Understanding Halo's Success and Mainstream Appeal

[Nazulu]

It's part personal preferance since a big part of male gamers find guns, realism and technology appealing, and not only that but these games are very straight forward so any one could follow it.

I also found out from my brother and his friends that they are also popular for being popular, meaning they like being part of the crowd. Plus, the RPG elements can be very addicting to most. Aiming for upgrades can be my main motivation sometimes in a game, so it can be what keeps people hooked over games with no upgrades like Counter-Strike.

Also, I do believe there are advertising strategy's involved to attract a young audience besides putting up banners bloody everywhere.

 

[Pinuyasha]

Everyone else has pretty much summarized well enough about why Halo is popular, so I don't need to go into it anymore. I can offer some perspective on Call of Duty though.

From what I remember during the initial launch of Modern Warfare the state of shooting games on consoles at the time was everything being a WWII shooter unless you were playing Halo. Naturally, this was getting pretty stale and old. The Call of Duty series compared to Halo was basically like an arcade vs. simulation sports game. Halo was more about the arcade style shooting and Call of Duty focused on realism. The biggest thing no one was capitalizing on at the time was that the U.S. was in a whole new war kicking ass and taking names with cool, new toys and an enemy that actually seemed like a straight up real bad guy like the Nazis were. Everyone was on the WWII trip and CoD decided to set their game in the modern day world with modern weapons. I didn't even play shooters back then and even I thought this was something really amazing for developers to be doing. I know it sounds hard to believe but the setting was pretty innovative back when it first came out. Shooters had usually always been about Space Marines, WWII or some other crazy sci-fi setting. Modern Warfare was actually being different and a trend setter at this point.

Like I said earlier, CoD always emphasized realism in their games and now that the newest one was taking place in a modern setting, this just amplified the realism factor. WWII had a lot of great battles and stories, but the generation of gamers were so far disconnected from WWII that the realism aspect didn't hit the nail on the head 100%. Modern Warfare became the only game at the time that you could play with lifelike weapons, settings and plot. That's a pretty damn big deal when you're the only one on the market who offers this experience. Players will always have a better immersion experience when it feels like what they're playing could actually happen to them in real life instead of being something so fantastic that it's far from the realm of possibility. It's the reason why Earthbound was so much more memorable than its contemporaries and why Persona 3 and 4 are so damn popular and unique compared to other JRPGs. That was Modern Warfare back then.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

I think because it's quite accessible.
I know Halo 3 was the first FPS I ever played on consoles, and it really helped me get into and accept the genre.
Also Halo 1 was pretty ground-breaking for its time, and I think a lot of people blown away by that game stuck with the series over the years.

 

[sonofliber]

actually is pretty simple, it was a good game, which was marketed a lot, and was for a console starved of games that a lot of people owned.

it was a game release at the right moment at the right time, nothing more.

oh and the main reason:

it was on a CONSOLE.

 

[shadow_Fox81]

because halo is empowering without being unenjoyable.

halo is a game where you are a hero being heroic (in an unapologetic fashion), which is so very rare in games these days.

its a game which lets you see a vast feild of foes and take them down, you reduce fleets of tanks, gargantuan mechanised scarabs, squadrons of aircraft and hordes of ravenous alien foes (on many ocassions in the same engagement)to rubble; with a robust and delightful arsenal.

it offers what doom once did but without the oozing veneer of horror and grittiness.

laced throughtout this game play is a mystic space opera filled with scheming villains and stoic heroes.

i find it to be positively arthurian.

(and all underscored by one the gamings greatest soundtracks)

of course its popular its unique

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Halo is special for me, because it was the first FPS I ever enjoyed. I didn't give two craps about the genre, but one night a freind brought round Halo 3 around. I tried the campaign, and it freaking blew me away. Granted, I didn't know what the hell was going on until I actually got the first one for myself, but even that relic astuonded me. The freeroaming levels, the satysfing weponry, the amazing soundtrack... I've been one of the biggest Halo fans you can find without going into the "screeching toddler" part of the fandom ever since. Is the story a bit convoluted and cliche? Yes. Are there some bad games and spinoffs? Yes. But I love the series. IMO, the open levels and free choice of guns offered, even at Halo's worst, make it much better then the best spunkgargleweewee.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

It's a very well designed first person shooter with cool weapons, cool vehicles, and you get to be a superhuman in a robot suit who can jump 10 feet in the air and flip a tank over. Also I feel like there's legitimate care and consideration put into every sequel and usually the core gameplay gets a few fancy tweaks or additions. It doesn't feel nearly as forcefully shat out as a lot of other game sequels do.