Why does Halo attract Hatred?

[King Yayap]

Hey guys.

I'm rather curious as to why the Halo franchise, especially the games, are frowned upon by other gamers. I really don't see anything wrong with it. I admit, I really like Halo, the backstory is superb, reasonably well made games (except for the rushed second game) and yet there are numerous glitches and easter eggs to find! It's a fun experience just mucking around with mates on it, yet you can also have a serious multiplayer experience.

I admit, there was a lot of hype to do with the release of Halo 3, and (in my opinion) some over-exaggerated ratings. It is not a perfect game, it does have it's flaws. It is a rather generic game. However, I do not feel as though it deserves some of the comments and utter-flaming that it recieves on gaming forums.

What are The Escapist's views?

 

[elitecrewer]

Yay, another Halo thread /sarcasm.

It attracts hatred because it's overrated. The best PC shooters are better, as a rule of thumb.

 

[Fenixhart]

Mostly because of the Fanbase if anything.


It's still a fairly well-designed Console Shooter otherwise (The first is at least). It's just not the Second Comming that the fanbase wants to make it out to be.

 

[Tehpwnsauce]

The fanbase and the fact that it is overrated.
/thread

 

[Andy_Panthro]

I don't think I can take much more of this...

How many more threads about Halo do we need?

 

[God's Clown]

Halo is hated against for several reasons.

1. It's an average FPS that is over hyped.
2. It's fan base is 15% decent people, 85% dumb asses.
3. I forgot the third, but I am sure there is one.

 

[Daveman]

Sorry, I don't usually do this but USE THE BLOODY SEARCH BAR!!!!!

There are just way too many Halo bashing threads and that's coming from me, a fanatical Halo basher.

 

[Captain Pancake]

It's not so much hatred, it's just that everyone gets caught up in the release, and thus the games get excellent review scores, only for said reviewers to admit it wasn't that good.

beyond that, it's really because people realised it didn't have anything that hadn't been done before, and done better.

 

[Tehpwnsauce]

Halo is hated against for several reasons.

1. It's an average FPS that is over hyped.
2. It's fan base is 15% decent people, 85% dumb asses.
3. I forgot the third, but I am sure there is one.See number two

Will that do?

 

[NDWolfwood5268]

I LOVE Halo 1, I liked Halo 2, I HATE Halo 3.

Halo 1 was good. It had a good mystery-SciFi story mix. Fun times, good action, interesting people. It attracted a large fan base. Understandable.

Halo 2 was a forced sequel in my book. It was good, but didn't live up to the hype. Better mechanics and graphics made it worth the buck. Fan base grew.

Halo 3. It did NOTHING. Slightly improved shaders, did they even add a new gun? The story sucked balls, the voice actors changed, and the ONLY thing that made it ANY good is the Forge and the multiplayer. When you present these arguments to half of that built up fan base, they say (quoting my room mate) "Y3AH, BUT THTA MULT!PL@YER IS TEH B3ST EBAR!!1!" (all punctuation used for accuracy).

According to them, having a good multiplayer component excuses the sins against story and gaming that comprise the rest of the 'epic conclusion' to the trilogy, which I think they could have rocked with if they ignored the multiplayer a bit (which now has nothing but drooling 8 year old trolls anyway).

So, in short, it's because the 3rd game was crap, and the fans defend it as if it was a bible written by God himself. Compounded annoyance; I see a blue sky but the man next to me INSISTS it is red and will not change his mind. Additional games, like Halo Wars and the 2 new ones announced just prove they are milking the series and I have no faith in their quality since I think there wasn't enough interesting mystery or other elements that defined the first one left. It will be the same shooter as Halo 3, with no surprises. Why would you be happy for that?

 

[NotAPie]

I don't think I can take much more of this...

How many more threads about Halo do we need?

Oh about 100 more.
The Community is the one that screwed Halo up to recieve all this hatred, tho not all is true about the community, its still the reason why the game is disliked.

 

[God's Clown]

Halo is hated against for several reasons.

1. It's an average FPS that is over hyped.
2. It's fan base is 15% decent people, 85% dumb asses.
3. I forgot the third, but I am sure there is one.See number two

Will that do?

That'll do just fine.

 

[Same River New Water]

Every game has fans and detractors. Halo currently has a larger base of fans than almost any other game. Just as every physical action has an equal and opposite reaction, so does every popularity have an equal and opposite backlash.

Detractors of a game tend to be more vocal the more they feel they are in the minority. For example, crappy licensed games such as Open Season and Transformers are generally regarded as bad games, so the people who dislike them (i.e. nearly everyone) don't bother to mention them. Final Fantasy and Gears of War are both game series that are quite popular but somewhat divisive, so people who dislike either one will put some effort into criticising them, but they won't go over the top because they know a lot of people agree with their opinion. Halo is regarded as a good game by the majority of gamers (based on reviews and the non-Escapist population), so the people who don't enjoy it feel like they need to shout down the teeming masses of those who do, whether they say it's outright bad or just "overrated".

The Escapist seems to have a disproportionate share of people who dislike Halo and want to tell everyone about it. I don't know why this is. It might be because Zero Punctuation attracts the sort of people to the site who like to criticise things and attack things that they don't personally enjoy. That's just a theory, though.

Interestingly, many of the people who passionately criticise Halo don't have anything really bad to say about it. A typical complaint will simply say "I hated it" and either give no reason or point to aspects of the game that are common to many other games, if not totally standard for the genre. Examples include: the subtle auto-aiming, the generic story, the space marine protagonist, the "easiness" of the game (ignoring the ability to set the difficulty setting), the regenerating health (although didn't bother them in COD4) and so on. Others, such as NDWolfwood5268, claim that the first game was good but later games in the series are total crap because they only improved on it a little bit and didn't add many new features; anyone who can explain that logic is free to try.

A lot of criticism also centres on the story, often with reference to the superiority of story in games such as Half-Life 2. These people apparently have no problem with the hundreds of other games that have a more minimal story than Halo. They are also often not willing to even consider the quality of the multiplayer experience, although they seem fine with Team Fortress 2.

 

[rosseloh]

For me personally....apart from the multiplayer fanbase (oh God, listening to the people my roommate played with over voice chat lowered my IQ, I think), it's the fact that it's not on PC. I can't play console shooters; using a thumbstick will NEVER beat a mouse and keyboard (hopefully I'm preaching to the choir here).

If it was on PC I'd probably play it and give it a middle score; I saw enough of it to know it wasn't quite my game, even if it was on PC.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Kind of like with Twilight, the content isn't bad (though insanely overhyped), it's the obnoxious fanboys' remarks that causes backlash.

I know that most of them are oversugared or sped gradeschool kids that really don't have anything better to do so I'm able to overlook their hype and gloating to appreciate the Halo series even though I've never owned an xbox; I have friends who do. Each release (except for that rts, but that's hard to do on a console) is very capable and a lot of fun, just not the "best fps ever" the hardcore xbots wish it was.

 

[Rag Doll]

This is kinda like asking "is alcohol good?"
If you've tried it, you'll know

 

[Legion]

Why does everyone need to post a new thread about Halo, despite there already being hundreds to choose from, covering every possible discussion to be had on the game, and all of the consisting of exactly the same replies, from exactly the same people?

Is the question we are all really asking.

 

[BolognaBaloney]

Every game has fans and detractors. Halo currently has a larger base of fans than almost any other game. Just as every physical action has an equal and opposite reaction, so does every popularity have an equal and opposite backlash.

Detractors of a game tend to be more vocal the more they feel they are in the minority. For example, crappy licensed games such as Open Season and Transformers are generally regarded as bad games, so the people who dislike them (i.e. nearly everyone) don't bother to mention them. Final Fantasy and Gears of War are both game series that are quite popular but somewhat divisive, so people who dislike either one will put some effort into criticising them, but they won't go over the top because they know a lot of people agree with their opinion. Halo is regarded as a good game by the majority of gamers (based on reviews and the non-Escapist population), so the people who don't enjoy it feel like they need to shout down the teeming masses of those who do, whether they say it's outright bad or just "overrated".

The Escapist seems to have a disproportionate share of people who dislike Halo and want to tell everyone about it. I don't know why this is. It might be because Zero Punctuation attracts the sort of people to the site who like to criticise things and attack things that they don't personally enjoy. That's just a theory, though.

You pretty much summed up my thought's perfectly.

 

[zauxz]

Well i dont see halo as such a bad game.

Its not very immersive or deep, but i had fun with my copy of CE.

It was just.. well a mindless, fun action game.

The plot wasnt all that bad, and even the vechile parts of the game were very well made ( unlike in most fps's)

For me, it was fun. Not the best game, but still fun. I dont love it, but i dont hate it eather.