Poll: Halo or Half-Life?

[Dosvidonya]

Before I begin I just want to start off by saying I adore both of these games! Coincidentally, when I think of the best game series of the FPS genre it's these two that immediately come to mind. But lately someone asked me which one I think is better and I actually thought long and hard about this until deciding that if I had to choose it would be Halo. My reasons are because when I compare Halo: CE to Half-Life 2, and yes I know there is a 3 year difference and that Halo 2 being also released in 2004 matches up closer to Half-Life 2's release, I find that Halo's level design hold's up a lot better than either of the Half-Life games and the AI is also stronger in Halo than Half-Life. I love Half-Life's characters and story, albeit I love Halo's story just as much, and the gravity gun is a blast, but when I'm playing a game, especially an older one, I tend to gravitate towards the one that holds up better and to me that's Halo.

So what is your guys preference? What are your reasons? What do you like or dislike about either one? Any criticism or compliment is, mostly, valid but try to keep from just flaming or bashing other people's opinion. Hell, if you have another game that you think is better than both let us know! The floor is open.

[P.S.] I want to nip this in the bud now before it potentially gets out of hand: if you're going to give a reason it can't be, "I like [blank] because [blank] is bad." If you have criticisms be specific; for example, "I like [blank] because I prefer it's [insert reason] and it's something I feel [blank] lacks." Otherwise it's just flame baiting and I'm not going to tolerate stupid crap like that. Thank you.

 

[Erttheking]

....This is gonna hurt. Talking about both of these games is going to set these forums on fire.

As for me personally, I prefer Halo. I dunno why, I just do. I guess I like how it's more sci-fiy than Half Life. Plus I always liked Humans in space.

 

[Lucyfer86]

Half-Life, because Halo is shitty... boom, just kidding, love em' both.

But i like HL's level design, guns and story slightly more. Overall it's a really tight competition.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I imagine older FPS gamers will go with HL and the younger audience with Halo, you kids and your hip new things and all that...

Yes I also fall under the older audience so Halo to me is just an overarching question of "Why are there only a handful of mechanics present?"

 

[FinalDream]

Out of the two I prefer Half-Life, because it's not one of the worst FPS' on the market.

 

[shrekfan246]

....This is gonna hurt. Talking about both of these games is going to set these forums on fire.

And it didn't take long for the sparks to begin, either.

OT: I've never been able to get into Half-Life. The first Half-Life I probably got three or four hours in before the old-school FPS mechanic of health scrounging just really pissed me off too much to continue playing, and Half-Life 2 has never been able to hold my interest for very long past Ravenholm.

On the other side, I love the universe that Halo built up. The war between humans and the Covenant that expands into the Covenant Civil War, the battle at Reach, the three-way conflict between the forces of Earth, the Covenant, and the Flood, and Cortana's foil to Master Chief's limited personality. The characterization may not even be in the same galaxy as Half-Life, but even still it just remains more interesting to me.

 

[TehCookie]

Having only played a few levels from both I prefer Half-life because it's on PC. I only played Halo for an hour when it first came out and my thoughts were "It looks like a generic PC shooter with horrible controls. Why did they put this on a console?"

On the other hand I enjoyed Duke Nukem Forever so I'm probably not the best judge of shooters.

 

[shrekfan246]

Having only played a few levels from both I prefer Half-life because it's on PC.

Just as a point of note, the first two Halo games were released on PC. Though Halo 2 was released around the same time as Halo 3, and Microsoft chose to completely screw it over by arbitrarily and artificially locking it to Vista and Games for Windows Live.

 

[Dosvidonya]

Out of the two I prefer Half-Life, because it's not one of the worst FPS' on the market.

If you would kindly elaborate on your OPINION that would be preferred. Thank you.

Well I imagine older FPS gamers will go with HL and the younger audience with Halo, you kids and your hip new things and all that...

Yes I also fall under the older audience so Halo to me is just an overarching question of "Why are there only a handful of mechanics present?"

It's funny I thought the exact same thing when I was playing Half-Life. "Why do I have to switch weapons for melee and grenade instead of just pressing a button allocated to each? Why do I have to go out of my way to keep hunting down health and shield regens? Why are there only two vehicle sections and why do their controls suck?" Both games had different mechanics that differentiated them, ultimately it just comes down to taste, though I can understand how someone who, might, primarily only play PC games might see the two weapon limit as restrictive. I always saw the limit as making the game more tactical, weapons filled roles rather than just being progressively more powerful.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

But seriously why not both, both of them are good games on their own merits and I've played both and had fun with them, we shouldn't need to pit one against the other since both are different in many ways.

 

[TehCookie]

Having only played a few levels from both I prefer Half-life because it's on PC.

Just as a point of note, the first two Halo games were released on PC. Though Halo 2 was released around the same time as Halo 3, and Microsoft chose to completely screw it over by arbitrarily and artificially locking it to Vista and Games for Windows Live.

I did specify when it was released, since I completely ignored the series after that (no point is annoying others who enjoy it unless they ask what I think of it). I think I'd still have trouble overcoming my bias since I already tried it and labeled it shit. The story or characters weren't enough to make me want to choke down the gameplay the first time I was playing it, so even if the gameplay is no longer so bad it makes me unable to play I'd still be left with a meh game.

 

[Dosvidonya]

But seriously why not both, both of them are good games on their own merits and I've played both and had fun with them, we shouldn't need to pit one against the other since both are different in many ways.

I didn't really intend to make this a "Which one is better" forum, more like a "Which one do you prefer". You can, of course, like both equally, shouldn't need to tell you that. Actually, I saw your post and moved to add "Both" as a poll choice but for some reason it's not letting me.

 

[Poppy JR.]

Half-life, without a doubt. I'm not much of an online multiplayer fan[footnote]Local, on the other hand...[/footnote] so that's not a factor for me, but Half-life had such glorious level design. I guess it just depends on your level of interest in the online aspect.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

Halo.

Local Co-Op, Local best friend fragfest, and fantastic warthog-destruction derbies with epic jumps.

Half-Life never really caught my attention or imagination.
Not to mention, I hate Counter-Strike, which came from Half-Life. (Because it's a terrible shooter.)

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

But seriously why not both, both of them are good games on their own merits and I've played both and had fun with them, we shouldn't need to pit one against the other since both are different in many ways.

I didn't really intend to make this a "Which one is better" forum, more like a "Which one do you prefer". You can, of course, like both equally, shouldn't need to tell you that. Actually, I saw your post and moved to add "Both" as a poll choice but for some reason it's not letting me.

Oh no I didn't mean my message for you, I merely meant it for anyone that will supposedly show up in the thread to announce one game better than the other and making up facts to try to denounce the other.

 

[MysticSlayer]

The two really aren't comparable. Half-Life is a great PC-based singleplayer shooting that manages to have both a classic and modern feel to it and that does a good job of balancing action, atmosphere, and puzzles. Halo is a great console-based multiplayer-focused shooter (that has horrible campaigns) and is mostly about playing with and against friends. They're just different, and the only real similarity is that they are sci-fi shooters that favor gameplay over story but still bother to flood you with some story and character development on occasion. And for what they are focused on, they are both excellent and arguably the best at what they do, but we really can't compare them.

 

[BloodSquirrel]

Eh, I could never get into Half-life. I tried Half-life 2 a few times, but I found the pacing to be glacially slow (My god, riding around on that stupid little boat thing and doing the same "Use the gravity gun to move a barrel on top of something to weight it down" physics puzzle over and over again) and the core shooting mechanics to be a bit weak.

Errant Signal does a pretty good job of summing up what I don't like about the game after having played more of it than I have:

http://www.errantsignal.com/blog/?p=151

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

While I will say that Halo probably has the stronger multiplayer experience (assuming we're not counting mods like Counter-Strike or Team Fortress), I could never really get into the single player as much as most people seem to, and single player is what matters to me most in a game.

The story was never really much of an issue, but immersion was. I always had a hard time taking the Covenant seriously as a credible threat to humanity. The majority of their ground forces aren't threatening whatsoever (both in terms of combat prowess and in terms of general aesthetic), and the Grunts in particular are such a massive joke that I actually feel bad for killing them. They make me feel like I'm the villain in the story. That, and the games seem to copy/paste a lot of environments. Particularly Halo: Combat Evolved. If they got rid of every level that was just a copy/paste of a previous level, the game would be like half as long.

So I guess that means I'm going to go with Half-Life. At the end of the day, I actually do enjoy both quite a bit, I just don't feel very strongly about either.

 

[Madd the Sane]

Marathon

Oh, alright, Half-Life.