Why I Hate Halo (among other games)

[Da Chi]

Five bucks says I'm going to catch a lot of trouble for this but it needs to be said.

For starters though, I'm going to have to say I don't hate all Halos. I love the first Halo game. I still have fond memories of playing with my friends. A few of them had X-Boxes and they would invite people over to play four player split screen. Myself included.
I never owned an X-box. But in those days, you were playing against other people who don't have x-boxes at a person's house who likely only plays X-Box when friends are around because... Well there was no online. Period. This made the game fun. The level of entry was set pretty low and everyone just wanted to have some fun and maybe take turns goofing around with the warthog.

But then came Halo 2 and with it X-Box live. My friend got the game and invited me over to play one day. I had some trouble figuring out the new tweaks to the gameplay as my friend steamrolled me across the scoreboard. No big deal. I'm a noob, he owns the game, but I'll figure it out. So after a few lame losses I went home broken and defeated. A little later a different friend got a small group of folks together to play a halo 2 round. A few more people, most of whom don't own X-Boxes, should make the loss at least a little more even. Right?

Nope, the owner of the X-Box killed us all in glorious excess. And even gloated about it. At this point I turned on Halo as a game. Sure, it is a competitive game. It is designed to be a challenge but let's face it. If I don't OWN an X-Box and play Halo on a regular basis, it's hard to get into it. It's an all or nothing game. You have to play it, you have to get good at it. Otherwise you are wasting your time.

Now this can be said about a lot of games but a few like Halo really kill me when I try to enjoy a good game. So I want to list off some games that just push you to be better than other people rather than just to play the game.

Three worst contenders
Halo
Mario Kart
World of Warcraft

If you're not the best at it. You might as well just give up and not bother.

Any games I missed that aren't about the game, it's about being the best at the game. List em here.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

What the hell is "Mario *C*art" and what the hell is it doing on your list?

 

[Jezzascmezza]

I disagree.
I think Halo is one of the few online shooter's that you don't have to be awesome at to enjoy.
I think it's something to do with the fact that the style of the game, the spastic physics, and the weaponry is just so over the top that it makes the game hard to take seriously.
I'm certainly not a very good player at Halo, but I can still have fun driving a ghost around aimlessly and running over people who get in my way. And then tea-bagging them.

 

[WrongSprite]

All 3 of those games are simply not true. I have lots of fun on Halo co-op, not trying to be better. I have lots of fun playing Mario Kart with my friends, just having a laugh, competition is part of the fun. I have lots of fun on WoW, running dungeons with my mates.

Yeah, you can take them too seriously, but you don't have to be one of those people.

 

[Julianking93]

Interesting point and it's kinda nice to see someone actually bring something else to the argument table for Halo hatred besides "It sucks because it's popular." Halo at least has the option for co-op. Other games don't.

This can be said about a lot of things though. Call of Duty is probably the worst of them all.
I've never seen a more competitive fanbase than with CoD, specifically Black Ops for some reason and since it's all leveled and most people who tend to play online play it nonstop for weeks on end, it seems. (I remember specifically a player who, after only 2 days post release of Black Ops, was at a total of 43 hours playtime online). So really, it's just a bunch of people taking things way too seriously, can't stand the thought of losing and play simply to beat someone else.

People just take it to extremes though and make it unenjoyable for everyone else. It'd be better if it were possible to avoid those types, but it isn't so I usually just end up giving up after the 40th time some asshole online has decided to cheat and ruin the game for everyone.

 

[Smooth Operator]

So you don't like games you are not good at? I'm guessing you are quite young

Also, Mario Kart? It's the most rubber banding game I know, even if you only have one hand and one finger you can keep up with others.

 

[Sajuuk-khar]

Welcome to multiplay. By far most games you get better as you play them more often, and gaps in skill often mean the difference between winning and getting totally owned. And you know multiplay, unless you're doing co-op, is about competition. The whole point is pushing to be better than others.

About WoW: you can't expect to just play a bit casually and be as good as persons who invested loads of hours into their character. MMOs don't work that way. As for Halo: it's one of the more accessible shooters. There's a lot more that are a lot harder to learn/master. Try hopping into a random Counter-Strike server...

 

[Bobbity]

This applies to basically everything, man.

As a side note, try a rocket launcher only match - skill suddenly becomes a lot less important.

 

[Outright Villainy]

Mario Kart? Mario Kart?

Mario Kart is the most noob friendly multiplayer game I've ever played, and the only one where a complete novice can stomp a pro thanks to items. That's not even a bad thing, it's one of the most fun party games you can have.

Your points against Halo are... odd. That's not so much an issue with the game itself so much as who yóu're playing with. You can always just play with less experienced players for more fun. F-zero Gx isn't a bad game because I can utterly curb stomp all my friends at it, it takes a huge amount of skill, and that's the kind of challenging game it is.

I would call halo a pile of bullshit on many other points, but I've had some genuine fun with the splitscreen multiplayer, and that's specifically Halo 2. I didn't have an Xbox either, and I played with a friend who did, but he didn't stomp me constantly, because he wasn't obsessed with it. This is an issue of playing with people way above your level, not the game itself, and as such it's a pretty silly criticism all round. Besides, this can be negated quite a bit by teaming up the worst player with the best, then have the other 2 square off against them.

 

[TroutXTRM]

So basically you're mad that people who are better than you at games are beating you.

Yeah I guess you have a point there. Developers should start modifying their games so that everything is auto-aim and controllers only have about 2 buttons for maximum accessibility.

Even a blind deaf-mute quadriplegic should be able to defeat me. It's only fair.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

Seriously that is why you hate Halo? because you suck at it?

I had the same problem with the Halo games, I was often the only person without an xbox when playing halo 2+3, and more often than not I would get destroyed. But you know what that never bothered me because I was having a good time with my friends, and even I could get the odd kill in every now and then. Halo certainly is not an all or nothing game like COD, hell even my little bro can get to grips with it.

As for the other games you did not really justify them. Why do you hate WoW and Mario Cart?

 

[little.09]

why would a dev make a game that caters for people who wont buy the game, if you dont want to play it, then dont expect to be instantly good, that goes with everything in life.

EDIT: by the way i don't particularly like halo, i don't know why i just never got into it

 

[Da Chi]

What the hell is "Mario *C*art" and what the hell is it doing on your list?

Sorry about that. I edited it.
Mario Cart is on the list for the simple reason that I CANNOT beat a single Asian person online.
If you ever log in to Mario Cart and play online and you see someone from Japan, Rage quit IMMEDIATELY. That is why it is on the list.

 

[SnowyGamester]

IMO you just suck at games...sometimes even my dad can beat me at Mario Kart, yet he sucks and I'm awesome...it doesn't get much more noob friendly than that. I vsed my friend at it as soon as he got the game after I'd been playing it for months...I won 3/4 races (only played a round), which isn't exactly a whooping. I'll even go back and play halo (pc) with the stragglers that assumedly play it all the time and still whip up more than a 1.0 k/d, so not to flat-out say you're wrong but...I don't have any other way of putting it.

And if you're PVPing with level 70s or whatever in WoW, I beleive you're doing it wrong. Though I don't play, so I may be mistaken.

Edit: FYI I go pretty awesome online too, damn close to some of the top 10 times in time trial, except the tracks with epic difficult shortcuts...I can't compete with that.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

That applies to everything fella. It's called 'practice makes perfect'. It seems what you're annoyed at is that before online you and your friends would all play a game at the same time and therefore gain game experience at roughly the same level. Now with online a few people can play said game every evening, quickly out-performing those that play once a week.

That's not Halo's fault; and if you think about it it's not even the fault of online MP. Imagine a group of friends similar to your scenario, but some able to play a couple of times a week and others only once a month - the same disparity of skill level would begin to display itself in that group too.

 

[Jasper Jeffs]

Yeah, let's make all games easy as fuck to play. That's why I stopped playing most FPS's, in particular Halo. It's one of the easiest shooters, you don't even have to aim.

We should nerf sports next, it's bullshit that better teams should be able to beat me. QQ.

 

[Da Chi]

So you don't like games you are not good at? I'm guessing you are quite young

Also, Mario Kart? It's the most rubber banding game I know, even if you only have one hand and one finger you can keep up with others.

Terrible General Stereotype. I'm not Young, at least I think I'm old enough to be past your definition of it. It's not that I don't like games I'm not good at, I just really dislike having to train, work and struggle to be able to keep up at a game when I'd rather just be having a merry old time playing my game.

And, I'm going to be honest about he Mario Cart thing. Mario cart is on there because I DO suck at it. It's an awesome game, but if I want to go online and muck about, I get lapped, run over, and smashed off edges. Mario cart is sadly a game I'll only play by myself, because I love it, yet I suck so hard at it.

 

[DanDeFool]

What the hell is "Mario *C*art" and what the hell is it doing on your list?

You're kidding, right?

Mario Kart (yes, it's spelled with a 'K', like Mortal 'Kombat'). Is the original 'Go Kart Racing' game. It's hard to get into because it's possible to perform some difficult gameplay exploits (e.g. blue sparks), and people who have mastered those exploits are impossible to beat playing normally.

 

[gibboss28]

So you decided to hate on a game when in fact your mate was being a dick? Yup. That works.

I can't see your point with Mario Kart at all

But I would like some explanation as to what you're on about with WoW

 

[Berserker119]

What the hell is "Mario *C*art" and what the hell is it doing on your list?

Sorry to tell you, but it is spelled with a k.

OT:

Spoiler

Seriously. This applies to any game ever.