Poll: Is Halo a generic shooter?

[Ampersand]

Halo didn't exactly re-invent the wheel but it could never be honestly refered to as generic. It's got an ass tone more personality then most shooters, it's got much more room for random rediculousness then games like team fortress ever managed and the feel of the gameplay is vastly different from any other shooter i've played.

 

[Rusty Bucket]

Sure, certain aspects of the game have been copied for others but let me tell you, nothing but Halo will ever feel like Halo.

You know, I hate to be the guy that says '/thread', but this just sums it up so perfectly there's little point in anyone else posting.

You've hit the nail on the head perfectly. Whether the design elements, mechanics or themes are generic is debatable. But I can guarantee you that there's nothing else out there that plays like Halo does, it's got a clearly distinct feel to it. Whether you enjoy that feel or not is irrelevant, the bottom line is that Halo is the only game out there that plays like Halo.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Yeah, it is quite. That doesn't nescessarily make it bad though. Whilst not really to my tastes, I'll admit it is quite fun.

 

[latenightapplepie]

And then there was Reach. A Halo game that added very little that was new, and the stuff that was new barely affected the unchanged gameplay at all.

Honestly, I don't think that space combat, Firefight customisation and matchmaking, the Forge World, Armor Abilites and reticule bloom could possibly be considered "little" change. Or that the latter two features "barely affected gameplay".

Bungie made more change to their formula with Reach than any other Halo game, in my opinion.

On topic: It's somewhere between "somewhat" and "innovative". Closer to the former. But that is hardly a bad thing, or indeed unusual. What percentage of games released every year are innovative? 5%? 10% It seems unfair to bash any game for being "generic" when the vast majority of games aren't.

 

[ultimateownage]

Yes. It dosent doesn't really stand out dose, does it? Yes its it's got colur colour but its it's pretty much the same as other FPS'. The only FPS that really stands out imo is brink. in my opinion is Brink.

Sorry, the grammar Nazi inside me got annoyed by that.

O.T. Not entirely generic, but at the same time it's not innovative at all. All of the mechanics it added were entirely unneeded, and Halo doing well has just made those mechanics more common which in turn has made the most recent generation of shooter's much more bland and generic to me. It doesn't help that the industry can't stand innovation, and sticks with what worked before.
Also, I'm betting someone with either a Halo avatar or an XBL avatar is going to come in here soon and start flaming the shit out of some more outspoken people on this thread.

 

[spiritslayr]

It's only generic because all FPSs are inevitably defined in terms of halo. Halo is like Halo so therefore its generic.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

I think it's sort of hard to call it that, when so many shooters were generic because they copied the formula (ie. regenerating life/shields, only two weapons etc.), but for my money, it stands as a beacon of hope in this dark world of gritty brown war shooters.

 

[Kair]

Halo is what made every other shooter that copied it generic.

 

[ReaperzXIII]

Someone please tell me what unique means then? (I know what unique means I'm just trying to make a point).

Because every single game will have elements of another, Mass Effect can be seen as a generic shooter but does that stop the game being unique in how it portrays it? Fallout 3, kinda generic RPG and generic shooter, but the way it portrays it is what makes it unique.

Gameplay will never be completely unique because once someone does it another person will copy, then everyone is doing it and it stops being unique, just as no story can be completely unique as it will ultimately be riddled with cliches.

 

[Shining_Pyrelight]

I recently started playing Halo 1 on my old XBOX and I can honestly understand all the praise it gets, it's actually really good.

Halo 2, 3, and ODST on the other hand...

 

[General Vagueness]

firstly I'm pleasantly surprised this hasn't turned into the usual (stupid) Halo-bashing with a scant few people (somewhat screechingly) defending it
It's kind of an involved question. Asking if "Halo" is generic implies the entire series and the games are pretty different from each other. The story has enough twists and turns that whether it's generic is in the eye of the beholder. As noted, the gameplay's... stableness has meant that what was new has become old, and been copied, and a lot of people don't like that, whether it's because they didn't like how it was done in the first place or because they want change for some other reason.

 

[Arashiofordo3]

I am not a fan boy of the halo series in any way. I like the games but have a tendency to look at them from a different perspective then most. While many look at the Master chiefs green frizog and thing 'oh look another bland space shooter involving SPACE MARINES' I have a tendency to remember FPS's before Halo. And I remember a lot of World War shooters

The only reason Halo could be considered 'generic' is that it became the what could be considered 'the defining measurement' People judged other shooters that came after based on the standards of Halo. It was used as the measuring stick so often that people forget that it was hugely innovative. And thusly gets mislabeled as generic.

The fan base didn't help things ether.

 

[Canid117]

It is somewhat generic but thats because it has become the model for the formula in the last ten years.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

To say Halo is generic would be so quaint that it would make an emo laugh.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

It might be a bit more generic now, that more franchises have come out, but it's not generic.

Yep ninja'd once again, Halo basicly defined the fps genre at one point in time. So allot of devlopers followed suit. Though it's far from being a dingy grey clone of other games.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I'm pretty sure Halo didn't invent vehicle sections.

Of course it didn't. Halo didn't really invent anything. It took many concepts which were introduced in many different games and put them together as a cohesive whole which worked very well.

As far as I know, Halo was the first game to incorporate entering and exiting vehicles dynamically into a campaign mode. This isn't what you'd call an invention, but it is an innovation.

Regardless, I wasn't talking only about the vehicles. I was also referring to the wide-open exterior portions. Previously terrains like this were limited multiplayer settings as in Battlefield or Tribes, Halo implemented them in a campaign.

 

[team star pug]

I think it's peerfect in the use of vechiles, with good camera and controls, but reaches campaign didn't utilise this aspect to its's full potential. as an fps series, it differs from all of the surge of recent war operas, but as a series you can pick any of them up and there preety similiar. fresh, but interchangable.

the orginality I suppose comes from the other modes. "shock" as the online multiplyer actually differs from Medal of duty, bad company ops. maps designed with less camping in mind and characters that are bright and interesting to look at.

"Gasp" at good community support, with a map creator with near limitless possibilties, bugs that are fixed and cheaters that are banned. Bungie listens to players, and rewards thoose that go the little bit futher to make the game more enjoyable for others.

"horror" as the commenter agrees with the critisisms of the series campaign. It's a bit short, doesn't take full use of all the toys it's taken to use, and the characters aren't the best. ok.

just one last point on trolls. after scouting the internet, I'm probably sure troll rage is in ratio for praise at about 2 to 1. yet most rages begin or end with " it doesn't deserve the praise it gets.

 

[JeanLuc761]

I know I'm probably restating an answer that has been said many times, but oh well.

Halo, when it was released, was a pretty exceptional game. While it wasn't revolutionary by any means, it was the best implementation of a console FPS to date (now usurped by Modern Warfare), and it altered the FPS formula in a few interesting ways that deviated from what we had grown to expect.

The problem is that for everything that Halo does to innovate, it keeps two other things stagnant. Halo: Reach is honestly not all that far removed from Halo 1, and that's not a good thing. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that Bungie has taken their formula and refined it as much as they have, but the problem is that Halo hasn't changed (though I do thank them for getting rid of the horrendous Flood levels).

One of my biggest problems with Halo has always been its level design. Bungie has created a few gems, but there are some levels that are so badly designed that it's downright shocking (The Library, anyone?). The level design in all of the games has made me think of Halo as generic, even with the vehicles (which are endlessly entertaining, I'll grant you).

I tried playing Halo 1 again recently, and I couldn't even make it halfway through; everything in it was so dated that I honestly found it unplayable. Conversely, I played Half-Life the week after, and I was actually blown away. While the gameplay and art design in Halo was substantially better, the level design in Half-Life, a game from three years prior, blew Halo out of the water. When you have an older game like that completely destroy what has become the industry standard...you know you've got a problem.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love Halo; always have, always will. The art design and the music are phenomenal and the gameplay, while dated, has been polished to a mirror shine. Despite that, I have no qualms about saying that it is a generic shooter, and one that has been surpassed by titles that came before and after. But that does not make it a bad game.

 

[Netrigan]

It's only generic because every FPS has tried to copy it since Halo: CE.

Apart from the vehicles and the control scheme (the melee, grenade additions), it's well within the FPS norm for games before it. The game it most reminds me of is Unreal, focusing on fairly lush outdoor environments and the AI of the tougher foes. It also does the same old space marine thing which everyone has been ripping off from ALIENS since Doom. Even got its own Facehugger ripoff: little creatures that infect humans (main character excluded) turning them into baddies.

Only the vehicle sections make it stand out from what came before. But, it like just about every other significant FPS of its generation (Half-Life series included) is building on what came before, adding a few tweaks to keep it from just being just another generic shooter. Once you get past a handful of early titles, the FPS genre haven't been known for its game play innovations.

As far as true innovations... I'm not sure Halo actually lays claim to anything (I've sat through a few of these threads and just about any innovation Halo fans come up with, someone can find an earlier FPS game that used it), but they assembled a lot of lesser-used elements and created something a bit different from other titles at the time. So as much as I dislike the series, I don't think the original has anything to be ashamed about on this front. They were ahead of the curve on a number of things and have popularized a fair number of good additions.

 

[Netrigan]

One of my biggest problems with Halo has always been its level design. Bungie has created a few gems, but there are some levels that are so badly designed that it's downright shocking (The Library, anyone?). The level design in all of the games has made me think of Halo as generic, even with the vehicles (which are endlessly entertaining, I'll grant you).

This is pretty much my problem with the first game. I was kind of enjoying it, but the level design was just so meh and at times awful.