In my last post I shared my absolute frustration with the online community of Halo 3, but by no means is Bungie the only ones that allow griefers to run free (I’m looking at you Valve). Let us not focus on the negative, for that was yesterday. Today I want to talk about what makes Halo so great.
Freedom: The halo games have always allowed a great amount of freedom. They give you a world to run though and you get to choose how you get there. This is, I think, one of the most pivotal designs of the Halo game that makes it so great, and yet few people copy this model. While you are restricted to how high you can jump, their system in play still allows for a great range of emotion. The more ways you give a player to pass or conquer an object, the more the player will like the game. Why do designers punish players who when there is only one answer to a puzzle? The more openings there are to completing the task, the better the player feels beating it your their way.
An example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbBw7g8r_Fw
See how the player, in order to get an achievement, thinks outside of the box in order to sidestep the enemy. This sort of play doesn’t have to become “breaking” the game. (unlike Left 4 Dead survival…which I sometimes think was a secret way for the community to find all the bugs on the maps so Valve wouldn’t have to)
What also allows for a great amount of freedom are the various guns. The weapons don’t need hokey two types of firing. Instead they expand upon what the weapon can do. For instance the gun most seen is the plasma pistol (and most used by the weakest of the Covenant in campaign) . In most games the pistol quickly becomes obsolete. In Halo however the plasma pistol can take out an enemy shield in out hit. For me that means one hit to Brute with plasma pistol and shot to their now soft cranium with my regular pistol. Down in two counts. The gun can also stop vehicles dead for a few moments. Again, empower the player but do so through simplicity.
Artificial Intelligence: It’s hard to mention Halo and not talk about the amazing AI. Even back in Halo 1 the AI was great. I feel like I’ve shared this link before but here it is again just in case. http://aigamedev.com/open/reviews/halo-ai/
Here they show you some of their tips to making the AI better. Read them because they are very clever. What’s great about the AI is it is always different. I can run into a room and have a big battle, only to die, and retry and have a totally different experience. The great appeal of playing online games is having other humans to fight against, because humans are not bound by logic and a human will always surprise you.
Solidity: I don’t know if this will make sense to others but I’ll try my best to explain it. The world, vehicles, and characters in Halo are solid. In other words everything interacts. If I jump into a banshee (the flying purple thing) and fly down, I can run over an enemy, which will send him flying (as opposed to a death animation).
Example, my friend and I were playing Halo together the other night and while were driving around in the warthog, a guy shot us with a brute shot (explosive). The impact of the explosion pushed our warthog over the edge of the cliff and we fell. We couldn’t stop laughing as we tried to jump out in time.
I’m always disappointed in games when things don’t react as they should. I’m aware that because of restrictions a designer cannot make everything interact (and I’m perfectly fine with that…though all the doors in games you can’t go through get annoying) but they can put some meat to their creations. Another example, a lot of World of Warcraft is hollow and when I say this I mean characters, player, and that sort, not the gameplay. You can run through other people and it works for that game but in action games especially, all the characters need some substance.
That’s about it for now. I could write more but you know all the other reasons the games are great. I think I’ll stick with writing about a few of the overlooked ones. Till next time…
