Halo doesn't continue to influence anymore mate. It pretty much stopped in 2004, when Halo 2/Half Life 2 came out.
If you decided to rush through Halo 2, you probably would have missed a lot of things. Halo's story telling requires you to embrace your surroundings and take in what people are saying. Unlike Half Life 2, they aren't going to wait for you to get to "X" area to start their monologue. If you miss it -- tough luck.
Secondly, linearity is not the bane of Halo. If it works and continues to work for Half Life, for F.E.A.R etcthen why we must make it a negative for Halo is beyond me.
Well, it sounds like you're in the first act of the third and final chapter, which, in most stories, does not have much plot at all. Only at the end does the story pick up, which may explain this "introduction" stage.
So, how can we call this a 360 game when it's an upscale of Halo 2? I'm not sure, because if that's the case, we should also take a look at GRAW because that's certainly not as impressive as Halo 3 -- it's plain textured (not to mention even more low res), lower-polygoned, zero particle effect, anda very"barren"game.
Halo 3 is a more than just "a bit more". The AR pretty much changes everything from respawn. You can only carry four grenades at any given time. No more glitching (which was common in Halo 2, was it not?). Sniper-sweeping has been eliminated -- it now takes skill to use. Almost all vehicles have been upgraded against small arms fire -- only the "big" weapons are enough to really take them down, or the now very usefull plasma pistol.
As for the maps, a lot of people have learned to like them. What was once the most vetoed map in the entire Beta, Snowbound has become pretty popular. Isolation got the same treatment upon release, but now people are enjoying its juxtaposing nature.
Oh, and one of the main concerns about Halo according to hermits was its sense of verticality. Construct is one hell of a chaotic map. People setting off your motion tracker when they're levels above and below you is pretty damn scary. Another map people started to have affection for. The only map people really hate is The Pit. Thematically, it's awesome, but it's just a little bland.
FrozenLiquid
Theres lots of subtleties that Halo invented (or for hermits, incorporated flawlessly) that still stand in todays games, and offcourse the more obvious ones such as regenerating health in say RFOM.
As for linearity, i happen to disagree, its what ruined Halo 2. See first time i finished it, i did it on Heroic. Unfortunately, it didnt seem designed for that difficulty, as in youd have to do sequences over and over again because one stupid enemy was left and he somehow jumped out on you and finished you off. Nonetheless, it prolonged an ultimately FLAWED campaign and made the crap parts of it just stick out even more. One thing i do give credit to Halo 3 is for tweaking the difficulties really well, as in the harder difficulties are harder not because enemies are just more beefed up but because theyve gone back and actually tailor made it so that its more difficult. So in other words, they increased the level of enemies, the weapons they carry, the numbers they stick together in, the number of snipers, so on and so forth.
But yeah, when it came to Halo 1, sure there was level repetition, but you knew once you came out the corridor, you were in for a EPIC battle with numerous vehicles and dozens of enemies in huge environments. Unfortunately, neither of the sequels kept this
As for graphics, well technically maybe Halo 3 is indeed superior to GRAW, but what actually looks better. Same goes for PC version of it, it looks a lot better on paper, but once you play it, GRAW is a MUCH better looking game. We all know MGS and its waek textures yet it looks downright amazing.
As for MP, you pretty much agreed with me, its just a bit more, nothing that breaks much ground. Sure, its Halo, so it should remain Halo because the formula worked right? Well look at the Unreal series, each game has improved by strides yet it feels similar each game. As for the maps, just because people are accepting them more doesnt change the fact they suck still
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