Today is December 20, which most of the world writes in the shortened form 20/12. And I posted it at 8:12 PM, (GMT,) which in the 24-hour format is 20:12.
So right now it is 20:12 20/12/2012.
There’s no real point to this. I just kinda thought that was fun.
For those of you with any affinity toward video games, you probably are well aware that Halo 4 came out a week ago.
Now, I’m not in the mood to give a full point-by-point review of the game, or point out every flaw I have found and every idea I have to make the game better. I don’t want to turn my webcomic into a platform for that kind of thing. Rather, I’m trying to garner attention to what I feel to be a critical flaw in the game, and encourage people to rally together to demand 343 fix this issue.
Basically, I think this one IS a big enough issue that I should say something about it here.
I’ve been making a lot of hyperbole about Halo 4 being more Call of Duty than Halo, but in all honesty, I can accept a few faults, and even live with a few of the glaring ones. (What dipweed decided to lock out player’s ability to create custom loadouts unless they’ve played forty hours of multiplayer?) But what really takes the cake is what has happened to CTF. What they have done here has gone against what makes Halo the game we love.
Let’s take a moment here and think about this. What makes Halo Halo? The awesome multiplayer. What makes the multiplayer so awesome? The fact that you could do whatever you wanted with it. You have ALWAYS been able to set up and create your own variants on the gametypes and create your own games. This has been the founding principal in the Halo series. It is so critical that even when people started playing their own ideas they got built-in to the game itself. SWAT and especially Infection were games created by the players.
But in Halo 4 the customization has been neutered. This destroys everything that made Halo great.
Sure it’s cool how Infection became Flood and now the zombies actually look and sound really creepy, but there is no way to change the flood’s weapon loadout, which means a formerly incredibly dynamic game mode -that was used in conjunction with custom Forge maps to create hundreds of unique games- is now nothing but its default settings.
But worst of all is what has happened to Capture the Flag. CTF has always been the quintessential gametype, revered even more than deathmatch. And Halo was legendary because you could create so many different options for how CTF should be played. You could create fun new additions and quirks just to mix things up, and you could create the perfect game mode for how you and your buddies like to play.
Not so in Halo 4.
First of all, CTF has no options for single-flag games, completely eliminating a whole class of games. Likewise missing are neutral flag and assault games. And then to compound this great error there are only two or three honestly symmetrical maps to play on, thus one team always has an advantage over the other.
But by far the greatest flaw is that there is absolutely no way to disable the flag-carrier icon on enemy players’ HUDs. In every CTF game, no matter what you do, everyone on all teams will always know exactly where the flags are. There is a large and blatant waypoint on your screen that points you to the guy who stole your flag.
What utter nonsense!
There is no longer ANY point to using strategy, taking an alternate route, or even relying on teamwork to move the flag. Since everybody knows exactly where the flag is at all times, the only reasonable route to take is a beeline back to base, trying to move the flag as quickly as possible. The default settings also dictate that the flag cannot be returned; it can only be reset after the timer expires, and flags don’t need to be at home in order to score. This turns CTF into nothing but a match to see who can capture flags the fastest.
There is no point to changing the default settings because without an ability to conceal the whereabouts of the flag there are no other variations on the rules that are worth playing.
CTF has been utterly killed in Halo 4.
Oh sure, they give us a nice new feature where the flag carrier can use a pistol, but even that has betrayed the concept of Halo because you can’t change that option to the classic Halo style of bearing no weapons, nor to the common style of being able to use all regular weapons. It should be another option that can be changed, but 343 has completely missed the mark of what Halo is supposed to be.
Now the reason I have taken the time to write this little blog is because I want to see a change here. And I doubt that the studio heads at 343 read my comic, so what I really mean to say is that I am initiating a call to all the Halo fans among my readers to rally together. Let’s all put forth our voices together until 343 hearkens to our demands and adds the customization that Halo 4 should have.
I can’t find a mailing address to their headquarters, but here’s the link to the official Halo 4 forums: http://www.343industries.org/forum/ and here’s a thread that already addresses the CTF waypoint issue: http://www.343industries.org/forum/topic/17724-ctf-waypoints-flag-icons/
We demand options to:
-Disable the flag carrier waypoint
-Enable Single-Flag CTF
-Make flag carriers have no weapons, all weapons, or just the pistol
-Allow flag carriers to drop the flag
-Have Flood/Infection matches where the infected can use more than just a sword
Thank you.
It’s not wise for an entertainment medium to go into religion or politics, but I think most creators are a little *too* fearful of those topics. Certainly, I have no place to throw my opinions at you at tell you who to vote for. But I think it is right for me to remind you to go vote.
Now for the five or so people here who are not from America, I don’t know what your political situation is. But for you other fifteen, in just a few days after Halloween it will be time to go to the polls and do your part to help decide the next President of the United States of America.
And while I’m not going to try to coerce you into voting for any particular party, I do have a few thoughts I want to share with you on the subject.
Especially with the advent of Facebook and other social media, there is an uncontrollable storm of media both great and small that is trying to convince you that each of the presidential candidates are a bad person, that they hate certain groups of people, that they won’t stand for what matters, and so much more. The catch is that nothing you ever see on Facebook and other places has to be verified. I have already seen several instances where friends of mine have shared some picture or quote designed to “humorously” jab a candidate, and when I ask them where the sentiment comes from, they talk about “something he said,” but when I ask them further, they can never seem to supply the actual quote. The reason why is obvious. People are spreading these quotes word-of-mouth-style, which means a lot of people are misconstruing the quotes to give them a much harsher meaning, if it was ever ever based on something they actually said in the first place.
All of this results in trying to get you to feel a certain way about a candidate, instead of actually looking at the facts. If you ever hear someone claim something negative about a candidate, find the source, find the original sound-byte and watch/listen to it in full in its proper context. If you can’t find it, it probably doesn’t exist. But such wishy-washy feeling stuff is all besides the point, you need to look at the actual issues, points, and plans they are actually standing on; NOT their sentiment, but the honest and factual decisions they’ve made. Also, don’t look at what they promise to do, but look at what they promised to do the last time they were running for an office, and how well they held up those promises.
There’s a lot of sleazy local politicians who are depending on people being too worked up over the presidential election to look too closely at them. Everything I just said in the paragraph above is ten-fold as potent here. With so many people only fixated on the presidential election it is incredibly easy for someone to just put up a few more banners and buy a couple demeaning ads about their opponent, and then when people get to the polls they know nothing about the candidates and have no choice but to rely on the feelings those ads have made, or worse yet, what political party they claim to be part of.
Truth be told, you’re probably not going to have any effect on who gets to be the president, but you easily can sway votes for your state officials, and more than easily can decide on your local officials. It’s really your state and local politics that you need to closely observe and cast a careful vote for. It is those officials, not the president, who have the real power to enact changes in your lives.
Seriously. Those issues will never, ever come across the desk of the president. The thought that there could ever be enough national agreement on these issues to get that far is preposterous. Most states can’t even get these issues agreed upon within their own borders. Especially for same-sex marriage; I mean, California, the state with the two largest population centers of homosexuals and homosexual-sympathizers IN THE WORLD has more than once voted to repeal that act, and re-elect the officials who overturned the people’s vote. There is just too much conflict on these issues for them to reach a nation-wide consensus.
These issues are extremely sensitive to many people. Congress will NEVER send a bill on these issues to this president. No congressman could stand the political suicide of casting their vote on a national level for these issues, let alone the congressman who proposes the bill in the first place. And it is simply preposterous to suppose that enough of congress could agree on the bill for it to ever reach the President. But these issues are extremely sensitive to most people, and it is easy to use this issue to push us to vote one way or another. But don’t let this issue influence that vote; you need to cast your vote for the President according to things that the President will actually have power over, like the economic recovery we still need.
Well that’s what I wanted to share with you. I’m not pushing you to vote for anyone specific, but I would simply urge you to vote responsibly. Take some time to thoughtfully consider the issues being addressed, and go vote.