Poll: Alright guys, settle a bet for me. Half Life, Halo, or CoD?

[Yak Johnson]

Story goes: I was eating Christmas dinner, talking about video games with my cousins (both of whom watch videos on the Escapist regularly, but have not made accounts), and brought up the gift I gave them each last year (copies of the Orange Box). They both enjoyed Portal a lot, didn't try TF2, and hated Half Life. I personally herald Half Life as the best single player FPS, with each of them advocating Halo or CoD for that position. We got to talking about the Escapist later, and they were convinced that this community would agree that either CoD or Halo is superior to Half Life. We've bet 25 bucks on the matter, so I'm gonna ask you all now: CoD, Halo, or Half Life?

NOTE: I'm not asking which is 'TEH BEST GAME EVAH', only which you consider superior based on whatever standards you prefer to use.

 

[Fleetfiend]

I have to go with Halo, because I haven't played Half Life (though I've heard great things about it) and I have a bit of a vendetta against CoD. I just really enjoy the setting of Halo, and though I've heard trash talk about the "plastic-y" feel of the game, I feel like it's just an interesting characteristic, not a real fault. I really enjoy playing Halo multiplayer (and CoD too on occasion, don't get me wrong). So, halo is my personal choice, even though it may not be the most valid and unbiased of opinions.

 

[Dahni]

Half Life utterly scares me because I am, for lack of a better phrase, a massive scaredy-cat and I tend not to get along nicely with games that involve zombies to a high extent. That said, the actual gameplay in it seems great (or what I've seen of it does). I wish I could play it because I can identify with physicists.

Halo is a dodgy franchise for me so no question there.

I'm voting CoD simply because it's the only franchise that I've successfully put time into and enjoyed.

 

[Talshere]

Personally I prefer CoD4 (the one I assume your talking about) as its the one I was most actively involved it as I scrimmed with my clan and out. But Halo is also undoubtedly a leader in the field and were amazing games and helped define the current FPS genre.

Personally I never got into Half Life much. SINNER!!! I KNOW :O

One thing that can be said however, Valve are the only ones that havent phoned it in in the long term. Halo 2 was also very good but literally everything after that was just cash grabs and both MW2 and 3 should have been released as £10 map packs. Not even that actually, since MW2 successfully managed to devolve PC online gaming to a state so poor it never actually existed prior to that and have brought the epidemic of shit overpriced map packs to PC where we never had to suffer them before.

-.-

Fuck Iward. I will never forgive them for that transgression. I will never buy anything they make ever again.

From this stand point I think both bungie and Iward have hurt the gaming community in a way most people cant even see. As a result, I have to vote Half Life because value are actually awesome.

 

[Erttheking]

I played all 3. Halo is one of my favorite franchises of all time, COD is decent and I played the Orange Box and half life...I just don't like it. I can't put my finger on it, it doesn't really feel like an alien invasion, just a generic war shooter with some really weird monsters. I don't like stopping every five minutes to stack up some boxes, solve a stupid forced puzzle or just figure out where the Hell I'm supposed to go. Also the vehicle controls are just crap and for the love of god they're an eyesore to look at, remind me why they had to tear them down to the bare skeleton again? Also that boat section at the beginning of HL2 was TOO FREAKING LONG and it was a tease "Oh you can stop now and get off and-HA just kidding, you just removed an obstruction." Also the architecture just bugs me too, it's too blocky, too dirty for no reason and half of the time it just feels out of place, Combine architecture in particular rubs me the wrong way. Also the Combine feels very underwhelming as an enemy, I just never felt like they were a threat, also that rocket launcher left something to be desired. I took a peak at Episode two when I was almost done with HF2 and when I saw that the controls and graphics and...everything else was the same and had been released over the years I gave up. Also, this amazing story that I heard so much about, frankly I found it lacking, it's just a bunch of people worshiping Gordon Freemen for some reason I could never really fathom, he's just a scientist, not a super soldier like Master Chief or a decorated veteran like Command Shepard or Marcus Fenix. I really have no idea why that franchise is so popular to me it's EXTREMELY overrated, then again people attack Halo a lot so eye for an eye.

So...yeah.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Having played all three I say that the Halo series has the best campaigns out of all of them.

Why?

One simple answer, replayability.

Half-Life is undoubtedly a fantastic game series. The pacing is good, the game is interesting, the the gameworld that was created by Valve really comes alive. The only problem is that once I finished each of the Half-Life games, I never played them again, never wanted to play them again, because with each of those games each section only has one way to win, one strategy to implement, one way to solve the puzzle.

Halo on the other hand has a lot of various ways to approach each challenge, making the games much more replayable. Add to that the various difficulty levels, skulls, and co-op, and you can play the campaigns of these games over and over again in new and different ways.

For your money you'll play the campaigns for the Half-Life games, or the CoD games once and that's it, but you can play the Halo campaigns over and over again with different strategies, giving you more bang for your buck.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I would imagine that The Escapist will surely vote HL as their favourite of the 3. The Escapist community is, if nothing else, home to many many Valve and HL fans (and fanboys). My personal vote, however, definitely goes to the Halo series. Excellent storylines, memorable characters, extremely solid gameplay, nice difficulties with cool tweaking options, and, ZOMG, the music.

Also, I can't honestly believe that anyone who visits The Escapist would actually think that anything to do with CoD would be voted as favourite anything (unless it's favourite thing to hate on for little to no reason). There really is no greater whipping boy here than CoD.

 

[aprildog18]

I prefer Halo because it has a good story and that it is fun to play with friends.
Sorry if I'm making you lose the bet. =\

 

[C95J]

Not played Half Life in a long time, didn't even complete it. It was okay but for me it has to be between Halo and CoD.

I used to play and love both series, but over time I sort of grew away from Halo. I barely played Reach, for my I think Halo 3 was the pinnacle of the series for me. I still play MW3 now, literally this very second coincidently and I've completed the campaign twice with intent to do it again.

So even though I like all 3 on your list, I'm gonna go with CoD for this one.

 

[Sharp Blue]

This Poll will have to be redone if episode 3 ever comes out

 

[The_Lost_King]

Well i have to say call of duty because the only halo i have played is reach i played the campaign and i'm not a big fan of the mp. I have never played half life either.

 

[The Random One]

Half Life is, without a shade of a doubt, the less horrible among those.

 

[imnot]

I like Halo and half life equaly, but im going to say halo because of nostalgia purposes.

(is it nostalgia if it was only a few years ago? eh who cares)

 

[cgmetallica1981]

Like all Valve games, I find Half-Life (especially the second)games progressively get more boring and uninteresting while playing. I would have to go with Halo on this one.

 

[lionsprey]

going with Half life here although Halo comes in at a close second place.

 

[nackertash]

Im gonna go with Half life, as it genuinely pushed the genre forward in terms of storytelling and gameplay, whereas halo did also push the genre, it accidentally TOTALLY RUINED IT and CoD just sickens me these days.

 

[General Vagueness]

I haven't played Call of Duty. I really like Half-Life, but I like Halo even more.

 

[Smooth Operator]

I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say your cousins are sugar snorting hyper active teens?
At that age I would probably also pick CoD because it was made for them, it's just different games for different tastes.

 

[9thRequiem]

Don't get me wrong, I like Half-life a lot. It's a well-designed, well sculpted FPS with a good story. Here's the thing though : It's not nearly as much fun as Halo. On top of that it ends up feeling disjointed and a little awkward, whereas in Halo everything flows together really nicely. Halo's not perfect, but it's the one I enjoy playing more.

EDIT : Probably biased of me to point this out, but bear in mind the poll is going to be skewed on a population front; Halo is Xbox-specific, the other two are all platforms; the number of people able to play one is less than those able to play the others.