Halo: ODST full price thanks to “ambition,” says MS

No, its full price because its Halo FULLSTOP

milk. milk,milk,milk,milk

Milk, milk, lemonade, round the corner, chocolate’s made!

They were always going to suffer with this after previously announcing that it was basically just an expansion.

Well, they can charge whatever they like. On the other hand we get to vote with our wallets. Surely the fact that it has Halo on its title puts it near the top of the retail chain, however, it could get discounted at some point (even the mighty Halo 3 did), so anyone who thinks it’s overpriced can choose to wait.

It would be nice, though, if they kept their word and released it cheaper…

If a prospective price had never been discussed no one would be batting an eyelid. Not that I don’t understand why people are in a bit of huff, of course, but it’s down to the perception of a broken promise as opposed to judging the game on its actual content.

Its just MS being money grabbers like they always have been, make live free that’ll be good but will never happen in the near future. if the ps3 got to the same height as the ps2 in sales and M$ stagnated then they prob would.

Honnestly, MS could charge double that price for it and it’ll still sell.

I’m the idiot that’ll buy it without wincing.

So is it actually a full game now instead of an expansion? Because I guess full price is fine providing it’s actually a full game.

They had me at hello.

Is it open world?

Open world? No, whats triggered that question?

instead of getting ripped off on this halo expansion go buy a psp go.

I think I remember reading somewhere that they made it open world, so you could do missions in any order that you wanted to, etc.

Would be an easy way to add hours and add some cookie cutter missions for added ‘value’…

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=201842

Yeah, I wasn’t wrong.

G1GAHURTZ, it isn’t open world in the GTA sense but it appears that there is a certain non-linearity to the game. When playing as the Recruit in the night time city you’re essentially navigating a large hub area from which all the flashback sequences — where you play as the other members of the squad — are accessed.

Going off the E3 presentation of the game it’s implied that the order in which you choose to investigate points of interest, the places you head to in order to start each flashback, is up to the player. Exactly how open the structure of the game will be is unclear at the moment, though.

Edit: Oh. I probably shouldn’t have gone and made a cup of tea midway through writing that.

Halo is only generic insofar as everyone copied it. If you don’t like it then that’s fine, but in terms of influence its right up there with the original Half-Life.

the halo bum boys will no doubt buy this up regardless of the price

Thanks Aimless.

Multiplayer.

TBH, FPS is my favourite genre, and I even buy the average games just to add to my collection, but I’ve never really seen what all the fuss was about with Halo.

The first one was good, but not amazing IMHO. The second one, I got to a bit where the cutscene informed me that I had to backtrack through a really boring bit that had just taken me ages, and I don’t remember bothering to try and get any further after that.

The 3rd one I played for the MS points, but pretty much had to force myself to do it months after I bought it.

I even gave the Halo 3 MP yet another go the other day, but compared to other online shooters, it’s not my proverbial cupper.

Too light and soft and floaty for my liking.

Not enough OOMPH!!!

But, having said all that, no-one can dispute that it’s the most played game on Xbox Live, and it has masses and masses of loyal fanboys who don’t seem to be able to get enough of it.

The way I see it, the 10′s and all the review hype is just the best way to draw the fanboys in, get the hits and sell the premium memberships.

“Exactly, but I just don’t understand why it’s so bloody popular! I’d really like to know what I’m missing.”

Sometimes that just happens and I wouldn’t even try to understand if I were you. People just like different things…

I really don’t rate Zelda games for instance.

Two weapon limit. Interplay between weapons; reduce shield with plasma, finish off with bullets. Melee attack with any weapon, plus stealth kills. Prominence of grenades on the controller, and consequentially moment-to-moment play. Recharging health. Open, pre-populated combat arenas that didn’t rely on trigger points. Optional and intelligently integrated vehicles as opposed to predefined sections. AI that wasn’t psychic. Elites, enemies that were the player’s equal. Hierarchy of enemy types that needed to be approached in different ways. Set the standard for FPS controls on a control pad.

I won’t even go into the online side of things.

Aimless in regards to halo 3 it only did small changes and the base game remained the same from previous versions. Its the worst MP experience in my opinion and the single player is dire.

Here come the Halo wars… and not the RTS type.

Ding Ding round 1

David hardly seems to like any games, so it’s no suprise he doesn’t like Halo either.

Whether you like it or not is irrelevant. My point is that it either pioneered or popularised many of the cornerstones of the modern first-person shooter, ergo it is no more generic than Mario 64.

True Halo 3 builds upon the base gameplay of its predecessors, but that’s because it’s a videogame sequel. Unlike other mediums they are by their very nature iterative. If we’re suddenly going to take the stance that new games in a series need to be a huge departure from the last I guess we can discount Modern Warfare 2, Forza 3, Mass Effect 2, God of War III and Uncharted 2 right now, eh?

I dunno about all that tbh, Aimless.

The way I see it, all Halo did was put FPS in the hands of the masses by doing a very good job on a console.

Arguably, all it did was become a ‘GoldenEye killer’, as others have tried to become a ‘Halo Killer’ since.

It’s funny watching people suddenly become indifferent to ‘big company overcharging for a product’ that were spitting blood a few days ago.

/subscribes to snappygamer RSS feed. Bookmarks space-giraffe posts.

This will be as influential to console FPSs as the original HALO was back when. It is a complete reboot of the genre. Adtually it is more like a new genre upon itself. THIS is what all FPSs, both console and PC, will be like in the future.

OF COURSE it will cost $60. For what you get that is rather cheap. The way it is made there will be no need for any other games purchases this gen or the next. If you want the most intense single player action game ever Halo: ODST is the game for you.

If you want the best on-line multiplayer game ever conceived Halo: ODST is the game for you. If you want a slow tactical squadbased shooter Halo: ODST is the game for you. If you loved Halo Wars Halo: ODST is the game for you. If you liked LBP Halo: ODST is the game for you.

Even care bears and casuals will find tons of value in this seminal title.

Aimless: Your opinions are well thought out, informed, educated and open-minded…

…so don’t expect most of the cynical fanboys that populate this site to be able to understand or appreciate it.

My guess is they’ve increased the campaign by a few hours and done a few more multiplayer maps, precisely to avoid it being called or looking like a spin-off. I also suspect the Bungie guys are having fun doing a game that’s somewhat set apart from the storyline and mechanics they’ve been building on for the last few games. Part of convincing people a game isn’t a reheated spin-off is not pricing it as one. The issue isn’t so much whether or not to get riled up at being overcharged for a product, but whether they’re overcharging for it in the first place.

We’ll see, the core gameplay of Halo is passably fun, I’m interested to see what they’ll do with it, given the last years slew of excellent shooters to take influence from.

I’m just a Halo fanboy, really. So I’ve got not justification or reasonable excuses for me shelling out (almost) whatever MS deems necessary to charge.

“Exactly, but I just don’t understand why it’s so bloody popular! I’d really like to know what I’m missing.”

MS bought up an exciting PC exclusive, the hype for the first Halo was enormous because it looked great for its time and it seemed like Bungie wanted it to be like an accessible version of Tribes (vehicular multiplayer and singleplayer FPS gameplay) plus a “shoot-the-alien” campaign.

They basically kept building on that big-budget-shooter-made-in-USA-while-evoking-Aliens-style-on-a-not-too-fiddly-machine-supported-by-American-company-with-all-Western-games-on-it feeling all the way and screwed the hand that fed them in the first place (PC platform) while doing so.

Halo was meant to be a PC? I heard it was first headed to PS2…

It was even meant to be an RTS. PS2? Didn’t hear that one that yet. All I know is pretty much every PC game magazine got psyched about Halo, they even wrote articles on the Xbox before its release, the fools.

Halo on PS2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80PCRw-asGc
It was going to be a third person shooter.

No… Halo was initially developed for the Sega Dreamcast, since Sega and MS were partners. When the Dreamcast died, the project moved on to MS’s Xbox, which came out a year or two after.

From IGN:
“A sci-fi shooter that takes place on a mysterious alien ring world, Halo: Combat Evolved is an action-packed experience that allows players to battle their enemies on foot and in vehicles with alien and human weaponry. The production of Halo has a long and tumultuous history. The title was originally designed as a breakthrough game for Apple’s Mac systems, and console versions of the game also became a high-priority project for the development team when it signed with Take-Two.
As all PlayStation 2 owners are aware, however, production on Halo was shifted immediately to an Xbox version in 2000 when Take-Two Interactive sold its 20% share of developer Bungie to Microsoft. Thereby solidifying Halo’s position as an Xbox and PC exclusive (with a Mac port much, much later on) forever.”

Aha, well that shuts me up then. At least for that early period of the game. MS still screwed PC though.