wookiee777 said:
I would attribute it to three primary reasons:
First, the game was probably the first shooter that was designed with consoles in mind, giving it both a unique type of gameplay as well good controls. Sure, there were golden eye and perfect dark, but to be frank, they still felt like the ports of much better PC games. Also, with the benefit of having played goldeneye very recently, I would say that the controls are terrible (inverted look can't be turned off, the only way to aim manually is using the unreliable spring-from-center aim, and the game has such over abundant auto-aim that it basically plays itself on single player) and the game is a series of trial and error levels that had logic to rival a bad adventure game.
Halo was designed around the now standard dual thumb stick set up (when practically every other shooter defaulted to legacy), which meant that the game could be designed around it. It made for more vertical game play, as well as a higher emphasis on location oriented damage. This has a number of implications, such as more enemy variety, more acrobatics, increased level variety, and skillful grenade usage. The game's design also correctly used the limited number of immediately accessible keys to great effect by emphasizing less on the reflex heavy raw input allowed by a mouse and key board and more on timing and more on deliberate and slower paced decision making. This isn't to say that Halo is a slow game, but the amount of time to think about things is generally emphasized more than on many PC games. The controller might not let player make twitch shots very easy, but as a big fan of counter strike, a game that requires an insanely high amount of aiming precision, the fundamentals of high level shooter play are still present with Halo's set up: Pre-aiming and positioning. At the same time, it had a much lower skill floor than many PC contemporaries without neccessarily having a lower skill celling. The result is a type of gameplay that I don't really think has been replicated since.
Which brings me to the second point: Halo's multiplayer was really well done. Funny, considering the whole of it was done in a few weeks by mostly three people in CE. The multiplayer in halo was actually something that wasn't either a counter-strike economics affair or a quake pick-everything-up-and-prevent-other-players-from-getting-armed match. These things aren't bad, but they do make it hard for people who aren't good that the game to get in. Halo had stuff in the environment, but it usually spawned everyone with a decent set of weaponry and large scale vehicular combat that seemed to emphasis team play. Keep in mind that this was before unreal tournament or battlefield. Further more, the game had an insane number of gametypes and alterations that worked on all of the maps. Halo 2 cemented the game as a genuine competitively viable skill based shooter that wasn't just pistol head shots. Halo 2 not only introduced the series to online play (as well as being one of the first games to try to positively utilize it's nature as an online console game), but it's massive amount of balance tweaks as well as glitches and good map design allowed good players to really stand out. Contrary to claims by some, Halo's multiplayer does stand on it's own merits and not just because there wasn't an alternative.
Of course Halo 1 actually didn't sell as well as all of it's predecessors simply because it's multiplayer component wasn't quite as mature, but it seems that the vast majority of people seem to consider Halo CE's campaign to be either the best, or a close second. The reason is two fold. First, while the game is often criticized as repetitive because of the environment, the overall structure of the game was brilliantly done. Every single mission was effectively the furthest extent that the player could see and every level had an immediate and easily understood object within the give premise. The only time the game ever makes you do the whole "fetch quest" routine is on a single level (the silent cartographer). Some of the levels could have been mashed together and shortened for a much greater effect, but it cannot be understated how many other shooters get this aspect wrong when it comes to pacing. It also works well with the game's story, which is an example of having a very large universe, but only divulging enough of it to drive the current conflict. Halo could have done a better job, so this might not make sense to someone who didn't like Halo, but if you want an example of a game that (very) arguably does it better, look at Half-life 2. Conflict that is immediate and understandable, while still being connected by a larger picture. Not terribly deep, but compelling as hell. Despite the very small number of elements in halo's over all game design, the game does a fairly good job of constantly introducing new ways of approaching those elements, which has the effect of giving Halo a simple but incredibly versatile vocabulary of player agency that is consistent throughout the whole game. Halo still has probably one of my favorite endings of all time, simply because it take all of the elements that it's introduced to player through out the game and puts them to the test. Coupled with the fact that it didn't end on a huge cliff hanger ending (the series could have easily ended right there and not have felt open ended), it has made many people view the game as having been far more satisfying in hindsight than some of it's individual levels might have warranted.
There are other things like the infinitely amusing physics engine or the pleasing aesthetic choices, but it really just comes down to the three things I mentioned above: Platform appropriate with a unique design, competitively viable multiplayer, and a campaign that focusses on immediate and understandable conflict that is still being connected by a larger picture. I would be lying if said that I'm not a fan of the series, but it's definitely not my favorite shooter by any means, so keep in mind that I'm not trying to say that the game is unsurpassed in all of these regards.
