NewClassic said:
I think you're doing the same thing you've always done. You've a very "Sit down and strategize" kinda guy, seems like. You look at a given stimulus, behind some hailfire figuring out the most efficient way from point A to point B without collecting bullet holes C through Z somewhere on the journey.
Because of this, you tend to put your entire head around the situation. The problem is you aren't thinking like a soldier or a unit, you're thinking like a gamer. "Well, the spawn is an infinite spawn off of point x." A soldier might wonder where enemy units are coming from, but he certainly wouldn't factor it into going away ever. He would factor waiting for lulls int he charge so he could get by unperturbed. The reasoning behind this is a single rank-and-file soldier will not win the war. There is no individual unit that's badass enough to enemy lines and own the entire city by the evening.
Halo gives you no such graces. You aren't just some fresh-from-boot teenager enlisting from High School, you're a Spartan. The Chief is more or less capable of walking into a city and filling each Covenant within a five mile radius full of dead, and come out more or less in a single piece.
But that's the nature of narratives, which this essay doesn't really cover. You tack it onto the end, but it doesn't feel genuine. You're talking about game design with this essay, and that's what I'm going to sit on. You're asking a game designed to be a realistic wartime shooter to mirror a game where you're the Lone Ranger. Not going to happen. Soldiers don't one-up the entire opposing force. They get to where they're going, and only kill if things get in the way. Run if you can, hide if you can't, and kill only when you're stuck.
Chief is a super-soldier. He's the one-guy. In war, you're a cog. If you get separated from your unit, you still have to bail yourself out of the fire, even though you're a cog. The game doesn't expect you to do anything on your own. It does, however, expect you to reach your goal. If you have to do so without a CO, then do it.
Overall, I honestly do think you're missing forest because the trees are in the way. You spend so much time sitting on game mechanics that you can't let yourself enjoy the narrative or gameplay. I notice you do not gripe about CoD's controls, health, graphics, music, or any other aspect. Just game design. You can't fault a game for doing it right, but don't so differently than you're used to.
Wow, possibly the first person here to actually respond to the OP in a coherent manner - good on you!
However, there are, as Steamed pointed out, points that you don't seem to get. CoD4 is far from a "realistic wartime shooter": as you say, a realistic wartime shooter would have you as one of many infantry in a unit, individually unable to drive the course of the war, unable to single-handedly take on the entire enemy force like MC would be able to. However, think back to your experience of CoD: how many times in the US army sections did any part of your squad lead the way in any of the situations? I seem to remember that they only did this at a couple of points, when a closed door was used to prevent you from out-running your squad, and then it was a precisely scripted break and clear, shooting at exact angles to in one case nail a couple of guys and in another to draw patterns on the walls. With lead.
Remember that first US level, taking the desert town looking for the terrorist leader? How you would have to drag your team up the streets, how they did absolutely fuck-all, even when a T was standing in the middle of the unit shooting you in the back? How they were completely unable to cover you, each other or the flanks? How there was an endless stream of reinforcements as they died, but your allies never numbered above about 5? How enemies would persist in spawning in front of
and behind you until you had gone a set distance down the road, no matter how much you tried to clear each side of the one block you could advance down out?
All this comes from the game designers wanting to create the idea of assaulting through a hostile city whilst ensuring that basic FPS staple features still hold - there are enemies to shoot almost continuously, your personal kill count is absolutely insane, and you are made to feel important by being the only guy able to lead the way through the dangerous zone. It's all a mechanic to make it play like a Hollywood movie, with the camera always focused on you - you do most of the awesome stuff, you get most of the kills etc because you're the star of the show. Strange how none of your team mates notice your godly powers, and how, despite being the only soldier with a sense of initiative or tactics you've not been promoted.
Compare this briefly with Halo: the game admits that you are meant to be a kick-ass killing machine, and throws you into situations accordingly - for example, infiltrate the alien battleship and rescue your captain - Truth and Reconciliation, third level, Halo 1. You get a whole bunch of Marines at the start, but unlike in CoD they are finite. They do similar things - run to cover, lay down fire, throw grenades, shout obscenities - but they do it dynamically, not following a preset list of coordinates to get to the goal, but responding to enemies with immediate decisions, and acting and moving accordingly.
What's more is that they don't just mindlessly follow you - sure, you lead the way, but then, you're supposed to because you're the Chief. And you have shields. Your allies will fan out, search for enemies, communicate with each other, basically move dynamically through a combat zone independent of your personal progress - you might have caught an enemy flanking force behind the marine's push, but the marines might not notice and carry on without you! Possibly annoying or suicidal, it none the less demonstrates an independent, thinking AI that CoD just can't compete with.
Bear in mind that this is the FIRST Halo game here, and it is a hell of a lot older that CoD4.
The point here isn't 'this game sucks' or 'this game is better than that one', or even that 'Halo is great', it's about the game play and design: most FPS games have dramatic set-piece battles in some manner, but when you stop to think about it you can realise that in some cases it's a
simulation of a battle, whilst in others it actually is a battle between two AI factions.
To take two examples from the first Halo again: 1) The end of "Two Betrayals" sees you come across Covenant and Flood battling it out. However, if you watch through a sniper scope, the Flood (for all their melee expertise) are just running backwards just at the outer range of Covenant fire - scripted not to attack least either side be weaken too much to make it interesting for the player.
2) Earlier in the same level, however, the player is forced to travel across a pair of parallel bridges, first one way and then, later, down the other side. The first side is occupied by the Covenant, the other by the Flood, and as the player arrives the two are locking in mortal combat: rounds are flying, combat forms leap across the gap between bridges, grenades fly indiscriminately etc. The only thing scripted is that occasionally combat forms will jump around you specifically - everything else is a free-form battle with the AI doing the hard work, not the level designer or scripter.
The first example shows a situation that
looks like a battle, but on close examination isn't one, it's just a simulation for the benefit of the player, but if you get too close everyone just attack you rather than continuing their 'battle', spoiling the effect for me. The second shows a more realistic fight, chaotic, close-quarters and vicious, with dynamic combatants fighting for survival and through which you could choose to charge without firing a shot if you so wished, avoiding attention and leaving the AI to fight it out. THAT's how it should be done.
