360 Gamers: Why have you stopped playing Halo?

[Glongpre]

I played Halo 3 a lot, and I still do sometimes. Halo Reach and 4 just weren't as good multiplayer games. I just didn't like reach overall, but I enjoyed the Halo 4 campaign, it was well done.

Halo 3 though, it is still fun to play, but there are like 500 people online

 

[iDoom46]

I stopped paying for XBOX LIVE last February when I realized my job was slashing my hours and I needed to tighten my belt and budget my money a little more frugally. Been playing a lot of games on Steam (and a little on PS3) since, and then there was the whole XBOX ONE E3 fiasco, and I've just never gotten around to renewing my subscription. Now I'm back in college and my workload is so intense I really can't bother to waste time on games right now.

It's a damn shame, though, because Halo is my all-time favorite gaming franchise and I wish I had more time/money to invest in it.

That being said, while I really like Halo 4 a lot, but I still love Reach way more. Reach is, in my opinion, by far the best Halo game. I don't hate 4, like some people. I really appreciate the gameplay tweaks (faster respawns, sprint is a standard ability, the fact that they show you who killed you when you die so you don't go "WTF HOW'D I DIE," and so on) and I love the way that 343 is trying to take the way Master Chief is written in a new direction. I LOVE Spartan Ops, though I wish it didn't have to replace Firefight.

But, GOD DAMN, do I love me some Reach.

So when my friend gave me a free 14-day trial so we could play Halo together two weeks ago, I spent half of my time on 4 and half on Reach. Yeah, in Reach you can't have sprint AND a jetpack, and there's no Battle Rifle, and you have to wait for the respawn timer, and you can't ride a mantis, but it just feels right.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3 were awesome games that I loved to play back in the day. I guess I kind of "grew out" of playing Halo. It didn't carry the spark it did for me after Halo 3. Reach felt like a completely different series to me.

Too much was added and/or changed and I just couldn't get the hang of it all, so I stopped buying the games.

Simple as that.

 

[C F]

I actually find Halo 4 enjoyable, probably because I didn't play Call of Duty online. I tried MW2 for the briefest of stints, but I got annoyed by the enemy-summoned aircraft I can do jack all about because I couldn't unlock anything that could dent the things and there was absolutely no one supportive in the community to make the learning experience welcoming, so that went nowhere just like this horrific run-on sentence.

When it comes to Halo 4, I found some elements of Call of Duty were injected into the familiar and well-treaded multiplayer I've come to know and love. Playing it means I can enjoy the still-balanced flow, well polished controls, and zany power-armored setting crossed with Modern Warfare styled loadouts applied to a game I could actually enjoy for once. It feels new to me.
Considering that my opinion is contrary to most people's in that regard, I guess that means I cheated.

I haven't been playing it lately because I'm simply not in the Halo mood, but I'm not adverse to some Halo 4 Swat, Big Team, or Grifball. And I'm always game for Spartan Ops.

Halo 4 is still around the same level of "good" that 3 and Reach were for me. It still qualifies as the Halo multiplayer experience.

 

[chadachada123]

EDIT: Poll didn't go through for some reason. Here's the choices.

I just got tired of Halo.
I'm just taking a break from it.
I think Call of Duty is better now.
The new game(s) I bought stole my attention!
I do still play it. Just offline.
Other

You didn't include what I feel is the main reason for many people: Halo 4 just isn't nearly as good as Halo 3 or Reach in terms of multiplayer.

Hell, I'd still be playing Halo 2's multiplayer if I could, since that was the pinnacle (minus the hackers and glitches and shitty matchmaking).

It's funny that you include "I think Call of Duty is better now" as an option, because that's part of what makes Halo 4 so shitty. It really did turn far more into a CoD knock-off instead of being its own, original FPS.

Edit: Though I should include, I disliked Reach's multiplayer, too, compared to Halo 2 and 3. Halo 4 just put the final nail in the coffin. And don't even get me started on Reach's story, when I realized that all of the awesome, awesome backstory was being retconned in favor of "gritty space muhrine super elite suicide group." It was Star Wars Episode 1 all over again.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

You didn't include what I feel is the main reason for many people: Halo 4 just isn't nearly as good as Halo 3 or Reach in terms of multiplayer.

I believe that would be the top option. You got tired of Halo. Although I know that isn't exactly the full answer.

Also, if you wanted, you could just use Xlink Kai and play some matches of Halo 2 on that.

 

[BlackJimmy]

Because they changed all the sound effects for Halo 4 and now it doesn't sound like Halo an anymore.
That is my biggest gripe about the game.

 

[Soundwave]

I bought odst and reach, didn't finish either of them (due to my 360 dying). Didn't feel like playing the fourth. Never was big into the multiplayer for those games either. I also almost didn't get the third game because I didn't have an original xbox to play the second on (I got the first on PC). Generally I don't buy games out of sequence of their plot, and with Halo being xbox exclusives it really cut out a lot of my interest playing them.

I'd probably have played the whole series if it was all one one system (like my PC, for instance).

 

[Waffle_Man]

I stopped playing my xbox 360 after I got a computer able to run games decently. I stopped caring about the multiplayer because I don't see my IRL friends enough to need more split screen games ever since I left college. I lost all of my interest in the campaign when I played through Halo 4 with a friend on a borrowed copy after it came out. The entire thing seemed to be a massive mix of stuff designed specifically to say "WE'RE STILL HALO GUYS!" and "LOOK AT HOW DIFFERENT WE ARE!"

One of the things I used to love about Halo is that, for a big studio game, it felt like it had a bit of a coherent vision behind it. While that coherency felt like it was starting to fade off near the end of Bungie's time with it, Halo 4 completely destroyed it.

 

[Schmeiser]

Played only the first part on my PC, i actually played through the whole borefest that is HALO. Personally i can't see what's the buzz about it, it was very generic and boring for me so i haven't picked up the sequels(pretty sure you can't get them on PC anyway)

 

[Vrex360]

snip

Honestly I don't even know what to say. I don't think your a Halo fan. A fan doesn't need to blindly love everything but your a SANGHEILI fan, NOT a Halo fan.

I don't want to be misunderstood. I LOVED Halo, ask any long time Escapist (since around early 2009 anyway) I was for the longest time 'the resident Halo fan'. I am going to say it right now, Halo might well be my favourite video game of all time and the only reason I say 'might' is that of the original three I can't pick one that I liked more than the others.
I love Halo, I listen to the music all the time, I can name all the characters and the races and the species, I used to play the hell out of it with friends and if opportunities to play Halo 3 or Reach pop up I am there with bells on. I still maintain that a movie series based off of the original trilogy (the ONLY trilogy) could be the next Star Wars in terms of quality and sense of epicness.

However the big thing about Halo that really got me interested WAS the Sangheili, they were the seed from which the tree that was my love of this series grew from. Subsequently in the newer 343i games the poor representation of the Sangheili have become the black hole unto which all my problems with the franchise are now spreading.

I have a lot of problems with Halo 4 not relating to the Sangheili, I don't much care for the aesthetics, the music isn't nearly as memorable, half the features aren't there, characters I like are either dead or MIA or been made into villains and the new characters are either obnoxious, boring or Sarah Palmer.

Trust me though I am a big Halo fan or at least I am a fan of how Halo WAS, if Halo keeps going down the current path it may lose my interest. I hope there is no conflict between us incidentally as you do seem to be a genuinely nice person.

 

[Korten12]

Trust me though I am a big Halo fan or at least I am a fan of how Halo WAS, if Halo keeps going down the current path it may lose my interest. I hope there is no conflict between us incidentally as you do seem to be a genuinely nice person.

I guess I always feel a bit hurt when I read your posts.

I personally love the direction Halo is taking (gameplay issues aside), and seeing someone like you who clearly loved the series now filled with venom makes me sad.

I think I mentioned it before but if it's any condolence, based on the new upcoming comic series that takes place post-Halo 4, The Arbiter is set to fight alongside the UNSC. So at least that means there is a much higher chance of Sangheili allies making their way into the SP and MP of Halo 5. Comes out December 11th. So hope that is good.

 

[Evonisia]

THIS

For me, it is that Halo 3 was an excellent way to end the series and every title since then has been either half-assed or boring story-wise...actually, both.

Well in all fairness Halo Wars had a lot of effort put into it, just a shame that they couldn't get RTS to handle on a console properly.