News Halo 3 is now available on PC

I mean.. Anything not from Valve that takes place after the current end of the timeline (Arguably the end of HL2:Ep2, although possibly also Alyx) is a complete fanfic.

Once you pass the point of the official story, anything else is fan fic. Your personal headcanon. Perhaps shared with other people, but it's all non-canon, fan fic, useless and IMO a very cheap tactic to finishing a story. For some people that's enough, but for me? If I'm paying for a story, I want the whole damned thing. I don't want a quarter, half, two thirds with a 'fill in the ending yourself' at the end.

If Ep2 had ended on not a cliff hanger, then I'd be less miffed about it. If Valve had shown any real evidence of wanting to advance the story towards a conclusion (I'd even count books at this point, but I'm not aware of any that pick up after the current end of the timeline) then that'd be a point in Half-Life's favour.

It screams to me that the IP owners can't be bothered, and don't care, when something like that happens and there's no ostensible reason for it (IE: Studio closure).

As for imagining the 'graphics' of a book I'm not really sure how that applies. Books, IME, still end. Half-Life has not ended. It's been taken to a point that makes clear that the writer expected there to be more (Or is just a monumental ****stain, but given that Gabe has suggested that the HL2 episodes should have been referred to as HL3 not HL2 and specifically mentions Ep3 I don't believe that's the case; Source: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/i_valve_060606 - Incidentally this interview also adds weight to my dismissal of Alyx as a continuation of the story;

), and just.. Didn't get there. For whatever reason.

Don't get me wrong, I believe at this point any HL3-esque release is going to be met with very similar amounts of ire as Duke Nukem Forever was, given how long it's been (Thirteen years), and I can see why no one at Valve wants to do it, but for me? That makes it abandonware. An unfinished story with no end in sight. Which (For me) takes away from the argument that the story is good, because as it stands it's effectively at the end of a chapter with a bunch of blank pages after it where the last chapter (ep3) should be.

 

For a more accurate analogy: imagine if Return of the King reached The Pyre of Denethor, an then just... stopped. For all you may have enjoyed The Lord of the Rings and The Two Towers, you're going to be more than a bit peeved to have thing just stop partway through while the author buggers off to print money selling other people's books.

::EDIT:: Especially when said author's excuse for not finishing boils down to "people expected a good game, and that's scary and hard so we went and hid in our money fort until everyone gave up and went away".

 

This is so relatable it hurts.

I always loved Halo for what it was. It is pretty basic gameplay-wise. The focus is on simple, accessible fun, the kind of game you can pick up and understand in 5 minutes, and be facerolling through the campaign with a friend 5 minutes after that. I appreciate that. More games need to be accessible, because I've got a business to run and hopefully a kid to look after one day, and I don't have the time to sit down with the latest super-l337 PC game and spend 100 hours learning all its vagaries and nuances just to stand a chance of not replaying the same level 5 times for my evening's """fun""".

Having said that, I haven't bought into the Halo remaster collection yet 'cos my backlog of unplayed games is just too big already.

 

I picked up the MCC because I have some fond memories of the original Halo on PC (never bought 2 as it was Vista exclusive and I didn't have Vista at the time I actually cared) so the chance to play (most of) the rest was too good to pass up. That said, I've not played it all that much. Played Reach for a few hours, Halo 1 for about 30 minutes but ended up going back to Total War: Warhammer 2.

While I enjoyed Half-Life the first time I played it - well, up to Xen, anyway - I've found replays have left me utterly unimpressed. Even Black Mesa has, upon reflection, been a resounding "Meh" for me. Half-Life 2 never clicked at all. I struggled through most of it, finding a few bits compelling... but most of it was not what I would define as "fun". The gravity gun, and the mechanics that provided, provided the impetus to push through the bits I just found terribly tedious.

If Valve did ever finished the Half-Life story, I don't think I'd play it.

I picked up Ringworld recently, hopefully that will reinvigorate some interest in Halo and get me to work my way through them all properly.

 

I'll go out on a limb here and say the thing I found most impressive about Halo was the grass. It actually looked like real grass, not a texture map. I think I spent five minutes looking at it and then another five trying to convince the missus that that was an awesome achievement on the part of the programmers. I think that's the most amount of time I've spent gardening ever (if you can call it that).

What I didn't like about HL2 (and this both applies to all recent games and is also a conversation for another day/forum, I assume) was the fact that they saw fit to include an asinine achievement that saw you shepherding a damn gnome through the entire game. Yeah, I get it - I could just ignore that task, but when you dangle a challenge in front of me, I need to complete it, sadly.

Which is why I haven't got past the beach buggy level. I've lost the sodding gnome somewhere.

 

That's on Ep2 and Alyx only. I completed it on HL Alyx, wasn't as tedious as Ep2 because now you have 2 hands, allowing you to shoot and 'gnome at the same time.


Back on topic. I had fund memories of completing Halo 1 co-op with mates from school on their Xbox. Then later dominating on Halo 1 PC multiplayer. When MCC first released on Xbox one, I said to my wife: "if I were to buy a console, this would be the sole reason." So happy to have Halo back on PC.

I'm really looking forward to completing the whole saga in one go. Anyone know when the whole series would be complete? Looks like only 3 ODST and 4 are left.

 

I have vague recollections of them wanting to finish the port before Infinite comes out, which would be the end of the year, but I don't know if that's changed or is an accurate memory.

 

I also enjoyed Halo more than Half Life. Something about the atmosphere, the humour (who else enjoys fond memories of grunts running around squeaking in utter terror when you turn up?), and particularly the combat. Much younger me tired of fighting little headcrabs and then zombies and then militia who had far too much health.

One thing that gets me frustrated about Halo though... the higher difficulty levels. Trying to finish every map on Legendary was absolutely horrible lol. Hide behind corner. Peek out and pick one off. Rinse and repeat. Got to a checkpoint with minimal health? Welp, guess this run’s screwed then..

 

HL2 is a first-person puzzler with some of the puzzles being solved with guns. Halo is a relatively basic first-person shooter (You are Marine. Shoot Bad Alien with Gun. Walk forward for more Bad Alien), executed very well.
While both are 'first person shooters', they're about as comparable as Crash Team Racing and Euro Truck Simulator are both 'driving games'.

 

Disagree. Half-Life 2 was a shooter with a few puzzles thrown in, with occasional bouts of walking simulator.

Portal 1 and 2 were puzzlers.

Otherwise you can say Duke Nukem 3D was a puzzler because you had to find keycards.

 

HL2 was a puzzler not just because of the physics puzzles. HL2 was a puzzler because almost all enemy encounters were puzzle sequences. They had specific timed and located enemy spawns in dedicated environments, with the run-up hinting at ways to tackle that particular encounter. "Run forward and shoot everyone with your gun" was rarely the optimum solution to an encounter (and often not a viable solution at all depending on difficulty).
Halo leaned right in on "here's a big arena full of cover and enemies, charge forward with guns and laser swords!".

 

By that logic, Doom 3 and Call of Duty are puzzlers, because they have specifically timed and located enemy spawns in dedicated environments. But the only puzzle in Doom 3 was "go through the door backwards because they will spawn behind you", and Call of Duty basically can be viewed the same.

If you want to call an FPS a puzzler for its scripting and enemy routines, I would give you F.E.A.R... but Half-Life 2? No.

Halo might be called a puzzler then at higher difficulties, where charging in is the worst option going!