Ask a Halo fanboy anything! Removing common misconceptions.

[repeating integers]

I'd really like a person who is hostile towards halo to visit here, it'd be nice to try to have on more person who is more understanding.

Why does such a booring shooter get so much attention?

You just had to open your big mouth, didn't you?

This debate's turning into the kind of thing you might find on youtube. I blame Balobo. And you, steve. Yes, you, right there, sitting at your computer all innocent-like!

He asked a legitimate question: some people find it boring.

I offered to try to answer if he could be more sepific.

Yeah, I was joking .

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Does ANYONE play for the game, rather then the multiplayer?

Isn't multi-player part of the game?

 

[repeating integers]

Does ANYONE play for the game, rather then the multiplayer?

Assuming by "game" you mean "campaign", then I'm pretty sure all of Halo's proponents in this thread do.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Does ANYONE play for the game, rather then the multiplayer?

Assuming by "game" you mean "campaign", then I'm pretty sure all of Halo's proponents in this thread do.

Shhh!

I'm trying to get him to directly ask it so I can add it to the OP, I don't want to have to edit his posts and put words in his mouth to do so.

 

[Di'kut]

Even if it was kinda covered in the OP I'm still going to ask it.

I've recently kinda been getting into the books, the most of them are available at a bookstore about 2 hours from where I live, but I don't really know in which order to read them. I've already got First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, but could you tell me the most proper order of reading all the books?

I checked Halopedia but couldn't really find anywhere telling me in what order to read them, would really love to get more involved in the Halo universe, thanks ahead.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Even if it was kinda covered in the OP I'm still going to ask it.

I've recently kinda been getting into the books, the most of them are available at a bookstore about 2 hours from where I live, but I don't really know in which order to read them. I've already got First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, but could you tell me the most proper order of reading all the books?

I checked Halopedia but couldn't really find anywhere telling me in what order to read them, would really love to get more involved in the Halo universe, thanks ahead.

Short answer:

Fall of reach, the flood, first strike, ghosts of onyx, contact harvest, cole protocol. evolutions and comics whenever, Cryptum very last,

or, read contact harvest before fall of reach, everything else the same.

Long answer:

read this:

http://halo.xbox.com/forums/f/10/t/1701.aspx

It lists the ENTIRE canonical timeline, from the books (down to the chapters), games, bonus sections in books, ARGS, comics, etc.

EDIT:

Ack, I just realized the OP wasn't updated in a while, fixed it.

 

[AlternatePFG]

You know, the only thing I miss about my 360 was Halo. It was right before Reach came out, and I was honestly looking forward to a shooter that wasn't trying to be like Call of Duty. Not a huge fan or anything, but I rather like how the games play.

On topic at least, what is the general fan consensus on Halo 3. I've heard from some it sucked, others said it was good. Didn't play a whole lot of it myself, mutliplayer was fun but I didn't ever finish the campaign on that one. Did play and finish the campaign in ODST though, I thought that was quite good even if the price of the game was a bit ridiculous. Also, what do fans generally think of ODST as well?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Master chief actually has a personality there, he has a name, he has friends.

Sorry, but that's the funniest thing I've read all day.

As far as the games go, Master Chief couldn't have any less personality unless he was Gordon Freeman (I haven't read any of the secondary material for Halo). Few characters have bored me as much as Master Chief, nor have been so abjectly and undeservedly praised as him since Gordon Freeman.

When you're making Marcus Fenix look deep and considerate in comparison...yikes.
But eh, the whims of the mainstream outweigh any real criticism one could provide.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Also, the bonus stories are only in the recent reprints, and DO NOT READ CRYPTUM UNTILL YOU HAVE READ EVERYTHING ELSE, REGARDLESS OF THE TIMELINE.

 

[KaiRai]

Does the whole pumping an entire mag into someone waiting for the shields to go down not annoy you?

 

[Di'kut]

Even if it was kinda covered in the OP I'm still going to ask it.

I've recently kinda been getting into the books, the most of them are available at a bookstore about 2 hours from where I live, but I don't really know in which order to read them. I've already got First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, but could you tell me the most proper order of reading all the books?

I checked Halopedia but couldn't really find anywhere telling me in what order to read them, would really love to get more involved in the Halo universe, thanks ahead.

I recommend reading "The Fall of Reach" first. It provides a lot of backstory for the Spartans and Masterchief, and it pretty much ends at the beginning of Halo:CE. Then I'd read First Strike. It sorts out what happens between Halo:CE and Halo 2.

Sadly, I've already read both First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, so I kinda fucked up the order of the books for myself, just trying to get things to kinda work at least. I got the books as gifts and when I get a book I just can't contain myself and keep myself from reading it. Thanks for the help anyways.

And even though I can't be assed to quote you OP, thanks to you too for your very good help!

 

[Zantos]

I have only played Halo 1 once on the PC for 10min. That is my experience with Halo. I think it's a good series and from what I've read, it has a good storyline too. It's just that it's a real turn-off for me to shoot fake sci-fi guns. I just feel more comfortable firing a gun that I know the workings of. Laser sounds just seem silly to me. :/

I can give a fairly good explanation on building laser weapons through the use of phase conjugate mirrors. Unfortunately the explanation will involve the use of the word magic.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Does the whole pumping an entire mag into someone waiting for the shields to go down not annoy you?

No weapon in game takes an entire magazine to kill, assuming most of the shots hit.

I think you mean the AR. It often feels like it takes a whole mag, but in reality, it has more to do with the fact that it's very easy to go full auto with it, even if you mean to burst, and this causes more excess of shots and misses than it appears to.

To see what I mean, in reach, ONLY fire with the AR untill the expanding crosshairs leave the non-expanding circle of the recticule, then stop the burst, wait for it to go down, and contiue.

I've noticed that as long as you make sure the crosshairs never go beyond the circle, it makes it seem like it takes like half of the normal amount of bullets to kill, and I have crossmapped players this way, the AR is actually pretty good at a range if used this way.

Even if it was kinda covered in the OP I'm still going to ask it.

I've recently kinda been getting into the books, the most of them are available at a bookstore about 2 hours from where I live, but I don't really know in which order to read them. I've already got First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, but could you tell me the most proper order of reading all the books?

I checked Halopedia but couldn't really find anywhere telling me in what order to read them, would really love to get more involved in the Halo universe, thanks ahead.

I recommend reading "The Fall of Reach" first. It provides a lot of backstory for the Spartans and Masterchief, and it pretty much ends at the beginning of Halo:CE. Then I'd read First Strike. It sorts out what happens between Halo:CE and Halo 2.

Sadly, I've already read both First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, so I kinda fucked up the order of the books for myself, just trying to get things to kinda work at least. I got the books as gifts and when I get a book I just can't contain myself and keep myself from reading it. Thanks for the help anyways.

And even though I can't be assed to quote you OP, thanks to you too for your very good help!

Well, you didn't read cryptum, at least.

You HAVE TO READ THAT ONE LAST.

Luckly though, first strike and ghosts of onyx are some of the better ones to read first, excluding fall of reach and contact harvest.

For a timeframe, first strike takes place directly after Halo CE, and ghosts on onyx at the same time or or less as Halo 2, albiet at a different location.

Though I recomed you read fall of reach, then go back and read the two you already did.

You CAN skip the flood if you want, it's really just CE in novel form, and its easily the worst Halo novel. The only reason I would pick it up is for the bonus stories in the recent re-print, or if you really want to read it anyways.

I have only played Halo 1 once on the PC for 10min. That is my experience with Halo. I think it's a good series and from what I've read, it has a good storyline too. It's just that it's a real turn-off for me to shoot fake sci-fi guns. I just feel more comfortable firing a gun that I know the workings of. Laser sounds just seem silly to me. :/

I can give a fairly good explanation on building laser weapons through the use of phase conjugate mirrors. Unfortunately the explanation will involve the use of the word magic.

As I said, Halo actually has pretty realistic weapon mechanics, it's all explained in detail in canon, I HIGHLY suggest checking out the link I gave to that b.net thread.

 

[Tupolev]

On topic at least, what is the general fan consensus on Halo 3. I've heard from some it sucked, others said it was good. Didn't play a whole lot of it myself, mutliplayer was fun but I didn't ever finish the campaign on that one. Did play and finish the campaign in ODST though, I thought that was quite good even if the price of the game was a bit ridiculous. Also, what do fans generally think of ODST as well?

Both questions are somewhat divisive, actually.

While Halo 3's campaign is usually respected for its gameplay, it does frequently get attacked for poor storytelling.
The biggest issue that gets brought up is its sketchy surface writing in places ("To War" would be a good title for that branch of Halo 3 criticism). Arguably the other big issue it has is contextual rather than being a problem in and of itself; that is to say, while the narrative could serve as a functional climactic sequence, there's an open gap between Halo 2 and Halo 3 that could use filling, and Halo 3 is currently just sort of hanging there.
It is not without its defenders, though. If you're trying to gather an appreciation for Halo 3's campaign, after you've already played it, an oft-recommended destination is the Ascendant Justice [http://blog.ascendantjustice.com/] blog, which was updated until 343 Industries hired the people who ran it in 2009.

It's not surprising at all that ODST is divisive, since most people don't even have a clue what it's about, even if they have played through it. At some level, it's both hilarious and sad that Bungie managed to drop lots of circles, the word "hell" on tons of occasions, and a character named Virgil into the game without people realizing that it's rather strongly based on Dante's Inferno, a problem which the people at Forward Unto Dawn have tried to correct [http://forwarduntodawn.com/nine-levels-underground/]. Perhaps the problem with ODST's campaign is that the surface plot by itself doesn't mean much, and the audio logs are a pain to find, and it's not until you've collected all that stuff, put everything side-by-side, and taken at least a summary glance at the source material that it works in all its glory.
(Also, many fans would argue that, in and of itself, the gameplay isn't as wonderfully replayable or exciting as with the other Halo campaigns.)

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

On topic at least, what is the general fan consensus on Halo 3. I've heard from some it sucked, others said it was good. Didn't play a whole lot of it myself, mutliplayer was fun but I didn't ever finish the campaign on that one. Did play and finish the campaign in ODST though, I thought that was quite good even if the price of the game was a bit ridiculous. Also, what do fans generally think of ODST as well?

Both questions are somewhat divisive, actually.

While Halo 3's campaign is usually respected for its gameplay, it does frequently get attacked for poor storytelling.
The biggest issue that gets brought up is its sketchy surface writing in places ("To War" would be a good title for that branch of Halo 3 criticism). Arguably the other big issue it has is contextual rather than being a problem in and of itself; that is to say, while the narrative could serve as a functional climactic sequence, there's an open gap between Halo 2 and Halo 3 that could use filling, and Halo 3 is currently just sort of hanging there.
It is not without its defenders, though. If you're trying to gather an appreciation for Halo 3's campaign, after you've already played it, an oft-recommended destination is the Ascendant Justice [http://blog.ascendantjustice.com/] blog, which was updated until 343 Industries hired the people who ran it in 2009.

It's not surprising at all that ODST is divisive, since most people don't even have a clue what it's about, even if they have played through it. At some level, it's both hilarious and sad that Bungie managed to drop lots of circles, the word "hell" on tons of occasions, and a character named Virgil into the game without people realizing that it's rather strongly based on Dante's Inferno, a problem which the people at Forward Unto Dawn have tried to correct [http://forwarduntodawn.com/nine-levels-underground/]. Perhaps the problem with ODST's campaign is that the surface plot by itself doesn't mean much, and the audio logs are a pain to find, and it's not until you've collected all that stuff, put everything side-by-side, and taken at least a summary glance at the source material that it works in all its glory.
(Also, many fans would argue that, in and of itself, the gameplay isn't as wonderfully replayable or exciting as with the other Halo campaigns.)

Personally, I really liked Halo 3's campagin.

I don't know if I liked better overall than the others, they all are really good in some areas.

 

[Awexsome]

Even if it was kinda covered in the OP I'm still going to ask it.

I've recently kinda been getting into the books, the most of them are available at a bookstore about 2 hours from where I live, but I don't really know in which order to read them. I've already got First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, but could you tell me the most proper order of reading all the books?

I checked Halopedia but couldn't really find anywhere telling me in what order to read them, would really love to get more involved in the Halo universe, thanks ahead.

I recommend reading "The Fall of Reach" first. It provides a lot of backstory for the Spartans and Masterchief, and it pretty much ends at the beginning of Halo:CE. Then I'd read First Strike. It sorts out what happens between Halo:CE and Halo 2.

Sadly, I've already read both First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx, so I kinda fucked up the order of the books for myself, just trying to get things to kinda work at least. I got the books as gifts and when I get a book I just can't contain myself and keep myself from reading it. Thanks for the help anyways.

And even though I can't be assed to quote you OP, thanks to you too for your very good help!

Another thing to remember about the Fall of Reach, Bungie retconned a bit from that book to make the game more like the older Halo games... but I much prefered the book's version. It didn't have any "sneak attack" by the Covenant on Reach... full on massive fleet to fleet combat. While most of the book is on the origins of the Spartan program the battle of Reach was much better in the book IMO.

I have to ask this, trying not to sound trollish, but many people consider "Halo Fanboys" to be the scum of XBL. Why is that?

I think I can answer this, despite not actually owning a 360.

See the thing is that, those are little kids and douches who just also so happen to like the game. Sure they're Fan's, but they also are sort of generalized, meaning they consider all who play Halo: Halo Fanboy's therefore they consider them all scum. Many of the douches, are just those who play are not really fanboy's.

The good news is that most of the douches aren't really fanboys of a game, they're just moving from popular game to popular game, which now is the CoD series.

Reach has a smaller population than Halo 3 had, but it's a nicer one. With the drop in its popularity the online community has improved. That and the social preferences in Reach really do work. If you don't want to play with the noisy, douche-like people you can set the preferences and not run into them. I haven't run into any people that fit the old stereotype in hundreds of games.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

I have to ask this, trying not to sound trollish, but many people consider "Halo Fanboys" to be the scum of XBL. Why is that?

I think I can answer this, despite not actually owning a 360.

See the thing is that, those are little kids and douches who just also so happen to like the game. Sure they're Fan's, but they also are sort of generalized, meaning they consider all who play Halo: Halo Fanboy's therefore they consider them all scum. Many of the douches, are just those who play are not really fanboy's.

The good news is that most of the douches aren't really fanboys of a game, they're just moving from popular game to popular game, which now is the CoD series.

Reach has a smaller population than Halo 3 had, but it's a nicer one. With the drop in its popularity the online community has improved. That and the social preferences in Reach really do work. If you don't want to play with the noisy, douche-like people you can set the preferences and not run into them. I haven't run into any people that fit the old stereotype in hundreds of games.

Exactly!

More or less the same thing I said, actually. XD