Well it was a revolutionary thing..

- Most game vehicles at the time were confined to small sectors with little terrain and/or freedom (SW, Future Shock, Necrodome, etc), or were a unfun drag (Redline, Necrodome)
- Wargasm had terrible controls. It's more of a depth-less modern war-themed followup of Epic with less plot and a modern engine (...for rendering).
- Necrodome had a coopable vehicle, execution and performance was terrible however
- None of Tribes' vehicles were on wheels
- Tribes 2's planned quad atv-ish vehicle did not make it to final
- Bolting on foot action to a vehicle game doesn't turn it into a revolutionary FPS (Battlezone, Wargasm, Interstate '82)

Those early Halo shots of vehicles in 1999 is what originally set me to anticipate for Halo then.

Warthog was fun in split-screen with a buddy gunning for you.

WildW wrote:

Warthog was fun in split-screen with a buddy gunning for you.

I can imagine that this would improve things tremendously and would be a lot of fun.

I've been trying to remember what the warthog reminds me of, because I remember playing a game that was very similar to it. I finally remembered it:

Powerslide

Not to mention that the Warthog feels like it has proper weight and physics applied to it. This was really eye opening back in 2001.

leileilol wrote:

- Tribes 2's planned quad atv-ish vehicle did not make it to final

Who needs an ATV when you've got a hoverbike? Or a tank?

I'm a bit further along in Halo now. Inventory and save-game issues aside, it's not a bad game. I actually kind of like it, despite the lack of variety in enemy targets. A few areas are a bit repetitious, but the generously available ammunition makes up for it. It's fun to spray bullets everywhere, secure in the knowledge that you're unlikely to ever run out.

However, I have come to a point where I want to scream: 343 Guilty Spark.

I get that "Bit" from TRON is likely to have inspired this character along with "Navi" from the Zelda games. I never played the Zelda games with Navi, but I'm aware of how much she annoyed those who did. I would also think that 343 Guilty Spark inspired "Byte" in TRON 2.0, but when you're already ripping off the source material, it's difficult to give the rip-off any credit. Besides, "Byte" in TRON 2.0 was an assistant AI done right, much like in Descent 2.

My irritation began not long ago, when Cortana called me a "barbarian" after I chauffeured her ungrateful ass all the way to the Halo control room. I felt like shooting her right then and there. Only her saccharine afro-latino cuteness saved her.

But, oh my... 343 Guilty Spark makes me want to punch my monitor. From its annoying smug humming to its constant undeserved self-praise, I want to kill it. It's like Martin Shkreli in video game form.

So, let me get this straight. Some hyper-advanced race called the Forerunners (don't tell Toyota) built the ringworld as a final fortress against The Flood. However, in their success, rather than exterminate The Flood they kept some of 'em locked up... you know... because... ? So anyway, the Covenant foolishly release The Flood and now 343 Guilty Spark tells me its function is to keep them from leaving the installation. Oh wait, but it needs my help, because of course it does! Every hyper-advanced civilization requires the assistance of the most hypo-advanced barbarians to secure their completely unnecessary prison.

Well, here's my "Old Man Screams at Cloud" perspective.....

I don't like most console games beyond the Playstation. I find the controllers too complex, the gameplay needs more time than I have to give to it, and honestly, you can't really veer the experience or create a fork in the experience into what you want like you can with a computer, especially the PC. The Playstation is probably the newest console I got into for more than 1 or 2 games. The most recent console would be the Wii U for Mario Creator, but I can already do that in other means.

For the PC, I like old games like what we talk about here because I can invest into them, but I don't need to invest $15/mo, 40+ hours of my week, and I can take months away and pick up where I left off. Even fancy long stuff like Ultima I can do that with. But I find things like Halo or World of Warcraft are just too much for me. I get addicted to games where I build stuff and destroy stuff bad enough (Sim City, The Sims, Postal) - the last thing I need is one more thing to eat up my time.

The beauty of console games, at least the old ones, is their simplicity. I can plop down in front of the Atari for 15 minutes and play a round of Space Invaders, I can boot up my old 486 and play Sim City for 12 minutes and at least build a city block or enhance my water system, save, and then move on with life. It's nice that way. And I don't have to pay Nolan Bushnell or Will Wright $15 to store my creation on their "Cloud" either. Sure it's nice not to have to worry about when the hard disk bites the dust - but I'd rather have that than be paying for web space like WoW does. Just the idea of that element alone was enough to put me off WoW, seems it'd make it feel like a job. I already put in 40 hours fixing PC's, I don't need to be dreading the helpless desk AND a guild when I come home and try to relax for 15 minutes.

The beauty of PC games is there is so much out there beyond the Best Buy game shelf. I got HEAVY on a Five Nights at Freddy's kick for a few years there - and I did that because it's a simple game - you just sit, watch, listen, and click buttons for 10 minute spurts for a one time cost of like $5. Same thing with Retro City Rampage DX which comes with a DOS version that runs gloriously on my 486 DX4. There are new DOS games, and new modern games, and I like both, if I can control how long I play at least and I'm not spending $50 a pop on them.

I have one "modern" console - a Wii - what do I use it for? To Emulate older consoles mostly, I only own three proper Wii games. I had an XBOX - what did I do? Softmod it and put emulators on it. I never owned any other disc than Halo 2, and I only ever played Halo 2 once, and while it was fun, the fact I Could not just stop in the middle of something and save like I could Postal, or Ultima, or have an actual demarcated stopping point like Freddy's or Mario All-Stars, it just felt like Id' have to chore going through a game I'm not that good at anyway. Most modern RPG and FPS I'm TERRIBLE at. Even then, the Wii is not THAT modern, it's over 10 years old. And the only reason I'd maybe consider a Wii U used would be to play Mario Creator - but I can already do all that on my 486 using software tools I've been using in DOS and Windows 9x for over 15 years now - and dump the whole thing into a cart if I wanted and run it on my NES as it is. I've been a NES ROM Hacker since 2001 - a hack of a hacker - but a ROM hacker nonetheless.

I finished Halo tonight.

It's not a bad game at all. I really enjoyed many parts of it.

Highlights
- Driving the tank.
- Driving either model of the Covenant floating scooters.
- Large, exciting, wide-open epic battles on huge maps.
- The ending was truly exciting.
- Sergeant Johnson
- The shotgun was the best most-fun weapon.
- This game is mindless action and shooty fun.
- It's hard to get lost. The game makes it pretty obvious where you're supposed to go next.
- Cortana is cute.

The Not-So-Good
- The checkpoint savegame system is non-intuitive to PC gamers. It took me awhile to figure out that I had to save the previous checkpoint if I wanted to keep the game from automatically deleting it as I progressed.
- Inventory is not maintained across chapters of the game. This is highly annoying.
- Speaking of "highly annoying": 343 Guilty Spark.
- The player is not given the option of killing 343 Guilty Spark.
- Previously deceased characters inexplicably come back to life. For example, Sergeant Johnson.
- Lengthy sections of boring, repetitive, interior hallway battles with the same old enemies.
- Not enough large, exciting, wide-open epic battles on huge maps.
- Not enough tank driving. I really wanted more.
- The plot and story are pretty bad when you think about it. There is absolutely no good reason for the Forerunners to preserve the flood at the expense of all other species/races/life-forms. Especially not when...
- Coming to understand that your shield is the best passive-offensive weapon against the Flood pawns/spores. I almost consider this to be an exploit. It really breaks suspension-of-disbelief in portraying the Flood as an intergalactic threat. Just wait for your shield to recharge after a pawn/spore-rush and you don't even have to expend any ammo against them. This is almost as bad as the telekinesis exploit in BioShock.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I don't think I'll play it for a 2nd time, but it was pretty fun and I don't regret playing it.