Spartan Ops wasn't a full a game. it was a series of co-op missions that were released as DLC for Halo 4 and continued the story. we got one 'Season' of that spread over 10 chapters with 5 missions each, the plan being to continue the story through these 'seasons'. however i don't think it was very popular and that plan was scrapped.
as for how many Halo games there are, there was also Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike which were released for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. the first got a 360/Xbone release but the latter remains PC/mobile only so far. those bring the total up to 10* so far. 12 if count the Russian only Halo Online and Halo Wars 2 which should see a release next year.
*i'm counting Halo 5 since it releases this week.
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
Oh wow ODST is a way better game.
Now I'm little worry about Halo 5
Kind of wish I just played Halo 4 for my Halo 4 pregaming.
well, its kind of the best halo I've ever played. Open, big battles, with lots of focus and drive, the level design is perfect, framing big spectacle action in manageable ways. I just did not expect it. And best of all it focuses on humans. Getting sick of all the forerunner nonsense in the main games.
I wish they had remade this instead of Halo 2 honestly
Good to see people coming around on ODST. Back when it came out, people were like "full price for THIS? what a rip off, Microsoft!" Not only does it have the best campaign (imo), it also introduced Firefight (and had the best version of it, again imo) and the second disc was every DLC map for Halo 3 multi. So yeah... full price was worth it.
The main advantage of Spartan IVs is that the procedures to get super soldiers are both safer (they don't generally damage the people unlike the huge failure rate in the IIs, they also don't require the participants to be children) and cheaper (so they can be mass produced). It's arguable whether S IVs are truly the equal of S IIs, but they're certainly a step above any other kind of UNSC infantry.
Psychological damage aside, anyway. The S-IVs seem to have a bit of a problem with having unstable members, and there's a fair bit of backstabbing that goes on with them.
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BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
Spartan Ops was a cool episodic side story that continues the main Halo 4 plot and stars ancillary characters in a mini-campaign mode.
It's included with Halo 4 I think
Honestly, everything I took for granted once the story was centered around "Because Forerunners", and I didn't really mind the plot past that (I thought the Didact being an OG Forerunner was pretty obvious). The only things I didn't really care much for was the game literally crowning Master Chief as The Chosen One (as if the stories in the past didn't do that already), and the whole light bridge incident with Cortana
Also, nuclear bombs are capable of vaporising stuff, so all the better to use in warfare if it's considered low tech and easy to field. Maybe they usually avoid it due to hazardous radiation or whatever (though radiation in space is already massive)
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
The radiation from a nuclear device in space is like a grain of sand on the entire earth.
If 1 nuke was capable of vaporizing a super duper alien ship then the Covenant should be relearning how to build a wheel right now.
The main advantage of Spartan IVs is that the procedures to get super soldiers are both safer (they don't generally damage the people unlike the huge failure rate in the IIs, they also don't require the participants to be children) and cheaper (so they can be mass produced). It's arguable whether S IVs are truly the equal of S IIs, but they're certainly a step above any other kind of UNSC infantry.
Psychological damage aside, anyway. The S-IVs seem to have a bit of a problem with having unstable members, and there's a fair bit of backstabbing that goes on with them.
How many fully sane people would agree to that operation though?
Further, the quality and training of available candidates after a war with a what, over 60% casualty rate on the UNSC side kind of lowered the pool of experienced and level headed people too!
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
Good to see people coming around on ODST. Back when it came out, people were like "full price for THIS? what a rip off, Microsoft!" Not only does it have the best campaign (imo), it also introduced Firefight (and had the best version of it, again imo) and the second disc was every DLC map for Halo 3 multi. So yeah... full price was worth it.
Interesting--having gotten it for the MCC, I found my own opinion of ODST hasn't changed since it came out. I was extremely excited for it (pre-order and all), and wasn't displeased. Granted, I'd already gotten those map packs, so that was not a positive to me, but it was a nice addition for those who didn't.
Best game overall in the series? No, definitely not. Firefight is excellent, but the fact remains, it is the only multiplayer mode, and comes with no Forge (a sort of perplexing decision, but I guess that's what happens when you only have one multiplayer mode that relies entirely on the functionality of AI). But I generally tend to be more forgiving of limited multiplayer in general. Perhaps the most unique in feel, and definitely not the worst by any means. I'd gladly play it over 1 again, for starters.
Opinions, etc. Still very pleased to have gotten it for free, especially after I had a lot less issues with MCC Multiplayer than most. Certainly preferred it to getting Reach.
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CrayonSleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered Userregular
edited October 2015
You know, despite all the crap people gave 4 I still find it amongst the best. No line comes close to "promise me that after all this is over you figure out which one of us is the machine." Or, "c'mon chief, take a girl for a ride?"
Replaying through it again before 5 makes me realize just how good it is compared to the others.
I mean, I still put reach first, but man it's hard to place 4 and not feel bad about where it goes.
i didn't really enjoy 4 when it came out, really hated the Prometheans and the new weapons. all the new stuff just felt off somehow. however, playing through it again as part of the MCC i've come to like it quite a bit. have gotten a better feel for the new weapons(some of them at least) and the new enemies aren't quite as frustrating as the first time around.
maybe it was the time between play throughs, maybe i just got better that space of time but the game has definitely grown on me and i'm looking forward to 5.
i didn't really enjoy 4 when it came out, really hated the Prometheans and the new weapons. all the new stuff just felt off somehow. however, playing through it again as part of the MCC i've come to like it quite a bit. have gotten a better feel for the new weapons(some of them at least) and the new enemies aren't quite as frustrating as the first time around.
maybe it was the time between play throughs, maybe i just got better that space of time but the game has definitely grown on me and i'm looking forward to 5.
The Promothean Knights are much easier the second time around (there are one or two few tricks that work exceptionally well on them), and you do run into them a lot less then elites.
Their airborne drones are still goddamn annoying (at easily the most frustrating thing they can spawn), but at least for me on hard, it was easier just to ignore them if they spawned and wait till they tried to revive a dead knight, then kill them.
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Mx. QuillI now prefer "Myr. Quill", actually...{They/Them}Registered Userregular
edited October 2015
I ended up picking up MCC so I could reacclimatize myself to the controller and general feel of Halo (and, you know, actually have something to play on this fancy new console of mine). Booted up 2 since I never did touch the campaign before.
The radiation from a nuclear device in space is like a grain of sand on the entire earth.
If 1 nuke was capable of vaporizing a super duper alien ship then the Covenant should be relearning how to build a wheel right now.
Covenant ships have shields. Once those are gone, they are easy targets for nukes.
In fact the trailer for Reach has the orginal Noble 6 boarding a Carrier and taking it out with a bomb.
yeah, the radiation from a nuke is just a by-product. the threat to a ship(or anything else) is the massive blast the detonation creates. bring down the shields or get a bomb on boards and by-passing them altogether and even the best Covenant ships will be vulnerable.
hell even the MAG cannons used by the UNSC can tear through a Covenant ship if given the chance. those things aren't invincible by any means, the just pack significantly better defences and weaponry than the human fleet does.
pity it isn't Sid Meier's Halo or we'd be able to go toe-to-toe with the Covenant using ancient Phalanx units. :P
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
edited October 2015
Besides, the energy has to go somewhere from a nuclear strike. Unless the shields are made from magic there still has to be a transfer of momentum onto the Covenant ship. That and the shield have to draw on some energy to provide enough force in the opposite direction.
hell even the MAG cannons used by the UNSC can tear through a Covenant ship if given the chance. those things aren't invincible by any means, the just pack significantly better defences and weaponry than the human fleet does.
The main advantage of Spartan IVs is that the procedures to get super soldiers are both safer (they don't generally damage the people unlike the huge failure rate in the IIs, they also don't require the participants to be children) and cheaper (so they can be mass produced). It's arguable whether S IVs are truly the equal of S IIs, but they're certainly a step above any other kind of UNSC infantry.
Psychological damage aside, anyway. The S-IVs seem to have a bit of a problem with having unstable members, and there's a fair bit of backstabbing that goes on with them.
Well, Spartan IIs were indoctrinated child soldiers. No matter how much they're "okay with it" or whatever... they never had a real choice and 4 is partly about one of them realizing how little input he's had in his own life (because he starts to care about something more than "complete objectives, kill the bad doods" for once). S IVs are in full control of their human faculties and can see first hand how shitty and frankly evil UNSC ONI is much of the time.
I would be 100% ok with ONI becoming one of the primary bads in the game. Fighting other humans would be interesting.
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
I think that the Forerunner class system of biological stratification is setting up humans to take the same path, and that means that when you manufacture a bunch of super soldiers to be stronger and smarter than everyone else they will eventually look around themselves and realize they should be running everything.
I am a hair's width away of boxing up the old gen systems to make room for an Xbox One Halo 5 Limited Edition. Its shiny sliver-blue cubic body wispers playfully in my ear: "Buy me. Halo 5, you'll love it. Let's do it together. Come on. Play with me.".
To which I answer, trembling with self restraint: "I want to mistress, but... argh... noooo!"
I am almost there, but not quite yet. Just a little more courtship, and I'll be all over Xbox One. Either a 50$ pricecut on the Elite bundle, or the Master Chief Collection being a monthly offering on Gold, something along these lines should do it.
I find it odd that so many of you are judging these games off the campaign and not the multiplayer.
My rankings were based off both the campaign and multi.
Reach I spent the most time with. While Halo 4 was very different, I did play it a bunch... the reward system is what killed it for me though (needler kills for my cosmetics = bleh). ODST/Halo 3 I put in a lot of hours too but I didn't find it as fun as Reach or Halo 4.
Hopefully the REQ system doesn't make the same mistake, or at the very least doesn't have absurd requirements when acquisition of required weapons is random to get the look/things you want.
“I used to draw, hard to admit that I used to draw...”
I find it odd that so many of you are judging these games off the campaign and not the multiplayer.
My rankings were based off both the campaign and multi.
Reach I spent the most time with. While Halo 4 was very different, I did play it a bunch... the reward system is what killed it for me though (needler kills for my cosmetics = bleh). ODST/Halo 3 I put in a lot of hours too but I didn't find it as fun as Reach or Halo 4.
Hopefully the REQ system doesn't make the same mistake, or at the very least doesn't have absurd requirements when acquisition of required weapons is random to get the look/things you want.
Well, it's a *Mystery Box* system, with the possibility of getting redundant duplicates ad infinitum. At first it will be awesome, because you'll feel like you always get cool shit, and then, the more you've played and unlocked, and the more specific your wishlist gets, the more frustrating it will become.
Mass Effect 3's coop had a similar unlock system/business model. Mystery box scheme for unlocks, free expansions, optional microtransactions for more mystery boxes. I played a whole bunch of it (ballpark 300 hours total), and loved it a lot at first. However, because the whole mystery box deal gets more frustrating the more I played, by the end I hated it so much, I felt nothing but rage and disgust for the guys at EA and Bioware, because it's an exploitative bullshit business model with zero respect for my time and effort, nor does it respect the money spent by people who do such a thing.
You'll never see half the guns you really want. No matter if you spend thousands of hours and/or dollars on REQ-packs. For example, I never got a single Scorpion drop in ME3 in my time with its coop, which is my favorite gun in singleplayer, and would have brought me oodles of joy in coop. A whole bunch of other guns and even classes never dropped for me, so yeah, fuck mystery box business schemes! They're exploitative bullshit.
The only way mystery box unlock schemes are okay, especially in a 60$ retail game, is when the customer is given the option to buy exactly what he wants at a premium as an alternative to dirt-cheap microtransaction mystery boxes. I'd have paid up to 10$ or so to get a fully-upgraded Scorpion, if that would have been an option in ME3. It wasn't an option though. However, I've spent 300 hours worth of credits on mystery boxes, and didn't get a single one, and one needs to loot 10 Scorpion unlocks to fully upgrade it? Just think about the magnitude of such folly! Let's say I earned enough credits for one gold pack an hour, which would mean I opened 300 packs, and didn't get what I wanted the most? The microtransaction price for the big packs is like 5$. I could have spent 1500$ on ME3's mystery boxes and not have gotten what I wanted out of them? Need I say more, other than: "FUCK MYSTERY BOXES!"?
As far as I can see it, Halo 5 does exactly what Mass Effect 3's coop does, but it seems to give out more cards per pack, and every gun-type (aka playstyle) does also come in basic and common versions, so you won't run into the situation that you can't at all play with the gun-type/playstyle you want to play with (like I and the sticky-grenade shooting Scorpion in ME3's coop), but if you really are keen on some super-special variant of an existing gun or vehicle, the REQ-system will prove similarly infuriating and frustrating, I'd bet.
I guess mystery boxes are just the most ideal business scheme to milk microtransation whales with, because one can literally sink thousands of dollars into mystery boxes, and still not get what one wants. Believe me, there are rich as fuck whales out there, who will drop tens of thousands of dollars buying REQ-boxes, and those people will not give a hoot, because their money often literally spills out of the fucking ground, or something akin to it. The rest of us, without nigh limitless funds? We are fucked! This unethical and horrendous business practice just doesn't work for anyone but top tier whales, and players who don't care to begin with. Everybody who cares, but doesn't want to spend tens of thousands of bucks, or the rest of their waking life playing the game - we are fucked out of the full experience.
How bad will the REQ-system truely be for Halo 5? I doubt it's as bad as ME3's mystery box unlock scheme. Maybe it isn't half bad at all. Maybe it just works. Still, even if it isn't obstructive like ME3's mystery box scheme was in the longrun, it will always be somewhat unethical, regardless of how well thought out and fair it turns out to be. Personally, mystery boxes will always invoke a feeling of deep felt disgust regardless.
BranniganSepp on
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Mx. QuillI now prefer "Myr. Quill", actually...{They/Them}Registered Userregular
I am a hair's width away of boxing up the old gen systems to make room for an Xbox One Halo 5 Limited Edition. Its shiny sliver-blue cubic body wispers playfully in my ear: "Buy me. Halo 5, you'll love it. Let's do it together. Come on. Play with me.".
To which I answer, trembling with self restraint: "I want to mistress, but... argh... noooo!"
I am almost there, but not quite yet. Just a little more courtship, and I'll be all over Xbox One. Either a 50$ pricecut on the Elite bundle, or the Master Chief Collection being a monthly offering on Gold, something along these lines should do it.
I would be 100% ok with ONI becoming one of the primary bads in the game. Fighting other humans would be interesting.
This is something that I feel like Bungie never really had the chutzpah to pull off in a game in earnest, that I hope 343i does: even if that's not the primary conflict, actually have one of the diverse human military factions engage in actual, honest-to-god combat with the other, instead of the repeated brief exchanging of threats followed by immediately teaming up to fight the bigger bad and pushing all other issues aside. I really want a chance to play the Chief crushing an elite ONI field cell, or Fire Team Osiris maybe gunning for some particularly loyal marines who volunteered to cover the Chief, probably against his requests.
God knows there's no shortage of circumstances that should allow you to do exactly that, we're at the point here humans are very frequently their own worse enemies. The Separatists vs central government, ONI versus almost everyone else, a thousand different bandit companies, even just flat-out traitors aiding groups within whats left of the Covenant.
I find it odd that so many of you are judging these games off the campaign and not the multiplayer.
My rankings were based off both the campaign and multi.
Reach I spent the most time with. While Halo 4 was very different, I did play it a bunch... the reward system is what killed it for me though (needler kills for my cosmetics = bleh). ODST/Halo 3 I put in a lot of hours too but I didn't find it as fun as Reach or Halo 4.
Hopefully the REQ system doesn't make the same mistake, or at the very least doesn't have absurd requirements when acquisition of required weapons is random to get the look/things you want.
Well, it's a *Mystery Box* system, with the possibility of getting redundant duplicates ad infinitum. At first it will be awesome, because you'll feel like you always get cool shit, and then, the more you've played and unlocked, and the more specific your wishlist gets, the more frustrating it will become.
Mass Effect 3's coop had a similar unlock system/business model. Mystery box scheme for unlocks, free expansions, optional microtransactions for more mystery boxes. I played a whole bunch of it (ballpark 300 hours total), and loved it a lot at first. However, because the whole mystery box deal gets more frustrating the more I played, by the end I hated it so much, I felt nothing but rage and disgust for the guys at EA and Bioware, because it's an exploitative bullshit business model with zero respect for my time and effort, nor does it respect the money spent by people who do such a thing.
You'll never see half the guns you really want. No matter if you spend thousands of hours and/or dollars on REQ-packs. For example, I never got a single Scorpion drop in ME3 in my time with its coop, which is my favorite gun in singleplayer, and would have brought me oodles of joy in coop. A whole bunch of other guns and even classes never dropped for me, so yeah, fuck mystery box business schemes! They're exploitative bullshit.
The only way mystery box unlock schemes are okay, especially in a 60$ retail game, is when the customer is given the option to buy exactly what he wants at a premium as an alternative to dirt-cheap microtransaction mystery boxes. I'd have paid up to 10$ or so to get a fully-upgraded Scorpion, if that would have been an option in ME3. It wasn't an option though. However, I've spent 300 hours worth of credits on mystery boxes, and didn't get a single one, and one needs to loot 10 Scorpion unlocks to fully upgrade it? Just think about the magnitude of such folly! Let's say I earned enough credits for one gold pack an hour, which would mean I opened 300 packs, and didn't get what I wanted the most? The microtransaction price for the big packs is like 5$. I could have spent 1500$ on ME3's mystery boxes and not have gotten what I wanted out of them? Need I say more, other than: "FUCK MYSTERY BOXES!"?
As far as I can see it, Halo 5 does exactly what Mass Effect 3's coop does, but it seems to give out more cards per pack, and every gun-type (aka playstyle) does also come in basic and common versions, so you won't run into the situation that you can't at all play with the gun-type/playstyle you want to play with (like I and the sticky-grenade shooting Scorpion in ME3's coop), but if you really are keen on some super-special variant of an existing gun or vehicle, the REQ-system will prove similarly infuriating and frustrating, I'd bet.
I guess mystery boxes are just the most ideal business scheme to milk microtransation whales with, because one can literally sink thousands of dollars into mystery boxes, and still not get what one wants. Believe me, there are rich as fuck whales out there, who will drop tens of thousands of dollars buying REQ-boxes, and those people will not give a hoot, because their money often literally spills out of the fucking ground, or something akin to it. The rest of us, without nigh limitless funds? We are fucked! This unethical and horrendous business practice just doesn't work for anyone but top tier whales, and players who don't care to begin with. Everybody who cares, but doesn't want to spend tens of thousands of bucks, or the rest of their waking life playing the game - we are fucked out of the full experience.
How bad will the REQ-system truely be for Halo 5? I doubt it's as bad as ME3's mystery box unlock scheme. Maybe it isn't half bad at all. Maybe it just works. Still, even if it isn't obstructive like ME3's mystery box scheme was in the longrun, it will always be somewhat unethical, regardless of how well thought out and fair it turns out to be. Personally, mystery boxes will always invoke a feeling of deep felt disgust regardless.
I think I spent over 500 hours in ME3 Co-Op. I did not max my URs though... the last DLC ones were the only ones? IDK.
But, I had all the guns. Since ME3's maps etc were free/subsidized via micros ... I also supported them with that. I don't know how much I spent over the months of time and releases for the game. They also added different packs to help people out or something. The way the rolls in ME3 worked was Rarity then Item, iirc. Once you got a weapon to level 10 (or character fully customized) it dropped off the stack too, iirc. And GWG was pretty easy farming for credits. But this was years ago.
As for Halo 5's REQ system, I read further. I do see that it has microtransactions! However, when it comes to their REQ packs, unlike ME3 MP's....
Will players who don't want to purchase the packs with real-life currency have to grind for hours upon hours just to purchase one REQ pack?
Our goal for the Requisition System is to generously reward all players through the course of regular play. Players will receive REQ packs for leveling up their Spartan Rank (SR) and for completing commendations. We’ll also be granting Requisition Points for playing in Arena and Warzone, and these points can be redeemed for additional REQ packs. We are still tuning the system but rest assured, players won’t need to grind for hours to earn a single pack.
I actually ended up dislike ME3's multiplayer with great intensity (but the solution was easy: I just stopped playing completely, and got my horde fix from games with more comprehensive modes).
From what I understand though, the business model isn't entirely dissimilar: Halo 5 map packs will be made available for free, and to pay for that there's the option to buy requisition packs. Given that 5 is shipping with more than one game mode (and will probably end up having a lot of them, including the very new war zone), I'm completely fine with that.
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as for how many Halo games there are, there was also Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike which were released for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. the first got a 360/Xbone release but the latter remains PC/mobile only so far. those bring the total up to 10* so far. 12 if count the Russian only Halo Online and Halo Wars 2 which should see a release next year.
*i'm counting Halo 5 since it releases this week.
Now I'm little worry about Halo 5
Kind of wish I just played Halo 4 for my Halo 4 pregaming.
well, its kind of the best halo I've ever played. Open, big battles, with lots of focus and drive, the level design is perfect, framing big spectacle action in manageable ways. I just did not expect it. And best of all it focuses on humans. Getting sick of all the forerunner nonsense in the main games.
I wish they had remade this instead of Halo 2 honestly
Psychological damage aside, anyway. The S-IVs seem to have a bit of a problem with having unstable members, and there's a fair bit of backstabbing that goes on with them.
It's included with Halo 4 I think
Honestly, everything I took for granted once the story was centered around "Because Forerunners", and I didn't really mind the plot past that (I thought the Didact being an OG Forerunner was pretty obvious). The only things I didn't really care much for was the game literally crowning Master Chief as The Chosen One (as if the stories in the past didn't do that already), and the whole light bridge incident with Cortana
Also, nuclear bombs are capable of vaporising stuff, so all the better to use in warfare if it's considered low tech and easy to field. Maybe they usually avoid it due to hazardous radiation or whatever (though radiation in space is already massive)
If 1 nuke was capable of vaporizing a super duper alien ship then the Covenant should be relearning how to build a wheel right now.
How many fully sane people would agree to that operation though?
Further, the quality and training of available candidates after a war with a what, over 60% casualty rate on the UNSC side kind of lowered the pool of experienced and level headed people too!
Interesting--having gotten it for the MCC, I found my own opinion of ODST hasn't changed since it came out. I was extremely excited for it (pre-order and all), and wasn't displeased. Granted, I'd already gotten those map packs, so that was not a positive to me, but it was a nice addition for those who didn't.
Best game overall in the series? No, definitely not. Firefight is excellent, but the fact remains, it is the only multiplayer mode, and comes with no Forge (a sort of perplexing decision, but I guess that's what happens when you only have one multiplayer mode that relies entirely on the functionality of AI). But I generally tend to be more forgiving of limited multiplayer in general. Perhaps the most unique in feel, and definitely not the worst by any means. I'd gladly play it over 1 again, for starters.
Opinions, etc. Still very pleased to have gotten it for free, especially after I had a lot less issues with MCC Multiplayer than most. Certainly preferred it to getting Reach.
Replaying through it again before 5 makes me realize just how good it is compared to the others.
I mean, I still put reach first, but man it's hard to place 4 and not feel bad about where it goes.
maybe it was the time between play throughs, maybe i just got better that space of time but the game has definitely grown on me and i'm looking forward to 5.
The Promothean Knights are much easier the second time around (there are one or two few tricks that work exceptionally well on them), and you do run into them a lot less then elites.
Their airborne drones are still goddamn annoying (at easily the most frustrating thing they can spawn), but at least for me on hard, it was easier just to ignore them if they spawned and wait till they tried to revive a dead knight, then kill them.
I forgot how annoying the Flood are.
Covenant ships have shields. Once those are gone, they are easy targets for nukes.
In fact the trailer for Reach has the orginal Noble 6 boarding a Carrier and taking it out with a bomb.
Excluding the fact that a few of them are, literally, the length of cities.
Anime that shit up
yeah, the radiation from a nuke is just a by-product. the threat to a ship(or anything else) is the massive blast the detonation creates. bring down the shields or get a bomb on boards and by-passing them altogether and even the best Covenant ships will be vulnerable.
hell even the MAG cannons used by the UNSC can tear through a Covenant ship if given the chance. those things aren't invincible by any means, the just pack significantly better defences and weaponry than the human fleet does.
pity it isn't Sid Meier's Halo or we'd be able to go toe-to-toe with the Covenant using ancient Phalanx units. :P
To hell with that. Do what they do in Star Wars: ram that shit together like idiots or thirteen-year-old acolytes.
i barely touch the multiplayer, if at all. and Halo has always had really good campaigns, especially compared to most other shooters.
Well, most Halo fans tend to care about the story more than your average CoD or Battlefield player.
Probably because there is a consistent narrative across games.
As far as MP goes I've enjoyed most enough.
3 was probably the one I had the most fun with overall.
And wildly better slipspace drives.
Well, Spartan IIs were indoctrinated child soldiers. No matter how much they're "okay with it" or whatever... they never had a real choice and 4 is partly about one of them realizing how little input he's had in his own life (because he starts to care about something more than "complete objectives, kill the bad doods" for once). S IVs are in full control of their human faculties and can see first hand how shitty and frankly evil UNSC ONI is much of the time.
They're already killing each other now, the New Colonial Alliance is in more or less active military conflict with the UEG.
To which I answer, trembling with self restraint: "I want to mistress, but... argh... noooo!"
I am almost there, but not quite yet. Just a little more courtship, and I'll be all over Xbox One. Either a 50$ pricecut on the Elite bundle, or the Master Chief Collection being a monthly offering on Gold, something along these lines should do it.
My rankings were based off both the campaign and multi.
Reach I spent the most time with. While Halo 4 was very different, I did play it a bunch... the reward system is what killed it for me though (needler kills for my cosmetics = bleh). ODST/Halo 3 I put in a lot of hours too but I didn't find it as fun as Reach or Halo 4.
Hopefully the REQ system doesn't make the same mistake, or at the very least doesn't have absurd requirements when acquisition of required weapons is random to get the look/things you want.
Well, it's a *Mystery Box* system, with the possibility of getting redundant duplicates ad infinitum. At first it will be awesome, because you'll feel like you always get cool shit, and then, the more you've played and unlocked, and the more specific your wishlist gets, the more frustrating it will become.
Mass Effect 3's coop had a similar unlock system/business model. Mystery box scheme for unlocks, free expansions, optional microtransactions for more mystery boxes. I played a whole bunch of it (ballpark 300 hours total), and loved it a lot at first. However, because the whole mystery box deal gets more frustrating the more I played, by the end I hated it so much, I felt nothing but rage and disgust for the guys at EA and Bioware, because it's an exploitative bullshit business model with zero respect for my time and effort, nor does it respect the money spent by people who do such a thing.
You'll never see half the guns you really want. No matter if you spend thousands of hours and/or dollars on REQ-packs. For example, I never got a single Scorpion drop in ME3 in my time with its coop, which is my favorite gun in singleplayer, and would have brought me oodles of joy in coop. A whole bunch of other guns and even classes never dropped for me, so yeah, fuck mystery box business schemes! They're exploitative bullshit.
The only way mystery box unlock schemes are okay, especially in a 60$ retail game, is when the customer is given the option to buy exactly what he wants at a premium as an alternative to dirt-cheap microtransaction mystery boxes. I'd have paid up to 10$ or so to get a fully-upgraded Scorpion, if that would have been an option in ME3. It wasn't an option though. However, I've spent 300 hours worth of credits on mystery boxes, and didn't get a single one, and one needs to loot 10 Scorpion unlocks to fully upgrade it? Just think about the magnitude of such folly! Let's say I earned enough credits for one gold pack an hour, which would mean I opened 300 packs, and didn't get what I wanted the most? The microtransaction price for the big packs is like 5$. I could have spent 1500$ on ME3's mystery boxes and not have gotten what I wanted out of them? Need I say more, other than: "FUCK MYSTERY BOXES!"?
As far as I can see it, Halo 5 does exactly what Mass Effect 3's coop does, but it seems to give out more cards per pack, and every gun-type (aka playstyle) does also come in basic and common versions, so you won't run into the situation that you can't at all play with the gun-type/playstyle you want to play with (like I and the sticky-grenade shooting Scorpion in ME3's coop), but if you really are keen on some super-special variant of an existing gun or vehicle, the REQ-system will prove similarly infuriating and frustrating, I'd bet.
I guess mystery boxes are just the most ideal business scheme to milk microtransation whales with, because one can literally sink thousands of dollars into mystery boxes, and still not get what one wants. Believe me, there are rich as fuck whales out there, who will drop tens of thousands of dollars buying REQ-boxes, and those people will not give a hoot, because their money often literally spills out of the fucking ground, or something akin to it. The rest of us, without nigh limitless funds? We are fucked! This unethical and horrendous business practice just doesn't work for anyone but top tier whales, and players who don't care to begin with. Everybody who cares, but doesn't want to spend tens of thousands of bucks, or the rest of their waking life playing the game - we are fucked out of the full experience.
How bad will the REQ-system truely be for Halo 5? I doubt it's as bad as ME3's mystery box unlock scheme. Maybe it isn't half bad at all. Maybe it just works. Still, even if it isn't obstructive like ME3's mystery box scheme was in the longrun, it will always be somewhat unethical, regardless of how well thought out and fair it turns out to be. Personally, mystery boxes will always invoke a feeling of deep felt disgust regardless.
It's a very pretty console.
This is something that I feel like Bungie never really had the chutzpah to pull off in a game in earnest, that I hope 343i does: even if that's not the primary conflict, actually have one of the diverse human military factions engage in actual, honest-to-god combat with the other, instead of the repeated brief exchanging of threats followed by immediately teaming up to fight the bigger bad and pushing all other issues aside. I really want a chance to play the Chief crushing an elite ONI field cell, or Fire Team Osiris maybe gunning for some particularly loyal marines who volunteered to cover the Chief, probably against his requests.
God knows there's no shortage of circumstances that should allow you to do exactly that, we're at the point here humans are very frequently their own worse enemies. The Separatists vs central government, ONI versus almost everyone else, a thousand different bandit companies, even just flat-out traitors aiding groups within whats left of the Covenant.
I think I spent over 500 hours in ME3 Co-Op. I did not max my URs though... the last DLC ones were the only ones? IDK.
But, I had all the guns. Since ME3's maps etc were free/subsidized via micros ... I also supported them with that. I don't know how much I spent over the months of time and releases for the game. They also added different packs to help people out or something. The way the rolls in ME3 worked was Rarity then Item, iirc. Once you got a weapon to level 10 (or character fully customized) it dropped off the stack too, iirc. And GWG was pretty easy farming for credits. But this was years ago.
As for Halo 5's REQ system, I read further. I do see that it has microtransactions! However, when it comes to their REQ packs, unlike ME3 MP's....
Source
From what I understand though, the business model isn't entirely dissimilar: Halo 5 map packs will be made available for free, and to pay for that there's the option to buy requisition packs. Given that 5 is shipping with more than one game mode (and will probably end up having a lot of them, including the very new war zone), I'm completely fine with that.