Poll: Alright guys, settle a bet for me. Half Life, Halo, or CoD?

[burhanr]

hmm i thought putting cod there and not putting battlefield there would induce rage, but i ctrl+f page one, and there are no instance of the word "battlefield", so i am proven wrong, probably.

Cod 4 is really really good. In a time where ww2 shooters dominates fps, i don't think there are other fps with such an engaging campaign (there is this girl who says halo's campaign turns her on, but i only play games on pc). Sadly every cod after that kind of felt wrong. The two games by treyarch is pretty shit. mw2 and mw3 are easily forgettable.

Half Life 2's rather slow pacing in the beginning kind of put me off, BUT, after spending some time with it, my vote easily goes to half life 2. Where do i begin: Nova Prospekt, that bit where they added the achievement just to force me to fire one gun shot for the entire episode 1 (yup, i got it), but the last fight against striders on ep2 is the one that really makes me astonished.

 

[lRookiel]

Oh god, Half life destroys those games in terms of single player, possibly because the other two games heavily rely on multiplayer which detracts from the single player experience in the first place.

Take Half life or TES games as the perfect example of games that don't need multiplayer, because you will get more enjoyment/use out of them than you would out of COD or BF games.

I call bullshit. Halo 1 and 3 had SP campaigns that could rival HL. It's just that since the release of H2, the communities focus has been on MP.

You have a point and just in case your wondering I do like the Halo series (I despise COD), but I prefer HL just for these simple facts:

- Better control: The high jump capacity of the master chief just pisses me off, aswell as the poor response, but that could be just the 360 controller I'm not sure

- Better Immersion: Halo games are too purple for my liking alot of the time since you have to spend quite a while on some covenant ships and it just kills my eyes >.<

- Better story: Aliens vs humans is always trumped by a good use of a rebellion/resistance vs occupying force.

Just to point out as well, Halo's multiplayer is just terrible (Not including MP Firefight thats quite fun) so they may aswell have just kept focussing on SP like Halo CE (Which was the best anyway)

And all because of:

- Poor balancing, it's basically "EVERYONE RUN FOR THE ROCKET LAUNCHER/SNIPER/SPARTAN LASER/Fucking Tank!!" (Multiplayer that include vehicles should be shot dead)
- God awful community (You cannot deny it either)

So for me the SP doesn't match HL and the MP is just crap xD

But yeah, thats just for me anyway.....

 

[stormtrooper9091]

only voted Half Life because I'm a hater and (obviously!) hate CoD and Halo

 

[itsausernamewhatofit]

I used to play and love both series, but over time I sort of grew away from Halo. I barely played Reach, for my I think Halo 3 was the pinnacle of the series for me.

My feelings exactly, I can never convince anyone that Halo 3 was the finest game in the series. I think my favorite moments in gaming have all been during one of the times I went for the achievement Annual (last level, legendary, iron on, 4 player coop, all players finish in ghosts).

 

[Ickorus]

Im a massive Valve fanboy, guess who I voted for.

 

[Sectan]

Half Life 2. Never felt like more of a badass than when I'm playing a mute physicist gunning down the combine and cruising around in a buggy. It's got that weird contrast to it. You're a physicist. One guy that just happened to get involved with a screwed up experiment and suddenly you're the banner that people rally to. The one Free Man

 

[Sethzard]

My vote went to halo, I couldn't get into half life and halo is better than COD in my opinion.

 

[Bat Vader]

While I have enjoyed the Halo series and semi-enjoyed the Call of Duty series. I like the Half-Life more.

 

[Fanta Grape]

Honestly, I prefer Call of Duty. I love the fast paced mechanics and I love the customisation. I think Call of Duty 4 was a really well made game and all the sequels have brought their own new twist on it. Not that they were ever needed, and I'd appreciate some more ingenuity and creativity, but the core run and gun mechanics are very satisfying to me. I'm a multiplayer fan and while the campaign is rubbish, playing with friends is infinitely satisfying.

Halo's also pretty great but to me it feels like it lacks balanced weapon variety, but that may be because I haven't played it enough. Very close to Call of Duty though in terms of fun.

Half-Life 2 was boring for me. Don't get me wrong, I understand why it's good and I understand why people enjoy it, but I have a few major problems. The combat is quite rubbish despite being the core mechanic, and the game is so linear that walking from point A to point B often felt like a tedious task. A lot of the game was simply me walking along, finding enemies, getting behind cover and very slowly taking the enemy down. That's about as close as you'll get to strategy in the game and it's frustrating that the only way a cautious play style (and also necessary on hard difficulty) changes the game is to slow down the pace, while running and gunning will get you killed. The plot's pretty damn great, and the presentation and the ideas are iconic. Brilliant game, but multiplayer's just more fun for me.

 

[Fanta Grape]

Honestly, I prefer Call of Duty. I love the fast paced mechanics and I love the customisation. I think Call of Duty 4 was a really well made game and all the sequels have brought their own new twist on it. Not that they were ever needed, and I'd appreciate some more ingenuity and creativity, but the core run and gun mechanics are very satisfying to me. I'm a multiplayer fan and while the campaign is rubbish, playing with friends is infinitely satisfying.

Halo's also pretty great but to me it feels like it lacks balanced weapon variety, but that may be because I haven't played it enough. Very close to Call of Duty though in terms of fun.

Half-Life 2 was boring for me. Don't get me wrong, I understand why it's good and I understand why people enjoy it, but I have a few major problems. The combat is quite rubbish despite being the core mechanic, and the game is so linear that walking from point A to point B often felt like a tedious task. A lot of the game was simply me walking along, finding enemies, getting behind cover and very slowly taking the enemy down. That's about as close as you'll get to strategy in the game and it's frustrating that the only way a cautious play style (and also necessary on hard difficulty) changes the game is to slow down the pace, while running and gunning will get you killed. The plot's pretty damn great, and the presentation and the ideas are iconic. Brilliant game, but multiplayer's just more fun for me.

 

[DSK-]

I enjoyed HL2 more than I have enjoyed the likes of COD. Halo I personally do not like in the slightest.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, since I never got into the other two, I'll have to say Half-Life.

 

[Madhawk]

I first played Halo when I got Halo 3, and I wasn't too impressed by it, and I guess I was about 5 years late to the party. I find that CoD is overly bland and boring, but Halflife on the other hand is fantastic.

Still, I think that the best FPS series ever is the Unreal Tournament games or Timesplitters.

 

[Callate]

They're all fine games. I tend to feel that the Half-Life series did far more to advance thinking on what the FPS genre is capable of. Halo did a lot to show what was possible in a FPS on a console, and to make playing an FPS on a console controller a far less onerous affair. But in a straight-up match-up, I would definitely give the prize to HL.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Half-Life for the mods, Halo for the cool visuals and gameplay, COD for a longer lasting multiplayer.

If you're getting it for the PC, get Half-Life for the mods. Otherwise, I say go with Halo.

 

[Freaky Lou]

Story goes: I was eating Christmas dinner, talking about video games with my cousins (both of whom watch videos on the Escapist regularly, but have not made accounts), and brought up the gift I gave them each last year (copies of the Orange Box). They both enjoyed Portal a lot, didn't try TF2, and hated Half Life. I personally herald Half Life as the best single player FPS, with each of them advocating Halo or CoD for that position. We got to talking about the Escapist later, and they were convinced that this community would agree that either CoD or Halo is superior to Half Life. We've bet 25 bucks on the matter, so I'm gonna ask you all now: CoD, Halo, or Half Life?

They basically threw their money away. Obviously they don't know this community very well.

I voted Half-Life because of the head-and-shoulders better storytelling. It was also arguably more innovative than Halo, and CERTAINLY more innovative than CoD...and it doesn't use regenerating health.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

I dont really care for any of the above, but I especially dont care for Half-Life. In fact, for the longest time, I was frantically trying to find a copy of Half-life 2 for my PC. But once I played it on a friends, I realised that it was nothing like I hoped for...

Halo im meh towards, and COD is probably the one true sorce of my MP-FPS rage condition...

frantically trying to find a copy of a game that is probably one of the single most easily attainable pc games ever? i mean... steam. you don't frantically attempt to find a valve game on pc.

i'm not sure i understand this. which leads me to say that i'm not sure i believe this.

 

[Sacman]

Half-Life... I mean what made it truly great isn't it's actual game mechanics, despite the fact that the shooting is straight forward and tight, I would argue tighter than both CD and Halo, though lacking in complexity, but the way it's able to create a believable world heavy atmosphere and basically be the only linear game to truly never break from the game to tell a story. It's able to introduce characters, develop characters and progress the story all within the context of the world it sets for it's self without ever taking control away from the player... which leads me to the next thing... the fact that it's one of the few games to understand how freedom in gameplay works. It's not having a open world or having tons of things to do. It's giving the ability to move and make choices within the limitations of the game. not giving them specific laid out choices but letting the player forge there own path while still staying within a linear context... Halo does this to some extant but still a lot of it is just being drug around linear yet still confusing levels ducking in and out of cover with two weapons limiting your choices. Half-Life on the other hand promotes the idea of freedom by giving you the ability to switch between any amount of weapons on your person at one time and while it's a linear game it doesn't present it's self as such letting you explore, within context, and not holding you by the hand during puzzle sequences...

all of this really just led to a better told story in a more immersive and interesting world...<.<

 

[aidutcher]

I voted Halo. From the experiences I've had with each of those games, I'd say Halo was the most fun. Halo 3 and Reach, specifically. Co-op Halo with my friends was some of the most fun gaming I've ever had.