UT vs HALO

[Stark]

I'm going with Alyeska here. I played Halo on normal and it was easy and boring; but I don't usually like story-heavy action games anyway (I hate Splinter Cells restrictive story, for example). In my opinion, UT2k4 is so hugely superior to Halo technically that the comparison is moot; and my preference for ultrarealistic multiplayer mods means its not my sort of game anyway. But really, anyone who can look at UT2k4 (even on a fairly lame XP2000/9600pro, with everything turned up) and not say 'wow, thats pretty. and fast too' is a strange person

[Rogue 9]

Well that's why you don't play Halo on normal mode. Ever.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

OK, but what I remember about Halo most is wading through a horde of Covvies spraying bullets into them or wading through a much bigger horde of Flood doing the same.

You obviously never played Halo beyond the easiest difficulty mode. Try pulling any of that shit on Legendary... you won't live past your third encounter on the Pillar of Autumn.

I played on the second hardest level. It wasn't that bad. For the covvies, you just pick them off at range with the pistol or sniper rifle, then when they close the distance a well placed grenade or two will take most of them out and herd the rest behind cover and when they come out you're at point blank range with the shotgun or assault rifle and you hose them down or bash them with the gun. Wash, rinse, repeat. Nothing cerebral about that.

[Hobot]

OK, but what I remember about Halo most is wading through a horde of Covvies spraying bullets into them or wading through a much bigger horde of Flood doing the same.

You obviously never played Halo beyond the easiest difficulty mode. Try pulling any of that shit on Legendary... you won't live past your third encounter on the Pillar of Autumn.

I played on the second hardest level. It wasn't that bad. For the covvies, you just pick them off at range with the pistol or sniper rifle, then when they close the distance a well placed grenade or two will take most of them out and herd the rest behind cover and when they come out you're at point blank range with the shotgun or assault rifle and you hose them down or bash them with the gun. Wash, rinse, repeat. Nothing cerebral about that.

God damn, you just won't let go of that will you?

I didn't say outright that the fighting is cerebral, I said it is more cerebral than the fighting in UT2K4. Is that so hard to grasp?

Play UT2K4 with adept bots and then godly bots, the main difference you'll find is that you have to be much faster and more alert. This is why I consider UT2K4 to be a twitch fighter. Play Halo on normal and then on legendary (which you should try, heroic has nothing on legendary) and you'll also find that you do have to move faster, but the main difference is that you have to think more. You have to be smart about how you use the weapons and how you preserve your shield. For example, against elites a very good strategy (and one that you need if you're to survive legendary) is to overcharge a plasma pistol to bring down its shields, and then go for headshots with the human pistol. Therefore, I consider Halo's fighting to be more cerebral than UT2K4's. Ok?

[Rogue 9]

OK, but what I remember about Halo most is wading through a horde of Covvies spraying bullets into them or wading through a much bigger horde of Flood doing the same.

You obviously never played Halo beyond the easiest difficulty mode. Try pulling any of that shit on Legendary... you won't live past your third encounter on the Pillar of Autumn.

I played on the second hardest level. It wasn't that bad. For the covvies, you just pick them off at range with the pistol or sniper rifle, then when they close the distance a well placed grenade or two will take most of them out and herd the rest behind cover and when they come out you're at point blank range with the shotgun or assault rifle and you hose them down or bash them with the gun. Wash, rinse, repeat. Nothing cerebral about that.

AR = spray n' pray. Its near worthless compared to almost any other gun. About the only thing its good for is the infinite swarms of tiny suicidal Flood. And I think you just named more guns than you can actually carry in that strategy of yours...

[Vertigo1]

Halo, simply because it gave us Red vs. Blue.

[Hobot]

I played on the second hardest level. It wasn't that bad. For the covvies, you just pick them off at range with the pistol or sniper rifle, then when they close the distance a well placed grenade or two will take most of them out and herd the rest behind cover and when they come out you're at point blank range with the shotgun or assault rifle and you hose them down or bash them with the gun. Wash, rinse, repeat. Nothing cerebral about that.

AR = spray n' pray. Its near worthless compared to almost any other gun. About the only thing its good for is the infinite swarms of tiny suicidal Flood. And I think you just named more guns than you can actually carry in that strategy of yours...

No, he should be able to carry them, he just mentioned alternatives. What I find interesting, is that he seems to be sticking with just human weapons. Even at Heroic you're going to have a tough time if that's all you use against covies. In Heroic I usually stuck to plasma rifle+human pistol before flood, shotgun+human pistol upon meeting the flood, and then shotgun+plasma rifle against flood+covies.

[Hamel]

Halo, simply because it gave us Red vs. Blue.

I found RvB to have a lack of funny, though that could be the applejuice in my weiner talking

[Rogue 9]

I played on the second hardest level. It wasn't that bad. For the covvies, you just pick them off at range with the pistol or sniper rifle, then when they close the distance a well placed grenade or two will take most of them out and herd the rest behind cover and when they come out you're at point blank range with the shotgun or assault rifle and you hose them down or bash them with the gun. Wash, rinse, repeat. Nothing cerebral about that.

AR = spray n' pray. Its near worthless compared to almost any other gun. About the only thing its good for is the infinite swarms of tiny suicidal Flood. And I think you just named more guns than you can actually carry in that strategy of yours...

No, he should be able to carry them, he just mentioned alternatives. What I find interesting, is that he seems to be sticking with just human weapons. Even at Heroic you're going to have a tough time if that's all you use against covies. In Heroic I usually stuck to plasma rifle+human pistol before flood, shotgun+human pistol upon meeting the flood, and then shotgun+plasma rifle against flood+covies.

Pistol's not much count against the Flood. There's too many of them coming in too fast; pistol's a precision weapon in that game and what you need for the Flood is rapid fire or wide area of effect. AR, plasma rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher all do the trick. And frag grenades. Lots and lots of frag grenades. (NOT plasma grenades; if it sticks to one of them and he jumps on you like they do, well...)

[Hobot]

No, he should be able to carry them, he just mentioned alternatives. What I find interesting, is that he seems to be sticking with just human weapons. Even at Heroic you're going to have a tough time if that's all you use against covies. In Heroic I usually stuck to plasma rifle+human pistol before flood, shotgun+human pistol upon meeting the flood, and then shotgun+plasma rifle against flood+covies.

Pistol's not much count against the Flood. There's too many of them coming in too fast; pistol's a precision weapon in that game and what you need for the Flood is rapid fire or wide area of effect. AR, plasma rifle, shotgun, and rocket launcher all do the trick. And frag grenades. Lots and lots of frag grenades. (NOT plasma grenades; if it sticks to one of them and he jumps on you like they do, well...)

I use the pistol for taking out the flood from afar, needless to say, I use the shotgun for just about everything else. I find that AR superior only against the Infection forms since I can carry way more ammo with it. The plasma rifle is even less useful (the flood seem quite resistant to covie weapons). I really don't like the rocket launch either; you have limited ammo, it's relatively slow, and you can hurt yourself. As for plasma grenades, they are useful for precise placement on the wall or ground, or even on flood (ones that are far off and in the middle of a large group).

[Shogoki]

Play UT2K4 with adept bots and then godly bots, the main difference you'll find is that you have to be much faster and more alert. This is why I consider UT2K4 to be a twitch fighter. Play Halo on normal and then on legendary (which you should try, heroic has nothing on legendary) and you'll also find that you do have to move faster, but the main difference is that you have to think more. You have to be smart about how you use the weapons and how you preserve your shield. For example, against elites a very good strategy (and one that you need if you're to survive legendary) is to overcharge a plasma pistol to bring down its shields, and then go for headshots with the human pistol. Therefore, I consider Halo's fighting to be more cerebral than UT2K4's. Ok?

Eh, Godly Unreal's bots take cover using anything and everything, even in different angles, they could stay behind a hill and only pop up to shot at you, or stay behind a pillar and only slide enough to shot you, they know smartly how to use the best weapon in different situations, they zigzag around in the open, they can even predict your own movements when using weapons like the rocket launcher, but their weapons do as much damage as they do in Adept, and they take the same amount of damage to kill, they are the closest to playing with an actual person.

Halo's bots, on the other hand, only do a lot more damage and take more damage to kill in Legendary, so much it can become overwhelming, the rest is the same.

You call it twitch shooter only because it's faster. I don’t know why people think slower=cerebral (maybe a brainbug, like saying ST is more advanced than SW only because it's all pretty and shiny) you also have to choose which weapon fits best the current situation in Unreal, and a lot more often than you have to do it in Halo, and you can also score headshots at any time (only works with a few weapons), which most people do, and watch your health at all times, i fail to see how choosing between 2 weapons that always work in a particular level is more cerebral than choosing from 9 each with 2 modes or whatever that only work well in specific situations.

[Rogue 9]

That's the thing. The two weapons you can carry do not always work as well as any other on any given level. You have to not only choose which weapon is best, you have to carefully decide what you want to keep in your weapons loadout since you can't go on picking up guns indefinitely.

[Shogoki]

That's the thing. The two weapons you can carry do not always work as well as any other on any given level. You have to not only choose which weapon is best, you have to carefully decide what you want to keep in your weapons loadout since you can't go on picking up guns indefinitely.

You never have all the weapons that work best in each situations in UT, you also need to carefully decide which of the weapons you have works best, even against bot's, they each have different styles to play, some stay far away, some are very aggressive, some will use rockets, some will use the minigun, you never know who you'll face next, the only difference is the decisions have to be made in a split second. I also played all the way through Halo, I never had trouble getting the weapons i needed, and even if I ran out of ammo (doesn't happen in the later levels, with all the weapons the flood carry) you never run out of useful weapons to pick up from the floor.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

AR = spray n' pray. Its near worthless compared to almost any other gun. About the only thing its good for is the infinite swarms of tiny suicidal Flood. And I think you just named more guns than you can actually carry in that strategy of yours...

I find it useful at point blank. While they flinch from getting shot, you close in and whack 'em. Of course, the shotgun's much better.

God damn, you just won't let go of that will you?

I didn't say outright that the fighting is cerebral, I said it is more cerebral than the fighting in UT2K4. Is that so hard to grasp?

Play UT2K4 with adept bots and then godly bots, the main difference you'll find is that you have to be much faster and more alert. This is why I consider UT2K4 to be a twitch fighter. Play Halo on normal and then on legendary (which you should try, heroic has nothing on legendary) and you'll also find that you do have to move faster, but the main difference is that you have to think more. You have to be smart about how you use the weapons and how you preserve your shield. For example, against elites a very good strategy (and one that you need if you're to survive legendary) is to overcharge a plasma pistol to bring down its shields, and then go for headshots with the human pistol. Therefore, I consider Halo's fighting to be more cerebral than UT2K4's. Ok?

Sorry. Misconstrued what you said.

[Hobot]

You never have all the weapons that work best in each situations in UT, you also need to carefully decide which of the weapons you have works best, even against bot's, they each have different styles to play, some stay far away, some are very aggressive, some will use rockets, some will use the minigun, you never know who you'll face next, the only difference is the decisions have to be made in a split second.

In Halo it isn't a question of what weapon works best in what situation (which hardly requires much thought), it's what combination of weapons is required to kill the enemy before he kills you. Don't bullshit us, I play Unreal too, take any weapon in Unreal and you can kill any bot with it, they are all equally suscepitble to it (damagewise). In Halo (again I'm talking Legendary) you will find that some enemies are practically immune to some weapons. Refering to my previous example, if you hit an elite with an assault rifle, it's shields are going to absorb the bullets that do hit and then it'll take cover and recharge. In order to be effective, you're going to have to take down his shields with a plasma weapon and quickly move in for the kill with a human weapon.

I think you're the one with the brain-bug. You seem to think more weapons = more thinking, which is not necessarily true, especially in Unreal's case. Unreal's weapons don't even have reloading, nor is conservation of ammo or location based damage (except for sniping) usually a concern. In Halo you constantly have to worry about ammo, reloading, overheating, the melee attack of each weapon, what weapons work best with each other and consequently - especially as you are limited to carrying just two weapons, instead of a dozen (this is an understatement) - you must make an informed decision on what weapons you should carry in order to best deal with the upcoming enemies. Unreal lets you stock up like a tank, with weapons, ammo, health and armour galore. Unreal is a twitch fighter, simple as that.

Again, I am not saying that this is better or worse, so don't take this as personal attack. They are simply different games to which you take a different approach. I personally like both of them and I get a different experience out of each which is why I can play one after another without getting bored.

I also played all the way through Halo, I never had trouble getting the weapons i needed, and even if I ran out of ammo (doesn't happen in the later levels, with all the weapons the flood carry) you never run out of useful weapons to pick up from the floor.

May I ask what difficulty level? I remember hard fought battles in Legendary where I was desparately trying to make every shotgun blast count.

EDIT: Typo.

[Stark]

<snip Halo game mechanic-y stuff>
I think you're the one with the brain-bug. You seem to think more weapons = more thinking, which is not necessarily true, especially in Unreal's case. Unreal's weapons don't even have reloading, nor is conservation of ammo or location based damage (except for sniping) usually a concern. In Halo you constantly have to worry about ammo, reloading, overheating, the melee attack of each weapon, what weapons work best with each other and consequently - especially as you are limited to carrying just two weapons, instead of a dozen (this is an understatement) - you must make an informed decision on what weapons you should carry in order to best deal with the upcoming enemies. Unreal lets you stock up like a tank, with weapons, ammo, health and armour galore. Unreal is a twitch fighter, simple as that.

Again, I am not saying that this is better or worse, so don't take this as personal attack. They are simply different games to which you take a different approach. I personally like both of them and I get a different experience out of each which is why I can play one after another without getting bored.

Sorry bout the snippage. I can see what you're saying here, HALO weapons are much more 'limited' in that you have to watch a larger number of variables, which are weapon-specific. I've never progressed much in HALO, but I hate games where you have to die alot to beat 8-bit style bosses, so I don't see all guns working on everything as a downside.

On the topic of weapons-mix, would you agree that aside from movement speed the weapons inform most of the playing style of any given game? UT2k4 has only two guns with decent flight times, for example, so any idiot can dodge almost anything. Battles devole into random link/rocket/bio/flak melees. And UT2k4s absurd running/jumping/dodging capabilities don't help either. It's a good thing the mod community is so good

[Crayz9000]

Well, I don't know how much has changed since the original UT, but I know that I got to the point where I could routinely score kills using nothing but the Enforcer (aka the pistol).

[Stark]

Well, I don't know how much has changed since the original UT, but I know that I got to the point where I could routinely score kills using nothing but the Enforcer (aka the pistol).

LOL the pistol in HALO has a scope for crying out loud! It appears to do more damage than 7-8 rifle hits! At least the enforcer had 'gangsta mode'

[Hobot]

Sorry bout the snippage. I can see what you're saying here, HALO weapons are much more 'limited' in that you have to watch a larger number of variables, which are weapon-specific. I've never progressed much in HALO, but I hate games where you have to die alot to beat 8-bit style bosses, so I don't see all guns working on everything as a downside.

There aren't any bosses in Halo (which I like) and I wasn't entirely clear when I said some enemies are nearly invulnerable to certain weapons. Basically, you have to know the right time to use a weapon, an assault rilfe against a fully shielded elite is alsmot laughable, but take the shields down and the AR is extremely lethal. Another good example is the needler which is amazing against elites, but almost worthless against jackals in most situations (due to their different types of shields). Should you ambush a group of jackals however, a needler will be quite effective.

On the topic of weapons-mix, would you agree that aside from movement speed the weapons inform most of the playing style of any given game? UT2k4 has only two guns with decent flight times, for example, so any idiot can dodge almost anything. Battles devole into random link/rocket/bio/flak melees. And UT2k4s absurd running/jumping/dodging capabilities don't help either. It's a good thing the mod community is so good

I kind of like the insane chaos of Unreal, though it can get frustrating at times against people and bots with insane relexes. I think only bots and super-humans can switch to the appropriate weapon fast enough. When the distance between two opponents changes so rapidly the best weapon for the situation can change in milliseconds. Although, I think UT2004 through the addition of spider mines has created some more strategy. Lately I've been setting up a group of them out of sight and I lead potential victims into the trap =).

Well, I don't know how much has changed since the original UT, but I know that I got to the point where I could routinely score kills using nothing but the Enforcer (aka the pistol).

Unfortunately there is no pistol anymore, but there is an assault rifle (it seems more like a submachine gun though). The AR is the weakest of all the weapons and I rarely get a kill with it, compared to all the other weapons it seems useless. Then again, maybe I just don't know how to use it well.

LOL the pistol in HALO has a scope for crying out loud! It appears to do more damage than 7-8 rifle hits! At least the enforcer had 'gangsta mode'

Yeah, it isn't very realistic at all. IIRC it's caliber is equivalent to a Desert Eagle's, 0.50 (I'm not a gun nut so forgive me if I'm wrong), but Bungie still overpowered it. I think the Master Chief would realistically be the only human capable of wielding it accurately.

[Slartibartfast]

Pistol's not much count against the Flood. There's too many of them coming in too fast; pistol's a precision weapon in that game and what you need for the Flood is rapid fire or wide area of effect.

AHEM... you only need to hit one

[Rogue 9]

Pistol's not much count against the Flood. There's too many of them coming in too fast; pistol's a precision weapon in that game and what you need for the Flood is rapid fire or wide area of effect.

AHEM... you only need to hit one

How do you figure that? Hitting one doesn't exactly stop the others, and there's a million of them.

[Slartibartfast]

Pistol's not much count against the Flood. There's too many of them coming in too fast; pistol's a precision weapon in that game and what you need for the Flood is rapid fire or wide area of effect.

AHEM... you only need to hit one

How do you figure that? Hitting one doesn't exactly stop the others, and there's a million of them.

Hitting one makes all the others go pop! pop pop pop! pop! pop! so you don't really need to totally wipe each group. Just hit one.

[Crayz9000]

LOL the pistol in HALO has a scope for crying out loud! It appears to do more damage than 7-8 rifle hits! At least the enforcer had 'gangsta mode'

Well, the Enforcer's gangsta mode was faster-firing but far more inaccurate.

What I liked doing was poor-man's sniping with it. No zoom, nothing; just taking aim at the upper torso of another player or bot and blasting away. It does 25 damage/hit, so in about four-five hits they're gone. (Usually it takes about 10 rounds to kill somebody due to misses, though.)