I betrayed my fellow PC gamers...

[Jandau]

The only console I've ever owned was a NES, a looong time ago. I'm a PC gamer through and through and regularly preach the superiority of PCs over consoles. I've been playing games for a long time, and with FPS games I've been onboard since Wolfenstein 3D.

Recently, my curiosity was sparked by all the Halo bashing that's been going on around here. I've been taught to think of Halo as an inferior copy of what PCs had a long time ago. Very few of my friends have consoles and they generally express their distaste for console FPS games when instigated. So I decided it was time to see how bad it was. I went out and rented Halo: Combat Evolved for PC. After coming home I installed it and started it up. Several hours later, I realized how much time had passed and also...

...I was having fun. A lot of fun. I like Halo

The game flows nicely, looks good for its age, the weapons are satisfying, the story is decent enough, the protagonist is archetypical but does his part. The two weapon system is fairly nice and I don't remeber seeing it in older PC games. Likewise with the shield system. Vehicles are fun enough. The enemies actually exhibit some degree of intelligence. For a game from 2001, it's pretty damn good.

So, why exactly are people bent on slamming this game? Am I missing some fatal flaw in its design? Do the sequels take a turn for the worse? Or is it just a force of habit?

 

[LordOmnit]

People slam it because of the people that hail and worship it.

It is an acceptable game, but if people see people on one end of the scale then they have to run to the other end for no reason other than they want to seem different but end up falling into one of any number of generic categories.

 

[Lyiat]

I enjoy Halo. I just hate the frats on my campus that also enjoy Halo. It gets such a bad rap because of the crowd around it.

 

[Gormers1]

Cool that you like it, its one of my favorite games (yeah Ive played a lot of fps games, but still love it, shut up), but my favorite part of it is that you can play coop. Of course it is fun to play alone the first time you play it, but I never grow tired of playing through it with a friend.

BTW, you should have a better thread title. Include the world halo in it, so people know what youre talking about.

It's a mediocre bro game

Bro game? As in coop?

 

[I3uster]

I love the whole series, maybe its because im not surrounded by those "frats"...

 

[ccdistancerunner]

Halo is reviled mostly by Sony fanboys. I find it to be a fun game. I have no problems with just about any cash cow that each system wants to present. GTA was Sony's cash cow for quite a while. Halo was Microsoft. Super Smash Bros. was Nintendo, along with Mario related games. Every other fanboy critizies these games with similar ones on their prefered platform. It's all up to what you think.
Everybody has an opinion. Nobody can tell you what games you should and should not play.

 

[Joeshie]

It's honestly not a bad game by any means. There's nothing wrong with you enjoying it. I enjoyed it when I first played it on the X-box.

The problem begins when it's fans begin making ridiculous assertions about the game, like how it's one of the best FPS or how it's one of the most innovative games.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Halo is reviled mostly by Sony fanboys.

In my experience, it's the butt-hurt PC supremicists who're the ones most prone to bleating about the evils of Halo. To their credit, the Sony proponents tend to focus their attentions on promoting shooters on their platform more often than just slagging Halo as being mediocre.

Everybody has an opinion. Nobody can tell you what games you should and should not play.

Bingo, we have a winner.

-- Steve

 

[Jandau]

Ok, can you clear up one more thing for me? What's with all the "frat-guy" references? I've been hearing those for a while now, but I'm not quite sure what it's supposed to mean...

As for Halo being mediocre, I'd say it's better than that. Considering when it first came out, the PC market didn't exactly put out anything in the FPS genre that year that blows it out of the water...

EDIT: Specified the second paragraph a bit.

 

[Wargamer]

It depends what Halo you're on about. Halo 1 did genuinely cause a shakeup, Halo 2 was supposedly better, though the retarded bugs that were EVERYWHERE made it almost as unplayable as the other people online, and Halo 3 is cancer in disk format.

 

[InvisibleMilk]

Halo was fun. WAS.
Seriously, everyone fucking LOVED that game, and wouldnt shut up about it. The ignorant un-gamer people will immediatley brand halo as "Best game Evar!".
And that annoys the crap out of me.

 

[Jandau]

A quick Google search:

http://www.gamerevolution.com/oldsite/articles/awards/pc/pc_2001.htm

I wonder how much of a fellow PC gamer you really are.

On that page the only FPS is Counterstrike, and I belive it has an even more reviled following than Halo... and it didn't even come out that year

 

[beddo]

[...]
The problem begins when it's fans begin making ridiculous assertions about the game, like how it's one of the best FPS[..]

Why is that a ridiculous assertion. In my opinion it is one of the best FPS games along with; Goldeneye 007, Bioshock, Call of Duty 40 and Battlefield Bad Company.

Its in my list of best games ever:

Shadow of the Colossus
Bioshock
Halo

Everyone has different opinion about what the best games are. No-one is right or wrong, it's just an opinion. I choose these games based on the experience they presented at the time of playing.

 

[asinann]

The only console I've ever owned was a NES, a looong time ago. I'm a PC gamer through and through and regularly preach the superiority of PCs over consoles. I've been playing games for a long time, and with FPS games I've been onboard since Wolfenstein 3D.

Recently, my curiosity was sparked by all the Halo bashing that's been going on around here. I've been taught to think of Halo as an inferior copy of what PCs had a long time ago. Very few of my friends have consoles and they generally express their distaste for console FPS games when instigated. So I decided it was time to see how bad it was. I went out and rented Halo: Combat Evolved for PC. After coming home I installed it and started it up. Several hours later, I realized how much time had passed and also...

...I was having fun. A lot of fun. I like Halo

The game flows nicely, looks good for its age, the weapons are satisfying, the story is decent enough, the protagonist is archetypical but does his part. The two weapon system is fairly nice and I don't remeber seeing it in older PC games. Likewise with the shield system. Vehicles are fun enough. The enemies actually exhibit some degree of intelligence. For a game from 2001, it's pretty damn good.

So, why exactly are people bent on slamming this game? Am I missing some fatal flaw in its design? Do the sequels take a turn for the worse? Or is it just a force of habit?

Halo wasn't a bad game, it's the sequels that are bad.

They made a single player game with Halo 2 and 3 that was abysmally short then excused it with multi-player features. Honestly I think that games should be designed to be single player with multi-player added on unless the game is designed to played exclusively on line.

 

[Doug]

....
Burn the heretic! Let the flames purify him!

Joking, of course

 

[Abedeus]

Woot, I'm not a frat boy.

Its in my list of best games ever:

Shadow of the Colossus
Bioshock
Halo

I know why SotC and Bioshock are there, but why are you comparing those games to a mediocrity that is Halo?

It's like comparing a tank to a paintball grenade launcher. Sure, both hurt, but wouldn't you like something that hurts much more?

Why is that a ridiculous assertion. In my opinion it is one of the best FPS games along with; Goldeneye 007, Bioshock, Call of Duty 40 and Battlefield Bad Company.

Out of the games you mentioned, only Goldeneye and Bioshock deserve title of best FPS games.

What happened to CS, HL, Quake, No One Lives Forever 1/2, Enemy Territory, Team Fortress 1/2, Medal of Honor and Serious Sam?