Why all the halo haters?

[Abanic]

Halo was the first xbox game ever. Along with other games like Dead or Alive 3 and Project Gotham Racing.

If halo didn't exist, then the xbox would not exist which means we would probably not have most of the 360 exclusives we know today. ex: gears of war,crackdown,and a bunch of other games I forget. Why wouldn't the X-Box exist? You didn't explain this one. X-Box is hardware that was put together by Microsoft, Halo is software that was programmed by Bungie (Bungie was purchased by Microsoft once Microsoft saw it's potential).

We might not even have 1st person shooters on a console since halo was the first console shooter that worked right. Duck hunt (NES), Goldeneye 007 (on N64), Perfect Dark, Medal of Honor, Timesplitters. Need more examples that preceded Halo?

Halo is a good all round shooter with an interesting background story. Nobody is arguing that Halo wasn't good, but it's sequels were 'meh' and the original just wasn't the game changing phenomenon that fanboys credit it with. And yes, I will give it credit for the best story in a FPS up to that point in time.

I am asking why are there suddenly halo haters coming out of no where? When halo 3 was the most played game on xbox live, there was barely any haters in my opinion(at least they were not very obvious). Everybody (only the fanboys) used to praise halo for it's awesome multiplayer (it was alright) ,single player (single player was short and 'meh'), and awesome (shallow) main character in the form of Master chief. Then suddenly after modern warfare 2 comes out, the forums are filled with people hating on halo. Come on people! Just because halo 3 is not the most played game on xbox live anymore doesn't mean that we are supposed to hate on it. Halo 3 is still the 2nd most played game on xbox live anyway.Halo 2 was the most played game on original xbox (and AVATAR is the highest grossing movie of all time, followed by TITANIC: it doesn't prove that they are GOOD) until it got shutdown. Modern warfare 2 might not exist without halo! Hopefully when halo reach comes out,this hate will come to an end. This is just my opinion though. We haven't been anywhere else, maybe now that you're not playing it as much you're starting to see what others are saying?

So what do you have to say about this? If you think it's fun, then why does it matter that some people don't enjoy it? Boot up your 360 and play away!

Also no, I am not a halo fanboy, I'm just sick of all the haters and I'm wondering why they decided to attack halo now. Maybe the 'haters' are making their points because the fanboys are pressing theirs? And yes, you are a fanboy, you made that perfectly clear with your misrepresentation of reality in the opening of this post (your first three points). But what's wrong with being a fanboy? Have the self-confidence to stand up and admit your love without caring that you might not have 100% consensus with your opinion. From an avid comic-fanboy I say to you: "Rock on you Halo-fanboy!"

Also, check your topic with the 'search' feature next time you want to post a thread to ensure that the topic hasn't already been beaten to death.

 

[Antwerp Caveman]

I played the first 3, finished the first 2.
They're mediocre shooters.
They're OK, but no better then any other shooters, but no more. It's just a shooter.
Shooters used to be new and interresting, but it's been done now. The most innovation in any shooter was Metroid prime.

The 2nd problem is that Halo's been force fed to us, mainly to sell Halo 3 and onwards to everyone that can hold a gamepad, and everyone bought it because you had to, it's Halo 3.
Or: You gotta because you gotta.

So now, the students of Proffessors Yahtzee, Overthinker, Floyd etc. who think about these things and want to see original stuff, go online and take their frustration out anonimously while half of them still plays Halo because... they gotta.

How can an FPS give any immersion or, escapism really. You can't lose yourself into it completely. The stories aren't gripping, the storytelling isn't attracting. You can't see your own character, so there's no bond growing there. You're just looking at your gun, the means, not the end, or the reason.

 

[Nomanslander]

Well, the gameplay is very good but other than that.

-The story is pretentious trying too hard to paint out Master Chief as some sort of Adonis that everyone should be jerking off to (and in 85% of the cases I'm sure it's worked..-_-).

-Where most shooters are too dark and dreary, Halo is way too colorful. The whole thing looks like an 80s cartoon that even the fabulous He-man Master of the Universe would consider a bit feminine, and I hate to use the word gay but when you have purple cladded Spartans running around shooting pink lazer beams....yeah!

-Bad alien designs, I mean they're just BAD! It's like a whole race of aliens spliced from Jar Jar Binks and the Ewoks, they're very uninspiring and dull looking. If you want to see good alien design check out Mass Effect, but this game is a mess.

-Horrible weapon design, and I don't mean their mechanics, I've already stated how good the gameplay is. But they look like toys, like they were designed by fisher price and I'm suppose to take them seriously? They all remind me of the cricket gun from Men In Black, as well as they work it still looks disappointing.

 

[Bakuryukun]

I used to hate Halo, as time went on I made my piece with it, but now I actually really like it, the turning point was when I realized how unique it was, sure almost every FPS under the sun copies it's controls to some degree NOW, but that's a retroactive statement really. When I realized that Halo was essentially a Technicolor FPS with a Rock-Folk soundtrack...I started to gain a lot more respect for the series.

 

[Imbechile]

Probably because it's popular.
For example I played Fallout 3 and I didn't liked it. Then i downloaded Fallout 2 and after seeing how F2 i much better than F3 I started hating it. And when I saw all the praises from critics and gamers I hate F3 even more now. The reason is probably if a game you think is mediocre or a piece of shit becames extremly popular you're gonna start to hate it.

 

[imnot]

I'm one of those people who want to burn anyone who hate's Halo, despite the fact i have never played Halo ce D=

 

[SinisterGehe]

Why I hate Halo? B's there is more to games (Console) than just Halo. And I don't like being super human with no emotions able to fly trough space and detonate enemy space ship and use blast wave to ride back to hes ship and just take a beer after that.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Halo was the first xbox game ever.

If halo didn't exist, then the xbox would not exist which means we would probably not have most of the 360 exclusives we know today. ex: gears of war,crackdown,and a bunch of other games I forget.

We might not even have 1st person shooters on a console since halo was the first console shooter that worked right.

Halo is a good all round shooter with an interesting background story.

I am asking why are there suddenly halo haters coming out of no where? When halo 3 was the most played game on xbox live, there was barely any haters in my opinion(at least they were not very obvious). Everybody used to praise halo for it's awesome multiplayer,single player, and awesome main character in the form of Master chief. Then suddenly after modern warfare 2 comes out, the forums are filled with people hating on halo. Come on people! Just because halo 3 is not the most played game on xbox live anymore doesn't mean that we are supposed to hate on it. Halo 3 is still the 2nd most played game on xbox live anyway.Halo 2 was the most played game on original xbox until it got shutdown. Modern warfare 2 might not exist without halo! Hopefully when halo reach comes out,this hate will come to an end. This is just my opinion though.

So what do you have to say about this?

Also no, I am not a halo fanboy, I'm just sick of all the haters and I'm wondering why they decided to attack halo now.

Just a couple of things I find horribly wrong with your argument.
Gears of War is not made by nor as far as I know is Crackdown thus if Halo or the Xbox were never there they would still exist on the PlayStation or another console or PC which the first Gears does by the way.

Halo was not the first FPS on consoles that worked right. We had perfectly good working ones on the PS2 and N64 like Golden Eye, Perfect Dark and Time splitters. All highly praised brilliant FPS games on consoles and all credited with bringing FPS to consoles and all released before Halo.

MW2 would also exist without Halo seeing as how the series started on the PC I don't see how the xbox contributed to solidifying its existance as game.

Also even if call of duty went in a different direction, it is still a console shooter which means it is inspired by halo.

As before to point out here Call of Duty is a PC shooter and not a console shooter. The only title that can claim to be a console shooter is MW2 the rest were made for the PC and ported to the consoles.

To your comments on Golden Eye not making the Wii famous of course it did not make the Wii famous it came out 2 generations ago in console terms. It made the N64 famous. Well not just taht but it was one of the amazing games on the N64.

Where are you getting this idea of Halo haters of late. I personally have not seen a single one in ages. Even if there was this is not a valid thing to complain about since it just fuels the fires.

Also since you are new. It is kinda against the rules to make threads like this which have been made before unless up to 6 months old or something. So read the posting guidelines before you post again and use the search to avoid rage and possible banning or probation or suspension.

 

[Elemental]

I just ignore everything, and enjoy it for what it is.
I own a PS3,360 and vey good PC. So I just laugh at all the miserable fanboys that are doing nothing but argumeting over the internet (ridiculous if you ask me... or anyone with a brain) about who has the best game/consoles.
Eveyone has their own opinions basically, I really can't see a difference between FPSs because in every single one of them you shoot something with a gun, other than graphics there is nothing that can tell apart from any of them.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

You make it sound like Halo is the only game that recieves hate. It isn't many games recieve hate for different reasons, most of the games are seen as popular in their time.

Your arguement seems to focus on the extreme, but I see your point. Let the haters, hate and the trollers, troll.

However may "dislike" of Halo comes from the fanboys, I don't hate the game I just hate the people who think it's the best game series in history.

 

[THE_oldy]

Quoted for truth:

Rather than post the usual "because it's popular" post, I've decided to post some thoughts I have had on a popular series.

Halo was a good game. But, notice the emphasis on was. When Halo came out, it was critically acclaimed because it changed things. It raised the standards of an FPS game and the genre as a whole. I think we all have to realize that some games we have played since Halo's release would not have existed without Halo's influence.

But, as time goes on, people expand on the original, and make it better, and raise the standards even more. One could say that Call of Duty 4 was a sort of expansion of Halo's view of the FPS, but it was a better game. The story was better, the game was more challenging, and so on. Use whatever reasoning you want. But now you have the original game, which, although still great for its time, does not compare to the new standards. This creates a bit of a problem. See, now you will have the Halo sequels, which stay on relatively same standards as the original. And some people are fine with that. Those people are fans. They may have varying reasons for being fans - they played the games that came before the original game and were blown away by the innovation, or they grew up with it, or any other reason.

But then you have the people that raise their own personal standards with every innovation that comes along. These are the kinds of people who dislike popular things. They see a series like Halo and all the attention it gets and they ask, "Why does this game still get the attention it does? The concepts are old now. It's been done better. We must move on to the next innovation."

So now you have two clashing groups: the fans and the innovators. The more they clash, the more radical the groups views become. (Such clashes can be caused by high review scores or high sales for the series, or curt words from both sides, or maybe even a stereotype that goes with the fans of the game that the innovators are repulsed by and do not want to be associated with.) The views of the groups become even more radical, and thus these radical views will lead to either devout, Crusader-like fanboy-ism or pure hatred for the series. This will explain the "halo haters" you see. These people do not have something against the series. They just look at a game like, I don't know...let's say for the explanation, Singularity, and wonder why the Halo fans don't give it a chance. "Why didn't Singularity get higher reviews? Why didn't it sell better? It's because the Halo fanboys were too scared to try something new for a change." And this is somewhat true. There are some people I have talked to that the only FPS they have played is Halo. They like it, they are familiar with it, and they don't want to move forward. And this is normal. This is somewhat typical human behavior. But the innovators want to move forward and they get even more angry at Halo fans for their complacence. And then they get angry at the game for having such fans. And views get more radical. And so on.

It's a very depressing chain of events. I myself am an one of the innovators I have mentioned and I have often felt angry at Halo and its fans for not wanting to keep innovating the FPS genre. But I realize that some of the people that play Halo do not see games as a developing form of entertainment the way I do. They do not care as much about video games as I do. That's perfectly fine, not everyone on the earth can have the same views. I just try to remind myself of that fact, and I just respect Halo for its innovation. Sure, it may not be up to today's standards, but tomorrow will bring a new game will raise the standards once again. I just have to respect Halo for its place in video game history. If you still like to play it, that's great. I go back and play plenty of games from the last generation and were innovators of their time. I have my reasons for being a fan and so do you. Do not let the "hate" bother you so much. If you like the game, just have fun, realize why people may not have the same opinions as you, and respect their difference of opinions.

^ Best post in this thread by far.



This is and old topic, and as such I can add my $0.02 simply by copy and pasting post I made in a different forum about a year ago. It was the opening post in a thread i named "in defence of halo 1." It attempts to explain what about halo was innovative.

Halo is the series that many people love to hate. It is undeniably a very popular series, and when other gamers, particularly those inclined to PC FPS decide to see what all the fuss is about they just see a generic FPS. "Why do you like this game so much! Haven't you played any other games before?" Halo 2 and Halo 3 where your average online multilayer FPS, with a very healthy serving of options, and an decent single player... but they're no half life 2. So why do i think that halo 1, a simpler game than halo 2/3, albeit better designed, is a landmark game? Well its all about context.

The easiest to explain, and least important, is halo's graphics/technilogical achievements. Looking at screen shot of halo 1 now looks nothing special. Of course we all know its supposed to, it's an old game. So to put in perspective how good it DID look remeber it was a flag ship game for what was then a next gen console. Needless to say, it looked good. It had huge spanning levels, massive beautiful sky boxes, a sense of scale that the introduction of the hard drive to the console made possible. I remember looking straight down at a grass texture below my feet and thinking wow, im really close to that texture and it doesn't look pixely. I got the sniper with scope 10x and did the same thing, and it still didn't get pixely... now days thats standard, but back then it was quite an achievement.

Playing some of the larger single player now levels gets tedious (well just 1 in particular), but back then there was novelty just in the size of things. Having playable levels in the scale of kilometers is something that we just take for granted in games now. Taking things "For granted" is precisely what the main argument of this post.

Here is a some of the things that halo had, that are industry standard now, but were pioneered by halo.

Regenerating health - Doesn't sound like much, but it makes a very fundamental change to gameplay. It was a feature that defined halo at the time, now maybe 50% of FPSs have it. (as an interesting note, halo 1 actually had the shield-hp dynamic, where there was a layer of regenerating shield, and a final layer of hp that you needed a health pack to get back. It was the best of both styles of health in one, but it was inexplicably removed in halo 2/3 in favor of regenerating hp as well.)

Vehicle combat - The seamless transition from first person shooter to 3rd person driver was a trade mark halo feature, again now very common. It was the first FPS to ever get vehicles right. Having vehicles, in a multilayer game, that don't take the focus too far away from shooting, (it is an FPS after all) that are hard but balanced, and fun and practical to use is quite an achievement. It was a perfect balance that i don't think has been matched yet, even by halo 3, and defiantly not by halo 2. This is of course personally opinion, but what is not opinion is that it was certainly the first game to really nail this game play element.

'Secondary fire' melee/grenades - Yet again this feature absolutely defined halo 1 at the time. The ability to throw a grenade, or melee no matter what weapon you had out at the time. Having a 'button' for grenade and a 'button' for melee as apposed to switching to grenade or a melee weapon is such a simple idea you can take it for granted. Like with regenerating health it makes a fundamental difference to the way the game plays. But when halo 1 did it was new, and there was a sense of, 'why didn't anyone think of this before?' that you can forget existed when looking back now.

Console FPS - If golden eye and perfect dark showed that FPSs are possible on a console, Halo showed that they are practical. The control scheme of halo has been more or less copy and pasted into every other console FPS since (and third person shooters for that matter). If there wan an PC FPS game that invented 'mouse look', then halo is the console equivalent.

Now all sequels of halo have not made huge innovations, but rather attempted to evolve halo's basic formulae. Their success has may have been riding on the popularity first generated by halo 1, but its not fair to expect them to be as revolutionary as halo 1.

Personally I am very optimistic of what halo reach is going to be like after playing the multiplayer beta. Halo 2, and 3 were ultimately a let down, and failed to surpass their predecessor. Halo reach might actually be the first in the series to surpass the first. Just sucks we had to wait a decade for it to happen.

 

[minus_273c]

Halo was the first xbox game ever.
If halo didn't exist, then the xbox would not exist which means we would probably not have most of the 360 exclusives we know today. ex: gears of war,crackdown,and a bunch of other games I forget.

This is a highly dubious claim, To postulate the existence of a console being dependant on the first title is ludicrous. By definition the game could not start development until the console specs were tied down (otherwise what target were they coding for). Further, unless there was 18 months (at least) after Halo appeared, before any other title appeared for the Xbox (very optimistic development cycle) then other titles were already being worked on before Halo appeared. Ergo the existence, or not of Halo is irrelevant as a critical dependence of the appearance of the Xbox.

We might not even have 1st person shooters on a console since halo was the first console shooter that worked right.

Another frankly ill thought out claim. The PC had already had many shooters, with quite a few that 'worked right'. As soon as consoles could support such games they would. They're a money pit no self respecting developer could ignore.

Halo is a good all round shooter with an interesting background story.

I can't really comment. It certainly looks nice enough, and the sequels have attracted enough attention that implies the developers are getting something right, but i've never played it myself.

I am asking why are there suddenly halo haters coming out of no where? When halo 3 was the most played game on xbox live, there was barely any haters in my opinion(at least they were not very obvious). Everybody used to praise halo for it's awesome multiplayer,single player, and awesome main character in the form of Master chief. Then suddenly after modern warfare 2 comes out, the forums are filled with people hating on halo.

So what do you have to say about this?

I've not noticed a particular level of hatred for Halo, beyond the usual "Ya boo, it's not the latest, shiniest, game so it's no longer any good", but you always get that sort of comment from generally younger, less mature posters. They're the sort that say "I can't see why Doom! gets so much praise, it looks rubbish". It's a fact of life, live with it.

 

[joshuaayt]

It's your average shooter. Is that a bad thing? No, not particularly, but the thing is, people are going to dislike it. People dislike Portal, too. Braid, OverPikmin, Mario, Half Life, Pokemon- every one of these has people who see them as terrible video games. And they are all right! You can't be "wrong" here, because a game is good if *you* like it.
But I digress.
If something exists, those people will dislike it. If that thing is REALLY popular, those people will REALLY dislike it- out of resentment, out of surprise.
And as for the haters coming out of nowhere- I'm afraid you are mistaken. There has always been very, very vocal haters of this franchise. And many of them, too.

 

[mrF00bar]

I've never been a big fan of the Halo games but I have no reason to hate on any of them, I do think it going a bit far now though. Milking a franchise to death seems to be the popular thing to do now and Call of Duty is heading that was as well.

 

[CrashBang]

I love Halo. Actually, thinking about it, most of peoples general hatred and scorn for Halo has depleted since the release of MW2 and the fact that most Halo online douchefags have moved over to MW2, leaving me to enjoy Halo 3 online much more

 

[lord canti]

I don't hate it, I just think its very average and really doesn't deserve the praise it gets. And I thought that way before yahtzee said abything.

 

[Kortney]

Do I hate Halo? No. Do I think Halo is over rated? Yes. Extremely. Just as Modern Warfare 2 is.

I really enjoyed the first Halo. It was fresh, fun and really compelling. The next two bored me and whilst there were times when I was drawn into the story, the gameplay was too floaty and I didn't find it fun.

It's a good game. It's polished and it's well made but it doesn't have that extra factor to make it truly great.

 

[Phenakist]

Simple fact is, I play Halo because I can have far more fun on it that any other shooter, I would call Sci-Fi my favorite genre, and 'real' gritty, brown games just bore me after a week... But since Fun isn't a valid argument in any troll court, I like it for the pretty colors.

Oh, and people hate Halo usually out of nowhere, because the franchise is running on a bit, I agree with that, but Reach is more than ok in my books, it's everything Halo 3 was but bigger and better, therefore a worthwhile endeavor, unlike ODST and Wars, so basically, if they hadn't made ODST and Wars, and just made Reach to finish it off, nobody would be complaining... as much.