http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/04/activision-and-bungie-ink-surprising-10-year-publishing-deal.ars

Quote :

"This news certainly wasn't expected: Activision and Bungie have announced a worldwide, ten-year publishing deal that will bring Bungie's games to... well, we don't know yet. From the wording of the release, however, it's clear that the developer's days creating Xbox 360 exclusives are over. In case you're worried about Bungie based on recent events, it looks like the studio will remain in control of its upcoming titles. "Activision will have exclusive, worldwide rights to publish and distribute all future Bungie games based on the new intellectual property on multiple platforms and devices," the release explains. "Bungie remains an independent company and will continue to own their intellectual property. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed." Bungie split from Microsoft in 2007, with Halo Reach being the last game the developer created in that franchise before 343 Industries takes over development of the Halo property. According to the NPD Group, the Halo series has generated over $1.5 billion in revenue. Bungie states that the deal has been in the works for nine months."

I think in the aftermath of MicroSoft taking back the rights for Halo and making their own independant studio for it, its the best thing Bungie could have done. MS did the same thing with Halo for them and look how they've benefited. I think its a bit stupid that they split from MS over Halo, but that remains to be seen how well it works.

4/29/2010 5:49:42 PM

Pitfall for a console!

4/29/2010 6:01:21 PM

Without Microsoft's hyping, Halo would have been relegated to the back of the bargain bins as the outstandingly mediocre FPS it is. They made Bungie's mediocrity famous. So don't go acting like they screwed Bungie over all.

4/29/2010 8:13:45 PM

^ Im not saying MS did. Im saying Bungie is stupid for leaving MS. In most aspects I agree with your statement.

4/29/2010 10:29:23 PM

Halo was the best console FPS when it came out, probably the best since Goldeneye.

4/29/2010 10:40:37 PM

If you don't think that Halo was a great FPS you don't know FPS's

4/29/2010 11:27:21 PM

lurved me some 8v8 system link multiplayer in owen.

4/29/2010 11:27:57 PM

Halo 3 was fucking terrible.




The original and the second were awesome.

4/30/2010 12:08:22 AM

best part of halo 3 was the multiplayer.

4/30/2010 12:16:20 AM

original unreal >>> original halo

4/30/2010 3:11:53 AM

So this contract isn't nearly as extensive as I thought. The language in most releases is a bit ambiguous, but reading carefully you see that Activision isn't necessarily going to be Bungie's sole publisher for the next 10 years.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/108/1086957p1.html
IGN breaks it down.

Quote :

"After a nine-month negotiation period, Bungie has signed an exclusive agreement with Activision that allows the latter company to publish its upcoming non-Halo action franchise on multiple gaming platforms worldwide over the next decade. That's it. Activision does not own Bungie. Activision does not own a percentage of Bungie. Activision will not even own a sliver of Bungie's new intellectual property."

Bungie has a major project in the works, and they have signed a deal allowing Activision to publish this major project, and any other games from the same unspecified IP, for the next 10 years. There's nothing stopping Bungie from publishing games with different IP's for other publishers.

Hell they could even make a new Halo game for Microsoft if they wanted to.

[Edited on May 1, 2010 at 1:51 AM. Reason : ]

5/1/2010 1:50:55 AM

BigEgo: Halo has been consistently mediocre. It isn't bad, but it isn't as special as you think. When I talk about great FPSs, I talk about Half-Life series, Quake 1/2/3, Deus Ex, System Shock series, Tribes 1/2, Thief 1/2, Unreal, UT99/2k3/2k4, etc. Halo is not on the level of any of those.

Also, Goldeneye was only fun as a party game and now as nostalgia. The game suffered from meh single-player and really fucking shitty controls, along with it not really playing all that smoothly.

All that said, inb4 shitstorm.

[Edited on May 1, 2010 at 2:30 AM. Reason : .]

5/1/2010 2:29:30 AM

Deus Ex is an RPG, System Shock and Thief don't really count as pure FPS games either. Quake 3 and all the UT's besides the first were very mediocre. Tribes was original because of the flying but I never thought it was that great.

Halo was awesome for its time, there's no way around it. Also it revolutionized grenades, making them useful and fun, rather than a chore like most games.

5/1/2010 3:11:54 AM

I think it revolutionized melee combat as well, making it more realistic imo.

There's certainly backing behind it's "Combat Evolved" phrase

5/1/2010 12:50:26 PM

ahahah halo revolutionary?

5/1/2010 1:24:15 PM

it was fun as shit tho. while all the games he listed were great, most ppl would put the original halo on that list as well. especially true if we are talking console fps (which ppl can whine and cry about all day, but are perfectly legitimate).

5/1/2010 2:50:03 PM

^^Okay then, name some games pre-Halo that gave you melee options all the time no matter what you were holding (not counting carrying turrets). I honestly can't think of one. Games before Halo aside from maybe Call of Duty (if it even was out then) always gave you 10 weapons to carry (1-0 on the keyboard) and one of those weapons was the default "oh fuck I'm out of ammo", being fists, buzz saw, knife, etc.

Same thing with grenades. They were their own weapon that you had to equip.

5/1/2010 9:37:43 PM

Call of Duty came out 2 years after Halo, and clearly took inspiration from it.

5/1/2010 9:46:52 PM

AndyMac, FPSRPGs are still FPSs. By saying that UT2k3/2k4 and ESPECIALLY Quake 3 were mediocre, I really shouldn't be taking your opinions seriously. What games did you feel grenades were a chore in? Grenades in Quake 3 are great, grenades in CS are great, etc etc. Just because you have to take out a grenade to throw it doesn't make it a chore, and if it does to you, lol.

[Edited on May 1, 2010 at 9:51 PM. Reason : .]

5/1/2010 9:51:14 PM

In halo grenades are 90 times more useful

5/1/2010 10:57:21 PM

If you take out the RPG parts of Deus Ex it would also be a mediocre shooter instead of an awesome game. Same with System Shock and the stealth part of Thief.

Quake 3 was the most mediocre of those games, it was never as fun as UT.

And yes, grenades in those other games are a chore compared to Halo because you have to select them. They can still kill people but they aren't as useful as they are in Halo, where you can use them not just situationally but to flush people out of cover or force them to leave an area while still shooting at them. It's just so much better it's ridiculous.

[Edited on May 1, 2010 at 11:01 PM. Reason : ]

5/1/2010 11:00:57 PM

If you take out the shooting, Halo turns out to have an awful story.

Quake 3 as mediocre, lol. Bet MW2 is your favorite game.

If you can't bother selecting grenades, then you are too lazy for your opinion to be valid. Sorry. Also, grenades in CS and Quake are more useful. Quake is used to force people where you want them and cover your escapes. CS flashbangs are ridiculously useful, and it is easy to get kills with HEs if you aren't a scrub. And if you don't think smokes are useful, lol. If usefulness is only determined in how efficient in killing they are, Halo has not a single gun as efficient as the guns in CS and Quake.

5/2/2010 12:01:21 AM

Quote :

"If you take out the shooting, Halo turns out to have an awful story. "

You're right it's nothing special really. But the story better than Quake, Doom, Half-life, UT, Unreal, and 90% of other games. But what's your point? Halo is a pure shooter, those others aren't.

Quote :

"If you can't bother selecting grenades, then you are too lazy for your opinion to be valid. Sorry."

Sorry man "too lazy" isn't a valid argument. Fact is grenades are easier to use and more intuitive in Halo than in any previous game.

Quote :

"Quake 3 as mediocre, lol. Bet MW2 is your favorite game. "

Nope, not a big fan. My favorite game is actually Fallout 2.

5/2/2010 12:20:36 AM

marathon
marathon 2
marathon infinity

were all kick ass

5/2/2010 12:35:06 AM

Unreal and Half-Life's stories are better, and Halo's story comes from the likes of Doom. Even completely ignoring the SP of Halo, there are better multiplayer FPSs.

How does "I just have to press a bumper" make them better? How is that a valid argument? Is "4, click" too hard? I'm confused here. And why did you cut out all the other parts of that?

Halo isn't a bad game, but it is mediocre. The story sucks, the art direction is bland, the levels (in Halo:CE) were meh, and the multiplayer doesn't really put it above the other crop of multiplayer shooters on the market. Halo benefited due to it being a console FPS and a launch title. It really did. It doesn't really have anything to push it above a lot of other shooters at the time.

As a response to this actual topic, I wish they would go back to Myth but they won't.

[Edited on May 2, 2010 at 1:31 AM. Reason : .]

5/2/2010 1:30:33 AM

Quote :

"Unreal and Half-Life's stories are better, and Halo's story comes from the likes of Doom. Even completely ignoring the SP of Halo, there are better multiplayer FPSs."

I don't even remember unreal's story. It didn't strike me as being great, Halo has built a pretty impressive universe.

Half-life's story sucked. "you're a scientist, something goes wrong, now there's aliens"

Quote :

"How does "I just have to press a bumper" make them better? How is that a valid argument? Is "4, click" too hard? I'm confused here. And why did you cut out all the other parts of that?"

I already said, it doesn't matter whether "4, click" is hard. The bumper is more intuitive, thus it's better. Also, as I said, it was revolutionary whether you think it was good or not. I cut all the other stuff out because I never said grenades in other games were useless or bad, just more of a pain to use.

5/2/2010 1:55:58 AM

But "You're a space marine, you are fighting aliens" is better? laughingelfman.jpg

Oh yes, clearly. Clearly a revolution, how did I live without this. Also, keyboards with macro keys are revolutionary because you don't have to hotkey then. And a quote:

Quote :

"They can still kill people but they aren't as useful as they are in Halo,"

5/2/2010 2:12:51 AM

Quote :

"Also, Goldeneye was only fun as a party game and now as nostalgia. The game suffered from meh single-player and really fucking shitty controls, along with it not really playing all that smoothly."

are you completely sure you know what an FPS is?

5/2/2010 2:41:33 AM

Obviously you didn't pay attention playing halo.

Half life has no story. Half life 2 attemtps one, but fails. Both of them are great games, and they have good presentation which some people confuse for a good story.

What's so hard about pushing w and s to look up and down?!?! Who needs this "mouse look" nonsense!

5/2/2010 2:43:56 AM

Quote :

"are you completely sure you know what an FPS is?"

What was wrong with my statement?

Also, AndyMac, you clearly enjoy Halo a lot. I could write a 50 page essay and you still wouldn't believe Halo is anything less than a 10/10 clearly. No point in trying anymore. Pressing bumper to throw a grenade is nowhere near as revolutionary as mouse look.

[Edited on May 2, 2010 at 3:13 AM. Reason : .]

5/2/2010 3:12:40 AM

^You have proven time and time again in this thread that you have no idea what you are talking about. It started when you began trying to compare RPG and Stealth games to a competitive multiplayer FPS. There is no comparison. It cannot and should not be done. Unfortunately, you kept on doing it.

I could write an incredibly long-winded analysis detailing exactly what made Halo 1 a great shooter and why you are talking out of your ass, and anyone who has followed my other long-winded analyses of gaming in this forum probably believes me. Fortunately, I don't actually care enough to fill this thread with words.

[Edited on May 2, 2010 at 3:35 AM. Reason : .]

5/2/2010 3:32:22 AM

Uhhh, since when did Halo not have a singleplayer? A singleplayer the media and gaming community raves about. Therefore, I compared 2 cross-genre games in a list of several other FPSs to it. Go for it if you really feel like it.

So what I say to you and AndyMac which you shall undoubtedly say back to me is,





[Edited on May 2, 2010 at 3:42 AM. Reason : .]

5/2/2010 3:36:44 AM

WHOA WHOA WHOA.

I was with AndyMac against some obvious haters until he dragged Half-Life into it.

You fucking stay away from Half-Life. I completely agree that the Halo series creates a better narrative than 90% of its market, and really form that critical analysis that proves it as such (honestly, what do any of you know about story if you think Unreal's story could be called "good"? You're the people Avatar was made for). But don't you dare drag Half-Life into it. I don't even know why this cross-platform comparison is happening anyway, it's not particularly relevant. In any case, its story isn't better than Half-Life. Its characters aren't better than Half-Life. The Halo games are some of my favorites ever, and have proven themselves in the arena of combat far before these haters set in, BUT SERIOUSLY DON'T FUCK WITH HALF-LIFE.

5/2/2010 4:08:09 AM

I don't care what you think guy, but the greatest multiplayer experience on any console is Halo 3. There's a reason that coming up on 3 years after release it's still so heavily played. At any given time you go on Halo 3, there are hundreds of thousands of people playing. Even in the middle of the night for US. Just to put that number in prospective, Halo Wars is considered a successful console RTS because a year and a quarter after release it gets ~15K peaks, and got 40K peaks the summer after it was released.

Everything is well balanced. The game receives more content support than any other console FPS.

The original Halo was a good system link game, but because it was released before XBL (I believe MechAssault was the first title to get Live support) the multiplayer wasn't as good as in Halo 2 or 3. The campaign was one of the best I've played, but multiplayer is what made the series.

5/2/2010 6:12:53 AM

Quote :

"What was wrong with my statement"

pretty much all of it.
and as for the halo conversation, a combination of sales, online population and the fact that especially during the years of halo 1 and 2 it was essentially a benchmark for multiplayer matchmaking, i'm not seeing anything that really backs up your posts in here. even now i compare matchmaking systems to halo's (call of duty X, killzone 2..) and ten years later they're just now catching up.
before somebody goes all omgz fanboi, i loved tthe halo series but i'm not ignorant enough to think they were perfect. the halo games were great for what they did, and that was multiplayer fps.


[Edited on May 2, 2010 at 11:50 AM. Reason : ]

5/2/2010 11:46:53 AM

Quote :

"Half life has no story. Half life 2 attemtps one, but fails. Both of them are great games, and they have good presentation which some people confuse for a good story."

You really need to learn the difference between 'good' story and 'deep' story. Half-Life 1 has a 'good' story. You get all the info you need to know and it throws you into the action for the rest of the game with a clear goal in mind. Its a survival game, so you don't need any more information or character development. I suppose Myst has a bad story by your definition as well?

Quote :

"I don't care what you think guy, but the greatest multiplayer experience on any console is Halo 3. There's a reason that coming up on 3 years after release it's still so heavily played."

This goes back to my original statement. The _reason_ it is so heavily played is that it is so heavily hyped. Microsoft advertised it as if it was the greatest game of all time and said millions of players were playing it. Hence, 'millions' flocked to the game to play. Its the epitome of a chicken-and-the-egg scenario.

So, you essentially have millions playing a mediocre game because of advertising power as opposed to gameplay merit. The jokes on your guys. There's a reason why the Halo games bombed on the PC.

[Edited on May 2, 2010 at 12:08 PM. Reason : ]

5/2/2010 12:04:22 PM

Fry, that post doesn't at all address what you said.

Also, respect to CapnObvious.

5/2/2010 8:01:38 PM

Whether it bombed on the PC or not, 3 years almost after release theres STILL nothing on a console that matches Halo 3's multiplayer.

5/2/2010 9:19:29 PM

Quote :

"3 years almost after release theres STILL nothing on a console that matches Halo 3's multiplayer."

5/2/2010 10:46:13 PM

you can hate on console gaming all you want, there's a lot of money in it, and it doesn't change Halo's legacy

5/2/2010 11:39:46 PM

PC gaming will never catch up to console gaming now that technology moves so fast and video cards are so fucking expensive these days

5/3/2010 12:58:50 AM

this thread is so worthless.

5/3/2010 1:21:12 AM

Quote :

"Fry, that post doesn't at all address what you said."

i disagree with everything you said, except the part about it having a nostalgic quality now. i played the piss out of Goldeneye and the controls were very precise to me. the single player wasn't bad either and it was one of the last fps single player modes i actually enjoyed. it's really not that complicated, i just think you're wrong

[Edited on May 3, 2010 at 1:59 AM. Reason : gettin late]

5/3/2010 1:59:14 AM

The single-player really wasn't good tbh Also, play it again. The controls aren't good. Come on bro. Come on.

5/3/2010 3:40:43 AM

Best thing about console gaming is that you don't have to worry about upgrading something every time a new game comes out. Halo works best on the console because Halo multiplayer is all about the even playing field. No one has a hardware edge, and you don't get better guns because you played 23456432 games. Only thing that gives you an advantage is actually being good at the game (where as in other games if you play a lot you unlock better shit so you'll automatically have a big advantage on a guy who may be better than you but has a new account.)

5/3/2010 5:14:39 AM

BigEgo, I am still running games on high on my PC from 2007.

5/3/2010 5:37:26 AM

Apparently, all FPS either suck or are mediocre. That is what I have learned from this thread.

5/3/2010 9:34:49 AM

Quote :

"PC gaming will never catch up to console gaming now that technology moves so fast"

Aren't consoles frozen in time technology wise? How is a console going to take advantage of a fast moving technology?

Like a 360, which will be around for a few more years, is working off the equivalent of a PC graphics card that is now 3 generations old? It will probably be 4 or 5 generations old before a new system comes out. So PC won't catch up? It's already past a console's tech.

5/3/2010 1:06:25 PM

Quote :

"Also, play it again"

how would that change anything? of course we have much better controls now than back then. that doesn't inherently make them bad.

and Activision, find concrete boots and a short pier

5/3/2010 6:54:51 PM

gameplay aside, infinity ward could take a page or eight out of Bungie's matchmaking system

MW2's system is absolutely terrible, sometimes it takes 10 minutes to get into a game without one of your friends getting kicked out on the way in

Bungie knows how to do matchmaking and it's even more obvious in this beta, joining friend's games without having to pull up the xbox guide? awesome awesome awesome

5/3/2010 7:34:18 PM