No Haters: If you love Halo so much tell me this. . .

[TPiddy]

If you've read my first post, you'll notice I read someone saying Halo revolutionized the FPS. I called him out on it. /end

So rather than spout your opinion about Halo being 'mediocre' a more constructive route would have been to counter point his argument using facts and examples like many other posters have already done... just some helpful advice to avoid coming across as a hateful troll.

 

[Lancer723]

I think Halo 2 and 3 failed miserably at the whole "innovation" thing

Halo 2 had arguably the most comprehensive multiplayer matchmaking system ever, and Halo 3 improved upon it considerably. Single player is is nothing new, but in my opinion the draw of the Halo series has been it's multiplayer. Halo multiplayer is clean, crisp, fast-paced and entertaining the way few other FPS' are. It's not that Halo does anything completely new, it just does everything really really well.

I would strongly argue that Halo's matchmaking system is fairly innovative in the way it functions.

 

[oplinger]

The only new thing I remember halo bringing to the table was regenerating health, which I'm sure was done before it. I loved halo when it came out, and I had a lot of fun with halo 2, and then slowly realized what it was doing to the FPS genre. Which is all well and good, but it's about time the world got a new "halo" of sorts.

No I never played 3. I gave up.

 

[Sacman]

my modded TF2 games...

Mods don't count. The others are fine (though I've never heard of System Shock, only recently heard of Deus Ex and Star Wars basically invented the whole laser sword convention) but don't mention mods you personally made.

I didn't make them they're from FPS Banana... [http://www.fpsbanana.com/skins/83801]
besides Mods are a part of PC gaming like Machinima or flash games...

 

[repeating integers]

Well, OK, they're from another site. But no matter how much a part of PC gaming they are, I maintain they should remain out of discussions about retail games. A skilled enough modder, or team of modders, can take great liberties with any game he gets his hands on and turn it into something new, yet that game will never be for sale and, crucially, will not have been designed by profit-seeking developers. Also, the VAST majority of the game's playerbase will not have access to any one particular mod.

And as an aside, if you hate Halo (or "what it has done") why did you start chatting in a thread pretty much created for Halo fans to discuss in?

 

[TheAmerikahn]

for some reason its taken other games a while to figure out that forge world, theater mode, and custom games are revolutionary for the console shooter.

 

[DutchAssassin8]

i think it's refreshing to see a big FPS with so much.... stuff. In MW2 you fight a lot of guys and i know people are going to hate me but in the end all you fight with these days are humans in brown armor. A lot of different humans though but halo has the same thing as Doom, Serious Sam and Duke Nukem: They have a lot of cool, original enemies and a lot of cool original bangpipes to kill them with! Let's say: a modern FPS describing "realistic" battles. Maybe you have 1 tank, a few different jeeps and your basic sniper, bazooka, shotgun etc. while Halo has a long distance rifle wich fires pink needles wich will explode into a deadly pink cloud when you hit somebody enough. Combine this with an awesome shooter(my personal opinion. I'm aware some of you disagree) and you'll get a really really really good game!

 

[ShaqLevick]

Because it plays well and always has. Fuck the story, fuck the setting, and fuck the combatants! Sure I enjoyed all those things, but it seems many here don't. Regardless who gives a shit about those things, it's a game and it's easy and fun to play. I've loved every halo game, for the slight challenge of a campaign to the mayhem of online combat, but it's balanced easy to pick up and great to play with friends.

 

[Blind marskman]

What the first halo had was good controls, smart AI and varied enemies, and a fun multiplayer and campaign that werent to realistic.

 

[Kingemoney]

I've said this before and hopefully (although not likely) this will be the last time I say it: Halo did something extremely important and original for CONSOLE gamers. Halo was the first CONSOLE FPS to really nail FPS controls to the point where it felt sharp, accurate, and intuitive. Every single console FPS since has either directly copied the controls, or only modified them slightly so as to fit their game. (Call of Duty being a good example, where instead of an L3 press to bring up the sights it was the left trigger)

The game itself has pretty standard FPS conventions: an amusing storyline about space marines and aliens, a small variety of fun weapons, and lots and lots of aliens to shoot. Nothing about any of these was original, or innovative. But the controls were, and this is why Halo has earned its place among the pantheon of great FPS games.

EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention that Halo 2 was the first game on consoles to have really strong multiplayer. Halo 3? Well, personally I thought Halo 3 was a large piece of samey-garbage that was entirely commercially driven that did absolutely nothing particularly well or anything particularly badly.

 

[Treblaine]

Note that im not a hater on Halo. I actually love it! But heres my problem. When Halo came out it set a new standard for FPS, and almot every shooter has taken after it since. You could say its the core of all FPS since its release. But what does Halo possibly have that no other shooter has now? I know this is mostly from my opinion but creativity wise, there isn't much that has been added. Or at least not original to Halo. I just feel like when I play it, its beginning to turn into a blurry screen and all I see are the basics of all guns, armor, and vehicles in todays FPS. So all I ask of you is to tell me what Halo possibly offers that we haven't already seen? I just want to enjoy the series again before I turn into a hater of a game I truly loved.

WHOA WHOA WHOA! Why does something have to be completely 100% original to be loved? certainly why "hate"?

We are not all artsy fartsy hipster douchebags who will only like the utterly revolutionary and bohemian. All the great works of art of ALL forms of art are built on ideas that other creative human beings had before and contribute to greater work of humanity.

Halo is just plain and simply GOOD! It is

Now I really like Halo series, playing Halo 3 recently but it's a love-hate relationship

Loves:
-The guns, the shooting, the sticky aiming is not my preference but it works really well with this game, it's hard to master and fun to exploit
-The combat: there is depth in the relationship between the weapons, melee kills and "deployables". One hit kill melee from behind and so on. There is depth to the combat.
-The enemies are varied and challenging from the titanic Scarab to the unique Flood, invisible enemies
-art style presentation: it's dramatic, climatic and to spite pixel limitations is aesthetically pleasing and avoids the "brown shooter" and has quite varied environments too
-Excellent split-screen system-link support (if only it wasn't such a necessity)
-Music: damn it's good, also very well implemented into the game.
-Gore: or to be precise the lack of it, gore is great in some games but I like how this is not so gratuitous as that's what I like some of the time.


Hates:
-Field of view is fucking diabolical, especially for Halo 3. even in widescreen 16:9 is only 70 degrees. That is the equivalent of Halo 1's 4:3 screen only the top and bottom cut off to make 16:9.... it is supposed to have bits ADDED on the sides not taken off!
-Friendly AI is useless, especially when it comes to driving and offering covering fire. Good voice acting/direction but code wise they are terrible. A "follow-stay-go/attack there" command would have been useful
-Currently can only play online multiplayer on XBL which I find a rip-off at $50 (soon $60) per year. Not worth it. Rather stick with split-screen.
-poor "pixel performance" of only 30 frames/sec and 640p resolution and 0x AA to spite basic models and short draw distance. WONDERFUL use of lighting and bloom for dramatic effect... but falls short.
-Good but kinda convoluted plot of alien betrayal that's all too easy to lose track (especially Halo 2 when you started following the Arbiter)... also Halo 3 copied a bit too many elements from previous halos.
-Health: I'm not the biggest fans of rebounding health, it makes damage from enemies less tangible and more of an "exertion" than actual cost. Actually this is hardly a hate, just a peeve of mine. Actually, none of these are "hates" just blemishes and a really great but imperfect game.

Many of those "hates" can be solved by a PC release (performance, online).

 

[Nomanslander]

You know, Halo is one of those games you play, have fun, and then you're done with it.

It does absolutely nothing else well to merit these many discussions over the internets as I've seen over the years.

It's a big, dumb, shooter, and not even in the likes I Gears where it feels like it's spoofing itself. Halo pretty much takes itself way too seriously and it's forged an army of fanboys that gave into its pretentiousness, whose sole mission now is is to NOT stfu about the game.

Here's a question.....



Ever noticed that almost every topic about Halo to ever exist has always been about arguments over why some choose to dislike or hate the game? The topic is never about the actual game! Talking about the guns, the story, the aliens, fuck no, you'd need actual noteworthy content to warrant those discussions.

It's like listening to devoted born again Christians asking why not everyone believes in Jesus, and you know what, sometimes this whole series just freaks me the fuck out....0o

 

[Souplex]

Halo is imitated because it did everything better than everyone else before it other than Goldeneye, so people learned everything they could from it.
We didn't have this parade of power-armored non-characters fighting generically evil aliens using standard weapons and a shoehorned in gimmick item until Half Life 2 came around in 04.

 

[Sacman]

Well, OK, they're from another site. But no matter how much a part of PC gaming they are, I maintain they should remain out of discussions about retail games. A skilled enough modder, or team of modders, can take great liberties with any game he gets his hands on and turn it into something new, yet that game will never be for sale and, crucially, will not have been designed by profit-seeking developers. Also, the VAST majority of the game's playerbase will not have access to any one particular mod.

Would you consider something made in forge world to not be part of the game or something made in Little Big Planet to not be part of the game because it wasn't made by the company even though they encourage the community to use their modding tools? and what does seeking profit have to do with making games? sure it's a business but not every single developer is in it for the money... those are the developers that turn out the best products...

Spoiler: just to name a few games whos ambition far out weighed their budget...

[img height= 300]http://www.orble.com/images/system-shock-2-box-art.jpg[/img]​

[img height= 300]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mNcyVZsUp3k/TDAhoZVbpUI/AAAAAAAAADU/Rz8rfPuhd3c/s1600/deus_ex.jpg[/img]​

[img height= 300]http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Psychonauts/1-psychonauts_box.jpg[/img]

 

[superbatranger]

I think we are in agreement. Thank you for posting, I liked what you had to say. Made me think.

Thank you. Always good to see differing points of view resolved peacefully

*shakes hand*

Anyway, for Halo, what about a way of playing the Flood?

Well, unless they did it like a pseudo-RTS where you control dozens of Flood at the same time, it probably wouldn't work that well. Yea, you have numbers on your side, but last I remember the Flood wasn't as mobile as Master Chief. You'd respawn a lot, switching from one Flood to the next.

 

[Bootbunny]

Forge. I got into halo in early 2009 with Halo 3 and I probably would have sold it if it weren't for forge. Well, maybe not. I also find the gun-play to be fun, mostly because you have a large amount of health which leaves room for errors and is extremely inviting to new players. Also the fact that your health regenerates makes it a lot less frustrating then a game like Half-Life 2. It just feels more laid back then most FPS's out today. Also the mongoose is friggin' sweet.

 

[repeating integers]

Would you consider something made in forge world to not be part of the game

I would consider a map made in Forge World the same way I consider mods. I consider the actual ability to use Forge to create those maps - on an Xbox, rather than a PC which does this stuff almost by nature - to be an achievement.

 

[Risingblade]

Honestly I only play Halo because I like the story, I find it quite interesting.

 

[skips]

I'm repeating what has already been said, but I'm going to go with "it's fun."

A game like Halo is all about having a good time with 3 friends, playing some multiplayer until the next morning. The incredible polish and refinement of mechanics helps a great deal in making it so enjoyable to play.