Hating Halo

[Awexsome]

A lot of people hate the interactions with online people than the actual game itself.

Halo set THE standard for online shooters since the invention of a controller and thus most people looking to play online flocked to it.

It does mean that a lot of douches and underage kids have it as their game of choice which has really hurt its reputation but ironically the reason I love Halo is because of the community. With forge, saved films, custom games, and Bungie as THE most interactive game developer on the consoles (only comparable to Valve on the PC) there's a reason that a almost 3 year old game is still the most played game online.

 

[Pegghead]

I think I may be a very non-judgemental person, in that I don't think I can name a game I didn't like, most movies everyone hates I reckon are pretty good and there's only a few people I don't really like in this world. So I do enjoy the Halo series, and I think people just pick at its flaws a bit too much.

 

[Chesterfield Snapdragon McFisticuffs]

While I dont hate Halo, I'm not exactly a fan of it.
I play all 3 coop with my mate all the time, its just a fun thing for us to do, we LOVE coop on Halo. It has solid shooting mechanics and it works well 100% of the time. However Online I think is vastly overrated. Everyone just unloads and then lobs grenades at your feet. That or whores the fuck out of the SPANKA or Sentinel Laser.
The campaigns have great set pieces and large scale battles, I love those in FPS games.
While Halo is nowhere near as godlike as people make it out to be, it isnt anywhere near as shit as others make it out to be.

Why does everyone pan Halo as the milked series, there's been countless iterations of mario and um, RATCHET AND CLANK? I'm pretty sure they have at least 7 games and no-one talks about that series being drawn out.

I fucking hate most of Nintendos franchises, they have has the same 4 or 5 franchises going on there entire career. While their first 3f iterations were fun, by the Wii it was just milking it.
I cant agree with you on RnC, but thats because I love it so much.
Their Universe is massive, so much to see and do. It had 4 main games on the ps2 (Gladiator was kind of a Spinoff but whatever) 2 Spin offs on Psp and 2 more main titles on the ps3, while that is alot of games I think with the amount of difference in each game it isnt really milking, no 2 game is the same.

Yeah I have all the Ratchet and Clank games for my PS2(except that bad port of Size Matters), I'm not saying they're bad at all (they are GREAT) But the fundamentals of the game stay largely similar to be honest. I just find it weird no-one ever picks at Ratchet and Clank for milking when it's one of the longest running playstation series.

 

[DrMetal]

Why does everyone pan Halo as the milked series, there's been countless iterations of mario and um, RATCHET AND CLANK? I'm pretty sure they have at least 7 games and no-one talks about that series being drawn out.

Simple, it is the reason why halo was introduced to X-box, and only x-box, where microsoft can put it out onto windows-games live or whatever its called.

X-box was dying: Most games were available on PS2 as well, and due to ps1 that console was more familiar. Big evil name of microsoft does not help to sell a lot of products, so only reason was to do something quick.

As some one said, Halo is first working FPS for console. That was only reason it was done, is to have unique as well as bring a brand game to x-box. But because it was basically rushed it came out to be uninspired, nothing new, nothing unseen. What does piss me off even more about Halo, is that after it did save x-box, maybe for halo2 they could put some actual fun in it, not just generic, genderless shooter as it is, give its own edge. But now... Even game play changes = minimal, graphics changes = minimal, any other changes = minimal... To put this straight. Imagine, if Mario never existed and Nintendo unheard of, and now console like wii comes out and brings a nice little game like original mario, modernized ofc. And instead of releasing the whole of it and then just using it as symbol for their console heading, they would only release 3 levels at a time and make you pay each time. Thats why halo is milking, because there is no difference between halo games, you played one, you played them all.

Ofcourse the problem with microsoft, x-box has serious profile, so they cannt really take on something as goofy as mario, so master chief became their symbol, but beyond original halo theme, master chief can do nothing. You cant master chief carts or fighting game out of him, and to be hones, people who do game use consoles for
a) Beer socials
b) Fighting
c) racing
And none of those is really Halo... I hate halo, because in my opinion, X-Box 360 is best available console, but having Master chief as its symbol, not only makes it more gay that a pink DS, but also makes X-Box about as useful as a nail in your foot compared to other consoles.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

It's because most of the people on this site are valve fanboys.

 

[Jekken6]

I don't hate Halo, but it's not the sort of game I would play for very long. Especially after being spoiled by Killzone 2, Bad Company, Borderlands, Bioshock, Crysis, etc.

 

[NickCaligo42]

From what I have seen in this forum, and in the world around me, hating the Halo series (Or one of the games in particular) has become the new cool thing to do. Whenever someone mentions that it might actually be good, they have to include an add-on like "Yeah, I went there" or "I guess I'll be that guy".

It seems like people just insult Halo just so they can say "I insulted Halo".

Has anyone else noticed this?

Please hear me out. I know I tend to get verbal diahrrea when I talk about this stuff, but I'd like to lend you some insight on this matter in a civil manner. It seems like a lot of people make really sweeping, quick, overzealous generalizations about this, and those are just as easily dismissed by more generalizations. So, here's my view. I hope it helps.

I'll admit to having a great dislike for Halo, but contrary to what you might think I don't do it to be popular. I just really don't like this series. That's the key term in there--series. The first game I bought and enjoyed, though I was really put off by the last-minute inclusion of zombies. There aren't a lot of things that I'll say are overused--I'll even jump to Mega Man's defense--but zombies are one of them, and the Flood struck me as being really out of place. Otherwise I felt that it was really good, delivering a few things that I felt I'd been cheated out of with previous shooters--like vehicles--and looking very pretty doing it.

The second game I played at a friend's house, and what I discovered was that it was almost exactly the same as the first. It wasn't closely adhering to the conventions set to by the first game, no. Note for note, exact same locations, but the order was really jumbled up. It was when Master Chief landed in what looked like the same exact valley he landed in from the first Halo and when they revealed there was more than one Halo that I put the controller down and decided my following of the series would end right there. That, to me, was like if the second Indiana Jones movie had tried to pass off to me that there were eight Lost Arks. It cheapened the first game and the whole series for me. What's more, the multiplayer aspect was getting less fascinating to me. I tried it out with my friend, but the new guns didn't really excite me that much and didn't stand out as a good justification for a second game, especially after my experiences with mods in other games on my PC. I was 16 at the time, and my friends were all still into this game and enjoying multiplayer sessions regularly. Trust me, it didn't make me "cool" to dislike it.

Today I acknowledge Halo's place in gaming history as one of the 20 most influential games of all time--not in the top 10, but perhaps the top 15 or 11. Master Chief is a gaming icon, and anyone who disagrees is being overzealous.

The thing is, though, I don't like either the philosophy Bungee brought to developing the sequels or the changes that it brought to gaming as a whole. It seemed to me like Bungee was being lazy and like they just got lazier with each game. Halo 1 was awesome, Halo 2 was Halo 1 again, Halo 3 was Halo 2 again--but shorter--and ODST is just a $60 map pack. I'll grant that designing multiplayer maps is not easy, and they certainly know what their audience wants, but it puts me off immensely that they figured out that all they ever have to do is put out multiplayer maps in order to glean astonishing profit from their flagship game. It's good business--way more money for less effort--but it's not what I'm interested in seeing in gaming, and it's popularized that model along with shooters as a mainstream genre, if not the current mainstream genre.

It seems like the market is just over-saturated with multiplayer shooters now on both console and PC, and as I said on another post earlier, I like variety. I and other gamers don't want to be playing shooters for the rest of our lives, and as we see it we have Halo to thank for this rather uninspiring turn in gaming. If you think about all the other genres and all the other reasons to enjoy gaming, that's a lot of models and a lot of fans of those models that feel like they're being ignored--whether they'd ordinarily like shooters or not. Frankly, Halo's success seems really unfair, and that's where the Halo-hate comes from.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

A lot of people hate the interactions with online people than the actual game itself.

Halo set THE standard for online shooters since the invention of a controller and thus most people looking to play online flocked to it.

It does mean that a lot of douches and underage kids have it as their game of choice which has really hurt its reputation but ironically the reason I love Halo is because of the community. With forge, saved films, custom games, and Bungie as THE most interactive game developer on the consoles (only comparable to Valve on the PC) there's a reason that a almost 3 year old game is still the most played game online.

Hit the nail on the head. Bungie is such an amazing developer as far as game support goes. Here it is over 2 years past launch and we still have monthly playlist updates, new Bungie Favorite maps, game types, screenshots, videos, a ton of online stat tracking, and map packs galore. Bungie is up there with the best of them in my books.

I'm not so keen on the Halo community (or at least the most vocal among them, loudmouth bastards that they are), but I can definitely see that looking past the trash-talking knuckle draggers, the community as a whole is pretty outstanding.

 

[Greyfall]

For me, the worst part about Halo is the fact it started the whole 'massively competitive online gaming' thing. For me, its fun to play as a game, with friends or my brother. But I just hate the people who become obsessed with getting a higher ranking and then thinking that this also gives them some standing over people IRL.

But Halo 3 was a blast and had good shooting mechanics.

ODST had a very pretty world and a nice, dark atmosphere. Loved the zoo level.

Halo 3 online is pure fun with buddies, pure hell with random people.

All in all I do feel Halo is critically over-rated but it is still a very fun, solid shooter.

Exactly my point. As a game, it works well, and there is quite a lot to try out, with the different combinations of weapons and stuff, and the forge mode is great when you create some fun maps to play with your friends. But I would never choose it to be the one game you could not live without.

It always seemed to me COD4 and its damned Prestige Mode that made ultra-competitave multiplayer ranking, but I guess you could view skill ranking as its precursor. Halo has the most solid mechanics Ive seen in a while and i dont see much arguing with that.

 

[Dys]

Why does everyone pan Halo as the milked series, there's been countless iterations of mario and um, RATCHET AND CLANK? I'm pretty sure they have at least 7 games and no-one talks about that series being drawn out.

Simple, it is the reason why halo was introduced to X-box, and only x-box, where microsoft can put it out onto windows-games live or whatever its called.

X-box was dying: Most games were available on PS2 as well, and due to ps1 that console was more familiar. Big evil name of microsoft does not help to sell a lot of products, so only reason was to do something quick.

As some one said, Halo is first working FPS for console. That was only reason it was done, is to have unique as well as bring a brand game to x-box. But because it was basically rushed it came out to be uninspired, nothing new, nothing unseen. What does piss me off even more about Halo, is that after it did save x-box, maybe for halo2 they could put some actual fun in it, not just generic, genderless shooter as it is, give its own edge. But now... Even game play changes = minimal, graphics changes = minimal, any other changes = minimal... To put this straight. Imagine, if Mario never existed and Nintendo unheard of, and now console like wii comes out and brings a nice little game like original mario, modernized ofc. And instead of releasing the whole of it and then just using it as symbol for their console heading, they would only release 3 levels at a time and make you pay each time. Thats why halo is milking, because there is no difference between halo games, you played one, you played them all.

Ofcourse the problem with microsoft, x-box has serious profile, so they cannt really take on something as goofy as mario, so master chief became their symbol, but beyond original halo theme, master chief can do nothing. You cant master chief carts or fighting game out of him, and to be hones, people who do game use consoles for
a) Beer socials
b) Fighting
c) racing
And none of those is really Halo... I hate halo, because in my opinion, X-Box 360 is best available console, but having Master chief as its symbol, not only makes it more gay that a pink DS, but also makes X-Box about as useful as a nail in your foot compared to other consoles.

Halo was originally announced as a PC and mac release in 1999 (that is to say, it was nearly finished). It was first released on xbox 2 years later, I think your definition of 'rushed' may be somewhat different to that of the rest of us.

Yes microsoft strategicially paid bungie a fucktonne to release the game exclusively on xbox (as a release title) and also spent a rather large fortune promoting and marketting the game (this why it did well), but that isn't really 'milking the series'. Your point about 'xbox was dying' doesn't really make sense, how can it have been dying before it was released? Halo was bought and planned as a release title long before the official release of the xbox :S. I can, to a degree see why people might dislike it for being a somewhat boring symbol of the xbox, but microsoft aren't really using it as one are they? It is nothing like mario is to nintendo.

 

[theultimateend]

From what I have seen in this forum, and in the world around me, hating the Halo series (Or one of the games in particular) has become the new cool thing to do. Whenever someone mentions that it might actually be good, they have to include an add-on like "Yeah, I went there" or "I guess I'll be that guy".

It seems like people just insult Halo just so they can say "I insulted Halo".

Has anyone else noticed this?

It's not new.
Yeah, people noticed this trend and by now there is a similar number of people hating Halo as people trying to protect it.

I don't care either way, to be honest.
Halo (the first game) was boring, uninspired and average in every way possible.
I don't have an opinion on any other installments of the series, though, since I didn't play them.

I quoted both of these because it pretty much completes the circle.

Halo has always been popular but for every million people playing it you have 10 million people that aren't (some larger ration than that but you get my point).

It isn't a new trend and has been around since the first release.

I thought Halo wasn't bad up until I hit the Flood. Then I realized it was just another cookie cutter title.

Other than adding in Vehicles (which I applaud) in a manner that was enjoyable it didn't do anything that I liked more than say Perfect Dark or Goldeneye. Yes...not unlike a Mac fanatic I am one of 'those people' the ones who like Perfect Dark N64 more than Halo .

Because Halo is pretty much the game that made gaming mainstream, and the majority of the Escapists hate mainstream things. I personally think the games are good (not great, but fun) and I love the Halo universe.

What country do you live in? I'm assuming not the US.

There are tons of video game titles that came out before Halo that were absolutely massive, the kind of shit that had people lined up for miles through stores just for the chance of getting a copy of them.

Goldeneye was so popular it was the topic of discussion for almost a year after its release at my school.

Pokemon caused people to break out into fights and it was my first introduction into the world of "Epeen"

Final Fantasy 7 was earth shattering in the US.

Likewise every editorial on the topic I can recall cited the PS2 as the system that brought gaming mainstream. I might have missed the bus but I don't recall Halo being on that console.

Finally while I admit this isn't the most objective data:

"OVERALL RANKINGS

Assuming these lists represent voices of authority in the gaming community, we can easily make a cumulative list averaging out the most universally popular games. I'm not smart enough to do mathematical averages of rank, but based on sheer popularity (as defined by appearing on a majority of lists, ie: at least 50%, or close to it), the top five games of all time seem to be:
1 Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (28 out of 38 lists)
2 Super Mario 64 (25 out of 38)
3 Tetris (appears on 22 out of 38)
4 Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (20 out of 38)
5 Street Fighter II (16 out of 38)
Goldeneye 007 (16 out of 38)"

Source: http://www.filibustercartoons.com/games.htm

Which unsurpisingly so are almost all games that brought my entire neighborhood together.

People hate Halo because it is generic, which is all I hear from reviewers.

It IS generic, but that doesn't mean it is bad.

Halo fulfills 3 basic psychological needs.

Autonomy - Free choice, or the illusion of free choice.

Mastery - The feeling that you are the top dog, you are the best.

Sociability - Socializing with others and having fun.

That is why it ISN'T bad, but it's generic theme is what makes it NOT great.

You forgot the two main draws of it .

Tbagging and Testosterone.

I might be biased because of the conversations male shoppers have about Halo at our store. I'm waiting for the person who comes in to get something for the 360 that doesn't say "I tbagged so many dudes." or something similar.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Halo is a good game, its not the best, but its definitely not average. They may be overrated, but they were fun.

 

[Irishhoodlum]

People usually only express their hate for Halo when other people start to proclaim their undying love for it (Halo 3 in specific), or when those same people ask the question why everyone hates Halo so much. Incidentally, you're not helping put out the fire if you catch my drift (use the search button!!!!).

 

[Wibble]

I have nothing against halo as a game i simply hate on it because i have unexplainable bad luck playing it, so i say its cursed.

 

[TimeLord]

It's not new.

It may not be new, but why is it happening?

Because Halo Fanboys think Halo is the second coming of Christ and although I don't hate Halo, I wont buy it out of principle that it's run on hype of Fanboys.

If a PS3 Fanboy says Halo is good, then I'd consider it as it shows it may be good.

 

[craftyfirestorm]

the halo series had fairly good characterisation and good gameplay. but the story was repetitive storyline and halo 3 dropped all the interesting characterisation so basiclly is a slighty above average generic shooter that doesn't deserve the perfect 10s it keeps getting in reviews

 

[CMon]

I don't really get how one can be so "loyal" to either side of an argument about whether a game is good or not. As if it's totally unacceptable to say "I agree and disagree".

Aaaand, I don't "hate" Halo. Hate is a strong word. I dislike the numerous fans that keep describing it as innovative or really good or best game ever. These people really need to widen their horizons of games. Halo isn't bad by any standards. It's an average-decent shooter with no real stand-out points and no real flaws. I suspect the only reason it's being showered in praise is the fact that it was the first shooter to actually do something right on the XBox. Thus: "It doesn't suck, so it must be good."

 

[KhaosElement]

What if we honestly dislike the biggest part of the game? (Multi-player)

4-player co-op in legendary is amazing.