I disagree, while I love Reach, it really does kind of feel like Bungie has reached the limit of what Bungie does. Yes, Reach is a really great Bungie Halo . But the Bungie formula is definitely evident. Reach doesn't really do anything new that Halo 3 didnt, it's just a lot prettier, better level design, etc.
All in all I think it was a good time to break with Bungie for Halo. I'm excited for something fresh.
It's not a total risk either, as some ex-Bungie employees should help guide the ship going forward.
And I expect the next full fledged Halo to land in 2013, following the three year timetable every previous major Halo has. I very well could be wrong though. I dont think 2013 rules it out for being a 360 release, either.
Honestly as a criticism, I've not liked the way Bungie does menus and such on recent Halo's.
It just feels cluttered and unintuitive to me.
No kidding, maybe I'm dumb but it took me five minutes to figure out how to get to a standard multiplayer match. There's so many menus and gametypes it's kind of ridiculous. I dont like how everything is party based either. How when I just want to play some damn solo campaign, it acts like it's pushing me to have some community experience. It even does an annoying countdown timer like I'm playing multiplayer.
I'm sure some will look at it as being incredibly deep and customizable. Fine, but I dont think it needs to feel so unintuitive to me, that I feel like I have to read up for five minutes to start a standard, no frills multiplayer match.
Things could really just be a whole lot simplified in their front end imo. Not too mention I think there's a definite splintering the userbase problem. This is a week after release where player numbers are going to be extremely elevated, and there's still only 2-3k people in some modes.
And there's no "everybody vs everybody" deathmatch in matchmaking? Again, seems very wrong. All of this is probably standard for Halo and since I just have never played much Halo MP, it's just unfamiliar to me.
It just feels cluttered and unintuitive to me.
No kidding, maybe I'm dumb but it took me five minutes to figure out how to get to a standard multiplayer match. There's so many menus and gametypes it's kind of ridiculous. I dont like how everything is party based either. How when I just want to play some damn solo campaign, it acts like it's pushing me to have some community experience. It even does an annoying countdown timer like I'm playing multiplayer.
I'm sure some will look at it as being incredibly deep and customizable. Fine, but I dont think it needs to feel so unintuitive to me, that I feel like I have to read up for five minutes to start a standard, no frills multiplayer match.
Things could really just be a whole lot simplified in their front end imo. Not too mention I think there's a definite splintering the userbase problem. This is a week after release where player numbers are going to be extremely elevated, and there's still only 2-3k people in some modes.
And there's no "everybody vs everybody" deathmatch in matchmaking? Again, seems very wrong. All of this is probably standard for Halo and since I just have never played much Halo MP, it's just unfamiliar to me.
I am pretty surprised that no one mentioned this, whenever you finish a mission you come back to lobby & the mission selected by default is NOT the next mission...but instead the same mission you just player....Many times I've accidentally started the game only to realize that the game dropped me in the same mission instead of the next.
Rumble Pit.
Oh another thing, seems Halo games are the last major games I know that dont autosave. They really need to fix that. Simply forgetting to select save and quit because you assume it autosaves like every other game on earth these days, and you lose your progress. It can be really frustrating the one time you forget.
(((interference)))
Veteran
But we already knew that it wasn't really a blind jump from the Fall of Reach, where Cortanna deciphered a Forerunner star map the Covenant were trying to get their hands on.
And in that game Cortana is always with the Chief until he is put into cryo and she becomes the Pillar of Autumn's AI. So they did quite a bit of retconning.
If you're having trouble with the hunter encounters, here's a tip to make the first encounter at the base easier.
Spend some time working the Warthog with Gauss Canon up and over the garage barricades. It takes a bit of creative driving and maybe a grenade boost, but when you achieve it, it feels very rewarding. You quickly make minced meat out of everything with that unfair advantage.
This is how xxarthna and I did it on Legendary.
Hmmm my memory of our Legendary play-through consisted of my perfect execution of Ultra Lethal while you boys cowered in fear behind me
I told you it was crazy--we need to get a video up of that on Bungie Pro.
To be fair, I doubt Bungie knew back in 1999 that Halo would blow up the way it did. It's clear they had some solid ideas for the universe in which the game was set, but I'm willing to cut them some slack for not having a water-tight 100% logically consistent sequence of story events from day one. They certainly put more effort into a compelling story than most other devs.
dragonelite
Veteran
Got explained in the journal.
The Ai your transporting is a copy of cortana to do the data mining and to later be absorbed by the original cortana, to give the masterchief and the other spartan a better fighting chance to finish their mission infiltrate a covenant battle station. Kidnap a prophet to make peace offer for returning the prophet.
The game will drop you back to the same mission if you have scoring turned on in any way. Turn scoring off, and the game will progress from mission to mission without you having to do anything but play.
Finished solo Legendary (did the same on the other halos, but this is the first time there's an achievement to prove it)
Here's how you do it (when I say AI below, I mean a member of nobel team):
1. DMR primary, Needle Rifle for hard hitting primary if you can't make a lot of headshots, and of course pistol. Make sure you go into every encounter with any of those fully loaded. You may pick up other weapons during the encounter such as a hammer or sniper, but always go into the next with the aforementioned weapons.
2. Know the weapon locker locations for the DMR/pistol. They are ALWAYS around. Just know where they are to stock up when moving to the next encounter.
3. Always go for the Hologram armor ability. The enemy AI is ALWAYS fooled by the hologram. Send it out to bring the AI out of hiding, then take them out from mid/long range.
4. NEVER let the AI drive
5. NEVER let the AI shoot the vehicle guns.
6. You're probably confused by 4 & 5. Let me explain. Make the AI the gunner, and drive close to the next encounter. This will set it off. Now drive back to a location you've already cleared. Kick the AI gunner off and then hop back in and drive back to where you started the encounter from a distance. Hop into gunner and destroy everything. If you're taking too long and the AI catches back up to get back into the driver's seat, repeat the process of getting the AI out of the way.
7. Don't charge in. Change your game to mid/long range
8. When on foot, make the AI do the work. Often times, when I was under heavy fire, I realized the AI was behind me giving encouraging dialog, but doing absolutely nothing. Here's the trick. Go to the AI, and melee them up to the encounter. They'll start getting fired upon, and THEN actually help in the battle. Actually, you can just hang back and let the AI clear out the whole encounter. IT'S INVINCIBLE.
9. Always take out the engineer first. If an encounter seems too tough, there's usually an engineer around buffing shields.
10. If you're fighting one of the stronger elites and it keeps dodging to get it's shields back or it's charging, do this. Plasma pistol quickly followed with grenade, then keep firing dmr/pistol/needle rifle. You'll take it down quickly before it can reach you.
Good luck
One addendum. The hologram is very useful when you have run out of ammunition (or at least, any USEFUL ammunition.) When you are in close, behind cover, send it one way, let the AI attack it, when you hear/see the fire on the doppleganger, step out hammer the elite in the back (sticky a grenade, etc.) I finished the last real level with 2 rounds in the pistol and 5 in the shotgun when the last Brute went down.
Hmm, very relevant to this:
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/112/1122586p1.html
Looks like they see the unbelievable juggernaut COD has become and think it's yearly schedule has something to do with it.
Have to say I support this. I used to like the every 3 years Halo timeline, but 3 years is a really long time. At least every two years might be great. I mean I've become more of a Gears of War fan than Halo fan, and that's every two years.
It definitely clears up a lot of confusion I had, very likely we will see another Halo on 360 now, maybe in 2012.
dragonelite
Veteran
2 year dev sounds right to me i believe gears of war series has a sequel every 2 year.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I think rather than the COD model (2 developers alternating) they're more likely to go with the Halo 3 -> ODST model. New engine + game then a sidestory/expansion using that engine while they work on the next New Engine + game. That keeps your engine devs constantly at work and your artists constantly at work.
Regards,
SB
Regards,
SB
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Personally, I don't want something fresh. Stick with what's fun and works.
I've seen far too many IPs absolutely trashed due to wanting to do something fresh and in the end you just end up with something that sucks and noone wants to play. It's far far more common for a good IP to be ruined by change than it is for a good IP to get better or stay the same with lots of changes.
That's not to say it shouldn't evolve where it makes sense. But don't so something new just to do something new. Or even worse yet, try to copy what someone else is doing when you already have a winning formula.
Regards,
SB
It's unlikely to go on a hiring streak for a product that's not going to be released for another 3 years... At this point all the technology and game design should be done and they only have to build all the actual stuff and balance out the existing gameplay mechanics. There's no point in hiring 40-50 people if you're still in some R&D stages, without final hardware.
In my opinion all signs point to a 360 release and perhaps even sooner than 2012. Consider that MS only has one more Gears of War game left, for early 2011, and Bungie won't give them any other exclusives. They really need something, and actually not just for 2012 but for the 2011 holiday season as well...
It's also reasonable to assume that 343 has its own shiny new engine developed from the ground up and they won't be using Bungie's tech. Obviously we don't know much about their contracts with MS but I doubt they'd have to include technology sharing.
The IP is another case - MS must have asked for a stellar price if Bungie wanted to buy it back on top of their independence. Must feel strange to let it go, but then again it seems MS is handling it relatively well so far. Especially compared to Activision and IW
The IP is another case - MS must have asked for a stellar price if Bungie wanted to buy it back on top of their independence. Must feel strange to let it go, but then again it seems MS is handling it relatively well so far. Especially compared to Activision and IW
Silent_Buddha
Legend
It's also reasonable to assume that 343 has its own shiny new engine developed from the ground up and they won't be using Bungie's tech. Obviously we don't know much about their contracts with MS but I doubt they'd have to include technology sharing.
The IP is another case - MS must have asked for a stellar price if Bungie wanted to buy it back on top of their independence. Must feel strange to let it go, but then again it seems MS is handling it relatively well so far. Especially compared to Activision and IW
Aye, MS handled the whole Bungie situation extremely well, IMO. They could have insisted on keeping the company and risk a mass exodus like IW. Instead they managed to maintain good relations with Bungie.
All things considered I wouldn't be surprised if Bungie allowed 343 Industries access and permission to use the Reach engine. I'm not particularly expecting it, but MS and Bungie still maintain good relations and relatively close ties, so it wouldn't be all that surprised if it happened.
It'll be interesting to see how 343 Industries' first game turns out, as well as what direction they take the franchise. Are they going to try to put their own unique stamp on it? Or will they stick with what made Halo a blockbuster franchise?
Regards,
SB
