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I’ve been motivated to create a little diatribe in response to seeing lots of stuff where I feel real military forces are not given credit for the capability the possess verse things from videogames. I’m interested in some commentary on it.

FPS Badasses
Wolfenstein 3D was the original First Person shooter game. Originally conceived as a kind of adventure game, it ended up being more or less a straight up shooter game in a maze. All guns used the same ammunition and for the most part your advantage such as it was relied upon aggression, planning, and situational awareness to prevent the semi-routine occurrence of a Guard you never saw blowing your brains out execution style.

From there FPS shooter games evolved in two directions, pure shooters and those at least giving a wave at the original adventure roots in the process. Main characters tend to get by with higher than average health, and instant healing artifacts with no real issues with fatigue. In my experience in these you rarely face more than a fire team at any given time. One on one where the player has the initiative in terms of being able to kill their opponent first tends to be typical, with the individual able to seriously hurt you if you’re stupid about taking them down. When you do face an analogy of a fire team complete with machine gun operator analogue tends to be encounters that are not easily dealt with. The few time you face larger force concentrations in my experience tend to be scripted with things like convenient automatic weapons in prepared positions.

FPS shooter games almost never have anything even vaguely resembling artillery, and like Hollywood shrapnel tends to be ignored. Only in the original Ubersoldier have I encountered enemies intelligently using and responding to grenades, and in most they’ve been neutered to the point of irrelevance. Plus the Artifical Idiots one faces in a FPS shooter game tend to not even be vaguely comparable with troops of a real professional army. Plus unless the FPS badass is turned into a Terminator the whole toughness and no fatigue business drops out once you leave game mechanics behind and hit reality.

In my experience a long mission will tend to have a Company or at most a Battalion’s worth of troops strewn throughout the place. As the Artificial Idiot program governing the enemy sprites increases in quality these numbers tend to decrease. The net effect however is in any given game you’d be pushing it to kill a Brigade or two worth of troops.

Thus the bottom line is that excluding uberarmor/uberweapons “I win” buttons a modern professional military force should have little to fear from a FPS badass. Organizationally fire teams are the smallest unit, meaning the FPS badass would perpetually be in trouble. In modern military operations where Divisions and Corps are still not exactly in short supply even a badass that could theoretically maul a Brigade before going down cannot in of themselves win a straight up victory.

Strategy Games
The unit limit on the original Starcraft was 300 units ala a very light Battalion. Most RTS games I’ve played are designed to use fewer units to avoid the annoying Starcraft slog problem. Plus most of these games tend to encourage a Horde approach instead of the approach that arose from the eventual organization of Battalion, Brigades, Divisions, and Corps in Western Armies. Even Starcraft involves arguably only a couple of Brigades worth of units under your command across an entire game.

This gives the benefit of the excitement of tactics as opposed to the more strategic level, as appropriate for a gaming experience. Part of why I prefer games like Command and Conquer to Starcraft in terms of Single player. This however sets real minimalism limitations against anything vaguely resembling a real military. Not to mention you can drop enough submunitions to terminate even moderately armored targets up to the original Starcraft unit limit without straining even a single fighter bomber’s payload capacity. It’s also very conceivable that a typical RTS base could get utterly annihilated by a single planned Strike mission with modern conventional munitions, baring uberarmor/uberweapons.

Wait, are you complaining that shooters and real-time 'strategy' games don't accurately reflect military reality?

And then saying you think CnC is 'good' in this respect?

Every time people complain about RTS games devolving into blobfights it amuses me, because it reveals the person in question simply never plays GOOD RTSs.

FOG3 wrote:Not to mention you can drop enough submunitions to terminate even moderately armored targets up to the original Starcraft unit limit without straining even a single fighter bomber’s payload capacity. It’s also very conceivable that a typical RTS base could get utterly annihilated by a single planned Strike mission with modern conventional munitions, baring uberarmor/uberweapons.

Are you trying to say that a modern bomber could take out a late-game starcraft force? Giant shielded spacedyships suggest otherwise.

Anyway, this is the wrong forum, completely.

Stark wrote:Wait, are you complaining that shooters and real-time 'strategy' games don't accurately reflect military reality?

And then saying you think CnC is 'good' in this respect?

Every time people complain about RTS games devolving into blobfights it amuses me, because it reveals the person in question simply never plays GOOD RTSs.

I think this may have been a very clever troll targetting just a few of us in specific, but I for one am not going to take the bait! This is more about games anyway.

Realism in games is silly and pointless anyway, what could possibly be the point of emulating real-world situations in the game, which is already just a game! Realism in entertainment is the domain of media better suited to it, like movie (Enemy at the Gates and 300 and such based on historical accounts) and games should just focus on gameplay rather than reaching those heights of true-world combat.

I'm confused. Is this a versus thread, a complaint, a what-if, a lament on the state if current gaming, or just rambling?

I mean, what's up with cars in racing games? They don't run out of fuel (in my experience) but the AI is so stupid that Lewis Hamilton would win every time. This is good or bad for some reason I think?

Covenant wrote:Realism in entertainment is the domain of media better suited to it, like movie [...] 300

Oh you joker.

Bounty wrote:I'm confused. Is this a versus thread, a complaint, a what-if, a lament on the state if current gaming, or just rambling?

If you mean mine, it's a joke:

NecronLord wrote:

Covenant wrote:Realism in entertainment is the domain of media better suited to it, like movie [...] 300

Oh you joker.

If you mean his, it seems to be an angry ramble or an attempt to get some flamebait thrown, since the post is just stating that--like we all know--FPS games generally present the player with a world full of morons whose guns shoot BB's, and also that reality isn't at all like the games. Which should be pretty obvious, so I threw in a stupid joke post, which Necronlord caught.

Forcing the player to die horribly from a gunshot wound to the thigh, languishing in the sun as you bleed out and await the enemy soldier coming over to stab you in the throat with a bayonet, is not very much fun. Regardless of the ability of the game-maker to acutally create realistic situations, one has to wonder if anyone would want to buy and play these games for very long. Reality is useful for immersion, and a goal for simulation, but aside from that there's no purpose to it. A realistic game, unless it is realistic and fun, is not a good game, unless the game is strictly a simulation.

A war simulator, or a game that uses the reality of war to make the player absolutely terrified for their life, is an interesting idea, but it wouldn't work. Any game designed to be realistic would mean you would die easily and often, making it very hard for people to be challenged just to the right level, and leading to a lot of frustration. Worse, once you've died the 20th time on the same level, you no longer have that feeling of danger. Dying in a game stops feeling so bad when you've done it a million times, and the ways to make it continue to feel bad (such as no quicksaves, start the level totally over) are just ways of punishing the player, and are also not fun. So really, when it comes to wars, leave reality to the turnbased simulation and strategy games (and hope some day they attempt it) and leave it out of RTS and FPS games. Hollywood Reality is as close as you can really get to it in a game without the whole thing suffering from the weight of an unhelpful game design goal.

I'd like to see more realistic games FPS or otherwise. I haven't seen a good strategy game come out in ages that tries to be realistic.

I agree it's not fun if you're constantly getting killed by a single shot to the leg, but maybe higher lethality with more choices on how to accomplish your mission. For example, while MOHAA:Airborne was your bog standard WWII FPS, it did allow you to drop yourself right on top of your objective and it gave you some choice in what order to do your missions.
I bet your average WWII FPS would also play a lot diffrently if you'd be forced to fight your way using that dinky bolt action rifle, and the enemy was similarily armed.
If nothing else, how about bullets that actually go through stuff?
I'm sick and fucking tired of enemies hiding behind plywood walls my fricking assault rifle cannot penetrate.


-Gunhead

The one thing that irks me with FPS that never seems to be brought up is how impossibly talented the hero is at ammo management. The guy can have a dozen rounds unloaded, pick up 3 magazines from enemy weapons with 17 rounds a pop and immediately whip around and pop in a magazine with 50 rounds loaded into it. It actually lead to me thinking about how interesting it would be to have a survival horror game that is not action centric(like how from what I hear the Silent Hill series started as) and have a limited number of magazines, which take time to load in game(okay so maybe not realistically long enough, but enough to make you zombie chow if your in the middle of a fight) and then the magazines you find along the way become like Heart Containers, actually expanding your ability to handle threats as you progress through the game.

Anarchist Bunny wrote:The one thing that irks me with FPS that never seems to be brought up is how impossibly talented the hero is at ammo management. The guy can have a dozen rounds unloaded, pick up 3 magazines from enemy weapons with 17 rounds a pop and immediately whip around and pop in a magazine with 50 rounds loaded into it.

Operation flashpoint saved the number of rounds in a magazine, I believe. You also had limited storage space about your person, so an anti-tank rocket may take up two or three times as many slots as an assault rifle magazine.

However, it seems to me that that sort of game is for a small fringe group of gamers who enjoy that sort of thing.

Stark mentioned people haven't played "GOOD RTS" games. I'm not sure what those are in his opinion.

We'll start with ones that don't encorage unit spam, like Kohan and WiC. People playing mass-market stuff like CNC3 and bemoaning the whole genre based on it's worst, lowest common denominator examples because it's all they've played is funny.

Anarchist Bunny wrote:The one thing that irks me with FPS that never seems to be brought up is how impossibly talented the hero is at ammo management. The guy can have a dozen rounds unloaded, pick up 3 magazines from enemy weapons with 17 rounds a pop and immediately whip around and pop in a magazine with 50 rounds loaded into it. It actually lead to me thinking about how interesting it would be to have a survival horror game that is not action centric(like how from what I hear the Silent Hill series started as) and have a limited number of magazines, which take time to load in game(okay so maybe not realistically long enough, but enough to make you zombie chow if your in the middle of a fight) and then the magazines you find along the way become like Heart Containers, actually expanding your ability to handle threats as you progress through the game.

One of the reasons I like America's Army as a FPS. You get about 6 magazines for your main battle rifle, you can cycle through them, and you'll end up cycling back to a magazine where you might not have used all the bullets yet.

Some servers also have a realism mode turned on, where you can't see your ammo count, you pretty much have to keep track in your head like RL.

Sure you can pick up a 2nd rifle, but your still limited to what ammo that person had.

Combat Arms' problem was that even if you're using the same kind of primary weapon (you can't pick up secondaries), you get as much ammo as the other person had; so for example, an ACOG-mounting M16A3 whose user had run dry is useless.

I preordered Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (liking what I'm hearing about its take on "realism"), as well as trying out Project Reality training.

However the realism in games has been improving.... somewhat over the years.

Case in point : Halo 1.

You have a fairly well rounded Covenant military. They use different types of soldiers with their own strengths and weaknesses. The grunts exist to provide mass fire and take hits meant for the Elites or Jackals. Their primary weapon is the plasma pistol with it's vast ammo capacity. Some grunts are also given Needlers, which firing guided missiles turns even retards with sniper level accurate and deadly. The combination of plasma and needler fire can push back an enemey force. However the grunts real job is to act as meatshields.

The job of actual pinning down an enemy is done by the Jackals. They use their wrist shields to hide behind and continuously pepper the enemy with unrelenting firing. A single jackal in defensive position can hold back an entire squad of human marines or even a spartan for sometime.

Then there is the Elites who lead the Jackals and grunts and also do the killings most well. Once an enemey is surrounded by grunts and pinned down by Jackals the Elites lead the charge into finishing them off. Their fully body recharging shields let them get close with devastating plasma fire and hand to hand combat.

Generally in halo you can see this dynamics play out if you watch marines or flood fight the covenant. It's quite a symphony to watch the covenant work like a clock with each unit taking it's own distinct role. The best part is however when hunters get involved. They are used as mobile artillery and walking tanks to demolish well defended enemies, like the marine squad behind a cliff in "Assault on the control room".

While infantry on infantry fights can be interesting on it's own Halo has vehicles and machinegun like turrets too. In later levels the Covenant use mortar tanks that act as effective artillery. They also have these shade guns that like a machinegun can keep enemies pinned down. They have effective air support from Banshees which have plasma guns for strafing and air to air combat and a fuel rod gun for taking out enemy armor and fortified infantry positions. There is also the Ghost hover bikes which do skirmishing attacks. Finally the Covenant seem to be an air mobile army. All their vehicles and infantry can launch from orbiting warships onboard powerful Spirit dropships. The dropships can blast a landing zone with onboard defensive shade guns then release attached Ghost hoverbikes and deploy infantry. Within seconds of hitting the ground a Covenant squad will have it's own armor support and a Dropship loitering above providing heavy gunfire.

When all these are used alongside infantry in combined arms approach it is quite a delight to watch. The covenant in later levels get assaulted by superior numbers of flood. Yet in parts like ice lcanyon fights in "Two Betrayals" Covenant armor, air support working with infantry and hunters manage to stop Flood advances in many occasions. In the end when the Covenant CCS cruiser is taken down they call in a special operations team in an obvious heroic and suicide mission to recover it. That's right they even got their own spec ops branch. These guys are the best Elites in the game backed up by actual effective Grunt support. They utilize fuel rod guns, plasma grendades and needlers in close quarter making them most explosive oriented squads found in the game. Though few in numbers the Covenant spec ops are the best enemy AI encountered in Halo able to take down huge numbers any opposing faction AI units.

Halo is a far cry from realism. It is not REAL military strategy or tactics of course. But at same time the Covenant got their own disntinct style of fighting as opposed to pixels moving in random patterns. Saying "lol teh video games r random" or somesuch unfunny is entirely uncalled for. Like collecting toy soldier armies it's fun to see how various video game armies operate.

However the realism in games has been improving.... somewhat over the years.

Part of that is more processing power allows them to add more stuff. So you get more "spread" in the industry and some tends more towards more realistic.

Finally the Covenant seem to be an air mobile army. All their vehicles and infantry can launch from orbiting warships onboard powerful Spirit dropships. The dropships can blast a landing zone with onboard defensive shade guns then release attached Ghost hoverbikes and deploy infantry. Within seconds of hitting the ground a Covenant squad will have it's own armor support and a Dropship loitering above providing heavy gunfire.

Almost all space borne armies are going to be like this though. Unless dropships and their carriers are too expensive you are going to organize things that way so you don't have to send them down through enemy fire and then send them back up to pick up reinforements.

Nice to see that the Covenant are more competant though.

When all these are used alongside infantry in combined arms approach it is quite a delight to watch.

Video?

Sarevok wrote:However the realism in games has been improving.... somewhat over the years.

Case in point : Halo 1.

You have a fairly well rounded Covenant military. They use different types of soldiers with their own strengths and weaknesses. The grunts exist to provide mass fire and take hits meant for the Elites or Jackals. Their primary weapon is the plasma pistol with it's vast ammo capacity. Some grunts are also given Needlers, which firing guided missiles turns even retards with sniper level accurate and deadly. The combination of plasma and needler fire can push back an enemey force. However the grunts real job is to act as meatshields.

The untrained incompetent panicky meat-shield is not a component of a "well rounded military". The grunts are there for comic relief and easy kills. I like them in the game, but let's not pretend they were put there to make a "well rounded military".

The job of actual pinning down an enemy is done by the Jackals. They use their wrist shields to hide behind and continuously pepper the enemy with unrelenting firing. A single jackal in defensive position can hold back an entire squad of human marines or even a spartan for sometime.

The wrist shield is very cool technology, but it means they can only fire their weapons one-handed. Realistically, their shooting accuracy should be shit. Luckily for jackals in the game, the programmers didn't think of that.

Then there is the Elites who lead the Jackals and grunts and also do the killings most well. Once an enemey is surrounded by grunts and pinned down by Jackals the Elites lead the charge into finishing them off. Their fully body recharging shields let them get close with devastating plasma fire and hand to hand combat.

The fact that hand to hand combat works well in Halo is because players enjoy it, not because it makes the covenant "well rounded". It's so stupid that the humans have supposedly been fighting the Covenant for years, yet they still issue small-arms that require several shots to kill a grunt and half a clip to hurt an Elite. Why wouldn't they issue more powerful hand weapons if they discovered their small-arms were so ineffective? The tactical balance in the game feels very artificial.

Generally in halo you can see this dynamics play out if you watch marines or flood fight the covenant. It's quite a symphony to watch the covenant work like a clock with each unit taking it's own distinct role. The best part is however when hunters get involved. They are used as mobile artillery and walking tanks to demolish well defended enemies, like the marine squad behind a cliff in "Assault on the control room".

They're a retarded concept. They have heavy armour but they're huge slow-moving targets with plenty of exposed flesh around the midsection. If human grenades actually released shrapnel the way they're supposed to, they'd be quite easy to kill. And no, they don't act like mobile artillery at all. What do you think artillery means?

While infantry on infantry fights can be interesting on it's own Halo has vehicles and machinegun like turrets too. In later levels the Covenant use mortar tanks that act as effective artillery.

Which they use as tanks, and which have no longer range than tanks.

They also have these shade guns that like a machinegun can keep enemies pinned down. They have effective air support from Banshees which have plasma guns for strafing and air to air combat and a fuel rod gun for taking out enemy armor and fortified infantry positions.

And which are slow as hell and can be taken out with small-arms fire.

There is also the Ghost hover bikes which do skirmishing attacks.

And which have a completely exposed rider.

Finally the Covenant seem to be an air mobile army. All their vehicles and infantry can launch from orbiting warships onboard powerful Spirit dropships. The dropships can blast a landing zone with onboard defensive shade guns then release attached Ghost hoverbikes and deploy infantry. Within seconds of hitting the ground a Covenant squad will have it's own armor support and a Dropship loitering above providing heavy gunfire.

Only because the game programmers chose to make them completely indestructible, so you can't use the obvious defensive tactic of shooting down these huge slow-moving aircraft.

When all these are used alongside infantry in combined arms approach it is quite a delight to watch. The covenant in later levels get assaulted by superior numbers of flood. Yet in parts like ice lcanyon fights in "Two Betrayals" Covenant armor, air support working with infantry and hunters manage to stop Flood advances in many occasions. In the end when the Covenant CCS cruiser is taken down they call in a special operations team in an obvious heroic and suicide mission to recover it. That's right they even got their own spec ops branch. These guys are the best Elites in the game backed up by actual effective Grunt support. They utilize fuel rod guns, plasma grendades and needlers in close quarter making them most explosive oriented squads found in the game. Though few in numbers the Covenant spec ops are the best enemy AI encountered in Halo able to take down huge numbers any opposing faction AI units.

You and I must have played very different games. The Covenant are uniformly incompetent, and when they defeat others, it's only because those others are also incompetent.

Halo is a far cry from realism. It is not REAL military strategy or tactics of course. But at same time the Covenant got their own disntinct style of fighting as opposed to pixels moving in random patterns. Saying "lol teh video games r random" or somesuch unfunny is entirely uncalled for. Like collecting toy soldier armies it's fun to see how various video game armies operate.

I enjoyed playing Halo when it came out, but I have absolutely no idea where this "well rounded" idea of yours comes from. From the first day I played the game, I could see how all of the weapons and infantry types were gameplay contrivances rather than logical outgrowths of any particular sci-fi scenario.

The untrained incompetent panicky meat-shield is not a component of a "well rounded military". The grunts are there for comic relief and easy kills. I like them in the game, but let's not pretend they were put there to make a "well rounded military".

Don't let the grunts appearences fool you ! Believe it or not grunts actually use things such as cover better than marines or lower elites. Marines run and gun most of the time while grunts head for cover at slighest oppurtunity. Their panicky AI survives quite well due to hiding behind objects instead of charging headfirst like supposedly smarter human faction in the game.

Against marines grunts do quite well. On legendary which some take as "canon" difficulty one red grunt is a match for a single marine. Even on normal grenades thrown by grunts tend to kill more marines then any other enemy save hunters fuel rod cannon.

The wrist shield is very cool technology, but it means they can only fire their weapons one-handed. Realistically, their shooting accuracy should be shit. Luckily for jackals in the game, the programmers didn't think of that.

Yeah. I never touched a gun in my life and even I also question how do anyone in Halo verse aim those alien guns. They have no sights or proper way to hold and aim the damn things !

Then again Halo has the pistol which fires like a sniper rifle.

The fact that hand to hand combat works well in Halo is because players enjoy it, not because it makes the covenant "well rounded". It's so stupid that the humans have supposedly been fighting the Covenant for years, yet they still issue small-arms that require several shots to kill a grunt and half a clip to hurt an Elite. Why wouldn't they issue more powerful hand weapons if they discovered their small-arms were so ineffective? The tactical balance in the game feels very artificial.

True. I was speaking "in game verse". In real world of Halo, (if they made a live action movie) the melee stuff would look nothing but contrived and artificial. But within the game engine world the melee works due to how ranged weapons can't bring down powerful enemies before they close distance.

They're a retarded concept. They have heavy armour but they're huge slow-moving targets with plenty of exposed flesh around the midsection. If human grenades actually released shrapnel the way they're supposed to, they'd be quite easy to kill. And no, they don't act like mobile artillery at all. What do you think artillery means?

This is true. The hunters are a great contradiction. One one hand they can take even a grenade explosion to their flesh. On other hand pistols take them down. Personally I removed the pistol in SP inventory to make it more "balanced".

Which they use as tanks, and which have no longer range than tanks.

I don't think this is correct. The mortar tanks stay on frozen ice where if you remember carefully that all wheeled vehicles just skid. But the Covvie mortar tanks with their floating repulsors can move just fine and shoot plasma balls. Everytime you meet them they stick to one such area and just shoot plasma balls in an arc across huge distances.

And which are slow as hell and can be taken out with small-arms fire.

Keep in mind the Banshees never use their fuel rod guns against the player when on foot, probably a glitch, but in anycase it makes them far less dangerous then they should be.

In anycase anyone but the Master Chief in game has a great difficulty shooting down Banshees. If you just let a bunch of marines take on a Banshee they take either a very long time or just end up dead after being strafed and bombed.

But the Banshee is overall a bad design inconsitency. It does not have any shields even though the foot soldiers like elites have them.

And which have a completely exposed rider.

The riders got shields though. The vehicle itself is stupid like the Banshee for not having shields howev3r. If they can put shields on elites the vehicles should be at least lot more durable then the passenger.

Only because the game programmers chose to make them completely indestructible, so you can't use the obvious defensive tactic of shooting down these huge slow-moving aircraft.

I will concede this one. I like to imagine they have powerful shields or something but ultimately it's hard to ignore what's going on is a lazy programmer case of "god mode on".

You and I must have played very different games. The Covenant are uniformly incompetent, and when they defeat others, it's only because those others are also incompetent.

Far from perfect they maybe but at the moment what else is there ? I like to watch two factions from same side battle each other finishing a game. Most games tend to be scripted theme park rides with pop cardboards with guns. Halo at least had a few faction on faction fights between diverse groups.

You and I must have played very different games. The Covenant are uniformly incompetent, and when they defeat others, it's only because those others are also incompetent.

Well it's not like I am expecting anything realistic in a game. It's just that I like it when game mechanics feels "natural". I don't know how to put it in words but lets use an example. I like the elites in halo because their shields explain how they can keep the player at bay or singlehandedly take on a group of marine. In another game like Call of Duty you would have some guy in WW 2 uniform getting shot at forever with no explanation of why a human being is regenerating like a comic book mutant. Of course it's just a bunch of hitpoints in the end but seeing that energy shield and armor around a elite makes the mind buy it much more than CoD 2 mook getting shot with 100s of bullets and not even flinching.

What I liked about the Covenant was that they looked and fought exactly like what they were: a religiously led army that cares nothing for its casualties.

For the most part, all the fluff points out just how backward and incompetent the Covenant really are. For all their advanced technology, they refuse to study or improve it, the Elites and Brutes are both hidebound traditionalists stuck in their ways of thinking, etc. (hell, The Cole Protocol established that the Elites are so idiotically honor-bound that doctors and surgeons are in the lowest rungs of their society. But then, that was probably one of the most godawful trainwrecks of a book I've ever encountered, so....)

Pretty much the only way the UNSC survived as long as it did was because the Covenant were self-defeating, fundamentalist morons. Of course, the UNSC aren't exactly geniuses either.....

Peptuck wrote:What I liked about the Covenant was that they looked and fought exactly like what they were: a religiously led army that cares nothing for its casualties.

For the most part, all the fluff points out just how backward and incompetent the Covenant really are. For all their advanced technology, they refuse to study or improve it, the Elites and Brutes are both hidebound traditionalists stuck in their ways of thinking, etc. (hell, The Cole Protocol established that the Elites are so idiotically honor-bound that doctors and surgeons are in the lowest rungs of their society. But then, that was probably one of the most godawful trainwrecks of a book I've ever encountered, so....)

Pretty much the only way the UNSC survived as long as it did was because the Covenant were self-defeating, fundamentalist morons. Of course, the UNSC aren't exactly geniuses either.....

Except that traditionally religious societies didn't do well with tech or were contemptuous of casulties because of discrediting from science/afterlife. I don't believe the Covenant religion worked that way.

Peptuck wrote:What I liked about the Covenant was that they looked and fought exactly like what they were: a religiously led army that cares nothing for its casualties.

For the most part, all the fluff points out just how backward and incompetent the Covenant really are. For all their advanced technology, they refuse to study or improve it, the Elites and Brutes are both hidebound traditionalists stuck in their ways of thinking, etc. (hell, The Cole Protocol established that the Elites are so idiotically honor-bound that doctors and surgeons are in the lowest rungs of their society. But then, that was probably one of the most godawful trainwrecks of a book I've ever encountered, so....)

Pretty much the only way the UNSC survived as long as it did was because the Covenant were self-defeating, fundamentalist morons. Of course, the UNSC aren't exactly geniuses either.....

That don't sound right. What's wrong with a Covenant that really is like an amalgam of incomprehensible critters with too much firepower for the UNSC to handle ? Instead of being a cardboard cutout villain for spartan fanboys to punch ? The honor bound warrior race that devalues science cliche got old when TNG did the Klingons. Me I personally preferred the inspirations from Aliens / Predator films in original Halo game instead of Sanghelli bushido crap. It was pretty cool when halo ripped off the marines from Aliens and stole ideas from the Predator movies for the elites instead of the "orginal alien race backstory". I preferred the wort wort wort sounding Elites to the anthropomorphic ones in sequels. Infact I would not mind paying for a DLC that redubbed the voices in Halo 2 back to original alien and menacing sounding form.