No Haters: If you love Halo so much tell me this. . .

[oktalist]

Well to this day I haven't played another FPS that integrates vehicles and and on-foot sections so seamlessly.

Starsiege: Tribes (1998).

Your argument could be applied to any FPS released as of late...

And that is the legacy that Halo has given us. A hundred different shooters that are all basically Halo wearing different coloured hats.

 

[Generic Difference]

I played Halo 1-3 and they were alright. I had some good fun playing the campaign co-op and a bit of online play here and there.

I've moved on though, FPS is nice and all but after a while online just feels like a grind to me.

People really need to stop caring about previous Halo titles and either look foward to the next installment or just find a new game.

 

[gorfias]

tell me what Halo possibly offers that we haven't already seen?

New Halo style missions.

You are correct that the mechanics, if not the pace of Halo are duplicated in games such as Call of Duty Moder Warfare 2. But COD series, or Crysis, or Resistance, do not have the Halo soundtrack, sounds, art direction, the same voice acting. They are not the same experience anymore than watching Star Trek 4 and Star Wars Empire Strikes Back are the same movie, even though there are outer space space ship battles.

Personally, I do love the pacing. It is a very playable game in which I don't get killed every 2 seconds and have to start all over again.

I particularly liked whacking gorilla monsters with a big hammer in Halo 3.

 

[PissOffRoth]

And that's fine. I prefer depth and story telling, but whatever. To each their own.

Give me the name of an FPS with "depth and storytelling." Just one. Half Life. That's about it. The rest are failures at storytelling. The only FPS to ever make me feel any sort of emotion outside of Half Life is MW2 when Shepherd lit me on fire. And then, the only emotion was "This guy's a dick, I'm gonna have fun killing him." I feel so immersed. I just got burned alive and my only thought is "Asshole."

 

[jboking]

Particularly true for the Quake series and many of their mods, because grenade launchers meant you didn't need to turn around to take a shot at someone. Aim about 30 degrees up, fire at a wall just before you round the corner, and there's a decent chance your enemy will run into it while chasing you.

Thanks, you've just proved my point, hardcore PC gaming until Halo was pretty much a one hit kill.

He's talking about grenade launchers right? Hum...grenades being a one hit kill.

Spoiler: where have I seen that before

 

[bojac6]

Anyway, Halo did not pioneer anything. Not even vehicles in FPS games. Hell, Shadow Warrior had it in '97, and I bet other games had it before that. If you want a good example of FPS storytelling, Max Payne, (2001?) came out before Halo and has much more depth to it, especially considering we're talking about Halo: Combat Evolved, not Halo 2 or 3.

That said, unfortunately, you are correct that it did set a new standard. It actually lowered the bar on what was passable as a shooter, and encouraged the industry to head to this derivative state where nearly everything is the same. Compared to FPSs pre-Halo, I think things were much more inventive and creative. The problem is that most people who enjoy Halo have not PLAYED a FPS created before Halo, and they see the FPS genre as everything from Halo forward. And, admittedly, if all I saw was console FPS from Halo forward, I would probably respect the game much more.

Examples please. You gave one, Max Payne. I'll give you two more, Halflife and Deus Ex. Can you name any other shooters that were so much better than Halo? Seriously, Halo was a vast improvement over most of the Doom clones that came out in the '90s. We remember a few good games, but most of them were crappy, generic, and far worse than the crappy generic shooters of today. Halo drew a lot of lessons from Halflife (a coherent story in an FPS, Halflife's greatest contribution to gaming, and decent AI), and then streamlined it. It might lack the story complexity of Deus Ex, but frankly, so does every other game ever.
Streamlining gameplay does not mean dumbing down, it means it helped get the game interface out of the way to let you the player enjoy the game itself.
So what are all these older FPSs from the 90s that were on track to do such great things before Halo came along and "lowered the bar" so much?

 

[obliviondoll]

And that's fine. I prefer depth and story telling, but whatever. To each their own.

Give me the name of an FPS with "depth and storytelling." Just one. Half Life. That's about it. The rest are failures at storytelling. The only FPS to ever make me feel any sort of emotion outside of Half Life is MW2 when Shepherd lit me on fire. And then, the only emotion was "This guy's a dick, I'm gonna have fun killing him." I feel so immersed. I just got burned alive and my only thought is "Asshole."

You missed Unreal, Marathon, Marathon 2, Deus Ex... I could list HEAPS more, but I think I'm starting to annoy people...

Speaking of which...

Someones being abit pedantic.

That was because someone else made a broad generalisation about a genre which disregarded literally almost every popular game ever in said genre.

 

[AgDr_ODST]

for consoles what Halo 3 did with forge and theatre is revolutionary, and Halo CE did great things when it first came out, but it became less great when everyone started to not so blantantly copy it

 

[ZeroMachine]

To be completely honest?

For me, it comes down to three things...

The Story.

I've read the books and I absolutely love the universe. I even got my girlfriend into it, and she isn't huge on scifi. The characters, the technology, the tactics, and my favorite part of the books- all the improv the characters have to make. I fucking love it.

The music.

Marty O'Donnel is a master of striking emotion with instrumental and orchestrated music. The soundtracks for the games are amazing, and can be listened to without the game being played, which isn't too common for video game music. I can't wait to hear what he did for the music for Reach.

The multiplayer.

I like the multiplayer because, regardless of what you said, it actually is different than most others right now. There are barely any FPS games where you can survive sustained fire for more than a second. Most FPS's have gone the way of hyper realism. It's a very different experience than any other multiplayer shooter I've played nowadays.

Not saying it doesn't have it's flaws. It does. The story and presentation of Halo 3 was very lacking, and although I love the cinematic value of Halo 2, don't even get me started on how much they could have done better.

But it's my favorite scifi series through book, film, and game, bar none. And to those that say "it has no story" or "it's just Alien!"... get your head out of your ass and do some research.

 

[repeating integers]

I don't get everyone criticising Halo's story. The story in itself is OK, but more importantly it's told brilliantly. EDIT: Ninja'd.

You are correct that the mechanics, if not the pace of Halo are duplicated in games such as Call of Duty Moder Warfare 2. But COD series, or Crysis, or Resistance, do not have the Halo soundtrack, sounds, art direction, the same voice acting.

This, this, this and this.

 

[linkzeldi]

It has a laser sword. How man other Fps's have laser swords?

 

[orangeapples]

Halo was an amazing and unique game. when it came out. It was a Sci-fi Goldeneye64 on the current Gen. Until then no game dare question Goldeneye's spot as the main FPS multiplayer killfest. Since Halo:CE was released, Every game is trying to be an over the top Halo. Halo's story is standard but plausible. FPS after Halo is down right bizarre.
I mean, Gears of War? seriously? Chainsaw gun? Its just a fancy bayonet. That is not even realistic because the kickback on that chainsaw would be insane considering the angle and the grip on the gun. Unless you are some 300 pound mass of muscle and half a car worth of armor. But how realistic is that?
Haze? I think that's the game with the drugged up super soldiers. realistic?
Timeshift? Bulletime the game?
I can go on and on, but Halo really is the only modern fun realistic, sci-fi FPS that isn't stupid.

And because I really have to:

2009: Modern Warfare 2. The only successful Halo Killer.
2010: Halo: Reach. already killed MW2 and it isn't even out yet.

I don't even have an Xbox 360 or enjoy FPS. But I can appreciate Halo for what it is: A damn good game series.

 

[lukemdizzle]

this thread turned out exactly as one would predict. The only problem I have with the anti halo argument is it never comes down to personal preference. there argument is usually halo is dumb and generic and therefor you are stupid for liking it. (none of which is true)

 

[Yopaz]

Well, I don't love the series, and honestly I have only played Halo 3 which I btw don't own so I've played at a friend's house and only multiplayer. What I would say about it is that it's fun, pure and simple. Other fps games might be fun too, but Halo works for me. I wont say that it's the greatest multiplayer game, but I'm not fan of the genre and I enjoy it, isn't that all it should take?

 

[Sacman]

Halo, IMO, never had anything to give to the genre. the only reason I can think of for it's success is because it was on consoles and console shooters sold like hot cakes back in 2000 when everything was backward and primitive...
And yes I hate Halo, and not the game itself but what it's done to the FPS market...

 

[Ziggy the wolf]

honestly i dont like the halo series but if i wanna play a game i will pick up halo 3 or odst. i liked the feel of halo 3 and then last mission was fast paced and fun and Odst has some good modes and fun multiplayer. i honestly could do with halo one and two

 

[AugustFall]

Every time it was released it set a new standered for other to follow:
Halo 1, it was one of the first good FPS on a Console
Halo 2, defined multiplayer for FPS, some may argue it was what saved the Xbox
Halo 3, introduced forge which let people on consoles experence what thost who used things like gary's mod and the like had, user generated content.
Halo: ODST, well, i've never played this one
Halo: Reach Watch the video's on forgeworld, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnoUGULIPyc for the vidoc

Golden Eye, seriously and Time Splitters. How are these being forgotten over and over again?! These were both on consoles before Halo and were fun as hell.

Time Splitters also had a level builder.

Halo was indeed a breakout success and popularised FPSs on consoles but it was not revolutionary, merely the culmination of ground covered in previous and in my opinion better FPS's.

 

[Optix334]

Note that im not a hater on Halo. I actually love it! But heres my problem. When Halo came out it set a new standard for FPS, and almot every shooter has taken after it since. You could say its the core of all FPS since its release. But what does Halo possibly have that no other shooter has now? I know this is mostly from my opinion but creativity wise, there isn't much that has been added. Or at least not original to Halo. I just feel like when I play it, its beginning to turn into a blurry screen and all I see are the basics of all guns, armor, and vehicles in todays FPS. So all I ask of you is to tell me what Halo possibly offers that we haven't already seen? I just want to enjoy the series again before I turn into a hater of a game I truly loved.

Its just fun. Thats it. COD and the rest are all too serious. Everyone has to get the most kills or the best k/d ratio. Halo is about shooting eachother with a rocket and laughing as your body bounces off three walls, gets hit by a warthog and somehow miracously lands on its knees and does a powerslide before coming to a rest. I tested it once, and COD makes you mad enough to throw a controller through your tv, while halo gets you frustrated but not that angry.

 

[Sacman]

It has a laser sword. How man other Fps's have laser swords?

Deus Ex, Star Wars: the Clone Wars, System Shock 1$2, and my modded TF2 games...
all of which are better... except for maybe Star Wars...

 

[repeating integers]

my modded TF2 games...

Mods don't count. The others are fine (though I've never heard of System Shock, only recently heard of Deus Ex and Star Wars basically invented the whole laser sword convention) but don't mention mods you personally made.