaining. This issue isn't clear, I am not sure whether I am playing the most anticipated game in HD or not. It looks like HD, but has lots of jaggies.
So I guess this is 800x600 (higher than SD) being stretched and left+right cut off.
Example image:
Horrible FOV. Bungie needs to fix this and put letterbox into the game instead of using a resolution nobody wants.
There has been a thread about 1280x1024 users complaining. This issue isn't clear, I am not sure whether I am playing the most anticipated game in HD or not. It looks like HD, but has lots of jaggies.
So I guess this is 800x600 (higher than SD) being stretched and left+right cut off.Example image:
Horrible FOV. Bungie needs to fix this and put letterbox into the game instead of using a resolution nobody wants.
