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Games Entertainment

Bungie Vs. Miyamoto - Fight! 379

Last week Gamehead's Geoff Keighley interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto, and the well-known designer tossed off a mildly controversial comment. Keighley asked him if he felt as though he was losing touch with the American audience as a result of the popularity of games like Halo. GameDaily reports on Miyamoto's response: "I could make Halo. It's not that I couldn't design that game. It's just that I choose not to. One thing about my game design is that I never try to look for what people want and then try to make that game design. I always try to create new experiences that are fun to play." Bungie took exception to that, and Frank Connor retorted in his interview with Joystiq: "Yeah, well. I just want to go on the record and say that Bungie is hard at work on a side-scrolling platform game featuring some plumbers -- I'm not going to say what their ethnicity is, it's none of anyone's business -- but we took that as a gauntlet, a sort of glove slap, and we're going to respond in 2D scrolling style. That's all I'm saying." We discussed that article, along with several other pieces of Halo 3 coverage, this past Saturday.
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Bungie Vs. Miyamoto - Fight!

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  • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday May 14, 2007 @12:39PM (#19115885) Homepage Journal
    Halo is not a revolutionary game by any stretch of the imagination. One could have had the same result trivially by starting with any of the common first person shooter engines, and working from there. The fact that the same is true of Super Mario Brothers, a game made years and years ago (an eternity in video game land) is not even interesting.
  • Not news (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @12:46PM (#19116051) Journal
    Stuff like this belongs in drivel like "Hello" and over celebrity gossip magazines, NOT Slashdot.

    It has no merit what so ever.
  • by Swordsmanus ( 921213 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @12:48PM (#19116091) Homepage
    If Miyamoto has heard Connor's "retort", I'm sure he laughed. Connor could be taken seriously if he said he was coming up with something new and fun that will sell just as well as Halo. Instead he said he intends to make something that he already knows people want, by implying he's going to copy Miyamoto's years-old idea, Super Mario Bros. Given the sales of New Super Mario Bros., I don't blame him. But he reaffirmed Miaymoto's comment, not countered it.
  • by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @12:50PM (#19116123)
    Bungie was compromised after Microsoft bought it out. Microsoft's design theory is to copy everyone else, re-package it as something brand new, and get it right in version three.
  • by mjbinon ( 1099409 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @12:56PM (#19116259)
    What did he say that's supposedly so controversial? He spoke the truth, nothing more.

    All but the most diehard fanboys will admit that Halo was never anything truly revolutionary, but rather just a so-so generic sci-fi FPS that just happened to come out for hotly hyped up-and-coming new console. The first game suffered from HORRIBLE interior design and bland gameplay, and the second had a nearly-universally decried terrible ending.

    If not for the fact that the Halo series succeeded so well in making the first enjoyable console FPS multiplayer experience since Goldeneye, complete with fairly (compared to some games) balanced multiplay, and the fortunate happenstance of colliding with the excellent idea that was XboxLive!, the games would have been destined to be little more than a footnote in gaming history, rather than the sales juggernaut into which obscenity-screaming 12-year old gamers have turned it.

    Personally, I'd rather play Half-Life 2 or its multiplayer components on my PC, but that's just me, and I don't begrudge Halo for the successful niche it has carved for itself.
  • by _bug_ ( 112702 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @12:58PM (#19116281) Journal
    Halo is like the Porsche 911 [wikipedia.org]. The next incarnation will feature a few new tricks to give the die-hards something to talk about, but to the average Joe they just look like the same thing over and over. If you've played one Halo you know what the experience is going to be like for all the others. It's just being tweaked a bit here and there to improve the performance.

    Bungie is the Porsche of the gaming world.

    Miyamoto seems to look for something new with each game. Trying to find new ways to engage the user. He comes at each one with a flair and a passion. He's not doing the same thing over and over. Some games work. Some don't. But you do have a wide variety of games to choose from that caters to your particular interests.

    Miyamoto (Nintendo) is the Ferrari of the gaming world.

    Rounding out the analogy Blizzard is the TVR [wikipedia.org] of the gaming world. Love-it or hate-it design, completely insane and riddled with problems, yet you can't help but keep playing.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:02PM (#19116385)
    I'd say that Pikmin was pretty original (a modern Miyamoto creation). Not to mention that SMB, much like Donkey Kong, Zelda, and a lot of other Nintendo properties were original when they were created.

    Speaking ill of a legend like Miyamoto is not something I would do, and I think the guy at Bungie comes off a little arrogant for doing so.

    Disclaimer: The last Nintendo console I bought was an SNES, so I don't think I could be counted as a Nintendo fanboy.
  • by aichpvee ( 631243 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:03PM (#19116417) Journal
    Halo isn't even particularly good. The multiplayer is rather uninspired, filled with tiny levels, uninteresting weapons, a pitiful player cap, and run-of-the-mill game modes. The single player is simply horrid with some of the most lazy, pedestrian level design ever put in a game that lasted more than a week outside the bargain bin.

    The fact that Miyamoto, clearly one of the most inspired game designers to ever live, even bothered to compare his work to theirs should be more than they could ever want. From their game designs they clearly don't deserve that much respect.

    Maybe Miyamoto should start up a "hardcore" FPS game, though. Because even if it were the worst game he'd ever designed it'd still mop the floor with anything Bungie has put out this century.
  • by Notquitecajun ( 1073646 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:07PM (#19116513)
    For me, it's the multiplayer. It's easier to get some of your boys and their XBox's together on 2-3 tv's than a LAN party where you have to tote around a PC or worry over a laptop. Setup and takedown are faster on a console.

    Gameplay is relatively easy, cheating is minimal, and there are TONS of customizable options to set up whatever competition you want to do easily (the BIGGEST bonus).
  • by u-bend ( 1095729 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:08PM (#19116527) Homepage Journal
    Wow, he really comes off as downright peevish, no? I mean, even if Miyamoto's comment wasn't out of context, and he meant exactly what he said, the response turns out feeling really childish. Get a grip, dude. Your game's *really* popular. Just because somebody else says he wouldn't make it, doesn't mean you need to get your panties in a twist. And then, as a previous poster says, he basically affirms Miyamoto by saying he's going to copy an old design. Huh. I guess his PR fluffer didn't have him ready.
  • by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:10PM (#19116579)
    Miyamoto is Da Vinci to Bungie's Bob Ross - both do excellent work, and while Bungie has much better hair, Miyamoto's work is more varied.
  • by spocksbrain ( 1097145 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:11PM (#19116595)
    It's true, and the reason Halo has become so widely popular is because it's x-box platform release and simple controls/interface has made it more easily accessable to a larger and more diverse audience than superior (or regarded by critics as such) PC FPS games.


    It's a similar situation to the Final Fantasy franchise, more specifically FF 7. While everybody and their sister who grew up in the 90's will swear that FF 7 was the greatest RPG ever made, they probably never even heard of Baulders Gate, Fallout, or NETHACK.

  • by SetupWeasel ( 54062 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:12PM (#19116619) Homepage
    2. Before Halo there wasn't a single decent FPS on a console, just a whole bunch of shitty ports of PC FPS games.

    Except, of course, for Goldeneye.
  • by Knuckles ( 8964 ) <knuckles@@@dantian...org> on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:23PM (#19116857)
    but I'd like to know why Halo is considered by a fairly large population to be a great game

    It came out for the Xbox and found a large population of teens that never had played another FPS.
  • by 7Prime ( 871679 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:32PM (#19117027) Homepage Journal
    Different genre. There are really two different RPG genres out there and they have almost COMPLETELY different fanbases. Trying to compare the two is really absurred. I'm not particularly defending FF7 here (I think it's highly overrated, myself... although I am a fan of the rest of the series).

    Where you might say, "Think FF7 is a real RPG? Try playing Baulder's Gate or Nethack", I might say, "Think FF7 is a real RPG? Try playing Tales of the Abyss or Ar Tonelico". Seriously, we're talking apple's and oranges here.

    East vs. West, Console vs. PC, RPG vs. jRPG... each side takes a different spin on tabletop gaming... jRPGs concentrate on the story element, western RPGs capitalize on non-linearity. Whichever you think works better is up to the audience.

    I personally would fall asleep 10 minutes into Baulder's gate. Ar Tonelico might make you do the same.
  • Disclaimer: The last Nintendo console I bought was an SNES, so I don't think I could be counted as a Nintendo fanboy.

    Well you could just be looking at the question through the lens of nostalgia.
  • by 7Prime ( 871679 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:37PM (#19117163) Homepage Journal
    Miyamoto has never had any dealings with Metroid... original series or Prime.

    And seriously, MP is NOT a first person shooter. It may technically fit the bill, but that's only a technicality. The types of skills it requires and the fanbase are nothing like Halo or Counterstrike. It's basically a sci-fi Zelda where the camera happens to be first person... One look at the tastes of its fanbase will cue you in.

    Here's a clue, if something's commonly called "the first-person shooter for people who hate first-person shooters". And people who love FPSs hate the game... then maybe it really ain't a first person shooter at all, it just looks like one.
  • by Bob-taro ( 996889 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:38PM (#19117175)
    Halo is not a revolutionary game by any stretch of the imagination.

    Not the graphics, or story, or control scheme, but as I understand it the physics engine was pretty advanced. I was following Halo 1 development and one of their mottos was "better gaming through physics". I was very disappointed when Bungie was bought by MS. I didn't play Halo until it came out for the PC and by then it was definitely nothing new. I just can't bring myself to play a FPS with a gamepad. I mean, that's just WRONG!

  • by grumbel ( 592662 ) <grumbel+slashdot@gmail.com> on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:46PM (#19117357) Homepage
    Halo added the automatic recharging shild to the FPS genre, so no more collecting health packs, it also added a realistic limit on how many weapons you can carry, vehicles and separate buttons for melee attacks and grenades, thus making them actually usable instead of rotting in your inventory as in so many games before. It also was also a very important title for console network gaming and had a nice original setting (no WWII, no hell with monster). You might not like Halo and I am not a big fan of it either, but it did add plenty to the FPS genre, some of which are considered standard elements today, which they however weren't back then when Halo was released.

    Compared to HalfLife2 I found Halo pretty original and innovative, compared to the likes of DeusEx, OperationFlashpoint, Riddick or HalfLife1 not so much, but its still far from the shovelware WWII shooter.
  • East vs. West, Console vs. PC, RPG vs. jRPG... each side takes a different spin on tabletop gaming... jRPGs concentrate on the story element, western RPGs capitalize on non-linearity. Whichever you think works better is up to the audience.

    Excellent observation.

    And for what it's worth, I'd like to point out that popularity is a pretty complex issue. We seem to operate under the assumption that it's some kind of direct relationship to quality or some other simplistic explanation (e.g. like how good the controls are). The modern narrative about popularity when it comes to art is that blockbusters are kind of mundane and inoffensive with enough explosions/sex/(pick your easily reproduced element to look down on) while the *real* talent shows up in indie/niche creations that you have to be intelligent/free-thinking/(pick your vaguely cool counter-cultural trait) enough to really get.

    And while I'll agree that Creed and Nickelback basically suck, the Beatles and Pink Floyd were really good. So sometimes the popular stuff really is good, and sometimes the niche stuff really isn't (no example here: not looking for a flamewar).

    FWIW, Halo is my favorite game of all time on any system. From NES, Sega, SNES, PS, XBOX, GC, Wii, 360 (consoles I've played) and over a decade of PCs, I prefer Halo. Why? The story. Just visit ILoveBees.com and you'll get a glimpse of the thought and talent that goes into the world creation. Does this have anything to do with how popular the game is? There's no way to know. Did they get the gameplay just right? Hit the market at just the right time? Was the story good enough to develop an initial core of fans who pushed the game to the frat boys that made it a blockbuster? We'll never know, in my opinion, and the only lesson is that oversimplifying popularity is for fanbois and trolls.

    Now go listen to "Indier than Thou."
  • by ePhil_One ( 634771 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @01:51PM (#19117445) Journal
    Halo isn't really even new. It's very much a lot like the game Marathon, only with better graphics and physics.

    It is by and large Marathon 4/5/6, there's plenty of evidence it takes place in the same Universe, etc, and is only separated by a large amount of time. Since they also created Marathon, this isn't a huge shock. Marathon was groundbreaking mostly in that it brought an interesting storyline to a FPS game, other than that it was really Mac;s answer to Doom. Of course, Doom was just a revampled Castle Wolfenstien 3-D, which was a 3-D version of an old Apple II game, which probably traced its roots back to the old Bezerker game (which never bothered to explain why you were in a maze running from deadly robots), which probably draws inspiration from an old movie, which was inspired by an old story, which was...

  • by Osty ( 16825 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:30PM (#19118099)

    Wow, he really comes off as downright peevish, no? I mean, even if Miyamoto's comment wasn't out of context, and he meant exactly what he said, the response turns out feeling really childish.

    Holy crap! It was a joke, people. A joke! He was essentially saying that they don't care, and was having a little bit of fun with it, having a little bit of fun with people like you who take this crap so seriously.

    Frankie is the guy who draws Mister Chief [wikipedia.org] as a parody of Master Chief. He's the guy who usually does the weekly updates at Bungie.net [bungie.net], in which he takes sarcastic potshots at Bungie, community members, etc. along with providing serious news about what's going on at Bungie.

    In short, if you're complaining that Frankie came off as "childish" in this interview, you totally missed the point. Moreover, you probably ought to take a close look at yourself, if your reaction to a little fun poke at Potatamoto [vgcats.com] is to think the guy making the joke is childish and peevish.

  • by Zarxrax ( 652423 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:36PM (#19118243)
    Actually, Goldeneye had a number of different control schemes you could choose from. There was one where you could use the C-buttons for movement and the analog stick for aiming, the same scheme that had been done before in Turok. It worked extremely well for me, and honestly I think its probably the best controlling FPS I have ever played on a console. When you get into halo and such, you are dealing with having to work 2 analog sticks which I guess might work for some, but I just cant do it. It's kinda like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. But basically what I'm saying is I don't feel like Halo revolutionized console FPS controls in any way, because the same basic schemes were around before, just having to use buttons instead of a second stick.
  • by Chosen Reject ( 842143 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:47PM (#19118515)
    What are you even talking about? I played Halo before I had even heard of any hype for it. I did it solo, and co-op. The ONLY thing I liked about it better than any other game I had played was the co-op. It wasn't that spectacular, it still isn't that spectacular. There is ONLY one thing that make it so big, and that is the hype. I know people who will prattle on about it forever like it was God's gift to mankind. They can never tell me what's good about it. Every time they try I tell them about lots of other games that have what they are talking about. You want story, go to Half-Life, you want multi-player, see Counter-Strike. You might say that Halo combined those two, but I would say that when you are playing Halo for story, you are not playing multi-player and vice versa, so that point is irrelevant.

    The graphics on Halo suck. At the time Halo 1 was getting really popular I got into a discussion about the graphics with a roommate. He was comparing Jedi Outcast at 1600x1200 with Halo at 640x480 and saying that Halo was better. This is the kind of mentality that most Halo fans have. To them, Halo is "Just Better(TM)." I had to just ignore him, as I've had to do with everyone else who says anything about Halo's graphics being good at all. Jedi Outcast was not even trying to be a graphics power house, it was running off an old engine and it still looked better with a Radeon 7200.

    Level Design? My goodness, man, what are you smoking. Have you even played the library level? After about two minutes you don't even know which direction you're going, which direction you came from, and you can't even count how many times you've seen the exact same stuff over and over again and again. The maps on the ships aren't much better. Sure there are big areas outdoors, but those are repetitive as well, they just don't feel like it when compared to the monotony you just sustained from every indoor environment.

    I don't know how the control scheme compares with other console FPS, but I didn't think it was all that great. It was fine, but the only thing I thought even worth mentioning about it was that you could throw a grenade without having to switch to that weapon. I won't get into a comparison between control schemes for PC-based and console-based games, because that's been done, and is somewhat irrelevant to why Halo was popular on a console, but there wasn't anything special about the controls.

    Multi-player is kind of hard to judge. There are lots of games that have better. Comparing time played, as of right now, Counter-Strike has over 5 billion minutes of play logged each month. Adding in CS:S and CS:CZ nets closer to 7.5 billion minutes each month. Since it's inception, Xbox live has logged a total of 2.3 billion hours, or to put it in similar units, 138 billion minutes. Let's be generous and pretend that Halo 2 accounted for every last minute (Halo 1 wasn't on Xbox Live so we can't include it). It would take Counter-Strike 18 months to equal that. IOW, one game does in 18 months what an entire service does in 72. Yet we don't have Counter-strike in the headlines every couple of days do we?

    That's somewhat off-topic however. The thing Halo has going for it, I conjecture, might be that it has no bots. People are forced to play with others if they are going to do it at all. But then you'd be crazy to play it on the same box. You get 640x480 divided by 4. A whopping 320x240 in all of its interlaced glory. I did that once, every one talked about how cool it was. I was too busy trying to adjust my eyes to being able to see what I was even looking at. I must say that I enjoyed my time despite the screen size, but that's called a party. It wasn't because of Halo. I would have had a much more enjoyable experience playing UT, Trackmania, or any other game where we each have our own screen, or where the screen is shared more efficiently, such as Wii sports or something. I hate to be a poor sport, but the reason we have Halo stories all the time is beca
  • by LandoCalrizzian ( 887264 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @02:50PM (#19118565)
    The greatness of Halo is equivalent to the greatness of a summer movie blockbuster. It's designed to get your $50, entertain you for 10+ hours then leave you waiting for the sequel.

    Halo is not a great game, it's a great console game because it was the first console FPS to come close to the quality and presention of a PC FPS. Anyone who's played Quake/Unreal Tournament knows what true FPS action but anyone who's only played console games, Halo is the best you'll ever get.
  • by rjung2k ( 576317 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @03:00PM (#19118767) Homepage
    "Halo is not a revolutionary game by any stretch of the imagination... The fact that the same is true of Super Mario Brothers, a game made years and years ago (an eternity in video game land) is not even interesting."

    True, but the difference is that Super Mario Bros. was revolutionary when it was first introduced, as evident by the numerous SMB clones that followed in its wake. I'm hard-pressed to think of a popular game that played like SMB before SMB was introduced.

    Halo, on the other hand, was just the latest iteration of a long line of FPS inspired by Doom and Wolfenstein 3D.
  • Not a Slight (Score:2, Insightful)

    by epistemiclife ( 1101021 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @03:03PM (#19118835)
    Despite how hyped up this story would seem to be, as others have noted, it does not appear that Miyamoto was, in fact, attempting to insult Bungie or suggest that Halo is easy to design; he was simply saying that he could make something similar, but he chooses not to do so. Different game developers have different styles: As Miyamoto has shown with titles like Pikmin and others, he likes to experiment with new ideas, when he has inspiration. Sega, while it was once more so like this, during its more quirky Saturn-Dreamcast era, also tends to take this hit-or-miss approach. The result is, like with most basic, original research, ingenious ideas with a sometimes flawed, immature result. Take Mario Sunshine, for example, on the Nintendo end, or Shenmue, on the Sega end. Every once in awhile, one will strike gold, with a Pikmin, a Zelda, a Panzer Dragoon, or a Rez. While following convention may result in a less flawed game, it will not be anything revolutionary. For better or for worse, the innovators in the game industry are often lambasted because of their "flawed" games, when their less creative counterparts later take the concept, refine it, and receive heaps of praise. I think that Miyamoto, fortunately, has the credibility to be given the benefit of the doubt, unlike less-known experimentalists. Even if he weren't so disposed, it would seem that he would rather be creative and true to his own artistic sensibilities than pander to game reviewers who pounce on anything which is not completely mature.
  • by johncadengo ( 940343 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @03:22PM (#19119165) Homepage
    I lot of people are pointing out that Frank mistook Miyamoto's comment.

    I think a lot of people are mistaking Frank's comment. It doesn't seem like he's retorting, as people put it, but instead making a sly-sarcastic remark. He not affirming Miyamoto's point (that he just finds what people like and makes that), he's replying to Miyamoto's remark (I can make Halo, but choose not to) with his own remark: I could('ve) made Mario, but choose not to.

    Yes, he states, "We are hard at work on a side-scrolling platform game..." But we know he's not. It's obviously a joke. He could be hard at work on that side-scroller, but he chooses not to. He's hard at work on Halo. And that's that.
  • by JebusIsLord ( 566856 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @03:35PM (#19119449)
    Actually, 2nd person would be if the camera was held by those you're shooting at. That would be fairly disorienting.
  • Well, duh. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mattgreen ( 701203 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @03:45PM (#19119675)
    What should they have played? Doom? Quake? Your favorite FPS game? But what difference would it have made? What happened is gaming went mainstream, and Halo is one of the titles that did it. It was lucky, but it is a solid title on its own. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out, but somehow, this discussion comes up every time Halo is discussed here. I don't think people really want to discuss it, but rather complain to an audience that is likely to identify with their gaming angst. It is as if there is this unspoken dislike of something that hit the mainstream that you personally didn't approve of.

    Me, I haven't found a FPS game that I like as much as Tribes 1, which is quite old. I can still have some fun in other FPS games, though. Video games are so meaningless, however, that I find it hard to be engrossed in them, and really have to wonder why people get so worked up over how good they are, or which game is popular.
  • by ebingo ( 533762 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @03:46PM (#19119705)
    Well, people can love FF7 if only for the entertainment they got from it and still have heard/played/loved FF6, Chrono Trigger and other games from Squaresoft (and any RPG for that matter). It's not exclusive. In fact, nothing is exclusive when considering tastes. I'm a huge fan of FPS on PCs, but still I loved MP and MP Echoes.
  • Halo's popularity (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:03PM (#19120051)

    ...the popularity of games like Halo.

    I've said this in a previous comment, but Halo wasn't some universally popular hit. For some reason, it was very heavily hyped by the gaming press to give that impression, but the original Xbox tied with the Gamecube at only 15% of the market, so not that many have played it. Probably as many who have played Metroid Prime.

    Maybe Halo 3 will be different, but if there's a relatively small fanbase waiting for it (compared to, say, Grand Theft Auto), how big could the third one be?

    Off-topic question--has anyone asked Bungie if they're out of touch with Japanese audiences? The 360 is essentially dead there.
  • by C0rinthian ( 770164 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:11PM (#19120215)
    You havn't played halo I think. Or if you did, you didn't pay much attention.

    Level Design: Yes, the library sucked. Most of the game was quite good, but lets ignore that because 2-3 levels were repetitive. It's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Halo and Half-Life are both on a rail, and both fairly obvious about it.

    Weapons: The only innovation is the gravity gun. Crowbar? Melee weapon. Crossbow? Functionally a sniper rifle. However, Halo let you use a weapon, melee, and grenades without inventory switching. The weapons themselves were stock, (And HL2 has the generic pistol, rifle, etc too) but the usage was fundamentally different in a way noone else had done before. Also, Halo rockets were guided against vehicles, just not real-time. (Lock on, fire)

    Story: None of Halo, and only 10% of Halo 2 take place on Earth. Halo = Running like hell from Aliens 'A', crashing on unknown object, releasing Aliens 'B', then dealing with A and B (and A gets to deal with B too) while trying to prevent Mysterious Race 'C' from blowing up the galaxy to clean up your mess. At some points you have 4 factions going at it in Halo. Humans, Covenant, Flood, Forerunner. It's alot more complex than you pretend it is.

    Half Life = Aliens take over world, resistance fights back. Cliche. (To give it the same treatment you gave Halo)

    Storytelling: Both are advanced with ingame cutscenes. Half Life gives you camera control for some of them, Halo gives you camera control for some of them. Halo had some cinematic breaks in the action. Thats called 'different' not 'better'.

    Multiplayer: I won't disagree with using the gravity gun + heavy objects. But a plasma grenade to the face is incredibly satisfying. And I didn't have to put away my gun to do it.

    Both great games, both brought new stuff to the table. It's sad that your fanboyism blinded you. One thing I will give Halo, it didn't interrupt my gameplay for obvious physics puzzles.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:39PM (#19120725)
    I remember SMB when it was known as Pitfall.
  • Re:Not news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shadow Wrought ( 586631 ) * <shadow@wrought.gmail@com> on Monday May 14, 2007 @04:59PM (#19121075) Homepage Journal
    So, since you don't like it, it doesn't belong here? Since its already got a couple hundred comments, I think others would disagree. If you don't like it, why bother reading it and commenting on it? Just move on next time.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14, 2007 @05:48PM (#19121875)

    Keep in mind this is all platforms for all time, competing against greats like Mario Bros on the NES, Tetris on the Gameboy, The Sims on the PC, and Grand Theft Auto on the PS2. Ranking 16 and 25th for all time is no small feat.
    Ah yes, back in the day when video gaming was a small enough narket that selling a million copies was a Big Deal....
  • by PhoenixAtlantios ( 991132 ) on Monday May 14, 2007 @09:31PM (#19124527)
    I don't believe comparing a game that was released in a different sized market with one released today is a fair comparison at all; the gaming market has increased substantially since the days of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the original Mario Brothers. Mario 64 sold more copies than Super Mario Kart, but does that mean it was better or that the market was simply larger? There's more people going to see movies in cinemas these days than there was thirty years ago but does that mean movie quality has increased or just the number of cinema goers?

    I'd like to see a comparison between the games based on the time in which they were released, not just raw numbers.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 14, 2007 @09:31PM (#19124529)
    Miyamoto has at least 53 games on that list. I don't know how many Bungie has on the list (at least 2), but my guess is that it's less than 53. Was it petty for Miyamoto to make those comments about Halo? Sure. Is anyone in the gaming industry in a better position to judge the merit of a game's design? Probably not.

    -Lee

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