(Not So) Monday Mail: The Halo 3 Review
This weeks (not so) Monday Mail includes emails sent in about SDF’s controversial Halo 3 review. Some agreed, others didn’t. Here are a few of the emails that stood out amongst the rest.
Trey wrote:
FYI the 7/10 was for single player campaign, multiplayer got a 10/10 and
the overall score was 9/10.Thought Id send this in an email, doubt you will read it and less likely
post it. If you wanna spin it, say it was that $800 bag of swag they
probably got because they are actual game reviewers working for an actual
company.
Yes you are right. The fact that MS sent all major reviewers $800 worth or ‘swag’ had nothing to do with the near perfect review scores Halo 3 has received. Lets forget about the extremely short campaign, the horrid cutscenes and dialogue and all the rest. Lets not even get into the graphics. Upon first booting up my copy of Halo 3 for review I had to double check and make sure they didn’t accidentally put a Halo 2 disc in it’s place. Yes, it’s that bad. Oh yeah, Halo 3 multiplayer would be a 10/10 if Battlefield 2, Resistance, Team Fortress 2 and Haze didn’t exist and it was 1998.
Bosco wrote:
Great Halo 3 review guys. I’m sure SDF is going to get slammed for going against the grain on this one but wow you really did nail it in your review! Itll be funy in 1-2 years when people look back on this review and be like “you know wat, sdf was spot on”. you wont get the credit you deserve but just know that there are fans out there like me who believe in this site and it’s cause. sdf victory my friends!
Thanks for the email Bosco. We here at SDF appreciate your support through the good and bad times. We also believe our Halo 3 review will stand the test of time and it will be interesting to see what the general consensus of the game truly is after all the Master Chief worship dies down.
lol…10/10 for all those games….one for which isn’t even available on the PLAYSTATION 3 yet (TF2). Gotta love the BS soaked SDF!!
Aaaah SDF, you fail yet again. You see, the game was already reviewed by almost every major review magazine LONG before they received the swag bag. It was under an NDA. They couldn’t say anything about it until the 23rd. That went for everyone. And if you don’t think sony hasn’t done stuff like the swag bag then you truly are a freakin joke.
I can’t believe MS sent $800 worth of bribes to reviewers. Cheap bastards; Sony’s Lair swag was over $1000.
If you’re going to do something wrong, do it right! lol
Perhaps Haze and TF2′s not out yet, but they look really good, and if they even play a third of how it looks like they’re gonna make PS3 awesome!
About Halo 3.. nothing special! With all that commercial they could make a barbie game sell a mill..
Thanks SDF for a nice break.. these M$ fanboys are all over the place..
Too bad the “Master Chief Worship”, as you call it, has been going strong since 2001. I really dont see it dying out anytime soon. I would love to have seen your reviews of HALO and HALO 2…. Im pretty sure they are still two of the best reviewed games of all time, and despite how jealous the Sony Fanboys are, they arent going away anytime soon.
@trenen
If you actually comprehended what SDF wrote you would have seen that they put BF2 in that list too, and they are talking about the PC version. They are just saying that there are WAY better titles than the mediocre Halo 3. Come on dude. I love it when people say that SDF is full of S#&t but most of the time they are telling the truth and most of the people that say SDF is full of s#@t are 360 fanboys/users.
People like me who actually read up on what people say to see if its true or not know whether SDF is full of crap and they are not. Yes, they favor the PS3 over 360 and may be a little bias and one-sided at times, but I agree with almost everything they say because after I read something on this site I check with other sites also to see if its true. Anyone that takes the first information they find are idiots, see if its true just by doing a simple google search. I also found it hilarious when SDF announced that Bungie would be splitting from M$ and people called BS on SDF. Then low-and-behold a couple days later, almost all game sites were saying how Bungie and M$ were splitting. SDF is not as full of s*$t as people make them out to be.
Yes, but most of those game sites didn’t believe the rumors even before it was announced. It’s not like they knew before the press release. The Hotspot shows that they didn’t believe it.
And yes the news is real, it’s the spin that they put on every story to show that Sony is somehow better with nothing bad about them.
If Halo 3 and Bioshock release on PS3, it would be 10/10 by SDF anyways.
@ Telzon
If you believe anything that SDF writes, then your even crazier than us 360 fanboys that come one here to make fun of you! Yes, they do find real stories, but they twist the truth out of proportion to be funny! If you take it as serious, then you should seek help. I see you mentioned the Bungie/Microsoft split. Yes, the story was true, but the spin was that it was going to hurt Microsoft, when in fact the truth is the exact opposite. Halo is still a microsoft franchise and will never appear on another platfrom unless Microsoft allows it. And Microsoft retains a FIRST LOOK contract with Bungie where they have the first shot at publishing any game Bungie makes. There is only good that can come out of this split. Bungie gets to make new IP’s and Microsfot can decide wether or not they want to publish them…. How come the article didnt mention that? Dont come to this site for real news! It’s pathetic!
Why go against the grain? Majority rules.
Personally, I am not a Halo fan. It’s got too much strategy for my taste. I just like blowing stuff up. Or puzzles. War games never appealed to me.
But I can certainly appriciate a game that appeals to the masses. When it comes time to rank the top games of all time, Halo will definately rank high on the list. Personally, I’m more of a Half-Life fan, but that’s another story. What I like and what I think is good for the masses is often two different things.
@Telzon
I find it funny that you practically support this site and all that’s in it as scripture. This website is a joke, and everyone treats it as one. How can any website that reviews EVERY game on the PLAYSTATION 3 10/10 yet rate a massive GoY material product like Bioshock a 5? Halo 3 a 2.5? Any game that gets reviewed on this site that is not a SONY product is lucky to get as high as a 5 in the review!
Their sources…most of the sources are linked to private blogs that some kids posted on a website. Any blog that they post here that has any ounce of truth is placed in some off-taste manner to make the “PSTrinity” even more ‘Holy’. Hell, they even went as far as saying the PSP was nailing the DS coffin shut because it just sold a bunch of units?? The DS is the PS2 of handhelds. The PSP could probably never catch up (which is a shame. i have a modded one and LOVE it). Yet if it sells 600,000 units it’s suddenly putting the DS to the grave? Come on! What about the article with the Xbox 360 and the ‘new’ SKU not being on the box. Claiming Microsoft was “hiding” something? or how about their latest blog about Capcom. Capcom is not making MR3 because the PLAYSTATION 3 is not financially feasable! They would lose money off the thing because there are hardly enough units out there to make up the cost of development. Did SDF every mention any of that? No…of course not. But oh…something positive comes around that is not PS3 related and they are all over it like flys on dog shit. Truthful my big white hairy ass…
You know…you talk about people who did get swag…but I didnt…and I am not a “fanboy”, yeha the Jaggies are annoying…but the cinematics are epic, great story (ever read the terminals? yeah love story FTW) the multiplayer is the shit, too. All this from someone who SPENT money on the game.
@mmikej24
1st of all: You’re a sad person who actually goes to one of the few sonyfanboy sites on the web and smear shit all over it..
2ndly: I found Halo 2 great fun, and i have all the newer consoles at the market. Since i’ve played Halo 3 (sold it afterwards and bought warhawk) i have the knowledge needed to say that Halo isn’t anything special.
Sure halo has been strong since 2001, but that is the past! ..just like pong ect. ..and people played pong for a long time!
@laggi
Halo 3 ain’t the shit but there is no denying that it’s better than most games on the market. I’m not a big fan of the MP (4 player co-op is the shit w/ campaign scoring and skulls turned on) but i can see where people get a kick out of it. I can’t comment on Warhawk since I haven’t played it, but it looks fun.
@Telzon
If you actually think this site tell the “truth” then you got a screw lose.
BTW I’m a gamer not a fanboy; and I can see pass the bias and enjoy games on all consoles. With that being said, this site is fucking funny shit.
I actually come to this site for some real info on the PS3 AND understand that SDF spins things to make the PS3 look better but that is not why I come here. I come here because I seek new information on the PS3 and it seems that SDF gets some news out before other people but I don’t take SDF word for it, I check it out with other sites and do look at who created it, when it was published, and if it just smells fishy. I am a person that will believe you as long as I have no reason not to believe you. Also, as of right now there has not been one story that SDF has lied about. All the stories that I have really cared about that SDF covers, slants it to the PS3 but other sites have the same core info. I only look at the core information, like when SDF said Bungie and MS were going to split that is all I looked at. All that crap about how its going to hurt Microsoft and blah blah blah is all speculation and didn’t care about that. I do think about these things when reading information because yes, I know that the internet is filled with LOADS OF CRAP, but a lot of times the core info is fact but everyone puts a different spin on that core info to make it go your way.
Actually Bungie has become a indie studio but MS still publishes there upcoming games.
Hey, SDF, you want some sauce on that huge cock your suckin’ down?
Goddammit… I hate agreeing with SDF, but they were right (mostly) about Halo 3. – Substandard graphics, weak multiplayer, dull/tedious plot, etc.
I don’t agree that the campaign was too short, though, especially compared to Resistance/Liar.
Anyway, Halo 3 sucks, bring on C.O.D. 4.
Any before any dickheads try to say I’m a Sony fanboy, I suggest you have a look at my site http://www.rainbowseven.com. I *hate* Sony but when someone’s right, they’re right.
Both Haze and the Orange Box haven’t been released on the PS3 yet, and Battlefield 2 isn’t even a PS3 game. Still, it certainly beats suffering the RROD with every console produced.
I got mail for you SDF:
FIX YOUR DAMN FORUMS
@heyyou
I prefer my console that “could” break (has yet to and it’s going on two years) with all the games to keep me busy, in contrast to my “solid working” console with hardly anything to play on it. either way, i do like both. sorry though…saying RROD with every console is juvenile. if that was true, there would be a massive recall and lawsuits flying everywhere. no product can be released with a 100% failure rate! only reason the Xbox360 is getting so much light of the problems is because it’s made by Microsoft…and everyone “loves” Microsoft…
$800 of Halo swag? Wow if they sold all of that they could almost buy a PS3 and a used game!
to all who say halo is generic, then prince of persia is a generic 3d hack-and-slash, half-life 2 is a generic fps, and final fantasy 1-5,6-12(13, well see) is a generic rpg
bawww generic
just because a game repeats certain things in its series, doesnt mean its bad and should be changed. Or did you twats miss deus ex 2?
@Heyyou27
What about the ps3′s yellow light of “FUCK I JUST WASTED $600+” 360 isnt the only console with hardware problems, but atleast there fixing it. New chip has 0 RROD so far, and atleast since the 360 is breaking, they gave a free 3 year warrenty to anybody, goes to show you that almost everybody would rather wait 3 weeks to play their 360 rather than go out and spend $600+ on a blu-ray dvd player (PS3rd if you dont know what im talking about)your console sucks because it has no games, our console rules because we have a Giant library of games, and GOTY material out now and coming out soon, while you have Lair.
@dilligaf
Agree with you completely, as soon as the sony fanboys saw halo they just said it was a Generic FPS, not generic too me, IF any game is generic its Killzone 2. On SDF’s basis, every game out there is a generic game.
@RainbowSeven
If Halo 3 sucks; why do you have so many pics of yourself playing the game on your website?
I too can’t wait for COD4 either that game is gonna rock.
For all you Halo haters:
http://www.g4tv.com/pile_player.aspx?video_key=18372
all the REAL reviewers get merchandise for all the major games. whats even worse than sending halo 3 stuff is sending stuff after the review telling the reviewer they reviewed the game long and how to review it.
Its True MS pay or give stuff to those Game reviewers so they can give there games High scores, thats why i dont buy those Magazines, if it is A MS or 360 Magazine is ok but not if one of those that Review all platforms.
suck my nuts sony defence force
@PS3UP
You are a weiner; Most publishers of games do swag bags for there big games. Sony, Nintendo, MS, EA, and other developers do it. You are just a moron with a Sony bias so big that I bet you wish you had a mouthful of Ken Kutaragi.
Got any proof of Microsoft actually “swagging” the reviewers? Eh?
That’s right, yuh ass hole.
I had sex with your(SDF) mother last week, and I gotta say, she’s terrible with oral, but she definetely knows how to ride my rail. True story…
You guys are still pissed that Halo 3 is better then anything the POS3 has ever made.
ColdYellow Says:
October 11th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
@RainbowSeven
If Halo 3 sucks; why do you have so many pics of yourself playing the game on your website?
I too can’t wait for COD4 either that game is gonna rock.
I had Halo 3 a week before it’s official release date, so I was doing a mini-review and posting some in-game pics. – Check the dates on those pics!
PS3 hasn’t made much, also go play Liar SDFisgay.. the 360 is far within it’s second year, the PS3 not even finished with it’s first, and the PS3 is already getting games as good if not more complex and larger than the 360. Halo 3 isn’t better than anything, you know what my causin and I said after playing for a 5 hours at my brothers house? We both hated it, I went to my causins and we started playing Ghost Recon on the old XBox, thats how awful it is. Its the same game, but better graphics, and some gameplay tweeks from the original.
I hate this game. first of all, i bought a 360 for the sole purpose of playing halo 3. but everything about this game disappoints, from the graphics, to the lack of standard features, right down to the ridiculous physics and spawn systems. with an unlimited budget of money and time, bungie completely befukled everything to the point of sheer frustration with this game.
look at the e3 2006 announcement trailer. even microsoft haters must admit it looks fantastic. everyone was so excited to see our beloved halo franchise in a realistic environment. but then, as time went by, Bungie routinely released worse and worse images of the game. now the texturing and lighting are the only things about this game that are pretty at all. the geometry just plain blows, no depth of field, and lets not even mention the jaggies everywhere. i know anti-aliasing is cutting edge and all… riiiiight.
but graphics don’t make a game right? but what about a game that kills my 360 as soon as i put it in the disc drive? yes, halo 3 gave my (and many people’s) 360 the red ring of death within 6 hours of using it. so i sent it off for repairs for a few weeks, and thats where the story really takes off. having spent only a few hours with my most anticipated game of all time, i was eager for more, and so i turned to the bungie.net forums to see how everything was going.
EVERYONE had problems with this game, from scratched discs to red rings like mine. the only people who weren’t rightfully disappointed were the idiot fanboys who wouldn’t know a quality game if it came up and bit them in the face.
for all the crap haters talk about forge not being a true map editor, its actually a really good idea… or at least it was until you couldn’t place all the weapons and items on all of the maps, thus making it impossible to create what you really want to. the novelty wears especially thin when, lo and behold, the custom games browser (CGB) that was so highly touted failed to be included. instead bungie opted for their queer as folk matchmaking system again. if i am in the mood for capture the flag, i don’t want to play oddball. imagine that.
aside from that,if i want to go into a custom game on one of the user forged maps (some of which are pretty damn cool) i have to first download the map and gametype from b.net, then assemble enough players from my limited friends list that want to play the same thing as me at the same time. try to get 16 out of 100 people to agree on their favorite flavor of jelly bean, let alone want to play the same type of game as you on the same map at any given time… and you see the problem here. every other game has a CGB, but for the sake of being different once again, bungie has screwed us.
this is all annoying, but i could get over it, like i did with halo 2, if the matchmaking was fun. halo 2 was FUN. i mean, i played that heavily all the way up until 11:30 on september 24th. but halo 3 fails at even that. its just frustrating. for starters, the maps are garbage. why, oh why, would you put in shield doors? its halo, not the boy scouts, why are you encouraging camping in a fast-paced FPS? they don’t even make sense; a man can run, but cannot toss a grenade or punch through them? a vehicle creeping along cannot pass? and most obscene is that a grenade or rocket explosion won’t phase a player on the other side of the shield door, but a fusion core explosion or grav hammer has no problem transferring its energy across the threshold? i know this isn’t exactly a realistic game, but could we have a little more consistency and a little less bullspit?
the shield doors are really only a minor part of it, but a great example of poor design. perhaps most glaring is the spawn system, which puts enemy players either directly behind you, or directly in front of you when you are vulnerable from having just dispatched their teammates. it is the most frustrating thing to finish off one or two opponents with great skill and maneuvering, only to be killed an instant later by their teammate who just happened to respawn right on top of you.
wait did i say the most frustrating thing? i meant second most, because number one would be the melee system that rewards the player that is slower on the draw… or at least it seems that way in every instance. not just that, but some players are able to lunge 10 feet with their beat downs, while others won’t even take one step forward. this, coupled with a sniper rifle that just plain fails to cause damage with direct, blood spilling hits, makes what should be a rewarding gameplay experience into an inconsistent, unpredictable crapshoot.
but clearly that is not the fault of bungie’s poor programming, as the forum moderators and fanboys are quick to point out. rather these issues stem from lag, host advantage, and a whole other list of variables that are par for the course in all online games. really? not online games with dedicated servers, dedicated servers that lesser titles on other consoles seem to have, but the flagship, quintessential FPS juggernaut from the most affluent company in the industry seems to lack. apparently the revenue from the most profitable media release in history cannot fund those dedicated servers, ones i’m sure microsoft in all of its infinite wisdom could manufacture cheap enough to still turn a profit, albeit perhaps not as great.
many former bungie/halo fans, myself included, tried at first to post sensible topics on the b.net forums addressing some if not all of these problems. polls which overwhelmingly favored the addition of a CGM were locked. threads about the inexplicable ineffectiveness of the sniper rifle and melees were met with flaming from fanboys claiming we just didn’t know how to use it. and god forbid you start a topic about the sub par graphical quality, lest you be labeled a heretic, shallow, and devoid of appreciation for what really makes a game good. This demeanor is carried not only by the fanboys themselves, but by the bungie moderators and staff, who in the face of such overwhelming evidence that the game has SOME flaws, scoff at our attempts to get these issues recognized and addressed properly. we asked, petitioned, polled and begged nicely. now we are vehement in our conviction that you have lost sight of our best interests. and our disposition is no longer congenial.
listen loud and clear Bungie: just because you made the game, does not mean it is perfect. and since we paid you to make it for us, we have the final say in what we want included. basically you were commissioned by us to make halo 3, our dollars form halo 2 were a down payment, and our franchise loyalty was the contract that you would be compensated for delivering us the product. you gave us nothing, no labor of love, no present to your fans. we paid you, and you failed to deliver. don’t for a second think it was anything other than a business transaction.
so when all is said and done, what do we have? a game with all the potential and every opportunity to succeed. a game that wanted nothing for resources and had an already tried and true formula for success. a game that, despite having everything going for it, forgot to ship with the one thing that is necessary for a title to succeed: reliable, fair fun for its users. a player shouldn’t have to learn to navigate the bull and the cheapness of a game to win. in fact, they shouldn’t even have to be great at the game to enjoy it; as long as the experience is fun, the game has done its job. even when you win at halo 3 MP, the whole process was such a pathetic collection of WTFs and bullspit that you can’t savor your victory. at being fun, halo 3 fails.
“Lets forget about the extremely short campaign, the horrid cutscenes and dialogue and all the rest. Lets not even get into the graphics. Upon first booting up my copy of Halo 3 for review I had to double check and make sure they didn’t accidentally put a Halo 2 disc in it’s place. Yes, it’s that bad. Oh yeah, Halo 3 multiplayer would be a 10/10 if Battlefield 2, Resistance, Team Fortress 2 and Haze didn’t exist and it was 1998.”
1. Umm campaign was not extremely short and story was compelling.
2. Cutscenes were not horrid, they were in engine, and still looked great!
3. Dialogue was very, very diverse, with unlockable bonus dialogue to boot.
4. Graphics were on par with many next gen games today, and although not outstanding, were still pretty amazing in campaign.
5. I guess hooked on phonics didn’t work for you because the title screen says halo 3 and the screen before that has a giant number three on it.
6. Halo 3 multiplayer has many diverse gametypes, with an included (although limited) map editor (allowing for new game variations and new gameplay elements(, and a very efficient ranking system.
SDF….Why?
Why do you try to make everything about the 360 seem bad?
Why are your reviews so biased?
I could write a biased review on Resistance, and you’d know I was wrong, the same way you are wrong.
How about some positive thinking?
You guys talk too much trash on this site.
You sound like 12 year olds playing Halo 2 online.
Shut up and write something nice that will make me want to come to this site more often than once a month.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/116776.html
SDF, Y R U BEING SO FUCKING HYPOCRITICAL WHEN U NO IF HALO 3 WAS RELEASED ON PS3, IT WOULD AUTOMATICALLY BE A 10.5/10 BUT ANYTHING ON XBOX 360 IS LOWER THEN A 3
also, what the fuck does the front pic. have to due with anything in the topic?
wow xbots still exist lol even after they found out that ps3′s hardware is 5 times more powerful/better, it comes with a blu-ray player(that is used for games), it has the best upcoming games in 2008 (i admit that apart from unchartered and R&C 2007 kinda blew in terms of exclusives), a free online service with built in wifi and the recent price cuts have taken the price down to $400 and will keep falling as hardware gets cheaper. man M$ really must be good at bullshitting
SDF was very generous in their halo 2.5 review. all bungie did was take halo 2 and add a few new maps and weapons, made the textures and character models much wore, and put a 3 after halo instead of 2