Halo 3 - Record setting $170M on first day

[adairusmc]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: Anubis
was and still prob is the best console FPS
at that time it was pretty much the only console FPS that wasent just a death match
the graphics were great for the time
they gameplay was really good, the 2 wep system and all that
they story was great
the music ws amazing

yes it had some repetitive leveals but nearly every game ive ever played has had them

The best console-first FPS, possibly. I'd still take Super Marathon or Deus Ex: The Conspiracy over it any day with great pleasure. If the selection in console shooters is so horrible that you can't find anything better than Halo, why even bother using a console for that genre? Aside from expense reasons (which still don't work for me; in 2001 you could easily buy a 1998-era computer to play superior games like Half-Life at less cost) there doesn't seem like much of a reason to me.

Graphically most of Halo's luster comes shiny textures, more realistic water, and other little technical features. The actual game world was mostly ugly, from plain gray laboratories to eye-burning purple alien ships. A good engine means nothing when you have no artistic merit. Just look at FEAR for another example of that.

The gameplay is the worst and most overrated part about Halo. Vehicles, weapon limitations, a grenade button, and everything else had already been done beforehand and none of them were major enough to make up for other faults in the gameplay, such as almost every level sucking horrendously.

Level design is a critical part of the first person shooter (or at least was, until Halo fucked that all up) and alone ruins the game. All games have repetitive levels? Maybe to a slight extent, but every single level with no exceptions in Halo has copy and pasting. Yes, even Silent Cartographer with the entire underground command center or whatever it was. It's not even like only the appearances were repetitive either; every single command from that annoying bitch Cortana was given before (Watch out Chief! Another dropship!).

The story only gets praise because Bungie released several Halo novels to explain it better. What you got in game was mostly either already done in Marathon or a previous sci-fi movie in parody. The music is good when it's playing, but since it rarely loops and tries to be 'epic' most of the time you're wondering around the same corridors with nothing but silence. A little bit in the way of ambient sound effects would have helped, but they cut all that out (neutral roaming wildlife and such) when dumbing it down.

EDIT: All that = lose.

Your whole post = fail

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: Anubis
was and still prob is the best console FPS
at that time it was pretty much the only console FPS that wasent just a death match
the graphics were great for the time
they gameplay was really good, the 2 wep system and all that
they story was great
the music ws amazing

yes it had some repetitive leveals but nearly every game ive ever played has had them

The best console-first FPS, possibly. I'd still take Super Marathon or Deus Ex: The Conspiracy over it any day with great pleasure. If the selection in console shooters is so horrible that you can't find anything better than Halo, why even bother using a console for that genre? Aside from expense reasons (which still don't work for me; in 2001 you could easily buy a 1998-era computer to play superior games like Half-Life at less cost) there doesn't seem like much of a reason to me.

Graphically most of Halo's luster comes shiny textures, more realistic water, and other little technical features. The actual game world was mostly ugly, from plain gray laboratories to eye-burning purple alien ships. A good engine means nothing when you have no artistic merit. Just look at FEAR for another example of that.

The gameplay is the worst and most overrated part about Halo. Vehicles, weapon limitations, a grenade button, and everything else had already been done beforehand and none of them were major enough to make up for other faults in the gameplay, such as almost every level sucking horrendously.

Level design is a critical part of the first person shooter (or at least was, until Halo fucked that all up) and alone ruins the game. All games have repetitive levels? Maybe to a slight extent, but every single level with no exceptions in Halo has copy and pasting. Yes, even Silent Cartographer with the entire underground command center or whatever it was. It's not even like only the appearances were repetitive either; every single command from that annoying bitch Cortana was given before (Watch out Chief! Another dropship!).

The story only gets praise because Bungie released several Halo novels to explain it better. What you got in game was mostly either already done in Marathon or a previous sci-fi movie in parody. The music is good when it's playing, but since it rarely loops and tries to be 'epic' most of the time you're wondering around the same corridors with nothing but silence. A little bit in the way of ambient sound effects would have helped, but they cut all that out (neutral roaming wildlife and such) when dumbing it down.

EDIT: All that = lose.

Oh, ok. Its not like this could be a matter of taste or anything.

I do have one question for you. Did you play through them co-op or single player? A big reason why Halo was so popular is that it did co-op very well (although I still think there's a lot of progress that can be made). I would say it is the single biggest oversight in PC FPSes (seriously no company will even try it, you have to rely on buggy hacks).

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
Oh, ok. Its not like this could be a matter of taste or anything.

I do have one question for you. Did you play through them co-op or single player? A big reason why Halo was so popular is that it did co-op very well (although I still think there's a lot of progress that can be made). I would say it is the single biggest oversight in PC FPSes (seriously no company will even try it, you have to rely on buggy hacks).

Single player, true, but there's no such thing as not doing co-op well. The buggiest, most poorly put together Sven Co-Op level hosted on some guy's Geocities fan site is still pretty fun when you have a few people with you. I do agree that it sucks when virtually no PC game company will add it these days, and I don't really understand why. Most games of the 2.5D era had it by default but it really went away shortly after.

 

[glutenberg]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: Anubis
was and still prob is the best console FPS
at that time it was pretty much the only console FPS that wasent just a death match
the graphics were great for the time
they gameplay was really good, the 2 wep system and all that
they story was great
the music ws amazing

yes it had some repetitive leveals but nearly every game ive ever played has had them

The best console-first FPS, possibly. I'd still take Super Marathon or Deus Ex: The Conspiracy over it any day with great pleasure. If the selection in console shooters is so horrible that you can't find anything better than Halo, why even bother using a console for that genre? Aside from expense reasons (which still don't work for me; in 2001 you could easily buy a 1998-era computer to play superior games like Half-Life at less cost) there doesn't seem like much of a reason to me.

Graphically most of Halo's luster comes shiny textures, more realistic water, and other little technical features. The actual game world was mostly ugly, from plain gray laboratories to eye-burning purple alien ships. A good engine means nothing when you have no artistic merit. Just look at FEAR for another example of that.

The gameplay is the worst and most overrated part about Halo. Vehicles, weapon limitations, a grenade button, and everything else had already been done beforehand and none of them were major enough to make up for other faults in the gameplay, such as almost every level sucking horrendously.

Level design is a critical part of the first person shooter (or at least was, until Halo fucked that all up) and alone ruins the game. All games have repetitive levels? Maybe to a slight extent, but every single level with no exceptions in Halo has copy and pasting. Yes, even Silent Cartographer with the entire underground command center or whatever it was. It's not even like only the appearances were repetitive either; every single command from that annoying bitch Cortana was given before (Watch out Chief! Another dropship!).

The story only gets praise because Bungie released several Halo novels to explain it better. What you got in game was mostly either already done in Marathon or a previous sci-fi movie in parody. The music is good when it's playing, but since it rarely loops and tries to be 'epic' most of the time you're wondering around the same corridors with nothing but silence. A little bit in the way of ambient sound effects would have helped, but they cut all that out (neutral roaming wildlife and such) when dumbing it down.

EDIT: All that = lose.

Every video game is generally the same stuff over and over. Do not delude yourself into believing that your favorite games have variety. The games graphics were fine. It just proves that game play and implementation are much more than a shiny shell to hang around in. If all of these fps for PCs are so great, why are they not outselling? If you're going to bash a game, at least put more thought into it instead of the same old tripe that is constantly used. Unless of course you want to be a perpetrator of what you seemingly hate the most.

 

[A Casual Fitz]

I never found the Halo series to be very good.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Single player, true, but there's no such thing as not doing co-op well. The buggiest, most poorly put together Sven Co-Op level hosted on some guy's Geocities fan site is still pretty fun when you have a few people with you. I do agree that it sucks when virtually no PC game company will add it these days, and I don't really understand why. Most games of the 2.5D era had it by default but it really went away shortly after.

Well, I think that really explains why people like Halo. I think co-op really is the next evolutinary step in FPSes. Halo's is just ok, its competent in gameplay, but the story in the first two completely ignores the second player, and yet that is enough to elevate it as a game. It really does change a game. I can't even remember how many terrible games I played through and found fun just because of co-op (Hexen and Duke Nukem on the N64 spring to mind though...). If nothing else, you've got to hand it to Bungie for not only trying but actually implementing a smooth 4 player online co-op mode.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Originally posted by: glutenberg
Every video game is generally the same stuff over and over. Do not delude yourself into believing that your favorite games have variety. The games graphics were fine. It just proves that game play and implementation are much more than a shiny shell to hang around in. If all of these fps for PCs are so great, why are they not outselling? If you're going to bash a game, at least put more thought into it instead of the same old tripe that is constantly used. Unless of course you want to be a perpetrator of what you seemingly hate the most.

Since you mentioned favorite games I'll bring up Deus Ex, which I can't see very much repetition in at all. Aside from the fact that you're stuck in first person mode and the game never switches genres to point and click adventure or porn simulator it doesn't seem like a repetitious game to me. Every mission can be completed multiple ways and none of them are copied and pasted unless you count going to UNATCO HQ four times as repetition on the same magnitude of Halo's Library and Two Betrayals missions. You are almost never forced into a certain style of playing (it can even be beaten without picking up a single inventory item) and as a result is only remotely repetitive if you choose to make it that way. In Halo you are wandering through either hallways, ventilation shafts shaped like hallways, large tunnels which serve as vehicle hallways, or more hallways throughout half the game and that isn't an exaggeration. Scripting runs amok and you have to be told to kill every last covenant and destroy every last reactor before you can proceed throughout the game, making it a cheap way to buy the game a couple more hours.

But why stop with Deus Ex? Half-Life is just a simple first person shooter with the fundamentals being no different than Halo. It just manages to not suck by changing the atmosphere for freshness and giving a variety of monsters to kill that can be counted on more than one and a half hands. Is there repetition? Yes, but it can't be compared to Halo's at all.

There are probably a bunch of reasons as to why Halo sells much better, but the most major of which is marketing. I can only imagine how many copies Halo 4/Halo Wars/whatever will sell once they make a Halo cereal, cartoon, trading cards, and pasta. You aren't implying that sales = quality, right? Otherwise you better give your soul to Super Mario Brothers right now.

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
Well, I think that really explains why people like Halo. I think co-op really is the next evolutinary step in FPSes. Halo's is just ok, its competent in gameplay, but the story in the first two completely ignores the second player, and yet that is enough to elevate it as a game. It really does change a game. I can't even remember how many terrible games I played through and found fun just because of co-op (Hexen and Duke Nukem on the N64 spring to mind though...). If nothing else, you've got to hand it to Bungie for not only trying but actually implementing a smooth 4 player online co-op mode.

Halo would be a lot more fun if the PC version just had cooperative multiplayer. I pretty much agree here, although I'm not sure that 4 player online cooperative gameplay is innovative either. System Shock 2 did it... although it fails at the 'smooth' part.

 

[Drekce]

I am a big time PC FPS player (opted for Bioshock on PC over 360, will do the same for HL2: EP 2, etc.) but I am liking Halo 3 a lot so far. I haven't even started the single player game yet...I have put about 4 hours into multi player over Xbox Live. It runs flawlessly and is a lot of fun. I remain very impressed how well the Xbox handles online gaming.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: aphex
Of course they set records when the damn games STARTS at $60.

Damn games have been at the $60/$50 starting price for a while now. This is the first game to reach this level of sales which is noteworthy.

Still, I'm interested in hearing the actual number of units sold in the first 24 hours.

All we know so far besides the sales numbers is:
~1.5 million preorders in the US alone.
~4.2 million copies shipped to retailers worldwide.

If all copies sold were the basic edition, then the number sold is about 2.83 MILLION.

If they were all the Legendary Edition, there would have been 1.42 Million sold.

I think it's probably a safe bet that MOST people probably just bought the basic edition, so I would definately estimate well over 2 million copies.... which is at least 2 times what the average "BIG GAME" sells in its whole lifespan. I've heard somewhere that the AVERAGE game will sell about 100,000-250,000 in its whole shelf life. Seeing as Halo 3 sold roughly 2 Million copies in the first 24 hours, and even NES games sold for $40 at release, I'd say the price of the game doesn't skew the data enough to think that something else is even reasonably close.

 

[Skacer]

I get the feeling this is the kind of thing that will move the rest of the FPS developers to the Xbox 360.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: Skacer
I get the feeling this is the kind of thing that will move the rest of the FPS developers to the Xbox 360.

It likely will... but then again that would leave the other two consoles in position to corner the FPS market with one above average title.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm still bitter about MS purchase of Bungie to make Halo 1 Xbox exclusive (dumbed down and feature stripped), the sloppy delayed Halo 1 PC port, the lazily made Halo 2, and the sloppy Vista only Halo 2 PC port. The Halo series has never really boasted anything especially good that make it stand out from the overcrowded FPS genre.

What the Halo franchise does have, that other shooters do not though, is Microsoft's money. The game is advertised everywhere with reviews being bought a dime a dozen.

 

[glutenberg]

Originally posted by: HamburgerBoy

Originally posted by: glutenberg
Every video game is generally the same stuff over and over. Do not delude yourself into believing that your favorite games have variety. The games graphics were fine. It just proves that game play and implementation are much more than a shiny shell to hang around in. If all of these fps for PCs are so great, why are they not outselling? If you're going to bash a game, at least put more thought into it instead of the same old tripe that is constantly used. Unless of course you want to be a perpetrator of what you seemingly hate the most.

Since you mentioned favorite games I'll bring up Deus Ex, which I can't see very much repetition in at all. Aside from the fact that you're stuck in first person mode and the game never switches genres to point and click adventure or porn simulator it doesn't seem like a repetitious game to me. Every mission can be completed multiple ways and none of them are copied and pasted unless you count going to UNATCO HQ four times as repetition on the same magnitude of Halo's Library and Two Betrayals missions. You are almost never forced into a certain style of playing (it can even be beaten without picking up a single inventory item) and as a result is only remotely repetitive if you choose to make it that way. In Halo you are wandering through either hallways, ventilation shafts shaped like hallways, large tunnels which serve as vehicle hallways, or more hallways throughout half the game and that isn't an exaggeration. Scripting runs amok and you have to be told to kill every last covenant and destroy every last reactor before you can proceed throughout the game, making it a cheap way to buy the game a couple more hours.

But why stop with Deus Ex? Half-Life is just a simple first person shooter with the fundamentals being no different than Halo. It just manages to not suck by changing the atmosphere for freshness and giving a variety of monsters to kill that can be counted on more than one and a half hands. Is there repetition? Yes, but it can't be compared to Halo's at all.

There are probably a bunch of reasons as to why Halo sells much better, but the most major of which is marketing. I can only imagine how many copies Halo 4/Halo Wars/whatever will sell once they make a Halo cereal, cartoon, trading cards, and pasta. You aren't implying that sales = quality, right? Otherwise you better give your soul to Super Mario Brothers right now.

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
Well, I think that really explains why people like Halo. I think co-op really is the next evolutinary step in FPSes. Halo's is just ok, its competent in gameplay, but the story in the first two completely ignores the second player, and yet that is enough to elevate it as a game. It really does change a game. I can't even remember how many terrible games I played through and found fun just because of co-op (Hexen and Duke Nukem on the N64 spring to mind though...). If nothing else, you've got to hand it to Bungie for not only trying but actually implementing a smooth 4 player online co-op mode.

Halo would be a lot more fun if the PC version just had cooperative multiplayer. I pretty much agree here, although I'm not sure that 4 player online cooperative gameplay is innovative either. System Shock 2 did it... although it fails at the 'smooth' part.

Half Life has the same boring scenarios consistently. You generally kill the same creatures and just like every fps, you end up using your preferred weapons over all the trash weapons around. You pretty much stated exactly what needed to be stated in bold. That's all it comes down to but your animosity towards Halo is pretty much unsubstantiated.

 

[Shadowknight]

Originally posted by: AdamK47

Originally posted by: jagec
It's not "Master Chief", it's THE Master Chief. Rank, not name.

I liked Halo, because it had great melee and neat physics.

Master Chief

Grandmaster B! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...ith_Children#Bud_Bundy

 

[glutenberg]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
I'm still bitter about MS purchase of Bungie to make Halo 1 Xbox exclusive (dumbed down and feature stripped), the sloppy delayed Halo 1 PC port, the lazily made Halo 2, and the sloppy Vista only Halo 2 PC port. The Halo series has never really boasted anything especially good that make it stand out from the overcrowded FPS genre.

What the Halo franchise does have, that other shooters do not though, is Microsoft's money. The game is advertised everywhere with reviews being bought a dime a dozen.

That would only work for Halo 1. The fact that Halo 3 is the biggest seller means that the game is fun. You guys who think Halo didn't bring anything to the table are the outsiders, not those who enjoy Halo. But keep pretending that it's only a budget issue.

It's essentially the same damn argument people who hate WoW have. It's repetitive, it's not hardcore enough, yadayadaya. Fact is, the game pulls in a larger crowd and pleases that crowd. Stop being jealous at the success of a game.

 

[Acanthus]

Halo 1 was good, Halo 2 was terrible...

I guess im just spoiled by PC shooters that are actually fun and have more than 6 guns and 10 players.

Fast paced? Unreal, Team Fortress
Large scale? Battlefield
Precision? Counterstrike

Im just missing what made halo 2 so great, it was just built on the halo name and more of the same, and dare i say, the multiplayer is terrible. (didnt the lead developer of bungie say that he couldnt play H2MP becuase it was "fucking terrible"?

Im really not trying to bash the game, i just dont see anything great about it other than the hype... I didnt even finish Halo 2 SP.

Frankly ET : QW has me more excited than any other game.

 

[Skacer]

Originally posted by: glutenberg
That would only work for Halo 1. The fact that Halo 3 is the biggest seller means that the game is fun. You guys who think Halo didn't bring anything to the table are the outsiders, not those who enjoy Halo. But keep pretending that it's only a budget issue.

It's essentially the same damn argument people who hate WoW have. It's repetitive, it's not hardcore enough, yadayadaya. Fact is, the game pulls in a larger crowd and pleases that crowd. Stop being jealous at the success of a game.

Please don't compare WoW to Halo. They both may have a large number of fans but WoW earned them fair and square against every other MMO in the industry. Halo cornered an under-appreciated part of the market and made a game that can not fairly be compared to even the genre it labels itself. Besides, Blizzard shits bigger things than Bungie.

 

[buck]

I bought the game on the 25th and it was worth $60.

 

[Deeko]

Wow, I'm kinda surprised. I know it was advertised hard and is the XBox's signature game, but I didn't see the same "consumer hype" about this one that I saw for Halo 2. Oh well, good for MS.

 

[fisheerman]

It is funny to here all the anti Halo flame that is coming out.

THEY HAD THE BIGGEST MEDIA OPENING IN HISTORY period

That speaks tremendous volume about the title considering.

The 360 console isn't the number one console in the home. (i think that is held by PS2 still).

360 cost between 299-399

game cost 59-109

and this is the 3rd game of a series.

What put Halo on the map is the online play and xbox live. period there is non better.

lightening bolt, lightening bolt..............lightening bolt.....errr.....lightening bolt? {laughs outloud}

Halo 3 expanded on this with detailed that can't be touched and more weapons.


If this is how a sucky game is done then sign me up for the next startup company where sucky games are created.

-fish

 

[jandrews]

Originally posted by: flxnimprtmscl
I don't get it. I thought Halo (for PC) was boring and repetitive as fvck. I've heard Halo 2 is more of the same, though I've not played it myself. What's the big deal with 3? Third time's a charm?

computer gamers can be really dense sometimes. The fun of halo is that for one it is on a console, second it has a great co-op option which most games dont have and third the deathmatch is pretty fun for most people. Its a community game, the single player is not where its at.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Halo 3 is hands down the best game I've ever played. As close to perfect in every way than anything else I've gotten my hands on.


EDIT: I haven't received any money from microsoft.

 

[slag]

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: tenshodo13

Originally posted by: flxnimprtmscl
I don't get it. I thought Halo (for PC) was boring and repetitive as fvck. I've heard Halo 2 is more of the same, though I've not played it myself. What's the big deal with 3? Third time's a charm?

Its Halo 3...Halo brand name..nuff said.

How is the name selling games if the first two games were so shitty?

1 st halo was good
2nd halo - story sucked, mp was good
3nd halo - story's good and so is mp

Most people dont buy FPS's for the storyline. FPS's are eye candy and special effects. Play a mmorpg or epic game if you want story.

Halo 1 rocked because of the vehicles and pistol and because it was the first halo.
Halo 2 was darn near awesome as well because the fight was taken to earth with earth terrain, and because you could play as the arbiter and have stealth. You could also jump on enemy vehicles and throw the enemy off.
Halo 3 is good as well because you get different vehicles, can actually kill those spider tanks now, and have deployables--and the graphics aren't half bad either.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: flxnimprtmscl
I don't get it. I thought Halo (for PC) was boring and repetitive as fvck. I've heard Halo 2 is more of the same, though I've not played it myself. What's the big deal with 3? Third time's a charm?

computer gamers can be really dense sometimes. The fun of halo is that for one it is on a console, second it has a great co-op option which most games dont have and third the deathmatch is pretty fun for most people. Its a community game, the single player is not where its at.

I hate to be the one to tell you....but online gaming was born on the PC. Ever heard of a little one called "counterstrike"? Or maybe Doom. You might have heard of Doom, it was ported to SNES, and Doom III was ported to XBox.

Just throwin' it out there.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
I'm still bitter about MS purchase of Bungie to make Halo 1 Xbox exclusive (dumbed down and feature stripped), the sloppy delayed Halo 1 PC port, the lazily made Halo 2, and the sloppy Vista only Halo 2 PC port. The Halo series has never really boasted anything especially good that make it stand out from the overcrowded FPS genre.

What the Halo franchise does have, that other shooters do not though, is Microsoft's money. The game is advertised everywhere with reviews being bought a dime a dozen.

Halo 2 wasn't made lazily. Halo 2 was the first game that Bungie made with a very large team and they made a lot of mistakes as a result. They actually scrapped it and started over at one point and stayed in crunch mode for over a year to get Halo 2 out.

Ultimately, they ran out of time and were upset with themselves because the single-player didn't feel complete and the multi-player, while very good, wasn't as good as they wanted to make it.

You can say a lot of things about Halo 2 but 'made lazily' isn't one of them.