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Halo: A Bit Andy Warhol?

Seerow

By Seerow
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Seerow

Seerow

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By this I mean..Has one idea and runs with it, indefinitely.

Now I am no one to contest the might of what is touted the best Xbox game thus far..And in honestly I love it despite what I will try to express annoys me severely about it. I do remember, no game is flawless..But this really put a major downer on halo for me.

So, first few level, its fine (amazing even), new challenges, constantly changing environment exciting scenes taking place.

Then however we get to the Chasm level (sorry I forget the name, and I'm away from the box right now) basically half way through the snow level.

From here on they seem to have made 3 rooms, one with a bridge (sometimes 2), one with a long corridor section and one middle room where some sort of battle will take place. And repeat this at least 3 times. Now it might just be me but is this necessary? It felt like it would never end. And then I had to do it again.

Oh and that’s not the worst part...when you are following the monitor, was that part seriously made by the same people who did Silent Cartographer?!

Apologies if this has been gone over a million times before, I didn't pick up an Xbox until recently. And for the posts I have seen people seem to think Halo is flawless. And yet this seemed very obviously poor to me. I do recognise other strengths in the game but...well see above.

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DJ Sack

DJ Sack

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Ive never understood the 10/10 scores it got, yes its very good but repetitive level design, especially ones that are dull and confusing do not warrent a 10/10 score in my books. And they didnt have to rush it, it'd been in development for a number of years, the repetative parts of indoor levels are just lazyness, they could have easily made them look different with colouring and slightly different looks.

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fasteasyfree

fasteasyfree

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16 player Halo is the best experience I have ever had

Simply breathtaking and whole lot of fun (except when playing against team ninja)

I've been doing that for the last week or so on the PC. I have to say, and even though I still love the game, that online it doesn't really provide anything new.

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Sprite Machine

Sprite Machine

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By this I mean..Has one idea and runs with it, indefinitely.

Sign of a good game, that is.

One solid theme, played out throughout. It's how you learn, adapt, play and have fun. The theme in this case was the combat / the AI / the battles.

I would have enjoyed an entire game of just ducking and diving in and out of rocks and corridors fighting enemy after enemy - a 'war simulator' if you will. The actual designs of the levels wouldn't (and don't) have to be particularly imaginative to accomodate this, to accomodate every tactical eventuality, which is something they manage to do quite nicely.

To me, this makes the game practically perfect and fully deserving of the 10/10 scores placed upon it.

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The Shadow

The Shadow

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Ive never understood the 10/10 scores it got, yes its very good but repetitive level design, especially ones that are dull and confusing do not warrent a 10/10 score in my books. And they didnt have to rush it, it'd been in development for a number of years, the repetative parts of indoor levels are just lazyness, they could have easily made them look different with colouring and slightly different looks.

Edge's 10/10 doesn't mean perfection, rather that something is revolutionary. It's Halo's finer details that make it such a great game. The aiming works perfectly, and Bungie's decision to limit you to two weapons at a time rather than the humanly impossible twenty most other FPS games encumber you with, was another fantastic decision.

Pray now that those aspects of the game remain unaltered in Halo 2 - if it ain't broke...

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The Shadow

The Shadow

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I didnt even mention the word edge once. I was actually thinking about the xbox mags/online reviews to be honest. Theres just too much wrong with it for it to be a 10/10 to be honest.

Sorry :o The only one anyone takes seriously though is Edge's, considering it's only the fourth in the magazine's history.

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magic juan

magic juan

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16 player Halo is the best experience I have ever had

Simply breathtaking and whole lot of fun (except when playing against team ninja)

Yes, that's very nice dear... But it's relevance to this is...?

As for the repetition, it didn't ruin it for me by any means but it could have been handles better. For example that chasm bridgey bit. Now if there'd been 2 seconds of story with Cortex(?) saying something like "The Covenant have the place locked down so there's only one way through - 5 heavily guarded facilities, blah blah blah" Just something that gave you some indication that the game hadn't crashed into some infinite loop as I was beginning to think it had...

The library was of course, gay.

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Space Renegade Ulala

Space Renegade Ulala

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Ive never understood the 10/10 scores it got, yes its very good but repetitive level design, especially ones that are dull and confusing do not warrent a 10/10 score in my books. And they didnt have to rush it, it'd been in development for a number of years, the repetative parts of indoor levels are just lazyness, they could have easily made them look different with colouring and slightly different looks.

Perhaps but the interior design makes reasonable sense in the context of the installations - think of it this way:

INT.DEATH STAR.DAY

The Emperor: Right, I want some statues over there and when we go through this door, I want a massive big garden full of black roses and poledancers. Oh, and brighten up some of the rooms in different colours.

Peter Cushing: But sir! This is a military installation - it's meant to be functional, not appealing to the eye!

The Emperor looks miffed and pinches his thumb and finger together - Tarkin falls to the ground gasping.

The Emperor: Shut up and get Obi-Lewellyn Bowen in here, now!

It may well be rushed but the design of the place is exactly what you'd expect some bunch of ancient crackhead aliens desiging a military weapons installation to come up with - functional, repetivive and full of inexplicably placed chasms. And given that people are always harping on that it's what you do in a game, not what it looks like that really matters, the complaints about the samey architectural design seems rather picky...

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DJ Sack

DJ Sack

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The best way to tell that they was lazy, was how they placed arrows on the ground for you to follow or the exit having a flashing light. Also having it all in grey didnt help matters, even different colouring would have helped, the rooms themselves though didnt seem to have much reason for being there though, they were not prisions or meeting rooms, just rooms there for you to walk through. Quake 2 did this well with rooms having different areas to tell them apart.

And i wouldnt say its picky, im sure im not the only one who ended up on some levels going back to where you started as the level all looked the same. I played co-op with a friend once and when we came to the bridges again, we didnt know if we'd just come from there or not. Games should let you explore, but they need to be designed so you can always tell which way is the right way to go. In a game you should never ever get stuck or lost, as thats just bad game design.

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Boutros

Boutros

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16 player Halo is the best experience I have ever had

Simply breathtaking and whole lot of fun (except when playing against team ninja)

I sure hope it was the best GAMING experience you ever had, otherwise I'd suggest that you try to pry open your frontdoor, if that's still possible ;-)

Just kiddiiiiin' :o

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Space Renegade Ulala

Space Renegade Ulala

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The best way to tell that they was lazy, was how they placed arrows on the ground for you to follow or the exit having a flashing light. Also having it all in grey didnt help matters, even different colouring would have helped, the rooms themselves though didnt seem to have much reason for being there though, they were not prisions or meeting rooms, just rooms there for you to walk through. Quake 2 did this well with rooms having different areas to tell them apart.

And i wouldnt say its picky, im sure im not the only one who ended up on some levels going back to where you started as the level all looked the same. I played co-op with a friend once and when we came to the bridges again, we didnt know if we'd just come from there or not. Games should let you explore, but they need to be designed so you can always tell which way is the right way to go. In a game you should never ever get stuck or lost, as thats just bad game design.

There are arrows? People need them? People have actually gotten lost?

:o

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Seerow

Seerow

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By this I mean..Has one idea and runs with it, indefinitely.

Sign of a good game, that is.

One solid theme, played out throughout. It's how you learn, adapt, play and have fun. The theme in this case was the combat / the AI / the battles.

I would have enjoyed an entire game of just ducking and diving in and out of rocks and corridors fighting enemy after enemy - a 'war simulator' if you will. The actual designs of the levels wouldn't (and don't) have to be particularly imaginative to accomodate this, to accomodate every tactical eventuality, which is something they manage to do quite nicely.

To me, this makes the game practically perfect and fully deserving of the 10/10 scores placed upon it.

Hmm I didn't mean a key aspect, I ment more the repetative nature, it wasn't really an idea per-say...I agree that a single idea is crucial to a sucessfull game, just not..a single room.

"a bit Andy Warhol" as in one of the greatest artists of the 20th Century ?

Well, apparently so, but it annoys me that he seemingly had one idea that worked, and got so praised. But that was just an interesting subtitle to pull people in to read :o and not really relevent.

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DJ Sack

DJ Sack

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Yes but the flashing arrows are just lazy design. You can see the testers getting lost and the artidsts just putting some arrows down to mark the way. Its just a cheap short cut.

A cheap shortcut that does its job perfectly.

Why does it need anything more?

But it shouldnt need them, in Mario 64 you didnt have a BIG arrow telling you where to go or anything. Even goldeneye, now that had loads of room filled levels, yet was fresh and unique and you knew where you were. If i placed you in a random room, you wouldnt be able to tell me what level it was. In something like goleneye you can easily tell me where you are just by looking at one room.

When you walk through any building in life, they are not all identical, you know where you've been if you revisit them. The rooms in halo had no meaning except to make your journey a little longer.

Outside levels were fantastic, some of the best ever. Indoor = crap.

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Number 28

Number 28

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The AOTCR level is a repetitive nightmare if you're unfortunate enough to not get in the banshee and take the huge shortcut...

Thing is, whilst I hope Halo 2 features many many unique environments, I can also see this taking something away from the game. The repetitive nature of the levels allows you to realise just how differently the AI can react each time.

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