Bioshock demo

[DarkDragoonX]

Halo's story is probably on par with Half Life's as far as I'm concerned.

I nearly choked to death after reading that.

The traditional deathmatch game and Halo are two fundimentally different types of multiplayer. Halo's multiplayer fits more into the realm of Counterstrike and Call of Duty 2, where you move slowly and a combination of aim and teamwork is a lot more important than anything else, while traditional deathmatch trades greater movement potential for teamwork (It's much easier to be a lone gunman). For me, they are for two different kinds of moods, and I like Halo 2 about as much as Quake 3 CPMA, just for different reasons.

I wouldn't call Halo "tactical," per se. Halo's gameplay is a sort of mutant mix between traditional deathmatch and tactical shooters, without actually being either.

Unreal Tournament's strategy for multiplayer is to throw tons of shit at a wall and see if some of it sticks. It has a case of not being able to find its identity. It's not fast enough to be a good PC shooter,

That's news to me.

it's not slow enough to be a good tactical shooter,

It was never meant to be.

and there are way too many guns.

That is very nearly the silliest thing I've ever heard. There aren't that many guns. Nine basic weapons (lightning gun and sniper rifle share the same slot), and two one-shot super weapons that share a tenth slot. I don't see how that's "too many," particularly in light of the fact that UT has some of the best weapon design to grace the FPS scene. The alternate fire modes are also wildly different from the primary fire, with many interesting effects. The amazing depth and complexity in making full use of your arsenal, combined with the acrobatics players can perform (shield gun jumps, double jumps, wall jumps, etc) make UT one of the most deep, complex deathmatch experiences available.

It's no wonder that UT eventually degrades into 90% instagib CTF servers, because by removing some of the complexity, the game is actually sort of fun. And for all of the extra maps and mods that are included, only a very select few of them actually get any amount of play.

Sooo... basically, UT isn't fun because people are too stupid to figure out ten weapons and a few acrobatic manuevers. My faith in humanity's general intelligence level just took another hit. As for mods, well, I've never had any problems finding people to play my favorite mods.

That's not a knock against Halo, that's a knock against console gaming in general. UT for Dreamcast/PS2 and Unreal Championship for Xbox had the exact same problem, and although the PS3 version of UT3 will feature mod support, one has to question how much it will catch on. Both Halo and Halo 2 have PC releases with custom map support (though the community isn't as large, mainly due to the ports being lazy), and there is tons of custom modification interest in both games, as shown by sites such as Halomods.

This is a valid point. Conceded.

Not only that but Halo 2 also had a metric fuckton of custom gametype options, essentially allowing users to create their own gametypes, and Halo 3 will feature a "Create a Level" mode, where you will be able to take an existing level, rearrange anything you want to on it (aside from the actual architecture, but I'm assuming you can just block off certian sections of map with a big prop), and essentially create your own fun.

Gametype options are a nice touch, admittedly, but the create a level thing sounds more gimmicky then anything else.

And like I mentioned earlier, just because UT ships with 'more' doesn't make it better. Halo has an amazing track record of having great maps, there are the obvious popular maps (Blood Gulch, Lockout), but nearly all of the maps get a decent amount of play, and people aren't afraid to pick them. On the other hand, trying to get UT players to play outside of their comfort zone is an exercize in pulling teeth. I'd rather have 10-15 solid maps than 100 mixed bag maps with maybe 5 good ones in the bunch.

I dunno, all of the stock UT maps are quite good, and although user made maps can be iffy, there are many astounding user maps out there. I've never had any problem playing on custom maps either, so I don't see where this complaint comes from.

[QUOTESounds like a sound game design to me. Super Smash Bros follows the same formula, being accessable and deep at the same time. It sounds to me like you just have sour grapes about X game being more popular than your favorite.[/QUOTE]

Not really, I just think it's overrated. I feel the same way whenever somebody gushes on and on about FFVII being the best RPG ever. It really isn't, and Halo isn't as amazing as people claim it is, either.

I guarentee you that if you played some Halo 2 with a group of friends who were halfway decent at the game, you would have a blast.

I have. Hell, I have several friends who are far better than me at it. I just don't like it. I didn't like it the first time, I didn't like the sequel, and the third game probably won't do much for me, either. It's not fast-paced enough, it lacks a decent arsenal, and most imporantly, it lacks the intangible "fun" quality that makes me want to keep playing a given game.

Again, though, I never said Halo was god-awful, I said it was a good console game. It's popularity isn't all for nothing. It just doesn't stand up to the good PC shooters. I will, however, give Halo the nod on vehicular combat. No other shooter does vehicles quite as well as Halo does.

[AlexMax]

I nearly choked to death after reading that.

Do you really even need a blow by blow? This is the same company that did Marathon and Myth, Bungie knows how to make a story-rich game, and there are tons of little details that are hard to catch unless you're paying attention.

I wouldn't call Halo "tactical," per se. Halo's gameplay is a sort of mutant mix between traditional deathmatch and tactical shooters, without actually being either.

You're probably right, let's call it the most accessable tactical shooter ever. It has slow movement, guns that somewhat resemble real world ones and other tactical bits like CQC and offhand grenades, while at the same time it has neat movement tricks, gimmicky things like swords, and it's not quite one hit kill (pretty close though). All in all, I'm a fan of it.

That is very nearly the silliest thing I've ever heard. There aren't that many guns. Nine basic weapons (lightning gun and sniper rifle share the same slot), and two one-shot super weapons that share a tenth slot. I don't see how that's "too many," particularly in light of the fact that UT has some of the best weapon design to grace the FPS scene. The alternate fire modes are also wildly different from the primary fire, with many interesting effects. The amazing depth and complexity in making full use of your arsenal, combined with the acrobatics players can perform (shield gun jumps, double jumps, wall jumps, etc) make UT one of the most deep, complex deathmatch experiences available.

More isn't necissarily better. Quake 3 has purpose built guns that are easy to understand and don't have a gimmicky secondary fire. Less guns, but you can do more with them. And trying to even compare UT to something like Q3A in terms of movement is like a blind man trying to describe the sun, it's impossible. Movement-wise, you will never see something like this in UT, or this.

Gametype options are a nice touch, admittedly, but the create a level thing sounds more gimmicky then anything else.

Nope, not a gimmick.

I dunno, all of the stock UT maps are quite good, and although user made maps can be iffy, there are many astounding user maps out there. I've never had any problem playing on custom maps either, so I don't see where this complaint comes from.

Honestly, how many of the vanilla UT2k4 maps see regular play? And I'm talking about all of them in all game modes. Usually you see the community settle on a select few maps out of a select few game modes, because the others aren't really worth playing. Halo 2, for having a small map pool, has proportionally many more high quality maps that people are willing to play than most other games. Most people can name a good three quarters of the Halo map pool off of the top of their head as maps they like to play, since there are so many good ones. Can you do the same with UT? What about Quake 3? Point being is that I don't want to install six gigs and hundreds of maps, only to end up playing maybe a small handfull of them or being forced to download six more gigs of maps because the community treats maps more of a disposable commodity.

[Dark Nation]

http://games.slashdot.org/games/07/08/24/213256.shtml

I know the article says it's not really a rootkit, but a hard to delete directory, but still...