[QUOTE="Mr_Nordquist"]
better level design, more tools to use against enemies, etc.
But know what I think beat Halo CE in terms of great FPS? Half Life 2 which I still consider to be the best single player shooter available still.
I think both Half Life and Halo CE shaped the industry together because now BOTH platforms are loaded with FPS games because every dev looks at the success of both, and wants to cash in on it.
skrat_01
I'll be blunt.No way Halo had better level design - even including Half Life's plain poor Xen sections.
And saying that Silent Cartographer and Assault on the Control Room are some of the my favourite levels in a shooter.
Levels like Blast Pit, in Half Life still remain better than the vast majority of shooter levels nowadays. Which from a design perspective - is damn frighting.
For uni I had a good look through the design structure of shooter level design including the above, and to say the least the creativty and thought process involved for that era isn't like anything else. Still, the Silent Cartographer had an amazing spiral design to its core structure - something else so far ahead of many shooters; and its own sequels.
Anyway options? I dont understand, but tools - I disagree. Halo did have a nice variety of weapons, however i'd again argue Half Life was in front. Things like laser trip mines and Snarks changed the gameplay dynamics quite dramatically - and of course you can factor in environmental assets that you could use (e.g. mounted guns, artillery etc.) Heck the grenades alone - the way the a.i. would suppress, then flush you out with grenades (or even being able to cook grenades)...
I personally thought level design was better in Halo because the levels were larger, so they were filled with a lot of rocks, buildings, trees, etc. Looked nicer imo. While Half Life had "some" somewhat complex areas overall imo the level design for all of Half Life combined was inferior to Halo CE. Being able to explore them in flying vehicles was also a plus. Both shooters are linear, but the huge scale of the levels in Halo made it so you were able to attack enemies from multiple areas rather than just at the end of a hallway or something. I remember spending hours on some areas that were very challenging for me and my brother, and it was incredibly fun with how many different strategies we had to use before we could progress.
Options. I will admit I did forget about Snarks, but Halo had turrets, vehicles, guns, grenades, melee, and within each category you've got plasma weapons that all do various things like slow down vehicles and drop shields, your normal rifles/shotguns/pistols, frag grenades and stickies, and passenger vehicles, and flying vehicles. Basically every weapon changed how you'd play the game, and some weapons, like plasma grenades, would affect the grunts differently than the elites so even just the way you used weapons would change up the entire game. Then throw in co-op. You've just changed the game that much more.
In terms of a game Halo CE topped Half Life. Half Life is great, but Halo CE really did take EVERYTHING about Half Life that was good, and incorporated it. Not to mention Bungie made the controls incredibly good for a controller.
Half Life did shape the industry a lot more especially after mods like CS came out, but since Halo CE came out people have been comparing to Halo, not Half Life. Devs want to be as successful as Bungie with their games.
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