I love it, I'm sorry but I really do. Actually to hell with that I'm NOT sorry and I have no reason to be. As I said before there was a time when we were all happily cheering the praises of the Halo series and the world was a much more beautiful place. People who played playstation and Xbox both agreed the series was good and happy friendly conversations took place, this is a rundown of the basic interactions I can recall back in the day when Halo had the well earned reputation of being good:
Person 1: "Hey you own an Xbox yeah?"
Person 2: " Yeah I do, how come?"
Person 1: "Because I was thinking of playing Xbox, heard Halo was pretty good."
Person 2: "Yeah actually it is good, I'd recommend it. What console do you have?"
Person 1: "I have a playstation 2."
Person 2: "Ooh you have Metal Gear yeah?"
Person 1: (chuckles) "Yeah, it's awesome, I totally recommend it."
Person 2: "Cool, cool, well yeah you should definetly try Halo, I might even give MGS a try."
Person 1: "Yeah you totally should, it's worth it."
Person 2: "Hey I actually have Halo at my house, wanna play co-op?"
Person 1: "Damn straight son."
Then they Laugh together and go off and have fun.
See what happened there? Person one complimented Person 2's game choice, and Person 2 then gave a second compliment and after that the two of them got along really well.
I just remember back when members of the Halo nation could gadly list Halo prominetly as one of their favourite first person shooters alongside titles like call of duty and half life without being teased for it. The world wasn't any poorer back when Halo was popular, in fact the hype for Halo 3 brought so many people together (if it hadn't been for Halo I would never have met the girl of my dreams) and I still remember the happy attitude people all had back in the 'Halo 2' era when everyone loved the series. I still call this period of gaming industry the 'Golden age'.
No we are living in this period of gaming industry I'm forced to call 'the dark cycle' where somehow fanboyism completely took over the golden age and now we are living in a sort of chaotic hell hole where Halo is to this age what the Jews were to the Nazi's in World War 2 (I'm making a metaphor I'm aware the death of millions of innocents is diferent to rabid fanboys alright!! Don't complain about this!) I.e the oppressed minority as random hatred stemmed from jealously or even just pointless hate or the need to defend their system has lead to Halo being hated. Nowadays people will say at best that it's a good series. Half life and Call of Duty escaped criticism and it's not because they are better it's because they are multi platform. All this hate is focussed only on exclusives these days, if you want your game not to be hated by half the mainstream, better make it multi platform. To give you an idea of what conversations between ps3 owners and Xbox owners now is let me show you:
Person 1: "Hey do you own and Xbox 360."
Person 2: "Yeah."
Person 1: "Do you own a copy of Halo 3?"
Person 2: (getting ready to have a nice chat) "Why yes I certainly do."
Person 1: "HAH HAH you suck, Halo sucks!"
Person 2: (offended) "Hey what the fuck?!"
Person 1: "Oh you little cry baby pussy playing your shitty little Halo on your shitty little Xbox. Cry me a river *****!!"
Person 2: "Oh so you use a piece-of-shit 3 then hah? Might have known."
Person 1: "How dare you speak ill of my console, you Halo playing ponce!!"
Person 2: "You own Metal Gear Solid 4?"
Person 1: "Yep and it kicks Halo's arse."
Person 2: "It does not, it's a boring shitty, grayish brown coloured pretentious mess and a pointless crock of shit with cutscenes that would make even Peter Jackson say 'woah that's too long' and gameplay that is annoying and gimmicky!!"
Person 1: "How dare you at least I don't own a generic mindless shooter, all you do is shoot shit."
Person 2: "At least Halo knows what made it good in the fist place and doesn't force me to watch hours of cutscenes every ten minutes!"
Person 1: "Have you even PLAYED metal gear solid?"
Person 2: "Have you ever played Halo 3?"
Person 1: "No and I don't need too I know it's shit."
Person 2: "That's my response to Metal Gear Solid."
Then they both roar in anger and rip each others throats out and are found the next day in a bloody mess.
See the difference? Person 1 immediatley entered with a hateful quip about Person 2's choice of game and Person 2 responded with an angry response, things keep getting worse and they hate each other all the more until finally it gets out of hand.
Anyway that's how I see the world, I don't know how relevant this is to 'is Halo good or not' but let me tell you I think it's amazing. I decided to go with a different appraoch then just 'Halo is so good it's actually a cure for cancer' and while I have to admit I was (mildly) dissappointed with Halo 3 (mildly) I still liked it enough for it to be one of my favourites for the Xbox, maybe even just for nostaliga.
Anyway my post here wasn't just suggesting that a world were people recognised Halo's greatness was a better one, rather a world where everyone's games are considered good and everyone respects each others choices and there aren't millions upon millions of posts about how much they hate a certain franchise. Halo hate threads and 'is Halo good' threads like these only exist to divide communities like the escapist and result in everyone hating each other.
Can we please just go back to the world where one guy can say to me:
"Halo is great isn't it? You have good taste."
and I can respond with:
"Yeah MGS is cool too, you have good choice as well."
And we can then go have a couple of beers and laughs and be the better for it.
Let's return to THAT world.
