Ask a Halo fanboy anything! Removing common misconceptions.

[Netrigan]

My feeling is halo came along at a time when mp and fps were in infancy and helped revolutionize, but then never evolved. We've been left with the same bland characters, design, story while other games push limits and remain in halos shadow. Halo reach I actually really enjoyed the so cuz it was something different for them and they at least tried to make a solid cast and world.

Honestly halo is a game with a deservedly praised multiplayer ut an undeservedly hailed story and popularity and praise

Really depends on how you define it.

FPS & MP have been kicking since the mid-90s and Halo wasn't really a major change over what had been seen before. id had pretty much pioneered MP with the Quake series and by the the late 90s, we had full bot support, fully functioning map editors, and pretty much every MP mode currently used had been added to one game or the other (and Unreal Tournament was a treasure trove of them.. And on top of that, you had a really vibrant fan community which created mods and game modes that would later be incorporated in future games (I even have memories of a horde/firefight type mod which allowed you to battle waves of enemies from the original Unreal game). From this tradition, Halo is actually a pretty big step backwards. Far from being in its infancy, the FPS genre was very nearly in its final form, with Halo adding one of the final pieces: vehicles.

But almost none of this had been attempted on a console. For a lot of gamers, this was the first time they had ever seen anything with this level of polish.

 

[Netrigan]

I will admit, halo doesn't have the greatest story ever told in a game, but are you seriously saying that halo has a bad story compared to other video games? In fact, up until halo, most (though not all) first person shooters didn't have stories so much as reiterated premises. Even Half-life, which has an outstanding plot, literally has next to no story and no real characters.

There's a decent amount of stories prior to Halo. LucasArts was famous for them with Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, and Outlaws being notable examples. I'd recommend Outlaws simply because of the beautifully rendered cut-scenes and story, but not for the meh game play. Sin, which came out at the same time as Half-Life, had a story and characters (at least as well defined as Halo). Even crappy games like Blood 2 were talking up realistically placed items and story-driven locations in their pre-release hype.

To show you how normal this was being, at the exact same time Halo was being released on consoles, Return To Castle Wolfenstein was appearing on the PC with a fully realized plot. Here's the plot summary from Wikipedia.

Spoiler

While investigating the activities of the SS Paranormal Division in Germany, B.J. Blazkowicz and Agent One are captured by the Nazis. Agent One dies during interrogation, but B.J. manages to escape Castle Wolfenstein's dungeon. He then fights his way out of the castle, using a tram car to leave the area and meet up with a member of the German resistance in a nearby village.

The SS Paranormal Division, under Oberführer Helga von Bulow, has been excavating the catacombs and crypts of an ancient church within the village. The Division's sloppy precautions have led to the awakening of hordes of undead creatures, including Saxon knights, and the entrance must be sealed off, leaving many soldiers trapped inside the catacombs. B.J. descends regardless and fights both Nazis and undead until he arrives at the ancient house of worship, the Defiled Church, where Nazi scientist Professor Zemph is conducting a 'life essence extraction' on the corpse of a Dark Knight. Shortly before B.J.'s arrival, Zemph tries to talk the impatient Helga von Bulow out of retrieving an ancient Thulian artifact, the "Dagger of Warding", but she shoots him and proceeds. This awakens a monster, Olaric, which kills her as well. Blazkowicz defeats Olaric, then is airlifted out with Zemph's notes and the dagger.

One of Germany's leading scientific researchers and Head of the SS Special Projects Division, Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse, is preparing to launch an attack on London. He intends to use a V-2 rocket fitted with an experimental germ warhead, launching it from his base near Katamarunde in the Baltics. Blazkowicz is parachuted some distance from the missile base and smuggles himself in on a supply truck. Once inside, Blazkowicz destroys the V-2 on its launchpad and fights his way out of the facility towards an airbase filled with experimental jet aircraft. There, he commandeers a "Kobra" rocket-plane and flies to safety in Malta.

Eager to know more about Deathshead and his secret projects, the OSA sends Blazkowicz to the bombed city of Kugelstadt ('Bullet City'), where he is assisted by members of the German Kreisau Circle resistance group in breaking into a ruined factory and exfiltrating a defecting scientist. There he discovers the blueprints for the Reich's latest weapon, the Venom Gun, an electrically-operated hand-held minigun. He also procures the weapon itself. Blazkowicz eventually breaks into Deathshead's underground research complex, the Secret Weapons Facility (SWF). There he encounters horrific creatures, malformed and twisted through surgery and mechanical implants. The creatures escape and go on a rampage. Blazkowicz sees Deathshead escape the SWF by U-Boat, and learns of his destination by interrogating a captured German officer.

Blazkowicz is then parachuted into Norway, close to Deathshead's mysterious X-Labs. After breaking into the facility, which has been overrun by the twisted creatures he encountered in Kugelstadt (dubbed 'Lopers'), Blazkowicz retrieves Deathshead's journal. He then confronts several prototype Übersoldaten, towering monstrosities coated in armor, powered by hydraulic legs and carrying powerful fixed weapons. Finally, he destroys one of Deathshead's completed Übersoldaten and kills the researchers who have developed it. Deathshead himself escapes in a Kobra rocket-plane and does not appear in the game again.

After studying the documents captured by Blazkowicz, the OSA has become aware of a scheme codenamed 'Operation: Resurrection', a plan to resurrect Heinrich I, a legendary and powerful Saxon warlock-king. Despite the skepticism of senior Allied commanders, the OSA parachutes Blazkowicz close to Castle Wolfenstein itself. He arrives at the town of Paderborn and, after assassinating all the senior officers of the SS Paranormal Division present there for the resurrection, fights his way through Chateau Schufstaffel and into the grounds beyond. After fighting two more Übersoldaten, Blazkowicz enters an excavation site near Castle Wolfenstein.

Inside the excavation site, Blazkowicz fights Nazi guards and prototype Übersoldaten, and makes his way to a boarded-up entrance to Castle Wolfenstein's crypts. There, he finds that the ruined part of the castle has become infested with undead creatures, which are attacking the castle's desperate garrison. After fighting his way through the castle, Blazkowicz arrives too late at the site of a dark ceremony to resurrect Heinrich I. At the ceremony, SS Psychic Marianna Blavatsky conjures up dark spirits, which transform three Übersoldaten into Dark Knights, Heinrich's lieutenants. She ultimately raises Heinrich I, who "thanks" her by turning her into his undead slave. In a climactic battle, Blazkowicz destroys the three Dark Knights and Heinrich I, as SS chief Heinrich Himmler watches bemused, remarking afterwards "It's a miracle, he has ruined everything".

And this is Wolfenstein, a franchise that absolutely no one expected to have any sort of plot.

 

[repeating integers]

Wait, I have another question. Apart from the big reveal of The Flood in the first game, has the game really truly surprised players with something unexpected?

In reading reviews and threads about Reach, about the only three things of note (beyond it being a Greatest Hits package) was the armor power-ups, the brief space mission, and the tie-in to the original Halo at the end... two of which were pretty much endlessly discussed prior to the game's launch. The series seems to have found its niche in the first game and kept settings, weapons, enemies, and set-pieces very much in the comfort zone of the series.

Gameplay-wise, the games have remained very similar across the series.

Story-wise, plot twists are all over the place. Even after the Flood in the first Halo, there is:

Spoiler

The revelation of what Halo actually does, the Covenant Civil War, The Gravemind, The Ark, the Ark actually building an entirely new Halo ring, the fact that Cortana kept the activation index from the first Halo ring, thus allowing her to fire the new one...

(And by the way, your reason for disliking Halo - the open levels - is exactly why I love it so much. I don't like how, in, for example HL2, the levels are so often linear corridors. Halo's sandbox-style approach to combat is a big draw for me.)

 

[Netrigan]

(And by the way, your reason for disliking Halo - the open levels - is exactly why I love it so much. I don't like how, in, for example HL2, the levels are so often linear corridors. Halo's sandbox-style approach to combat is a big draw for me.)

I love, love, love, love open levels. Trust me, when Half-Life came out, I was bitching about those narrow corridors and professing my love for the much more open SiN, which had real exploration and not Valve's patented "there's a hidden vent that leads you to room with an easter egg" style of exploration. Halo's levels wouldn't be bad if they did a better job of pointing me in the right direction. Just started Crysis 2 which has great open-areas with Deus Ex style multiple routes... that's like gaming nirvana.

It's the enemies. Halo gives me Unreal flash-backs (and not the wonderful Unreal Tournament flash-backs), where Skaarj are hopping out of the way of my incoming fire and generally behaving in a deathmatch type faction. I enjoy this is a MP environment, but it breaks my immersion in MP.

 

[repeating integers]

(And by the way, your reason for disliking Halo - the open levels - is exactly why I love it so much. I don't like how, in, for example HL2, the levels are so often linear corridors. Halo's sandbox-style approach to combat is a big draw for me.)

I love, love, love, love open levels. Trust me, when Half-Life came out, I was bitching about those narrow corridors and professing my love for the much more open SiN, which had real exploration and not Valve's patented "there's a hidden vent that leads you to room with an easter egg" style of exploration. Halo's levels wouldn't be bad if they did a better job of pointing me in the right direction. Just started Crysis 2 which has great open-areas with Deus Ex style multiple routes... that's like gaming nirvana.

It's the enemies. Halo gives me Unreal flash-backs (and not the wonderful Unreal Tournament flash-backs), where Skaarj are hopping out of the way of my incoming fire and generally behaving in a deathmatch type faction. I enjoy this is a MP environment, but it breaks my immersion in MP.

Well, as a human being, that's your prerogative . But I still disagree. Without wanting this to sound patronising, do you prefer it when enemies stand there, only occasionally moving while under fire? HL2 and BC (both games in the subseries) were good, but I noticed how enemies just stood there and got shot, and wasn't sure I liked it.

 

[Netrigan]

Well, as a human being, that's your prerogative . But I still disagree. Without wanting this to sound patronising, do you prefer it when enemies stand there, only occasionally moving while under fire? HL2 and BC (both games in the subseries) were good, but I noticed how enemies just stood there and got shot, and wasn't sure I liked it.

You're not really getting my criticism. It's kind of two-part. First part is that those gibbering idiots have way too much health for their complete lack of danger (virtually all of my deaths on Normal difficulty have stemmed from what are essentially one-hit kills, not being worn down in battle). This is a standard cannon fodder and as such I think they should drop much, much quicker. One short burst from an assault rifle would be just about right.

Second part is Halo's sort of crap mid-range combat. A very large part of this is how the assault rifle is kind of useless, but the game has over-powered melee and an over-powered zoomable pistole, so the game really does everything it can to encourage the player to either charge into close-range combat or snipe from a position of safety. My usual strategy is to pop in and out of cover, taking shots from mid-range... which is a good way to die of old age in Halo, since every enemy absorbs so many bullets even on Normal difficulty.

But if I want to go further, I really don't buy the combat tactics of the Covenant. There's a lot of movement, but they don't really seem to utilize cover or flanking maneuvers to any real degree. I loved Far Cry because when I attempted my favorite strategy, I had to be really careful because a handful of soldiers would always break off and flank me. And they also utilized cover quite well instead of hopping back and forth in the open like I keep catching Elites (I think they're Elites) doing when there's loads of cover all around them.

Halo just comes across as Deathmatchy to me. Just don't like that style of play in a proper single player campaign.

EDIT: Incidentally, I do like the pseudo-Roman shield assaults. It seems to be the most effective strategy I've seen the Covenant use in the first few levels of Reach.

 

[repeating integers]

Well, as a human being, that's your prerogative . But I still disagree. Without wanting this to sound patronising, do you prefer it when enemies stand there, only occasionally moving while under fire? HL2 and BC (both games in the subseries) were good, but I noticed how enemies just stood there and got shot, and wasn't sure I liked it.

You're not really getting my criticism. It's kind of two-part. First part is that those gibbering idiots have way too much health for their complete lack of danger (virtually all of my deaths on Normal difficulty have stemmed from what are essentially one-hit kills, not being worn down in battle). This is a standard cannon fodder and as such I think they should drop much, much quicker. One short burst from an assault rifle would be just about right.

Second part is Halo's sort of crap mid-range combat. A very large part of this is how the assault rifle is kind of useless, but the game has over-powered melee and an over-powered zoomable pistole, so the game really does everything it can to encourage the player to either charge into close-range combat or snipe from a position of safety. My usual strategy is to pop in and out of cover, taking shots from mid-range... which is a good way to die of old age in Halo, since every enemy absorbs so many bullets even on Normal difficulty.

But if I want to go further, I really don't buy the combat tactics of the Covenant. There's a lot of movement, but they don't really seem to utilize cover or flanking maneuvers to any real degree. I loved Far Cry because when I attempted my favorite strategy, I had to be really careful because a handful of soldiers would always break off and flank me. And they also utilized cover quite well instead of hopping back and forth in the open like I keep catching Elites (I think they're Elites) doing when there's loads of cover all around them.

Halo just comes across as Deathmatchy to me. Just don't like that style of play in a proper single player campaign.

Halo does difficulty in its own way. You're right, it's not about getting worn down slowly - because your shields regenerate, so the game has to make all the encounters dangerous in their own right. The Covenant don't slowly chip away at your health, they destroy you really quickly. It's very differently paced to games with non-regenerating health. Also, when you say "standard cannon fodder" I assume you mean Grunts... which do die to one Assault Rifle burst, unless they're high ranking (e.g the silver ones). Elites are supposed to take a long while to die, because they're, well, elite.

It's also true that Halo doesn't have much in the way of mid-ranged combat - this is something I've never noticed before, but looking back it's definitely true. It IS possible (charge up a plasma pistol, dart out of cover, let it loose at an Elite to remove his shields, use the Pistol to headshot him - should work at mid-range) but by and large, it's a game of extremes. I get why you don't like this, but as somebody who's played it for a long while, I don't have a problem with it. (Side note - you played BC1? You might enjoy it.)

And as for your final point; no, the Covenant do not use cover, and I think this is because they don't need to. They dart around everywhere, making them damn hard to hit even with your enhanced super-soldier reflexes and aiming skills. Combined with their shields, imagine how hard it would be for a normal human soldier to hit them enough to actually bring them down - even if they do pump enough bullets into them to bring their shields down, I've seen plenty of Elites jump back into cover and just wait for their shields to recharge before jumping back into the fray, good as new. There's also the way they use Grunts and Jackals - as cannon fodder. Humans can hardly ignore these, since they do have guns, and they typically go forward closer to the enemy than the Elite - so they get in the way and pose a threat, meaning the humans have to deal with them first while constantly being pounded by the Elite(s) in charge. Still, you're right about flanking movements, which I've typically only seen attempted by jetpack/invisible troopers (well, and on one of the Firefight maps which was worked into the campaign, but that was specifically designed so that the Covenant would surround/outflank you so I'm not sure if it counts).

EDIT: I won't be able to respond after 6.

EDIT 2: Forgive me for not being very good with Roman history, but could you clarify what you mean by "shield assaults"?

 

[Netrigan]

Caught an Elite doing the hiding trick when I was trying to get Jorge to kill one from a truck. He'd take a bunch of damage, jump out of sight, then reappear 15 seconds later to repeat the drill. Suspected they had recharging shields.

Earlier, I made the point that Halo has a gameplay footprint that is noticeably different from other shooters. This might go a long way toward explaining why so many people just absolutely love the game. I've played a lot of shooters and Unreal is about the only game that plays like Halo... and I don't much care for either of them.

 

[Zantos]

Master cheif if your sterotypical silent hero, Cortana is your un silent helper, much like Link and Navi, up to the color scheme.

I think I read that cortana was a silent helper, comparable to navi

Navi silent?

Halo fanboy trying to come off as intelligent
Were at fail factor 7 boys

I think you're mistaken as to where the fail there should be placed. Maybe around your reading.

 

[Netrigan]

EDIT 2: Forgive me for not being very good with Roman history, but could you clarify what you mean by "shield assaults"?

They push forward with shields in a phalanx. Not unusual to see three or four shielded enemies at the fore of an assault.

I was about to say I hadn't played against that before, but suddenly remembered Far Cry... Uncharted 2... and Modern Warfare 2. Guess it's something about the Covenant that reminds me of the Roman Empire.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

Am I just crazy or was there a slump between Halo CE and Reach? I've played CE, 2, 3, ODST and Reach and from all of them I only enjoyed the first and Reach. Is that just personal preference or is there a reason that might explain it?

Fair enough.

But I don't think ANY console game had even forge level editing until halo 3. PC games did, of course, but not consoles.

For a console game, Forge is pretty damn awesome.

Time Splitters had a pretty nice Level Editor with lighting, weapon placement and triggers.

 

[Zantos]

Am I just crazy or was there a slump between Halo CE and Reach? I've played CE, 2, 3, ODST and Reach and from all of them I only enjoyed the first and Reach. Is that just personal preference or is there a reason that might explain it?

I can't say I agree with you, but I think I just made up a pretty logical reason.

CE and Reach were both designed to be standalone games. Reach was because, well it was, and in CE they wanted to make a game that would leave an opening for sequels but make it so that it would work as a standalone incase it didn't do well enough for them to get taken on to make more. All the others were designed as part of a series, with even 3 set up so that they could add another one on the end if they wanted to. Something about space pirates taking over the lost half of the ship at the end, which is a story I've completely made up but think it would be cool.

I think that's a fairly reasonable explanation.

 

[aarontg]

I never hated call of duty or halo. I go by my personal rule of "excuse me if I'm having fun with this game".

 

[Zantos]

I never hated call of duty or halo. I go by my personal rule of "excuse me if I'm having fun with this game".

Word. You can have fantastic dialogue trees and a moral choice system all you like but sometimes it's just fun to blow stuff up.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Okay, i'm back, I'm not going to psot the answer to every question all at once in this post, but two or 3 at a time.

Also, please be civil.

I do, in fact, have a burning question:

Why so much love for this series in particular? I don't want to start a rage/flame war, but I've pondered over it so much, and can't come to any conclusion.

To start, the single player story is REALLY convoluted. The first game explained nothing concerning motivations of any one side in this war we never see, and throws 2 enemy factions at the player at once, only to have later games increase the number of factions, even changing their allegiances.

Second, the gameplay. Compared to other games that have come out since, such as the latter half of the Half-life series, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, etc., the gameplay in Halo is really simple. Beyond that, the level design is not much more than "Adequate".

As for the multiplayer aspect, I can see how that would garner much love (god knows I enjoy it), but MP alone does not a good game make.

Halo is okay, but why does it have so much of a following? It's just such a simplistic game...

I think it has to do with a few thinks.

Firstly, at the time, Halo CE was a HUGE step forward for a lot of things. While there were good console FPS's out there, they weren't all that common. Also, Halo was well balanced. Half life (the original) may have had a amazing single player, but as far as I know it's multilayer is not up to par as Halo's. Halo is the sum of it's part, single player, multiplayer, and for the latter, all the crazy stuff you can do with it.

Halo also is very colorful, it is is stark contrast to the many "brown, grey, and black" environment of other FPS's. You move across green fields, forests, tundra, deserts, colorful alien ships, you have plasma weapons that cause hues of pink, green, and red.

Also, simple is often better, it's easier to be accessible and people can just jump in.

The multiplayer for the 1st two, also had a ton of those 'HOLY SHIT DO YOU GUYS JUST SEE THAT" type moments, it is all crazy fun.

That initial hype from the 1st game carried over to the latter ones in the series. The fact that EVERY SINGLE halo game other than reach had a Portal 2 esque ARG campaign helped too.

As for the story, it IS all explained, but yes, it is VERY complicated, but once you understand it, you really applicate how complex it is.

As I said, the books are AMAZING, not just as a video game adaption, but as a real "hard sci fi" narrative.

Two other reasons I feel are really a factor is the music, and the devs.

I don't care if a halo disk murdered your family or whatever, you have to admit that Halo has EPIC music.

For the Dev's, Bungie interacts with us fans in a humorous manner almost daily, they joke around, talk, they listen to feedback, they even have their own charity, they helped out and after Katrina, Hati, the earthquake in Japan, and many other events.

I think I can explain this better with a quote of my own I said, way back:

"These guys are different; they aren't just people in suits who swim in money, these aren't devs who make games and ignore the fans, these are real people who care about their fans, and are more like friends to us then poeple who made that uber game that we play".

Honestly, the cod fan boys bug me more than halo ones. Any time a 15 dollar map pack with 5 maps and nothing else outsells an actual game is a problem. What I want to know is why should I go out and get these comic/books that the rest of Halos story lies in? This is a game, I play a game for story and gameplay, not for some incentive to spend money on a book that tells me about the story of the game i just bought and gameplay. Also, Halo 3 was boring. If you have some kind of defense as to why I should feel excited to have spent 5-6 hours shooting copy pasted alien enemies with the same gun in only slightly different levels (and my first time playing was on legendary with a friend) then please explain it.

Well, thats the thing:

Why do people buy star wars books and stuff?

To better understand the universe. The books simply give you the story that you can't show in the games.

Now, there is story present in the games, but unless you look around for hidden stuff, and really pay attention to what's going on, you'll miss it. As I said, it is very complicated. Bu the books go into far more detail.

Also, I think that's another miscoencatpion: NONE of the halo books, other than the flood (which is easily the worse one for this same reason) are just novelizations of the games.

The books, that have been released so far, all go over events not present in the games:

- the very start of the human covie war

- The inception of the SPARTAN program and the fall of reach (takes place on the other side of the planet then the game)

- The events after the 1st Halo game, but before the 2nd.

- Following other Spartans at the time of Halo 2 (there are others)

- The fall of the forerunners

And then there are MANY, MANY short stories that are scattered around the timeline, some of which in Evolutions, some of which in the re-prints of the novels, the anime shots of legends, and the comics.

The events of the games aren't repeated in any of the above.

The books simply give you the story that you can't show in the games.

If you thought Halo 3 was boring, I really can't change your mind, that's you opinion. If you go into more detail I could try to explain why I don't think it is, but still, you have your own likes.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Am I just crazy or was there a slump between Halo CE and Reach? I've played CE, 2, 3, ODST and Reach and from all of them I only enjoyed the first and Reach. Is that just personal preference or is there a reason that might explain it?

Fair enough.

But I don't think ANY console game had even forge level editing until halo 3. PC games did, of course, but not consoles.

For a console game, Forge is pretty damn awesome.

Time Splitters had a pretty nice Level Editor with lighting, weapon placement and triggers.

I'll go check it out.

*looks it up*

It doesn't seem to be anywhere near as good as Reach's forge, but it's more or less better than Halo 3's.

 

[Tupolev]

I'll go check it out.

*looks it up*

It doesn't seem to be anywhere near as good as Reach's forge, but it's more or less better than Halo 3's.

It's a difficult comparison, since the editors don't function in remotely similar ways. I would argue that Forge, aside from lack of lighting control, offers vastly superior low-level control, but is much, much harder to use. Timesplitters' grid system allows for easy realization of large-scale schemes that make use of the preexisting pieces, but system for applying the preexisting pieces is extremely limiting.

 

[Waffle_Man]

There's a decent amount of stories prior to Halo. LucasArts was famous for them with Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, and Outlaws being notable examples. I'd recommend Outlaws simply because of the beautifully rendered cut-scenes and story, but not for the meh game play. Sin, which came out at the same time as Half-Life, had a story and characters (at least as well defined as Halo). Even crappy games like Blood 2 were talking up realistically placed items and story-driven locations in their pre-release hype.

Notice how I said "(though not all)" when saying that shooters back then tended to have next to no story? That's because those games were the exception, not the rule. The games also have the same problems that you mentioned about Halo. Most of them were stories that existed essentially just to string together a bunch of levels and the protagonists were just there as a means of wish fulfillment. While I personally thought Halo avoided those pitfalls, it wouldn't have fallen short of any sort of standard even if it hadn't. The major exception to this is the dark forces series, which has the advantage of taking place in an established universe.

I couldn't have honestly said "It's not even my favorite bungie game" and be ignorant of games that came out long before hand with much more developed stories and more developed worlds. The point isn't that Halo has the greatest story ever, the point was that at the very least, it's on par. Of course, you could take this as an opportunity to argue that this means that the game had no reason to get so popular, but the thing is, Halo really isn't as popular as it is because of the story. It's because of the games multiplayer. If I remember right, it's estimated that only 20% of the people who played the games actually finished the story. This makes the fact that Bungie still put in a ton of effort into the campaign mean that much more.

Halo just comes across as Deathmatchy to me. Just don't like that style of play in a proper single player campaign.

There, now can we just say that whether or not the games are good is a matter of opinion rather than droning on and on about how people like it? You can have a reason to hate it, but it doesn't invalidate my enjoyment of it.

 

[Netrigan]

Notice how I said "(though not all)" when saying that shooters back then tended to have next to no story? That's because those games were the exception, not the rule.

By the time Halo came out, FPS with stories were pretty much the rule. After Half-Life, everyone jumped on the story band wagon. When I can site a Wolfenstein game released in 2001 that has an involved plot, the worm had pretty much officially turned. If I named every major shooter from 1998-2001, I'd imagine the vast majority of them had stories about on par with Halo, often with loads of supporting characters running around. Yeah, Duke Nukem, Doom, Quake, Shadow Warrior, etc. are map-based premises, but by 1998 the FPS world had changed a lot.

There, now can we just say that whether or not the games are good is a matter of opinion rather than droning on and on about how people like it? You can have a reason to hate it, but it doesn't invalidate my enjoyment of it.

Which is why I've been pretty careful not to make blanket statements about its quality... and I think I even stumbled across some of the reasons why people absolutely love the single player game, while others think it's boring.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

How in the hell does anyone consider Halo to be "the best shooter ever?" It makes me want to rip someone's head off. It's slow paced, camper-friendly, and the weapons were outdated in 1953, seriously. People say that the characters in Halo are "badass!" which strikes a particular nerve with me because no one in that game can be badass. I mean, every single character in that game is a sterotype, they have no complexity, and I find myself comepletly unable to sympathize with them.

I think Gears of War and Call of Duty are better for several reasons: Individuality, memorable scenes, and this little thing called inmproving over time.

Halo didn't improve over time, it got worse. Halo 2 was an atrocity on the gaming world, and Halo 3 fixed that. Reach came out, and reinstated everything bad about the game. The health bar came back, forsaking dual wielding and good weapons like the BR and the Brute shot to a dying game, which served to make Halo even more camper-friendly than it already was.

Individuality you can find abundantly in Gears and CoD, with interesting and badass characters like Strakovich and Cole, what does Halo have? Sergent Johnson, a cigar-chomping black sergent who is supposedly badass, but he always begs the Chief to help him.

Memorable scenes. Think back in Halo. What was one scene that had suspence and elevated the plotline to more than shelling out some stupid bovine fecal material to the average nerd? Don't have one? How about the prison escape on Black Ops, the Locust research facility in Gears 2, or the final level in Modern Warfare one and two. Oh wait, those are in Gears and CoD. The best Halo has is the Rookie walking across a shaky I beam. oooooh, my heart is hammering in my chest.

In conclusion, the Halo games are popular because they make you FEEL smart while glorifying facism and cookie-cutter archetypes that pander to the common dumbass. Call of Duty and Gears are always going to be better. Disagree? Then commment and tell me why I'm wrong

Don't be disrespectful

I have addressed every one of those complaints other than one in a question before, I suggest you read them in the OP.

Now, I will say that COD does have a more involved story present in the games than halo does, but only because Halo is so stuffed with story elsewhere, the games would be bloated to include it all.

I am not a whiny prepubescent who only likes halo, and hates it's rivals. That's a sterotype I would like to get rid of.

I love Halo, like COD, I think gears is Okay, I like Half life, Love Portal, etc.

You have legitimate points, Halo does have very little character depth present in the game up front, it's a real flaw.

As I have stated, you ave to look deeper, find the easter eggs and secrets, or read books or articles about them, I will post a link in the OP.

In regards to memorable scenes:

- The gravemind

- the first discovery of the flood

- When you first step unto Halo

- Your introduction to the arbiter, and the fight on the gas mine

- The scarab in Halo 2 (3:50 onwards, this was the best video i could find, but it stil ain't that good)

- The last level of Halo 2, you drive a banshee, sergeant Jonson is in a scarab, you have a squad of elites and hunters as your allies.

- The dual scarab fight in Halo 3, followed by your team up witht the flood to prevent the immanent fireing of the Halo's.

- Going inside the flood infested high charity

- Driving into the ship off of the ark

- escaping with cortana on the mongoose to the PoA. (4:45)

- The end of reach: