Halo 3 Multiplayer - The Elephant in the Room

[Dahemo]

At University this year I've been living in a Pro Evo world. Not only am I football obsessed anyway, but it is my housemates' game of choice. We set up a community on Pro 2008 and the banter ensued. They aren't avid gamers, and to be honest I only bought two games over the last twelve months, and they only briefly interrupted the Pro madness, as good as they were.

One housemate, let's call him John for anonymity's sake, is probably the worst for it, the amount of times we started playing Pro Evo instead of working on something I lost count. But towards the end of the year he won a hundred pound bet with another housemate, and used it to fund a 360 purchase he'd wanted for a while. He got a deal at GAME with Pro Evo 2008 and Halo 3, which he'd seen me playing and I'd said it was good.

To celebrate we got some mates over and tried out his new machine. We started off, rather predictably, playing Pro Evo, at which I was surprisingly good ( I usually get tanked on their Playstation versions). But in the fullness of time Halo was put in and we began a four player deathmatch.

Three of us had a whale of a time, and while I did well I was pipped to the win by a jammy American. However, John was not happy. Despite a pause two minutes in, where I ran through the control system, demonstrated on screen how to kill people with the different guns and how to use grenades effectively, he was not enjoying it. Partly, this was because he was getting battered, and partly because he gets moody when he loses, he started picking holes in the game.

"I shot you in the head with a full round of the rifle, how did you kill me?"
"I was shooting you, and when I got close I hit you"
"But I shot you first, in the face! If I did that now you'd be dead"
"Yes, but in the game I've got a shield"
"Oh yeh, of course..."

Now you've probably seen/heard this before, and it does smack of sour grapes, but one of his biggest arguements really hit home, and that was that the hype didn't match the gameplay. He concluded that he understood the game, and that he shouldn't have to play the single player to improve, he should have a fair chance.

The american and I countered that we had played the trilogy, and so had an advantage. we removed ourselves from the next game, which was much closer as all four now had very little experience, but John maintained that it wasn't as good as had been advertised. And having heard that opinion several times I wonder if it's true, is Halo 3 simply for the hardcore kids?

I'm sure we can all agree that the single player has some absolutely hellish levels, and I know that within the first hour I was wracking my brains as to how I'd done similar situations in the first two games. When I subsequently went on Live, I was either slaughtering people for whom this was obviously their first Halo, or getting beasted by people with ridiculous skills and hundreds of hours of practice under their belts.

Thinking objectively, I can't help but wonder if we love something which we know in our hearts is not actually as wonderful as we make out, and then I ponder if that is such a bad thing. Perhaps something thta can only be enjoyed by a few should be treasured rather than villified. All I know is that all the Johns of this world can't be entirely wrong.

I know this is very long winded but your opinions would be appreciated...

 

[Gahars]

I'm not a huge fan of the Halo multiplayer, even after playing it for a long time.

After all the hype, it just didn't live up to it.

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

Well if he wants to get better he has 3 choices: Play the campaign, play against you, or play online... Either way, he gets slaughtered until he progressively sucks less and less, that's how it works.

And the other thing: Is Halo 3 living up to the hype... No... It's a good game but it's not the perfect gift from God they all made it out to be. I used to play it alot before I played COD4 online...

 

[dukeh016]

I enjoyed the use of the word "pipped."

I'm not sure that the problem of..."leetness"...is all that uncommon. I would argue that it exists in every form of life. Football (Soccer) is played by many but mastered by few. That doesn't mean the people who suck at it and still play don't have fun. It just means they have to be careful who they compete with. In Halo, thats clearly harder. But I think the enjoyability of participating in a competition is always going to be highly dependent on the viability of the competition.

I really have no opinion of the quality of Halo by itself, although I would assume it borders on rent-only. I think most Johns do enjoy it though, what with the gabillion sales and movie with the Peter Jacksonness.

 

[super_smash_jesus]

Being a very mediocre HALO player myself, I found myself in Johns shoes more than once. The last game of Halo i played was the first halo, considering I didn't own an xbox, I thought this was acceptable. On playing with others, that including friends and family who own and play online, I was kicked in the junk repeatadly by their grenades, and apparent manliness for the span of an hour or so. For the life of me, I could not grasp the concept that me unloading an entire clip into another persons chest would not kill them, however with a few more accurately placed shots (the head region i assume) i would fall victim to that which they call noobliness.

I am sure it is a good game, and with practice I know for sure that it would be more fun, but there are always going to be people owning me too much that could make the game a lot less enjoyable.

 

[Vampiric Puppet]

I agree with John, I've played Halo 3 a couple of times and didn't really enjoy it and thought it was a bit Hyped. If you like it, great. If not, leave it be for those who do like it.

 

[sunami88]

The trick with Halo is to not take it all too seriously. Especially when you're playing with friends, a good strategy is to just joke around with them and do stupid stuff ("accidentally" driving the warthog off the edge of the map, clipping your friends banshees wings if you have the spartan laser, etc).

Just mess around and it can be fun. Take it too seriously though and it can be friggin terrible.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

No game is going to appeal to everyone. Any game that tries to be all things to all people will be so bland (or so complex) that most of its audience will be turned off.

That being said, there's a lot of flexibility to the Halo series' multiplayer; given that the guys were playing Pro-Evo before perhaps they'd enjoy objective-based games (not CTF with 4 players; maybe Assault or King of the Hill) or Juggernaut more. If they didn't like the shields, then try SWAT (shieldless) games for a bit though they tend to be fairly short.

Or, of course, it could be that he didn't enjoy getting spanked by player with much more experience than him; oddly enough, that might mean he'd prefer ranked playlists on Live to casual play on split-screen as he'd be more evenly matched and likely be scoring in the middle of the pack instead of dead last.

There's something appealing to a lot of people in the gameplay, though, as Halo 3 (and Halo 2!) keep soldiering on in Major Nelson's blog-ranking of Live use. But not everyone, of course, is going to enjoy it... any more than everyone enjoys opera, football (any version), or rom-coms.

-- Steve

 

[TheNix]

If a game is good or even if it lived up to it's hype that doesn't mean every person in the world will enjoy it. Even in a group of friends there is bound to be someone that doesn't like the game. Even if someone doesn't like the game though they can usually understand why halo3 is liked by others or would be considered a good game.

 

[Gormers1]

I love the series, but yeah, like sunami said, the trick is to not take it seriously when you're playing it with friends. I had the best time in halo 2 and 3 when I was playing games that didn't require that much skill, like car fight, "shark attack", swords, rockets, race, or games with everything turned max (like rockets, massive health, swords, and lots of vehicles in halo 2 or the same plus low gravity in halo 3).
A game is never fun to play against friends who don't play the same game that much unless there is a god bit of randomness in it, like mario kart, super smash, or just about any fighting game. Or of course, if you can turn on some kind of handicap, like in halo 2.

Its pretty easy to understand that a game stops being fun if you only loose or only win (yeah I said it).

As for the thing about halo 3 and shields, I think it would be less fun to play with friends if it is more realistic. "swat" (not the game, but a custom game in halo 3) was never a hit among my friends at least.

 

[skakashijutsu]

I WAS a huge fan of Halo, until I bought the 3rd installment of the franchise. The first week I didn't really notice how much it suspicously resembled Halo 2 due to the sheer excitement of having a game tht none of my smart friends had. But by the 2nd week, the suck-factor began to kick in. The whole thingwas exactly the sam as the 2nd game, the graphics were highly disappointing if you ask me, and the single player was as short lived as George W. Bush's high approval rating. I honestly hardly ever play the multiplayer, except when my friend comes over and annoys the schtick out of me to play it.

I also was not surprised to see that the first 3 weeks after its release, the online players were numbered in the several millions, but by the end of the month, it was in the hundred thousands. The game had an overall short lived reign over the community.

 

[skakashijutsu]

also, I think Halo: Combat Evolved was the best game in the trilogy, which is wh I shall now proceed to replay it.

 

[Rikrok77]

I definitely agree with sunami. People who dedicate their lives to games and are then shocked by the lack of pefection annoy me. Sure, you shot me in the head a couple of times. But I have the ******* Laser!

 

[Uncompetative]

Bioshock,
Mass Effect,
The Orange Box.
Project Gotham Racing 4,
Grand Theft Auto 4,
Call of Duty 4.

That is the list of all the games I bought this year. I would have played them, but I have been loath to take Halo 3 out of the disk drive.

Is Halo 3 overhyped? Of course.

Is the Campaign mode of Call of Duty 4 much better than the Campaign mode of Halo 3? Definitely.

So why do I play it so much? It isn't as if I'm really any good at it...

...well, I like the controls a lot better (I use 'Bumper Jumper'), I like the grandeur of Big Team Battle and the constantly varied, colourful, cinematic action. I'll never get tired of lobbing a plasma grenade into the passenger compartment of a Warthog jeep, vaulting over it as it tries to run me over and turning around to see the satisfying double, or triple kill. Looking at things numerically, suicidal attacks can help my team win. I like to assist (that is wear down enemy shields to weaken them for other players), I really don't care about advancing my rank - after all, I'll just end up matched against players that no fun to play against due to their vastly superior skill, when I decide I'll have a change and play Team SWAT.

True, there has been a drop in players and the lobby seems to take longer to find players as a result, however I keep expecting to get tired of it and get around to completing Portal, Half Life 2, Bioshock, etc. but it hasn't happened. It has even STOPPED ME BUYING GAMES. I was really quite keen on getting Battlefield: Bad Company, but when I played the demo I wasn't overwhelmed and acted rationally, deciding it was stupid to buy a game that I probably wouldn't play through as I would still be "in love" with Halo 3 MP. I even thought that if I bought BLACK from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace as a download I would be persuaded to play through its campaign, but although good I haven't got back to it after my first go...

That said, Halo 3 MP would be much better if team chat were used intelligently. Even just calling out which Territory to attack/defend would get more Spartans there and bring a little strategy into it, but unfortunately this has only happened once in over 2000 games.

 

[kanyatta]

And having heard that opinion several times I wonder if it's true, is Halo 3 simply for the hardcore kids?

I find it is quite the opposite. Halo 3 is more for the casual audience. The people that play their XBox for nothing but Halo and Madden for maybe an hour a week. Most "hardcore" gamers I know have written off the Halo series as average. It's nothing that Unreal Tournament hasn't already done better. The series especially fails on the ports to PC. Playing it online is all right, so long as you're not matched with screaming 12 year olds. Out of 10, it's a 7.5. Nothing fantastic, but not bad, per se.

Bioshock as better single player than Halo, COD4 has better single AND multiplayer than Halo, Mass Effect has a better story, the list goes on. Yeah, a lot of stuff doesn't make any sense, and their valid arguments. I shot you in the back of the head with 10 rounds from the AR, you shouldn't be doing anything besides laying dead twitching, not turning around and blasting me with you're rocket launcher.

Before anyone turns around and calls me a bad player, or that I don't get it, I'll just let you know that after playing a month (I've never touched Halo 1 or 2, maybe that's why I don't get the story), I reached Colonel before deciding the game was boring.

 

[Gormers1]

Yeah, a lot of stuff doesn't make any sense, and their valid arguments. I shot you in the back of the head with 10 rounds from the AR, you shouldn't be doing anything besides laying dead twitching, not turning around and blasting me with you're rocket launcher.

If you seriously think this is a good argument, I wonder if you actually enjoy the games that exist out there. The games existing out there that you can really call realistic is minimal. And I am thankful for that, because frankly, I find most realistic games most sports games much more boring than say the ssx series. And I often find shooters that tries to be realistic boring, even if most of then aren't anyway. The only games I can say Ive enjoyed that can be called realistic at the same time is cod 4 and the swat series.

Before anyone turns around and calls me a bad player, or that I don't get it, I'll just let you know that after playing a month (I've never touched Halo 1 or 2, maybe that's why I don't get the story), I reached Colonel before deciding the game was boring.

Your whole post make you sound an awful like someone who doesn't like to use punctuations.

And haven't wee been through mentioning all games that are better than halo countless times by now?

 

[Uncompetative]

I shot you in the back of the head with 10 rounds from the AR, you shouldn't be doing anything besides laying dead twitching, not turning around and blasting me with you're rocket launcher.

It took me ages to realize how to use the Assault Rifle in Halo 3. I kept expecting to hold the trigger in and empty a full clip into an enemy and get a guaranteed kill. Yet, the shield and increasing bullet dispersal would make my efforts ineffective. You do much better if you use a pulsing staccato rhythm with it. The Battle Rifle does not work all that well long range and you should take account of bullet flight time and fire slightly ahead of a moving target (so that it about a helmet's width on an enemy moving at running pace at medium range). Grenades can be used artfully to weaken shields prior to use of projectile weapons, or (as in classic Halo) you can bring down the shield of a player with an energy weapon (say the plasma pistol on overcharge) then switch to a Battle Rifle for a few decisive headshots. Dual-wielding sub-machine guns can be very effective at short range, but this is improved by a staccato rhythm. It is debatable whether to give up the advantage of the use of grenades to facilitate dual wielding. Your shield may restore, but your invisible heath bar will still need time to restore. Relative health and shields determines who wins in a sword battle.

Don't tackle an enemy with a rocket launcher from close range unless you have an energy sword, it will not end well. Distance between you and the rocket launcher wielding opponent will give you time to dodge and you should call on teammates to bring them down with ranged weapons. Avoid clumping together for easy triple and overkills.

If there is a BAD weapon in the game it is the Sniper Rifle, which is so ridiculously overpowered that it unbalances any game it appears in where a proficient sniper can get a hold of it. I accept that the Spartan is cybernetic and can steady aim snipe at a moment's notice which would never be allowed in a Tom Clancy game, but it would balance things if it had to be reloaded after each shot - also, I don't think the game should allow "no scoping" (both the Sniper Rifle and the Spartan Laser should only fire whilst zoomed in through aiming as then the user would be unable to see their proximity scanner and the power of their one-hit kill capability would be balanced by the user's increased vulnerability). The Gravity Hammer is ok because it is so noisy when used other players are aware of the direction of the threat.

 

[ZakuII]

...Is Halo 3 simply for the hardcore kids?

It may just be me, but hardcore and casual seem to need some serious defining. Ninja Gaiden 2 on master ninja is hardcore because it's like trying to navigate a tundra during a blizzard, while naked and blind. Every Halo game to date however, doesn't even have a proper crosshair. No fps where you can't actually aim properly could possible be hardcore, to a sane mind. The game is literally designed for fps noobs (sorry, deliberatly designed to be accessible to the masses).

Anyway that seems like a digression. I get the feeling you meant hardcore as in, 'Spend all their time playing'. In which case, Halo isn't exclusivly for those people any more so than any other game of its type.

 

[Gormers1]

...Is Halo 3 simply for the hardcore kids?

Every Halo game to date however, doesn't even have a proper crosshair. No fps where you can't actually aim properly could possible be hardcore, to a sane mind.

lol