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MKSheppard wrote:

Beowulf wrote:I guess they didn't feel like making the animation required to let him attack without a weapon, though he can do melee attacks once he has one.

LOLZORS!

"I need a gun in order to bludgeon some alien to death, despite me having some funky power armor...."

Lazy Programmers.

MKSheppard wrote:Excuse me, but Halo is an average FPS which is supposedly lifted into "Uberdom" by it's "story". If I cannot enjoy the story, then the game sucks.

This I have to correct, because the truth is not the in game story but the background story.

If you don't give a fuck about it's background, and no insult here...don't care about the story.

The in game story is thus.

ALIENZ R IN UR BASES

GO MC, and Sexy AI lady

Oh NOES! We ON PLANET!!!

FIND THE PLAN MC!?!?!

HAX!!! EVIL BALLZ After US?!!

LOLLERSKATEZ WE MAKE PLANET GO BOOM!

Sure, there's more...but not by much. If you're playing Halo for story, you're watching Voyager for Wet T Shirt Janeway.

Oh wow! On the one hand, I can completely sympathize with MKSheppard on subtitles, level crappiness (although I would have accepted the tutorial), and OMFG Stark the very description of the levels you mentioned will keep me off HALO for life.

On the other hand, just what is the best way to do a "battlefield pickup" game mechanic in any FPS? (If I recall, an explanation in some synop/preview/review of the original Splinter Cell for the inability to pick up was due to it supposedly being unrealistic for one to do so, because one doesn't know the reliability [and apparently some other visual intangibles; disregarding ammo left] of them.)

Agreed though on having some sort of "last resort, no-weapons-required" melee attack -- preventing humiliation kills is not an excuse for omission.

There is no state (excepting the beginning of the game) where you do not have a weapon. It's impossible to just toss one on the ground. You can always do a melee attack if you have a weapon. So it's really just the programmers/designers being too lazy to come up with a weaponless melee attack. Which kinda makes sense, given the limited condition in which you can make one.

Edward Yee wrote:Oh wow! On the one hand, I can completely sympathize with MKSheppard on subtitles, level crappiness (although I would have accepted the tutorial), and OMFG Stark the very description of the levels you mentioned will keep me off HALO for life.

HALO's an amusing FPS that'll kill an hour or two at a time, but really anyone trying to pass it off as anything other than that is just wanking.

Halo (and by extension 99% of all console FPS) are really only as good as their co-op. If Halo had been a stand-alone game, I wouldn't have bothered with it. The last good co-op FPS before Halo was what? Duke Nukem 3d?

I can thank Halo because that one game stopped me from being the only gamer among my friends. Sure, they still don't play PC games: but I'll take what I can get.

MKSheppard wrote:
Excuse me, but Halo is an average FPS which is supposedly lifted into "Uberdom" by it's "story". If I cannot enjoy the story, then the game sucks.

In all honesty, while the story of the game is good, its still a very neutered portrayal of it IMO. If you want the REAL story of the Haloverse, just read the novels. The second book, which chronicles the events of Halo 1 is written by a different author from the other 3 books that are currently out now and I would say its the weakest of the 4 books, BUT it is still a good read and in your case would be worth it as then you could actually get the story of the game better than how the game portrayed it anyways.

If you do decide to get the books (I highly suggest you do) Definitly start with the prequel book The Fall of Reach. It sets the universe, the backstory, and everything else up excellently.

Oh, and you're supposed to be the master chief, last of the SPARTANS, uber killing machine if what half the wank backstory is supposed to be true, so why can't you do anything with no weapons? Just wade into them and use your uber reflexes and hth skillz to break enemies necks, etc.

Virtually every FPS game out there has a "punch" or "kick" mode for when
you're weaponless.

Or for that matter, why can't you just pick up a rifle from a dead marine, which there are plenty of on the way to the bridge, or have one of the marines hand you a rifle? I mean, you're the fucking Master Chief. Giving you a rifle right then and there massively increases the marines in that section's chances of fighting off the enemy threat and surviving

In the beginning of the game when you are trying to make it too the bridge, I don't think the programmers wanted people to get sidetracked killing shit right away. Its meant to be an urgent rush to the bridge and give you a taste of some of the baddies that you WILL be facing and nothing more, supporting your marine comrads at that point is not your job, its to get instructions from the captain Keyes and Cortana and then after that you get your weapons and can do your shit.

Their is never a point in the halo games where you are weaponless except for the mad dash to the bridge at the beginning of Halo 1 IIRC. All other times you will have a weapon of some kind and can do melee attacks with that then. It would be nice to do more melee attacks and be able to do attacks without weapons though, and hopefully Halo 3 will have it.

That I can buy, except that we see blast door after blast door seal off the covenant EVERY FUCKING TIME you encounter them. What, is the USS Fucking Stupid Name really a blast door maze masquerading as a ship?

As I said, they don't want you to fight at that point, just rush to the bridge. It may seem shallow, but you have to remember its a game from 2001 and when it came out it wasnt a big deal and I still don't mind it. If they had the subtitles of the audio that plays during that sequence I don't thing you would have minded it so much either.

Thank you for the explanation, General Zod, but I'm not confident about whether I'd get even that much out of it now.

MKSheppard wrote:

Beowulf wrote:I guess they didn't feel like making the animation required to let him attack without a weapon, though he can do melee attacks once he has one.

LOLZORS!

"I need a gun in order to bludgeon some alien to death, despite me having some funky power armor...."

Try using the melee attack when you're holding a plasma pistol.
That's right, the Master Chief holds the pistol in his left hand and just throws a haymaker with his right.

After playing Fight Night Round 3 recently, I'm wondering if perhaps some sort of jab should be incorporated for further humiliation effect...

Shep, I didn't know you were deaf. It's not somthing that people say a lot.
As way of appology, I offer up the complete level transcripts available from Bungie's number one Fansite.
Pillar of Autumn
Halo
Truth and Reconciliation
The Silent Cartographer
Assault on the Control Room
343 Guilty Spark
The Library
Two Betrayals
Keyes
The Maw
Also in Halo, 'battlefield pickup' is handeled buy the simple idea that if you are holding a 90% charged plasma pistol, and if the enemy drops a 89% charged one, you can't pick it up because the Master Chief wouldn't discard his current weapon in favor of one with fewer shots.

Icehawk wrote:In all honesty, while the story of the game is good, its still a very neutered portrayal of it IMO

Fuck that. When a game claims to be the second coming because of ZOMG the story, the story should be in the game, not in some books I have to buy.

In the beginning of the game when you are trying to make it too the bridge, I don't think the programmers wanted people to get sidetracked killing shit right away.

Uhm, Your ship is under attack by a ravenous alien force, and you just want to go see the captain right away, instead of helping secure the various compartments to ensure everyone's survival?

It may seem shallow, but you have to remember its a game from 2001 and when it came out it wasnt a big deal and I still don't mind it.

BULLSHIT.

Even back in 2001, we had smart, innovative level design.

MKSheppard wrote:Uhm, Your ship is under attack by a ravenous alien force, and you just want to go see the captain right away, instead of helping secure the various compartments to ensure everyone's survival?

Well, the reason for that would be because Keyes makes it abundantly clear that the MC better get to the bridge right the fuck now(before they've even finished making sure his suit works) and because making sure the Covenant don't get a hold of Cortana is, in fact, worth more than the lives of everyone on the ship.

MKSheppard wrote: Fuck that. When a game claims to be the second coming because of ZOMG the story, the story should be in the game, not in some books I have to buy.

To be fair, Halo was never the second coming because of Teh Stories, but because it was designed to remove resource management and downtime from FPS games. The design ideology behind the regenerative shield and omnipresent weapon drops is that the player is always doing stuff. You're never going and retreading through the level looking for ammo and health you saved for later, because everything you need is right there with you.

It's telling that those features have been copied far and wide. It's rare to play a shooter now that has the old wolfenstein health percentage, and letting you carry two weapons at once is almost the norm now.

You mentioned Call of Duty 2 earlier, and that's one of the games that's followed where Halo led. The weapon system and health system, which are the real core of Halo, are both present and correct, you just shoot nazis instead of aliens.

MKSheppard wrote:Uhm, Your ship is under attack by a ravenous alien force, and you just want to go see the captain right away, instead of helping secure the various compartments to ensure everyone's survival?

He doesnt "want" to go see the captain, Master Chief is ORDERED to report directly to the bridge ASAP, not to go around and help anyone.

Yes. Of course, this was rather more done in the name of having an interactive intro sequence like Half Life than anything else. Just accept it like you accepted that long railroading at the start of HL, it's there for the same purpose. The desire to break off and actually go and do stuff right now is probably a symptom of how successful the section is in fooling you that you're in interactive gameplay, rather than a railed introduction.

Vendetta wrote:It's telling that those features have been copied far and wide. It's rare to play a shooter now that has the old wolfenstein health percentage, and letting you carry two weapons at once is almost the norm now.

I don't understand. Only kiddy shooters steal the 'regen health' thing (yes, CoD is not a serious game, we all know that), and I can't think of any shooters that had to take lessons from Halo on loadout. Multiweapon carriage, and akimbo usage, both predate Halo by many years. Akimbo usage is still deeply stupid, of course.

Vendetta wrote:It's rare to play a shooter now that has the old wolfenstein health percentage, and letting you carry two weapons at once is almost the norm now.

You poor, abused child! You never played Goldeneye with twin Moonraker Lasers?!

Losonti Tokash wrote: and because making sure the Covenant don't get a hold of Cortana is, in fact, worth more than the lives of everyone on the ship.

Then just wipe cortana from the computer, pull out the chip with it on it, shoot it with a pistol, then flush the fragments down the toilet on the bridge. That's how a real military would handle desruction of classified info.

SirNitram wrote:You poor, abused child! You never played Goldeneye with twin Moonraker Lasers?!

Double Dovs made a way better noise. I loved those guns...

Stark wrote:

SirNitram wrote:You poor, abused child! You never played Goldeneye with twin Moonraker Lasers?!

Double Dovs made a way better noise. I loved those guns...

Am I insane, or were you able to double up on rocket launchers? MIght've just been with cheats on though. That's some havoc and destruction!

MKSheppard wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote: and because making sure the Covenant don't get a hold of Cortana is, in fact, worth more than the lives of everyone on the ship.

Then just wipe cortana from the computer, pull out the chip with it on it, shoot it with a pistol, then flush the fragments down the toilet on the bridge. That's how a real military would handle destruction of classified info.

Cortana is a rare and valuable military resource. If you had a force magnifier that increased the efficiency of your capital ships to the degree she does, you would take every effort to save it that you could. Cortana is probably not only worth more than the crew, but she's also worth more than the Autumn itself. Not only that, but she's also difficult to replace. There is no factory that can produce Cortana 2.0. She was made from a living brain, and a very smart one. While I have no doubt that in the event of a true emergency Cortana could be wiped, along with all her data, it makes sense to try and preserve her for as long as possible.

SirNitram wrote:

Stark wrote:

SirNitram wrote:You poor, abused child! You never played Goldeneye with twin Moonraker Lasers?!

Double Dovs made a way better noise. I loved those guns...

Am I insane, or were you able to double up on rocket launchers? MIght've just been with cheats on though. That's some havoc and destruction!

I believe it was a cheat, but yes you could have it....ah, the pure utter destructive nonsense.

Remember, be careful not to get killed by the Goldeneye Glacial Splash Damage, that may only get to you seconds after the explosion.

MKSheppard wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote: and because making sure the Covenant don't get a hold of Cortana is, in fact, worth more than the lives of everyone on the ship.

Then just wipe cortana from the computer, pull out the chip with it on it, shoot it with a pistol, then flush the fragments down the toilet on the bridge. That's how a real military would handle desruction of classified info.

Keyes wrote: I appreciate your concern, Cortana, but it's not up to me. The Protocol is clear. Destruction or capture of a shipboard AI is absolutely unacceptable, and that's means you're leaving the ship. Lock in a selection of landing zones, upload them to my neural lace, and then sort yourself for a hard transfer.