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

psicat

New member
Feb 13, 2011
448
0
0
Halo definitely, one of the best, most enjoyable and engaging FPS series I've ever played. Half-Life was fine, but had a unenjoyable, over-hyped, sequel that relied too much on gimmicks. And, the Call of Duty games tend to be hit and miss, though they can be good mindless fun.
 

Torrasque

New member
Aug 6, 2010
3,441
0
0
Halo > Half Life > CoD
Halo has the most balanced and entertaining gameplay (multiplayer as well as single player campaign) of the three.
Half Life has no multiplayer to speak of, yet the campaign is a lot of fun. Even though it's campaign is fun, I'd rate even Time Splitters higher than it. I just never got a raging boner for Half Life no matter how much I played it.
CoD sucks. As a guy who has 2 days played on CoD4, 12 days played on MW2, and 5 days played on MW3, I think I can honestly say that CoD fucking sucks. The balancing is completely buggered, the maps are recycled, the exploits are almost never fixed, and sniper fog puts a bad taste in my mouth every time I die. The campaign is really good, I've beaten each campaign many times and enjoyed it each time, but the multiplayer, the main reason anyone buys MW3, fucking blows.

Only reason I still play MW3 is because a friend of mine makes it enjoyable... until the sniper fog gets particularly bad and/or the servers derp.
 

Shoggoth2588

New member
Aug 31, 2009
10,250
0
0
The last Call of Duty I played was Modern Warfare 2 and I really hated the story. I ignored the multiplayer completely too. I'm a fan of Halo and used to do multiplayer but it lost its luster in my eyes after a while. I had a bit of trouble getting into Half Life 2 to be honest. I blame the episodes though for me not going back into it because I do remember having a ton of fun in Ravenhold. I feel like I spent a bunch of time on Half Life 2 also, which is something I can't say about the time I feel I've spent on the Halo games.

I think I'm going to give it to Half Life 2. It has a gravity gun for fucks sake and as cool as rockets and, banshees are it doesn't compare to flinging saw-blades and toilets at your enemies.
 

Vkmies

New member
Oct 8, 2009
941
0
0
The_root_of_all_evil said:
HALO fails because of its bloom and "blank slate" main character.
No hate, I voted for Half life myself too, but I gotta ask: Why does Halo fail for the blank slate character and Half Life not? They both have ones.

I have my own reasoning for it, but I want to hear yours. ;)
 

Teshi

New member
May 8, 2010
84
0
0
If we're going just on the first games in the series? Halo. If we're going on the overall series? Half Life.
 

Robert632

New member
May 11, 2009
3,870
0
0
I'm going to say that your friends are insane if they think that either COD or Halo is more beloved then HL by this community. Few things even come close.

On a side note:

The_root_of_all_evil said:
Best single player FPS would be Half Life. Short, detailed, immersive and gives a feeling of achievement.

CoD fails because of its reliance on set-pieces.
HALO fails because of its bloom and "blank slate" main character.

CoD may have a better multiplayer, and HALO has a better replayability - but that's for other prizes.

Seriously, you can't say having a blank slate main character as a detriment when comparing a game to HL. It just...doesn't work.
 

Virmire

New member
Sep 25, 2011
174
0
0
I've played CoD briefly, and played the Halo demo on PC because I've never owned any sort of XBox, so I'll go with Half Life 2. It has fantastic story, settings, characters and gameplay.
 

BehattedWanderer

Fell off the Alligator.
Jun 24, 2009
5,237
0
0
ZeroMachine said:
BehattedWanderer said:
Best single player FPS? Portal. But, since that doesn't count, as it's already universally loved by all the nine gods, Half Life takes the prize, as it remains one of the tightest marriages of story and gameplay around. It's immersive, gratifying, and well executed, and while CoD and Halo both have their moments, there's a reason even the hint of Half Life 3 had the internet abuzz, whereas the announcement of a new Halo or CoD title can be repeatedly met with "Oh. Another one. Cool, I guess."
Dude, I wouldn't say that, the Thalmor check out these forums all the time...

I've said too much.

>.>

<.<
Let them come. Let them see the deceptive power of an Argonian.
 

thom_cat_

New member
Nov 30, 2008
1,286
0
0
erttheking said:
"Sigh" well I'm surprised it took this long. Allow me to elaborate, it feels like it's trying to be too many things at once, it feels like it's trying to be Call of Duty with the Combine soldiers armed with your standard FPS weapons (Pistols, SMGs shotguns an assault rifle disguised as a futuristic weapon) The monsters though, those drones, the headcrabs and the bugs and those things that dangle from the ceiling and those weird mine things...they just feel out of place, they never felt like a danger to me and they just felt too different to be part of the same faction as the guys with trench coats and gas masks, once they did that I didn't buy that it was an alien invasion, say what you will about Halo at least it could make up it's mind on either if it wanted to be an alien invasion or a standard war FPS. Also quick question I read somewhere that the Combine smashed Earth's combined military in seven hours...if that's the case, how come a MIT graduate is mowing down scores upon scores of their soldiers and even random civilians are putting up a good fight? Why did the Combine use soldiers and equipment that were so inferior to their own troopers to guard this planet? Why the Hell haven't they sent reinforcements? Also I get the feeling that Half Life secretly wants to be Portal, that's why it keeps throwing gimmicky puzzles at me. And as least in Halo you drive from a 3rd person persecutive so you can actually see what's going on around you.
Ohhhhh dear.
HL2 is before COD.
Those monsters are from most of the universe, becoming trapped in Xen, which is the in-between world, kinda like a world portal. They're the ones that managed to make Xen their home. Whereas the Combine are the Universal Union. They are the invaders that used Xen and the portal created in HL1 to get to Earth. The portal has since closed, and the whole freakin' game -HL2, ep1, ep2,- all of them are about stopping the Combine getting their re-enforcements to earth.
HL2's aliens actually seem like they're part of a universe, each having their place and ecosystems. I mean you spend a good portion of Ep2 finding out how the antlions operate (ie. how their hive-system works).
Yes, the Combine took over earth in the 7 Hour war. The rebels manage to fight back because they use guerrilla warfare. Along with Freeman who is just fucking badass and exactly what they didn't expect. (+the fact it's a game, no single man could actually do this shit except maybe this guy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4])
Half-Life 2 was the first game with proper physics, which is why it has physics puzzles. Portal came much much after. At the time of ep2.
First person driving means you don't break immersion like you do in Halo.

Meanwhile I don't get why people love Halo. It's fun to play with friends I think...
But shit, some of the interior level design is absolutely horrible. The amount of corridors that are the same, the fact none of it makes any sense in context.
 

Bravo 21

New member
May 11, 2010
745
0
0
As much as I love the hl series, I voted halo, largely because of the occasional game reaching element that I come across in half-life. This is best summed up by that instance in hl2 where you are driving along the road, only to find a tunnel filled with cars, I got out to try to move them, but fount it both tedious and unnessecarillly challenging to get past, so instead I chose to spend the next 10 minutes running down the road. Then there are the instances inwhich I am forced to move quickly, throwing balls of energy with the gravity gun to avoid being crushed by falling debris. Eventually I complete the segments, but they Prove to be no end of frustration, so while halo has it's flaws, I find that its singleplayer just has more flow.
 

josh797

New member
Nov 20, 2007
866
0
0
you're asking the escapist what the best shooter is and you included half life. theres no question whats gonna win. valve is the obvious favorite dev on this site.
 

xxcloud417xx

New member
Oct 22, 2008
1,658
0
0
erttheking said:
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.
I will start off with an agreement regarding the Fan boat section at the beginning of half-life 2. It was definity too long and is one of the reasons I hate reinstalling the game on a new computer and restarting it, but once it's over I love the game. It blends many things together as a genre, you get the military shooter feel, the zombie horror feel and the lonewolf uber protagonist feel in the same game not to mention some puzzles that are fun (at least they are the first time, not so much the tenth). I will also point out that the game was never meant to be about an alien invasion (that was Half-Life 1) it was meant to show an alien Occupation. There is a huge difference, we've already lost the war and the game does a magnificent job of showing you this with not only the opressive combine forces and fearful citizens (Orwell's 1984 comes to mind when you first step into City 17) but also by putting several other lore driving objects in the game mostly being newspaper clippings with stories about the "7 hour war" and "Earth surrenders".

Furthermore the reason for the Gordon Freeman worship is also because of that Orwellian style opression. Imagine yourself as a citizen who is being not only oppressed but also repressed. You are constantly watched, monitored, policed and also being sexually repressed by the governing body. Now even though the Rebels are there fighting for freedom, it's quite obvious when you enter the scene that the Rebel underground is really just that, underground. They can't make a dent in the massive Combine machine.

Now enter a man who in less than an hour does more to disturb the combine order than the rebels have in years. Imagine the hope this man would symbolize for you. How could you not worship him? This one man dared to not only break combine law, but to break their opressive rule. For an oppressed society, this man is God. He is, as many people say, the one free man. Nothing is in his way, he is the embodiement free will in a society that wants to control it's people. If I were a citizen of those kinds of times, I would worship a man like that. Not only for what he symbolizes but also for the fact that after living under oppressive rule with no alternative and no hope to ever be able to stop the combine juggernaut, he comes along and shows me that they are not invincible.

I hope that gives you more insight into what Half-Life 2 is about. The story runs very deep if you know how to look. To anyone who hasn't done it yet and wether you love the series or not, I would recommend reading "1984" by Georges Orwell, it adds a brand new dimension to this game's story and will make fans appreciate it more, and maybe make others who didn't like the game gain an appreciation for it.

On topic, I think it's pretty clear where my vote went. :p
 

natster43

New member
Jul 10, 2009
2,459
0
0
Shiiiiiiit. I don't play any of those, or really like them. I would say Battlefield. But if I had to choose, it would be Halo.
I have only played the Multiplayer for it, but I enjoyed it more than pretty much everything I did in Call of Duty, and I refuse to play Half-Life. So that is why I choose that.
 

BlueKunai

New member
Dec 30, 2010
27
0
0
Half-Life resolutely stands as one of my favourite shooters of all time. The campaign is a good length, the creatures are interesting and fun to fight and the story never breaks immersion. I think of Halo as a pretty average series, but I don't hate it. Call of Duty has always bored me. With all the hype and praise some of my mates gave it, I expected better. Alas, I was bored of the multiplayer after two short games and the campaign isn't particularly involving.
 

hazabaza1

Want Skyrim. Want. Do want.
Nov 26, 2008
9,612
0
0
I enjoyed Halo more than either of those to be completely honest. Probably because of all the hype surrounding HL2 before I played it and realised it was really average. At least Halo has co-op campaign to enjoy.
 

Magnicon

New member
Nov 25, 2011
94
0
0
Gonna be 100% honest here. I didn't read a single word of anything in this thread. I can't think of a single way either halo or cod could possibly beat Half-Life.(i have played both of them) Even in multiplayer when you look at what Half-Life/2 has opened up, theres just no contest.

I am biased. I think the Half-Life series has been one of if not the most important in gaming history as far as quality/standards is concerned.
 

xxcloud417xx

New member
Oct 22, 2008
1,658
0
0
Let's also just point out the very simple fact that of those 3 series. Only one of those will be more generally well recieved should they release another sequel this year. Can you guess which one?

Hint: it's the one people actually are asking for a sequel. Not one that the company is doing regardless. :p

Winner gets a copy of Half-Life 3 lol
 

Thaius

New member
Mar 5, 2008
3,862
0
0
I went with Halo. I enjoyed Half-Life 2 until I got bored with the overlong and simply not-that-good vehicle sequences. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a masterpiece of war campaigns, but the series hasn't been as good from there, with its lowest points appearing every time Treyarch makes one.

The Halo series has, in my mind, a story that is far more deep and complex than most people bother to find out, some of the industry's best music, and gameplay that keeps to relatively simple principles while still encouraging skillful and intelligent play.

But honestly, anyone who thought this particular community would pick Halo or Call of Duty over Half-Life is an idiot. I love The Escapist for its relatively intelligent community, but unfortunately on some issues that tends to translate to elitist snobbery bordering on hipster-style, "It's worse if its popular" crap. Halo and Call of Duty both get tons of hate on this site for little reason other than their popularity, regardless of whether any of the three are actually of higher quality than the others.