With Halo 3: ODST coming to blow the minds of Xbox 360 fans, Microsoft has been kissing Bungie's arse like you wouldn't believe. ODST producer Alex Cutting is the one with the brownest nose, declaring that Bungie polishes its games like nobody else, and explaining why the studio is so brilliant to work with.
"Bungie is an awesome partner. They say this a lot, and I believe it, they make the games they want to play," he declares. "What’s cool about Halo games is, you can be a year out from their actual street date, and the game’s playable. People are actually playing the game at that point. We can watch people play, and we can get 60 people’s feedback on just one experience in that game and polish that thing and hone it until it’s triple A quality.
"Not many people can do that. A lot of people who are just getting a game engine off of the ground don’t have the ability to iterate on an experience like that. Bungie is all about gameplay. They spend more time polishing gameplay than anyone I’ve ever seen.
"They also have incredible artists. The skies and the environments in that game are in my opinion unequalled. They’re a triple A talent up and down, from design to art to execution, they’re awesome. Everything Bungie puts on the table is awesome"
Jesus Christ, dude. If you love Bungie that much, why don't you marry them? Seriously, I've seen some marketing hyperbole in my time, but I've never seen an executive speak as if he is in actual love with a studio. Like, real, romantic, "I'll kill myself if you don't return my calls" love. If I were Bungie, I'd be checking outside at night to make sure Alex Cutting wasn't pawing through my garbage.
Contest:
11:20 AM on 09.09.2009
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And that header by the way? Very tasteful. Only in a Jim Sterling post.
LOL MS gamming studio = joke LOL
Lol.
I would say Bungie are one of the better developers out there, even if they put annoying user-made maps in the hoppers.
Elvis was totally an Alien too. Quit your bitchin', Nathan Fillion is in this game and that totally kick ass.
I mean of course Bungie helps, but when you can sell a million RTS games with a brand name, on consoles where RTS struggles, I think you can safely say it's the franchise that MS need.
The real test for Bungie will be how their first non halo game will be recieved.
Able to be played with one hand, socially maladjusted gamers like myself will be able to pull their plonkers, issue a fine stringy jet of minging muck-magma, and clean up the pubic marshland without ever having to stop the game.
Cue my obligatory, unfunny, too-much-information ranting about how much I want to shag a videogame character and make love to the actual disc itself, through the little hole in the middle, even though that would be very painful and probably make my gentlemen's quarters resemble pulped mincemeat dipped in menstrual fluid.
Those are just the last three so I don't think you're in the position to talk Jim because this guy's only done it once but with you. There was more.
MUCH MORE.
just remember what happened to sonic and sonic team.
Maybe MS actually feels bad about letting Bungie go? Nah, what am I talking about? MS doesn't feel, silly me.
don't get me wrong, Halo's a good game but i would disagree when you say that bungie is good at "polishing"... First off their is Halo 2, in that Halo 3 is what Halo 2 should have been... Second of all, Halo 3 has it's fair share of shortcomings that could have been polished more. I mean i found that the campaign mode was really much too short; Hell that's something that could have been fixed if they had just made halo 2 and 3 one game instead of 2 separate sequels. And another big point would be the friendly AI being pretty stupid; a little more "polish" could have made a more useful and smarter AI; not to mention i would have really liked being able to set up AI enemies in multiplayer. I also found it a bit odd how the game seemed to get easier as i went on; at first while playing legendary, my friend and i could hardly walk 5 feet before getting blown to bits, but at later levels things got to the point where we questioned if we were still playing on the legendary. And i was kinda disappointed that i never do get to blow up the huge flood plant thing...
Sure most of this comes up in the single player mode and most people love halo for the multiplayer, but that's besides the point as a truly "polished" game would make ALL of their based elements as great as the rest.
The statement about Bungie not really changing the formula since Halo CE. But people got to remember, they're making this game for the people who enjoy the game and its gameplay not the people who bitch about it being a .5 release. And while I'd like to see innovation int he series, I understand that they're choosing the millions who continue to buy their Halo games and support it through DLC ($10 for the map packs is retarded though)and not the vocal minority who just like to go on to Halo threads and bitch about the same things ad nauseum. As far a sales go, it doesn't seem like they're taking too much of a hit by doing this. Despite all the bitching and complaining people are still playing the game. One of the best things about Halo is that I know that if the mood strikes I'll always be ablw to find thousands of other folks o9nline to play with.
I don't mean offense to anyone out there. Its just frustrating reading the same things over, and over, and over....
Fact.
Well considering Halo is commonly rated as "utter flawless perfection and to give it anything less than a 10/10 is an insult", it becomes pretty easy to say it's over rated
Show me a credible source that claims that Halo is "utter flawless perfection".
I don't think any critic of high regard could consider Halo to be a perfect FPS: Sections of the campaign are repetitive and insist you retread old ground. The multiplayer is low on added features, the gametypes are fun but deathmatch staples such as bots, weapon selections and mods are missing and the game has a questionable floaty gravity.
Nonetheless it is a watermark in console FPS titles and deserves much of the praise it gets. You have Halo to thank for the recovery mechanic and limited weapon holding mechanic that features in a lot of FPS titles nowadays, and it was one of the first FPS titles to introduce vehicles, ragdoll physics, outdoor maps and chain explosions.
Well i am mostly referring to "people" who talk of halo and not necessarily anyone credible; though many sites were quick to give Halo 3 10/10 despite it's short comings (a rating i find unworthy due to short comings in the campaign mode alone)... Not to mention there are those up above you claim that bungie is great at polishing a game, and a truly well polished game is something i interpret as being as close to perfect at doing everything it does; but i don't think Halo fits that regard as per some of what i mentioned before, in addition to what you say...
And Actually i think most of what you mentioned about Halo was done first by other FPS games. Looking around i'm hearing tribes beat halo to punch in most of those regards... though halo might have been the first multiplayer game to use limited weapons where as the previous FPS were single player... and i do think it was half life that really got physics rolling...