Before There Was Halo

[SillyGodDisco]

The Halo series for me used to be fun. Combat Evolved made me fall in love with the shooter genre again and Halo 2 really got me playing online. However Halo 3 really destroyed my love for the series. The story was noticeably worse, the online play became stale and the community seemed to favor the young foul mouthed kids a lot more.

I gave Bungie one more chance with Halo ODST and I really wish I would have kept my $60 never before have I shut a game off halfway through the campaign and never picked it up again. The story was HORRID the characters were dull and it could be summarized as "OH an OBJECT!" Granted it added some online features but I cannot be carried through a Franchise on Online play alone. The story makes the game with me and this is where Halo has been lacking for me. Reach may be a no go as well due to my lack of faith in their writing department at the moment.

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

I admit that the control scheme suited consoles, but FPS's in general belong on the PC. And Halo pushed them away from it. And that's why I hate it.

 

[Delusibeta]

Honestly? TimeSplitters 1 came out a good bit before Halo. Had it sold in same quantities we would probably be talking about how it innovated in controlling a console FPS, not Halo.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Thanks for that, Shamus, it's an interesting way of looking at Halo, even though I can't appreciate it any more now than I did before... I'm not a fan of it, but still, you made a good read.

 

[ultimateownage]

And in the end they handled all of that really poorly, and it's influence made almost every shooter after it a generic pile of shit. Time Splitters is by far a better game and that came out around the same time. Same with Half Life, sure it wasn't innovative, but it was one of the best FPS' ever made, and that's saying something. Good games don't need that crap, in fact most good games don't use that crap. Vehicle sections have always been second only to sewer levels on their shiteness.

Plus, it made people take consoles seriously, and now we've got to the point where all the companies couldn't give a shit about the PC and either give us a crappy port or nothing at all. Safe to say I hate Halo with a passion.

 

[Lerxst]

Halo... tactical? Sorry Shamus, but what are you smoking? I agree with you 99% of the time but this is just wrong.

Tom Clancy shooters on the PC were tactical. Day of Defeat (a HL1 mod) was tactical. Battlefield 1942 was tactical. Some of these came out well before or at the same time as Halo. They aren't your typical Quake/UT shooters either.

Halo did reinvent the shooter though; it made it possible for a FPS to actually be boring in multiplayer mode. Cover-shield-shoot ad nauseum. It's like a game of Tic Tac Toe... with big guns.

 

[paketep]

Someday you'll pay for regenerating health, Bungie.

And for launching the xbox.

 

[muffincakes]

It was going to have drive-able vehicles. Inverse kinematics that would let riders bounce around in the vehicle instead of acting like statues affixed to the vehicle's frame. Squad-based AI that would take cover and flank instead of just charging into the player's reticule. A mixture of indoor areas and outdoor landscapes instead of endless tunnels. Co-op play. And it would have a rich sci-fi setting that would rise above the "shoot all the aliens" narrative we'd been living on for the last decade or so.

Wait, you lost me there. Are you talking about Halo or Perfect Dark? Because comparatively, the only thing Halo added(subtracted?) was being able to kill more things with less skill because of a regenerative shield. And a piss-poor selection of weapons.

I personally would have written the article like this:
Before Halo, there were no super frat fanboys. Halo introduced the 'douche' to video games. That is all.

 

[Souplex]

Some things you failed to mention:
Halo was originally intended to be an RTS but those plans fell through.
I'm pretty sure Halo was the first FPS where melee was a valid option as opposed to a fallback when you were out of/didn't want to waste ammo.

 

[Gunner 51]

I don't know about some of the features you described there, Shamus. Enemies that darted from cover to cover existed in Half Life. If the military grunts saw a grenade, they'd let out an audible cry of grenade and get out of it's way as fast as their legs could carry them.

In Half-Life, it also had a mixture of outside and inside and didn't just focus on endless corridors.

OK, Halo had the regenerating health bar. But I wouldn't say this is a good or bad thing, it is an aesthetic - at least it is to me. Personally, I think they take the suspense of low health away from the game.

While Halo might have had the silent protagonist break his silence, my opinion was that he simply didn't have anything truly interesting to say. The Spartan's was flat and emotionless and the script was something a child could have written.

However you can definitely say the script got better along with the support characters the further along in the series you went - but the Spartan didn't.

He remained kind of bland and lacked the nobility and charisma of the first Arbiter. He lacked the playful, perky snarkiness that went into Cortana.

Halo 2's Arbiter had more character, more back story, feeling and was a lot more fun to play in one or two chapters than the Master Chief was in 3 whole games. I found myself wanting to know more about the arbiter and his background than I ever did with the Chief.

But I guess my main niggles with the Halo series was that the supporting cast was far more interesting than the main character. Mind you, I also found the same thing with Half Life - but Gordon at least wasn't a nigh-invincible killing machine who could duck behind some crates and be back up to full health and armour in no-time at all.

I do apologies if I come off as ranting. But characterisation has come a long way in gaming, especially in Bioware games. Surely it's not too much to ask for an FPS where the protagonist is interesting and shows a little emotion. (Even Doom managed this when you held the fire button for a while.)

 

[Dyp100]

I loved the first halo, it was perfect, but I didn't like halo 2 to present. Everything after halo is generic console shooter.. pff.. breaking the weapon system down into catagories where one weapon sucks in all but one situation and dual weilding was the final nail in the coffin.

Maybe you should try Reach once it comes out? It looks a lot better than 3 and 2, it seems Bungie has got a better sense of direction again. They seem to be listening to what everyone loved and really bringing it back, or ramping it up, but hey, you might not even have the ability to try it, so my typing this was for nought.

Edit:

I like in this thread how people are blaming Halo for the downfall of all original ideas in the video game industry, going as far to say Bungie are bad people for it. Halo was a great game, it's why it got popular, but you can't blame Halo for what OTHER PEOPLE are doing. If they want to copy Halo, it's their fault the games are bad, not Bungie's, nor Halo. Also, Space Marines are high at the moment because sci-fi has seem to become a lot more popular than fantasy, as well. Bungie are a great developer, making the games they want to make while listening to their community, yet no one remembers that, hailing Value as the only developer who cares what the little people say, yet shitting on Bungie, saying they don't deserve anything they have.

 

[Zenode]

This is what i put in another post complainging about halo, with a few changes after reading the articles

Halo:CE was really the first "blockbuster" game where it hit mainstream audiences everywhere.

It introduced to a WIDE AUDIENCE (note:that does not mean nothings done it before but its what introduced it to alot of people)

Regenerating Health
Limited Weapons
Good Control Scheme
Co-op gameplay
Waypoints

Just "streamlined for console" gameplay and it introduced a few new mechanics to the genre overall.

remember when you could carry every single weapon in the game and just shift effortlessly between them, then shitting a house when you realised you had to decide between your sniper or the rocket launcher in halo!

People like it yes? so what everyone likes something, dont bash them for it (unless that thing turns out to be totally immoral/illegal and just wrong in all sense of the word).

 

[hecticpicnic]

if you don't like shooters now a days i wouldn't say for the better i just say they reinvented it

 

[omega247]

I just found Halo to be over rated and boring

 

[Mariena]

I don't get it. It's a good article, sure .. but surely we've been over this a thousand times before? And how is this subject still relevant? It's nearly 2011, with Halo nearly being 10 years old in November.