Poll: Why do people like Halo so much?

[phatty500]

my god. Someone makes a "Why do people like half life" thread and everyone and their dog talks about how innovative it was. Someone makes a "Why does everyone like halo" thread and pretty much no one brings up how it completely revolutionized the console shooter, adding concepts like dedicated melee and grenade buttons. How it had a decent story with fun characters. How even today its bright and colorful in a world decried for having grey and brown shooters. Its multiplayer has always been top tier.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I think that the people who like it are just gamers who didn't experience the PC shooters of the late 90s and early 2000s and don't know any better.

Well that's one of the most silly and insulting assumptions I've read in a long time. Thanks for that.

OT:
For me, it comes mostly down to story.

Now, if you take just the stories of the games, it's confusing and not all that good. However, factoring in the entire expanded universe, it remains one of my favorite in gaming.

I absolutely understand the position that the games should hold their own weight as well and they really don't. I get it. I just don't care. I LOVE digging into the novels and other media.

The second major aspect for me is variety of gameplay. Every enemy plays different, every weapon kills differently and every section with completely optional vehicles is augmented to an even greater level of variety.

It isn't especially original, but it is, at the time of writing, my favorite game series of all time. And it totally ended when Bungie quit. No 4, no Greg Bear.

 

[Smiley Face]

I used to. It was the first shooter I ever played, and one of the first games that wasn't kid-friendly, and I had a blast with it for years.

Lately though, my interest has waned. I've been playing shooters for so long that I just don't get a kick out of the gameplay the way I used to. A lot of the games I play nowadays are for the story, characters, and exploration, and when I do focus on the gameplay elements, I care for the tactics and strategy - which, as shooters go, CoD supports better than Halo - loadouts+stealth+equipment allow you to play tactically, and for it not just to be a clusterfuck.

Not to mention that Halo 4 was just bland as all hell by Halo standards.

 

[Gatx]

I recently decided to play Halo 1 on the PC and see what the fuss is about. Meh.
It's definitely not the worst shooter I played, but it's very basic and has nothing to distinguish itself from others. And the Vehicle sections are awful. They made Mass Effect's Mako look much better by comparison.

I think that the people who like it are just gamers who didn't experience the PC shooters of the late 90s and early 2000s and don't know any better.

A large part of the popularity of Halo has to do with the time it was released. First, it was a really good non-PC shooter that really streamlined the experience for consoles - two weapon limit, dedicated grenade and melee buttons instead them being weapons you had to switch to (1 and 4 in most games if I remember right), etc. Also while there's a slew of better options on PC, it's a different standard for consoles. Before that you just had... Goldeneye (and by extension Perfect Dark)? Turok?

Then you had Halo 2, which was one of the early major games for Xbox Live (online multiplayer was fairly new for consoles) and set the standard for online multiplayer on consoles (matchmaking instead of a server list for instance).

How well the game itself holds up is subjective, and your mileage may vary obviously, but overall it's a game that's had a lot of impact and influence on the direction of gaming.

 

[NinjazInside]

I'm a big fan of the game obviously, and take this as a science whirl for you, most of the technology the humans use is completely plausible TODAY, bar the obvious FTL and Fusion Reactors and Space Ships. But that just enables the Sci-Fi aspect, otherwise its just supped up modern technology or half of it is well actually buildable right now, and this is a game set 500 years in the future. I like that in a way, it links me into the game, the first Halo was the game that i was first introduced too that hadn't been kinda given to me. I don't actually remember buying games i wanted till i really got into PC gaming, and the two/three games i enjoyed most on that was Halo 1, Crysis and Total War series.

I did go into the extended universe and was quite peeved with Reach but i worked around it in my mind only thing i cant work around is the last mission and why they felt to make it Cortana and the Pillar of Autumn, could have just been an important data cache she gave them which they had to get to (Insert Ship Name Here) but i guess Cortana and Autumn give long time Halo fans an investment to complete the objective. As well as this i see Halo being compared a lot to games that are more RPG then shooter. Okay of course an RPG is going to have in game a more fleshed out story, why the hell do you think its an RPG, again its a Shooter so the depth of story it has is pretty damn good, considering most other games that are not an RPG have really terrible stories comparatively.

I really really like Halo as a series, i wasn't completely put off with Halo 4 when i was going in expecting to be completely disappointed with it, i strangely enough understood the plot and didn't have to read the latest novels to understand everything that was going on. I guess i just enjoy the story, the multiplayer the single player. I've been told that i missed out on a lot with the Quake series etc, but i have to agree i prefer the way it is now, before where was he hiding all the weapons in his arse? I'm sorry but that sort of thing completely throws me out of the game, it breaks my immersion. I'm not saying i like CoD games either, where the odd grunt can carry equipment that two or three men only could carry, but a super soldier in a experimental armour that can enhance his strength etc. and that is plausible you could carry two heavy weapons.

 

[teebeeohh]

it's fun
it's colourful
it had good MP for the time

it was more "military" than most shooters at the time at the time, which made it distinctive.
funnily enough, today it is less of a military shooter than most other shooters.

oh and don't compare it to system shock 2 and deus ex, those are not shooters.

 

[DSK-]

I don't like it, but I can see why it's popular. It was run-of-the mill and boilerplate when it first came out but it actually worked really well on xbox.

 

[Doom972]

I recently decided to play Halo 1 on the PC and see what the fuss is about. Meh.
It's definitely not the worst shooter I played, but it's very basic and has nothing to distinguish itself from others. And the Vehicle sections are awful. They made Mass Effect's Mako look much better by comparison.

I think that the people who like it are just gamers who didn't experience the PC shooters of the late 90s and early 2000s and don't know any better.

A large part of the popularity of Halo has to do with the time it was released. First, it was a really good non-PC shooter that really streamlined the experience for consoles - two weapon limit, dedicated grenade and melee buttons instead them being weapons you had to switch to (1 and 4 in most games if I remember right), etc. Also while there's a slew of better options on PC, it's a different standard for consoles. Before that you just had... Goldeneye (and by extension Perfect Dark)? Turok?

Then you had Halo 2, which was one of the early major games for Xbox Live (online multiplayer was fairly new for consoles) and set the standard for online multiplayer on consoles (matchmaking instead of a server list for instance).

How well the game itself holds up is subjective, and your mileage may vary obviously, but overall it's a game that's had a lot of impact and influence on the direction of gaming.

I agree with every word. That's what I meant by "didn't know any better" - console gamers had lower standards because they didn't have the same great shooters that the PC had - or rather they did, but in the form of ports which weren't as good as the originals. In this generation, the FPS genre migrated to consoles and brought with it some of the best shooters to the console, but at that point Halo already had a big fanbase among console gamers.

 

[loc978]

It popularized a whole lot of shooter mechanics that completely changed the way shooters are played today. I say for the worse, most people say for the better. The story never hooked me, but I've been into a lot of sci-fi from a very young age. It reads as pretty standard and forgettable to me... but I can see why someone raised on it would be very fond of it. That's pretty much how I grew fond of Star Wars.

Fans of it who are my age, though... those I have no understanding of.

 

[The Harkinator]

Halo is a very well designed game, the levels have a nice variation of open, sprawling arenas and tight enclosed combat and provides enough different weapons to play through the levels. It also doesn't force the player to complete it in any certain way, often combat in Halo involves arriving in the next arena with perhaps a special weapon or a vehicle that would be well suited to achieving the next objective. But the player character always has the tools at their disposal to win, therefore the player never feels powerless against heavier opponents or feel it necessary to pick up a more powerful weapon and shoot at tanks from your cover.

Halo is based on "You could do it like this." As opposed to the obvious rival Call of Duty which prefers to say "You need to do it like this."

"You could pick up that missile launcher to destroy those tanks, or you could try and get around them to destroy them with melee attacks."
"You need to pick up that missile launcher to destroy those tanks or you could sit around in this bit of the level getting shouted at by your NPC CO until you've done what the game tells you to do."

"You could drive this Warthog down into that tunnel, taking out the turret and the enemies gathered around it, or you could throw grenades in there, or get on your Warthog turret and kill them with that."
"You need to sit still as we take control away from you and show you crashing into all these enemies, then we'll throw the camera around a bit then the player will wake up in a haze and continue the mission."

 

[neppakyo]

The first halo was kinda fun, had no story, gameplay sucked a bit. It just went downhill from there.

The story isn't that good, and it feels too generic, nothing special.

I guess simple things amuse the masses.

 

[HellbirdIV]

Big, open maps. Multiple weapons with entirely different feels and playstyles. Tons of enemies that are visually distinct and behave in unique ways to present different challenges. Exciting, well-implemented vehicle sections that flow organically into the map layout.

The story is straightforward with enough twists to be interesting, but no stupid twists for the sake of having twists and which never tries to add "gritty realism" that bogs down the narrative, but which still taking itself seriously enough to be enjoyed as classic Scifi action.

Honestly? I don't understand why people DON'T like Halo, beyond "It's popular so it sucks!".

I'm getting a little tired of it, to be honest. Games can be art, guys - that doesn't mean games have to try and be artsy to be good.

 

[Mocmocman]

There have been a surge of 'why do people like things' threads recently.

How else are we supposed to get flame badges talk about about gaming now that Microsoft reversed their policies on the xbone?

OT: I've never played it, but from what I understand it was pretty revolutionary for it's time.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I don't play fps and I've never owned an Xbox but from the Shooter genre I'd say Halo looks one of the more interesting ones.

I like the colours I guess...

 

[neppakyo]

Big, open maps. Multiple weapons with entirely different feels and playstyles. Tons of enemies that are visually distinct and behave in unique ways to present different challenges. Exciting, well-implemented vehicle sections that flow organically into the map layout.

The story is straightforward with enough twists to be interesting, but no stupid twists for the sake of having twists and which never tries to add "gritty realism" that bogs down the narrative, but which still taking itself seriously enough to be enjoyed as classic Scifi action.

Honestly? I don't understand why people DON'T like Halo, beyond "It's popular so it sucks!".

I'm getting a little tired of it, to be honest. Games can be art, guys - that doesn't mean games have to try and be artsy to be good.

Big open maps, different weapons, vehicles.. oh wait unreal tournament did that...

 

[Fijiman]

I like the Halo games. The campaigns are fairly fun and memorable and multiplayer can be really fun, especially if you're playing with friends.

 

[Mezworld24]

I suppose the main reason I like Halo is story. Though the game campaigns have poorly explained the plot ever since halo 2 (though the relationship between chief and cortanna was never better than in halo 4), the extended and overall universe is really interesting, kinda a mix of military politics, religious crusades and strange fantasy in the novels and ARG's.
The multiplayer is generic, but it knows it is, (till halo 4) and its just simple and fun to play with all the crazy weapons and vehicles, especially in forge, with friends.