Intelligent Halo Review

[Eipok Kruden]

ok so it is grounded in reality. Then again, the only time when a soldier or general or something would have to choose between a set of weapons, assesing their respective pros and cons, onw of them being the tracer rounds of the sniper rifle, would be if they just happened to have a load of training sniper rifles and none intended for battle. Its possible, but it doesn't really reflect a scenario that seems familiar to us. So why do they do it? Obviously they need the SR not to be too powerful, otherwise people will refuse to explore the other guns, since they will be made obselete by the SR. But if the real properties of a normal sniper rifle are such that its presense in the game would detract from the whole, then maybe they simply shouldn't put it in. They wouldn't put in a nuke and try to balance its advantages with disadvantages.

Well, there is AI all over the place, right? They all look up to the Master Chief, maybe the Chief just uses tracer rounds because it helps out the other troops, but he didn't have any standard ammunition to use when he goes it alone. I dunno, either way, it's somewhat grounded in reality and it works. In fact, it works really well. We shouldn't try to figure out if it's realistic or not because in the end, it works really well at doing what it was meant to do, balancing the game.

 

[hippo24]

Nice review but your diction is exhaustive at best, and you went into detail describing game situations that we all have undoubtedly been exposed to, Its quite rhetorically solid otherwise.

Gameplay explanation wise it left little to be desired.

Everything ran at a jerky pace, but it's still better then 90% of the reviews on this forum.

PS: You don't need to call it an intelligent review if it already is one.

 

[steamednotfried]

ok so it is grounded in reality. Then again, the only time when a soldier or general or something would have to choose between a set of weapons, assesing their respective pros and cons, onw of them being the tracer rounds of the sniper rifle, would be if they just happened to have a load of training sniper rifles and none intended for battle. Its possible, but it doesn't really reflect a scenario that seems familiar to us. So why do they do it? Obviously they need the SR not to be too powerful, otherwise people will refuse to explore the other guns, since they will be made obselete by the SR. But if the real properties of a normal sniper rifle are such that its presense in the game would detract from the whole, then maybe they simply shouldn't put it in. They wouldn't put in a nuke and try to balance its advantages with disadvantages.

Well, there is AI all over the place, right? They all look up to the Master Chief, maybe the Chief just uses tracer rounds because it helps out the other troops, but he didn't have any standard ammunition to use when he goes it alone. I dunno, either way, it's somewhat grounded in reality and it works. In fact, it works really well. We shouldn't try to figure out if it's realistic or not because in the end, it works really well at doing what it was meant to do, balancing the game.

And why do we want balance exactly?

 

[Eipok Kruden]

And why do we want balance exactly?

To make you feel like you're not overpowered? Halo wouldn't be any fun if it was too easy.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

A good review but I could feel pretension oozing from nearly every sentence and word choice. However you do an excellent job of covering why Halo is different from other FPS's that came before.

Though I feel as if this review comes from the past, since it appears to be written as if the two sequels had never been released. This is not necessarily bad though.

 

[steamednotfried]

Not bad, not bad at all and it's alot better than your previous Halo review which was pretty self-indulgent but titling the review as intelligent {which it is} was a bit pretentious. Your review has a nice artistic expression.

No doubt you'll get plenty of negative feedback from a lot of snarky "halo haterz", if you know what mean?

The thing is, it doesn't take too much to write an intelligent review, by calling it intelligent i don't mean to say it's amazing or anything. Unfortunately, 99.999% of videogame reviews are, in fact, not intelligent, and so it is important to let people know that this is not one of them.

 

[steamednotfried]

I absolutely don't understand these comments about my diction. Which words are you having trouble with? 'implementation'? Surely not. What? I can't find anything!

 

[Echo42]

The sniper rifle, for example, is given a weakness which is far from existent in the real thing: a line appears in the air, clearly showing the path of each shot fired, so that the enemy is alerted to the exact position of the sniper (in real life, the ambiguity of the sniper?s placement is its main strength).

That's because the sniper rifles use tracer rounds. Tracer rounds are more powerful than regular sniper rounds, but they're only for certain situations. You're right about how the rifle wouldn't actually use those tracer rounds in a combat scenario like this. I loved the review, best one that I've read so far. I just wanted to explain that even though it is unlikely, the check against the sniper rifle is still grounded in reality, to an extent.

I don't understand, your saying that there is such a thing as tracer rounds? Why would anyone ever use these?

Because since there's a little explosive charge at their base that leaves a trail, the sniper can use the trail as a reference to adjust their aim. Many people have them evenly spread throughout a clip so when they fire one off, they can adjust their aim and continue firing standard ammunition. It is extremely odd that every bullet in every clip for the sniper rifle is a tracer round, but it's a nice check and it's at least somewhat grounded in reality.

EDIT: Oh right, the The Master Chief is humanity's savior, he's the ultimate leader. It's quite common for people to load their clips entirely with tracers if they're leading the squad or platoon. That way, they can visually mark targets. Tracer rounds will be used in this fashion until the Land Warrior system goes online. Currently, Land Warrior is still being tested, it isn't in the hands of every soldier.

it might be cause the sniper rifle uses anti material rounds, they may just leave a vapor trail because of the speed they travel at, like an aircraft leaves when it travels at a high altitude.
poor design choice maybe, but i guess the humans don't really care about revealing their position if they have the ability to blow through an elite or brute in a single shot, which, if you read the books, elites we're one of the most feared enemies to the humans and bringing one down instantly would be a victory on its own as Grunts and jackals tend to become grazed slightly and die due to their inability to function without a governing strength (like elites or in halo 3 the brutes) guiding them

 

[D_987]

I absolutely don't understand these comments about my diction. Which words are you having trouble with? 'implementation'? Surely not. What? I can't find anything!

The authorial voice - your review dosn't flow very well - its more to do with your writing style than your language.

 

[Alex_P]

I absolutely don't understand these comments about my diction. Which words are you having trouble with? 'implementation'? Surely not. What? I can't find anything!

You keep mixing the clunky and the baroque. Honestly it comes off as you trying to fake your way through elevated diction.

Also, while we're being critical: I felt this article lacked an introduction. Don't get me wrong: I don't need a paragraph to tell me what Halo is -- it's fucking Halo! -- nor do I need a bunch of jokes to ease me into reading an article. I think a stronger thesis statement up front would've really helped keep the work together, though.

-- Alex

 

[Echo42]

I absolutely don't understand these comments about my diction. Which words are you having trouble with? 'implementation'? Surely not. What? I can't find anything!

You keep mixing the clunky and the baroque. Honestly it comes off as you trying to fake your way through elevated diction.

Also, while we're being critical: I felt this article lacked an introduction. Don't get me wrong: I don't need a paragraph to tell me what Halo is -- it's fucking Halo! -- nor do I need a bunch of jokes to ease me into reading an article. I think a stronger thesis statement up front would've really helped keep the work together, though.

-- Alex

my halo review:

its the future, there is aliens!, aliens want us dead, we want them dead for wanting us dead, then suddenly ZOMBIES! and everyone pretty much gets killed - story portion

its a good game, revolutionized FPS gaming, for better or worse no one can really decide ...although it has some i guess you could say 'issues' it still remains an awesome game ^_^
- game summary

how would you rate that ???

 

[Jamanticus]

I liked your review.

One word I would use for it is 'exhaustive', but that's not (necessarily) a bad thing.

You meticulously covered most of the aspects of the game, and I very much liked how you pointed out the real-life analogues at points. In fact, part of your review seemed like it was a review of FPSs in general, which is appropriate to me; Halo was the template from which many other modern FPSs seem to have been based on, of course.

It was roundabout, as others have said, and a few tweaks to the structure and order would help make it more easily-read. The review itself, though, is an excellent one that I enjoyed. One I am certain can only get better the more you work with it.

For all of those who say that your diction is pretentious, I disagree. It can be unwieldy at times since many of your words use more syllables than necessary to elucidate points, but it works well regardless.

 

[Alex_P]

how would you rate that ???

Unworthy of my notice.

-- Alex

 

[Samurai Goomba]

The language was needlessly obtuse and the sentences convoluted. I really couldn't get into it. This needs to be rewritten for ease-of-reading. That said, I'm sure it was better than the countless "lol halo r0x0rz" reviews clogging up the Internet.

There were also some VERY obtuse sentence structures and odd word choices. I kept getting lost with all the indirect pronouns being thrown around. Some sentences also seemed to run on, and could easily have been chopped up into more manageable slices of information. "Intelligent" reviews don't necessitate an open Thesaurus.

 

[Echo42]

how would you rate that ???

Unworthy of my notice.

-- Alex

 

[wahi]

nice review and actually intelligent as claimed by op
oh i remember the first time i played halo and no one told me that elites also have shields
i ran out of ammo of all the guns i could find and had to finally melee kill one of them before realizing they also had shields

 

[G. Hansen]

Very nice review, i like the review more than the game Good Job m8

 

[Chickenlittle]

While this review does point out the brilliance of the game, it really reminds me of the unnecessary changes to the next two games.