Frequently Asked Forum Questions | ||||
Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts | ||||
Re: Mothergoat's Second Opinion of Halo 2 | |
Posted By: MthdDirector <MthdDirector@yahoo.com> | Date: 12/2/04 7:44 p.m. |
In Response To: Mothergoat's Second Opinion of Halo 2 (mothergoat) I think that developing a video game must be a lot like baking a cake: it's an additive process, but if you keep adding different things to the bowl, it's gonna taste like crap. There's beauty in the simplicity of Halo 1. Even the corridors were cool to walk through. The architecture on Halo was dominated by 45 degree angles. The covenant ship had a very cohesive feel to the design. It wasn't too busy - the geography was well laid out, and there was a nice relationship between entrances, exits and objects of interest. Halo 2's design, on the other hand, felt like everything had been thrown in to the pot. The geometry was so tweaked and plussed out that it lost that "holistic" feeling of continuity. The corridors on Halo 2 were very complex - and didn't give me the same sense of spacial unity. The texturing and geometry were so "busy" (for the most part) as to be disorienting in the midst of battle. But this speaks to the revisionist aspect of creativity - creativity is a constant evolution that builds upon itself. If you're embarking on a new project, you're working with a blank canvas. You don't judge it by anything except for your creative sensibility, and maybe the history of past successes and failures. However, making a sequel summons some very different creative skills. You've got a point of reference against which everything is compared and judged. You've got your personal memory of all the limitations you came up against the first time around - the things which you desperately wanted to accomplish but failed to, because of the limitations of the medium, or the limitations of time. So you gather these things and add them to the pot. Textures. Reflection maps. Lighting. Phyisics. Story. Geometry. A.I. Representing all your regrets and aspirations. Now, an outsider might tell you that your creative process has changed, but you probably won't notice the difference. After all, creativity is, at its core, an evolution, and by all respects, you're pushing the ball forward at breakneck speed. But this is also revisionist. But - creativity is not DUPLICATION. Duplication is the antithesis of any creative undertaking. Halo 1.5??? How about 1.25? Or just 1.001 but the MC gets to wear a scarf or headband of your choosing? [Sorry, brief moment of sarcasm] WITH Live. No, I can't accept duplication as the answer. Bungie can and WILL get it right - but to do so, they've got to take a nice long look at the forest and forget about the trees. Yes, a new engine means you get to push more polygons, and create destructible environments, and plus out the look and feel of the game to the nth degree - but what's the impetus for change? Is it comparison and revision and 1-upping yourself, or is it organically connected to the ethos of the original work? That, to me, is the real question - because it affects every single decision that is made during the development process. |
|
Replies: |
The HBO Forum Archive is maintained with WebBBS 4.33. |