Poll: What's Your Opinion of the Halo Series?

[Vrex360]

snip

I had a big response planned but I decided that it didn't matter. No offence but I don't see the point to any more debates.

I'll always have the original trilogy, if my fears do come to light I can just ignore everything after Halo 3 and live my life. And if I'm wrong about Halo 4 then things are all good for me.
Please understand I'm not against Halo, I'm merely addressing my concerns. And I'm aware that it doesn't ultimatley matter anyway, if I don't like it I won't acknowledge it, if I do I will. I might just let my concerns, though they remain ever present, fall by the wayside and just see how it goes.

 

[khiliani]

Halo:CE is, and will remain, one of my all time favouret games.it was one of the first fpss I ever played, and for that reason had a big influence on me as a gamer. halo 2 wasnt great, but still had some great moments. Halo 3 probably means a lot to me mostly because I payed a lot of it with my best mate, and it was a great bonding tool. I was one of those who liked ODSTs change of pace, and I found its different story telling technique interesting. Reach was a good send off, though i do feel the story and feeling of the game was weaker than the earlier games. Halo wars was, well it was crap, but it was an interesting attempt at a different type of game.

overall, what makes halo a great game series in my opinion is its different style of gameplay, away from the modern "realistic" shooters, and its colour scheme, with a very attractive use of purple to break up any monotomy (i realy like the covernant ship levels).

 

[Zetatrain]

That's just my take on it. I've been playing them since CE came out. I'm curious where Microsoft is taking the franchise. From what I've heard the tie in books have been rubbish - nonsense about how the Flood were cured by humans who also fought the Forerunnners. I dunno, whatever.

While I haven't started reading the Forerunner trilogy yet, I'd say that most of the tie books are worth a look if you're interested in Halo lore. IMO, the Halo novels provide much better stories than the ones in the games.

Anyway, while I wouldn't exactly call the series great, I still enjoy the video games a lot and consider myself a Halo fan.

And, like Star Wars/Trek, if you let every last bit of fluff, canon, spin-off and side-story wind you up, you'd grind your teeth to stumps in frustration. Nerds like me like consistency, and it's annoying when some new team tramples over what was previously set-in-stone canon, or retcons chunks of the storyline, or introduces stuff in the prequels that outshines weapons/tech in the main series...

So I take it you weren't much of a fan of the changes made in Reach.

 

[Legion]

I adored Halo: Combat Evolved. It's story was special and so was playing it with friends.
I thought Halo 2 had an average campaign, but an awesome multiplayer.
I thought Halo 3 had an average campaign, an okay multiplayer but disliked it's scaling down.
I thought Halo Reach had a fairly good campaign, and my thoughts on the multiplayer were the same as Halo 3's, except more boredom as I'd seen it all before.

The lore is great, and the books, while not always well written are fascinating.

Overall I like the series, especially the lore, but I feel the games are merely "solid" but otherwise unexceptional. They work well, play well and are enjoyable, but they don't stand out as anything amazing.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Used to really enjoy it- definitely loved the first 3. After that though, it all started to fell a bit samey, and now that the franchise is going to have a release per year, I've pretty much given up all hope of the series dramatically changing itself...

What... Halo isn't yearly... I mean granted, it has sort of been since Halo 3 with Wars, ODST, Reach, Anniversary, and now 4. But there is no plans for a Halo 2 Anniversary, and Halo 5 isn't coming out next year. :/

It won't be coming out till the next xbox is out already.

Really? I could've sworn Microsoft were releasing Halo 4 this year, Halo 5 in 2013, and then Halo 6 in 2014.
But I'll listen to you- you do have a Spartan as your avatar, so therefore are probably far more knowledgeable about all things Halo than me

 

[OldDirtyCrusty]

The art design was always to clean for my taste and i never considered buying a Halo game. Then my 360 died and i never thought of the franchise again. If i want a FPS with vehicles i play BF.

The new upcomming one looks really good but i won`t buy a new 360 for it.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I consider it the best gaming universe of all time.

No, I'm serious.

The games are fantastic (excluding Wars and ODST), but it's the novels and expanded universe that really give it life. Even Wars is a fun distraction and with a HEAVILY reduced price tag, ODST could have been great.

I'm also a sucker for epic and the Halo games and universe have some of my favorite moments ever.

I adore the story and have been following for a long time.

AND THEN GREG BEAR HAPPENED.

I despise the Forerunner books more than anything else in my life.

Hopefully Halo 4 doesn't embrace them too much.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Halo?

It's... a thing. People play it. That's all I know.

I've more or less reached the point where the early Xbox days saturated me with Halo to such a degree that I've more or less blocked out the entire fucking series.

All I know is that it underlined what GoldenEye 64 had already proven years ago, which is the fact that it was possible to make a compelling first-person shooter for the console market. I won't go so far as to say it's the BEST THING FOR EVERS AND EVERS, though.

Halo fanboys are really, really annoying.

 

[Myndnix]

It's alright. Competently designed games with an interesting mythos surrounding them.
However, there're FPS games I like better.

 

[Woodsey]

Dull, pulpy, B-Movieish and stupid. Genericy incarnate. (Shut up, it's a word.) Has led people to believe that you can tell someone to read the novels surrounding a game to explain something in the game, and act as if they're at fault if they haven't.

 

[Vausch]

Meh. I'll take a lot of other FPSes over it but they're not bad games. Reach at least had a good bit of storytelling told through gameplay in the final battle.

 

[Alssadar]

I had a lot of fun with it. Halo 2 'twas my first FPS, and co-op was always a blast with friends.
Not owning an Xbox, I've put a couple hours for Halo 3/ODST, and a couple matches online of Reach. For such reasons, I play more TF2, as I own it, HATS, and the fun communities I've found.

 

[drzoidbergmd]

It did sort of homogenize the shooter genre for a couple of years, but having seen what the realism warfare genre has become and remembering how bored I get with WW2 shooters, I can really appreciate how good Halos 1 and 2 were, how good 3's gameplay was, the interesting direction ODST took, and what Reach did, and I very much enjoy them getting away from the Covenant in 4. Needless to say, I don't know why a bad shooter was made after Halo 2 and Star Wars: Republic Commando came out within six months of each other.

 

[Bobic]

Never owned an xbox 360, so can't comment on the whole series, but Halo 1 and 2 were pretty awesome. Not my favourite fps, but still, pretty damned cool. Also, the inclusion of a Co-op campaign is something that more games should have. Co-op makes everything awesome, especially local co-op. So yeah, I like the Halo series.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I think it kind of overrated. By all means I had a good time whenever I played the series but I never exactly fell in love with the universe itself.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Favourite FPS series by a considerable way, love it!

 

[Nadia Castle]

Normally its a game I just wouldn't care about, but its fans keep going on and on about its wonderful characters and deep mythology. Have I only ever played the beta versions or something because there is absolutely nothing in Halo that wasn't in any FPS from before hand. The Covenant are no deeper or more interesting than the Combine or the Strogg or even the Doom Demons. There's not a single character that's visually interesting, fun or ever well acted. The story line is also just appalling. I didn't even realize you left Earth on part 2 until one of the characters explicitly stated 'WE ARE ON ANOTHER HALO'.

Still its not all Halos fault I suppose. The grand march of imitators and clones are far more annoying, especially with their 'we're pretending to be deep here'. Gears of War was a fun little game but why oh why did it even pretend to have a plot? And god forbid Killzones 'Just make a WW2 game and change a few letters' result...

 

[WindKnight]

Loved the ones I've played so far, though I never bothered with anniversary, would say I liked reach most, but then I loved jetpacking around the shop.

I'm waiting for reviews to see whether I'm getting halo 4 though. it definitely needs to evolve and move forward, and the fact the first gameplay demo opens with a skirmish with covenant left me feeling they were too prepared to step the story backwards to keep it too much like all the other ones. I mean the war is over... don't reheat it/throw in a rogue covenant faction just so we all have our grunt/elite comfort blanket. push the story forward, not backward

 

[silver wolf009]

NOTE: PLEASE don't turn this into a Console vs PC debate, not something I want to start here...

Then one of the options shouldn't involve the words, "Console trash."

My opinion: Fantastic world and lore, decent games, not my go too. Can be very fun when you're playing split screen "Insanity" modes, like 300% speed 25% gravity, or some infection variants, but not that good for long sessions of grinding, which is what the newer installations are trying to demand.

That, and I will never like the fact that automatic plasma weaponry is worth jack shit. That's not how it should work.

 

[dvd_72]

I'm normally not a fan of FPSs, but I've always been somewhat fond of Halo. It's different from my usual RPG fare and the campaigns have always been satisfying. I mean, not every game needs to completely wow me so satisfying is good.

I really like the new Firefight mode (I think that's what it was called. It's been a while now and I'm horrid with names). Never been a fan of competitive multiplayer but always loved battling increasingly desperate odds with a friend or two (or even alone!).