Halo - What's the big deal?

[AlphaMan]

After owning a PS3 for the last 2 years, I finally decided to buy American and support one of the last industries where Americans actually still export IPs to the rest of the world... I bought an Xbox.

I got it on Black Friday and got a sweet deal on Halo: Reach. I couldn't wait to play after all the hype I'd heard...

So I cut on my new Xbox and right away, I notice the weighty, contoured feel of the controller. I love it!! It fits perfectly in my hands. I get signed into Xbox Live and the interface is awesome!! I'm really digging it so far!!

So I finally fire up Halo: Reach and right away, I notice that the physics are not reality based at all. The controls are a bit counter-intuitive and took some time for me to get the hang of.... and lastly, the cartoony graphics compared to AAA titles like Call of Duty and the PS3 exclusives I'd been playing just stood out to me.

Why is this franchise such a big deal? I have to be at least 3/4 of the way through the campaign now and I'm not impressed at all. Even though this is a prequel, it obviously is heavily dependant on it's predacessors. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I really enjoyed the space fight sequence.

 

[Jax]

I am a late convert to the franchise but even then I don't think the games are anything special. I only play for CO-OP and have zero interest for the online parts of the franchise. Picked up Halo 3 dirt cheap and will do the same with ODST (already done splitscreen with a friend) and Halo Reach in 2011 but co-op only.

Halo is great with friends, boring otherwise.

 

[TheGodBen]

To quote myself:

Halo doesn't have the same impact when you play it on the PC because part of the appeal of Halo CE was that it was an FPS that played extremely well on a console, something unusual at the time. I used to be a PC purist, whenever I played shooters on consoles I always got frustrated by not having a keyboard and mouse, but when I first played Halo CE, I didn't have the same frustration. Halo really helped console shooters and drove them in the right direction, and now I prefer playing action games on consoles and only use the PC for strategy games.

And that's the big deal about Halo.

The sequels, while being good games, aren't as innovative as the first one was. They do implement new features in each game and try to do different kinds of missions, but a large part of what makes Halo so popular is because of how good that first game was.

The other part of what makes Halo so popular, and the part of the franchise where Bungie is still fairly innovative, is the multiplayer side of things. They implemented Forge and opened up new ways of playing shooters online. I don't really know much about that as I don't play Halo online, but I've been told that Forge is a huge deal in the Halo community.

 

[Kelthaz]

Nothing. Halo is a decent series, but the games are immensely overrated.

 

[Starbreaker]

I don't know. I've never been obsessed.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I think it was the game that really showed off the Xbox, so it's not so much the game itself but rather the wow factor. I believe the first one was a launch game, so it became the XBox killer app. There's also the fact that the game was originally announced as being both for PC and XBox, but then Bungie was snapped up by Microsoft and it became an exclusive. Bungie was already well established by that time, so people were really looking forward to it based on that alone. It probably would have been an even more impressive game if it weren't an Xbox exclusive. I probably should say that I've never owned an Xbox, and I'm going from memory. On the scale of things, it's probably just average at best, which is why people found it so disappointing when it finally arrived on the PC.

 

[Dream]

 

[The Lensman]

Never played it on the console....played the first one on PC and it was a monumental bore. Was amazed at all the hype the second one got and it was explained to me that the console gamers were multi-playing. I was like "you're shitting me. That's it?! We've been doing that for years on the PC."

 

[Skywalker]

I like the storyline and the universe a lot, but I prefer Call of Duty's controls and multiplayer.

 

[Mr Light]

I haven't played Reach yet but at the time Halo 1 and 2 were the most perfect shooters I'd ever played. The controls, the balance, the action, the sets, the weapons, everything was just perfectly made to completely immerse you in the game. And starting with 2 it got a really interesting story as well. And there's an extended universe of books and comics that really expand on the world, deepening the content.

Halo 3 was pretty good but I didn't like several of the levels. ODST had an incredibly tedious overworld section but the actual missions were alright. I bought Reach but haven't played it yet; I'm looking forward to it.

I don't do multiplayer but apparently the larger appear for many is the online multiplayer.

 

[Showdown]

Halo was king of console FPS during the Xbox/Ps2 era. It played well with the controller and have lots of replay value through multiplayer match options. The AI was good and battles between Marines and Convenant don't always end the same. Halo 2 was the first of many FPS that did not have a life bar.

It was dethroned by newer games, such as Mordern Warfare.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

I thought it was pretty cool. Combat Evolved had an excellent story, ok-ish graphics (which worked perfectly for my very low-end PC) and was pretty darn fun too. Halo 2 was one of the first games I bought for my xBox, and it was pretty fun and looked awesome too. Personally I don't see the appeal of Modern Warfare games, but I play largely for a good storytelling experience. Almost all games based on real wars had bland "Capture this strategic location" or "Chase this (insert officer or piece of equipment) around the world" stories. I need a bit more to get the bang out of my buck.

 

[Sparky]

I'm not too sure why there is so much Halo love. The original Halo is decent. Never played the second one. Halo 3 I loved the multiplayer. I hated the single player campaign however. Haven't played anything beyond that.

 

[FordSVT]

Reach was basically just more of the same with more polish, but did anyone expect anything but? MW: Black Ops is not a revolutionary game compared to MW2 either, merely evolutionary, but no one complains because it works.

Halo is one of those things that you had to be there at the time for to appreciate. Of course when you play Combat Evolved now it feels inferior, but so does Super Mario 64 and no one says "What's the big deal about that game?".

Halo is as much about the atmosphere and sci-fi blockbuster epic feel as it is about shooting aliens. Compared to other FPS games at the time, Halo 1 and 2 were very good. I'd wager to say it wasn't until CoD4 came out that that series compared well against Halo at all, and that game is only three years old now. Halo came out almost ten years ago. Halo 2 came out in 2004 and dominated console multi-player for years. CoD4 was so good because of the ground Halo broke, it had to be in order to become the same kind of killer app.

And yes, PC gamers who've been playing Quake Arena and Team Fortress and Counterstrike for years are not as impressed with Halo multiplayer, but on consoles it's always been cutting edge, and Halo is, at its heart, a console game. The PC versions are afterthoughts to MS.

I'm really not a Halo fanboy, I've owned the first three but only rented Reach to play the single player campaign through. I'd say they are above average cames but not perfect. There is also quite is a bit of lore built up now around the Halo universe. People care about Master Chief and Cortana, at least as much as one can about a game character. The want to see the outcome of the story that has been set up. Does anyone actually give a shit about what happens to anyone in a CoD game? While I have not read any of them, I've heard the Halo books are actually quite good, and not just "for a video-game" good.

 

[CaptJimboJones]

Not much more to add on why Halo was a bit of a revolution for console gaming, but there is a pretty big fanbase that really enjoy the storyline of the single-player campaigns. And as has been mentioned, the Halo EU is pretty elaborate and extremely well done compared with most videogame tie-ins.

 

[Lindley]

There's also the fact that the game was originally announced as being both for PC and XBox, but then Bungie was snapped up by Microsoft and it became an exclusive.

Actually, before MS bought Bungie, Halo was originally planned to be a Mac exclusive.

 

[Mr Light]

And it was originally an RTS, too!

 

[Dac]

I love Halo, and I first played Halo 1 on PC literally 2 weeks before Halo 2 came out. Its what drove me to buy an Xbox that Xmas for Halo 2. I've played every single came since.

Why do I love it? Namely the story. Sure, its basically an amalgamation of 20 different other sci fi works, but whats there works for me. This is especially true after reading the expanded fiction. The Fall of Reach is just a good book in its own right, but for a piece of whats essentially tie in marketing, its mind blowing.

As for the games? They're solid sci fi shooters, even at their weakest (Halo 3) there was some fun gameplay moments, but at their best their like an interactive feature film. I loved ODST mainly because walking around the streets at night in the rain fighting alien invaders felt as lonely, desperate and heroic as it should be.

Reach went for the best of both worlds, and for the most part it worked for me. It was a good send of, but I can see how the somber ending might have turned some folks off.

So yeah, I really like Halo. To me, its first and foremost a sci fi story about humanity fighting off aliens, and a first person shooter second.

 

[Owain Taggart]

There's also the fact that the game was originally announced as being both for PC and XBox, but then Bungie was snapped up by Microsoft and it became an exclusive.

Actually, before MS bought Bungie, Halo was originally planned to be a Mac exclusive.

Actually, while it was announced at Macworld, it was also announced as a PC/Mac game, and they were one of the few Mac developers still around by then. It's when Bungie got snapped up that everything changed. It was a dark day for Mac users as they felt betrayed by one of the few Mac devs left. I kind of feel sad for Bungie as they haven't done anything but Halo since.

 

[Deckerd]

I'm going to take a wild stab here and suggest English isn't your first language.