The real reason Halo was/is so popular

[BasicMojo]

Halo would have been a bigger achievement if it had only been one game. The second installment, to be precise. The first one was pretty good, the Halo 2 made a lot of improvements, and by the third one the series had stagnated and become shit. As someone who blatantly hates the Halo trilogy, I can admit that it's fairly well designed, from a holistic point of view. I can understand why it was popular, but I don't think that "being the savior" was really the answer. There are plenty of games on the market that do that. Frankly, being one of many appeals to me more; it makes you feel like part of a brotherhood, like CoD4. Being the sole hero certainly has its perks, but it's lonely up at the top.

 

[mrwoo6]

hold up.you think halos big becase the guy in it can take down hordes of bad guys? have you ever playd HL or HL2 or almost any other game for that matter.this has been in games for years now

 

[Sweep117]

Halo was popular because it did for the Xbox what Goldeneye did for the N64: it provided a fun FPS shooter with great split-screen multiplayer.

As people have discussed here often enough there is nothing particularly special about the plot/characters/setting/etc but the content was delivered in a well presented way that was (and here's the key) fun to play. Halo was, in terms of gameplay, a limited but well produced console FPS. There is nothing wrong with limited content (just ask Valve) if that content is fun. Halo2 ruined the MP for me (and had a pathetically short and easy SP), Halo 3 recovered the balanced MP quality and made good use of Xbox360's Live system.

Simple as that.

Exactly. Like one of the developers said, Halo isn't hours of fun. Halo is thirty seconds of bliss repeated throughout the game, turning it into an overall good. The MP too. If you're playing with your friends for fun and not for "rank", even dying can be fun. If something cool or amazing happens and it kills you, you don't care. It was too awesome to care about dying.

There were a few before it, but they weren't as natural as Halo, because they were largely adapted from the PC mentality of having eight million different guns and having to cycle laboriously through them all to get to the one you actually wanted, having at least two of the weapons being all but worthless (and a pointless melee attack that you'd never use and just increased cycle time).

Bungie introduced something they called the "golden tripod" in Halo. Guns, Melee, Grenades. All three are a worthwhile tactical decision, and all of them are accessable with a single button press, and no function of the character is more than two button presses away. (the only ones that require more than a single press are alt-grenade and alt-weapon).

Additionally, all of the weapons are balanced such that you are never left with a completely useless weapon. Even the starting pistol is powerful and accurate, whereas in many shooters preceding it you started with a worthless pea shooter.

Good points. A reason I like it so much is the lack of having a million guns at once to choose from. I had to pick two weapons out of a large list of good weapons. That drastically changed the strategy.

 

[RockInGreen]

A lot of people won't understand why a game is popular because they don't like it.

And for the whole "Random Soldier" in COD... you're not random, you're a character made by the game's producer. You do everything they wanted you to do. If you were a random soldier you'd go into battle without a name and, more than likely, die.

 

[Wargamer]

Sorry, OP, but I don't buy your reasoning. I hate Master Chief for those very reasons you like him, and thus the reasons you claim make him popular.

"Oh Master Chief! You're so much more awesome than me!"
"Oh Master Chief! Only you can defeat this army of Covenant!"
"Oh Master Chief! Let me suck your cock!"

But the "One Free Man" gets a pass? "Follow Freeman!" "The Free Man is co-terminous." "Well, well, Mr. Freeman." (And Alyx's crush to boot.) The Half-Life series is filled with fanboi-squeeing over Gordon too.

Or how about Judge Dredd, the living legend of the Judges, whose very name makes perps quiver in fear of the isocubes?

Let alone the Doom Marine...

Man, your pot-kettling skills are Olympic-grade.

-- Steve

You're confusing my pot-kettling skills with your own idiocy.

Freeman is mortal. He also happens to be a rocket scientists (okay, nuclear physicist). He's bloody smart, but not super-human. He has a really awesome suit of armour, but there were quite a few of those knocking around Black Mesa.

Gordon Freeman is mortal. The idolisation of Freeman during the game is no different to, say, the idolisation of Churchill during World War Two, or the idolisation of Alexander The Great, Leonidas of Sparta, or anyone else who did amazing historical deeds... unless you're so fucking retarded you're going to claim Leonidas could bench-press an elephant and breathe fire.

Next, Judge Dredd. He is extremely mortal. He has had more injuries than every Marvel Super-Hero put together. Broken bones are common, he's had punctured lungs, concussion, broken jaw, gone into cardiac arrest and been declared medically dead by the Med-Judges more often than anyone should.

Yes, Dredd usually (note, usually) triumphs, but so do a lot of people. Dredd is held in fear and awe because he is the best Judge on the streets. He's done it longer than anyone else, he's the only member of his class that didn't turn out to be evil, and to top it all off he's a violent sociopath who, where he not a Judge, would be one of Mega City One's Most Wanted.

Dredd is, yet again, the example of a mortal man who has excelled. Importantly, as I said, he does not always win; Stories such as "How to succeed in Biznis" or "Six" are two examples (which ran in succession) of Dredd failing to catch the perp. He's missed P.J. Maybe more times than I care to count, and I'm sure we can find plenty of other examples of Dredd losing if we really want to. Dredd is not super-human.

Last, but not least, DOOMGUY. What exactly do we know about him? He's a Space Marine, he had a pet rabbit, and... he's alone. Yeah, not a lot to go on. More than anyone else, DOOMGUY is what you make of him. However, he is clearly Human. Yeah, he gets the odd Daemonic Boost from the Megaspheres or whatever, and he's packing more firepower than God (who has a rocket launcher), but again he is mortal.

Put simply, what I despise about Master Chief is what I despise about most American Super-Heroes, with Batman and Ironman being the only exceptions I can think of. There's nothing Heroic about facing down an army of evil mutants when you can shit grenades and piss napalm. The heroism comes from facing down said army as a mortal man.

So you're against the idea of commiting act of legendary heroism and then getting the credit you deserve? It seems that with your chosen models of videogame greatness reveal that your hate of the Chief is about as arbitrary as it gets.

See, this is why I hate talking to Halotards.

Master Chief is a fucking pathetic character. So is Superman. So are most Supers (ie: Super-Humans, not Super-Heroes), in fact. Wolverine and Spiderman are just about the only Supers I can think of that don't bore the fuck out of me.

I see no "Legendary Heroism" in Master Chief. Oh, the guy just slaughtered a full platoon of Grunts. That would be impressive where Master Chief not a God of War with the power of OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAND soldiers!

Let me put this another way; is there anything heroic in you, the real you, facing down a swarm of a hundred rats? No. Sorry. There isn't. A Human, especially an armed one, should fuck over a vermin swarm no problem. This is why Master Chief is so fucking stupid.

Characters I mentioned don't have his ultra-awesome invincibility. They don't have reflexes to amazing they can read Lord of The Rings cover to cover in the time it takes the enemy's bullets to hit their Shield. They can't punch tanks into scrap, or fly (without assistance), or shoot lasers out of their eyes, or do any of the things that supposedly make larger-than-life Ultramen so brilliant.

Yet I would pick Spartans over SPARTANS anyday. Heroism does not come from being some nigh-invincible super-dude, heroism comes from being mortal, knowing the odds of victory are ten-to-the-power-of-eighty-three to one, then doing it any way because someone has to, so it might as well be you.

When Bungie release a game about Master Chief in his pre-Spartan days, when he was a mere mortal like the rest of us, I might start giving him some credit.

 

[Sweep117]

Master Chief is a fucking pathetic character. So is Superman. So are most Supers (ie: Super-Humans, not Super-Heroes), in fact. Wolverine and Spiderman are just about the only Supers I can think of that don't bore the fuck out of me.

I see no "Legendary Heroism" in Master Chief. Oh, the guy just slaughtered a full platoon of Grunts. That would be impressive where Master Chief not a God of War with the power of OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAND soldiers!

Let me put this another way; is there anything heroic in you, the real you, facing down a swarm of a hundred rats? No. Sorry. There isn't. A Human, especially an armed one, should fuck over a vermin swarm no problem. This is why Master Chief is so fucking stupid.

Characters I mentioned don't have his ultra-awesome invincibility. They don't have reflexes to amazing they can read Lord of The Rings cover to cover in the time it takes the enemy's bullets to hit their Shield. They can't punch tanks into scrap, or fly (without assistance), or shoot lasers out of their eyes, or do any of the things that supposedly make larger-than-life Ultramen so brilliant.

Yet I would pick Spartans over SPARTANS anyday. Heroism does not come from being some nigh-invincible super-dude, heroism comes from being mortal, knowing the odds of victory are ten-to-the-power-of-eighty-three to one, then doing it any way because someone has to, so it might as well be you.

When Bungie release a game about Master Chief in his pre-Spartan days, when he was a mere mortal like the rest of us, I might start giving him some credit.

So the Master Chief loses respect because he was given physical enhancements? I'm not here to get into a flame war with anyone but it seems to me that you're doing the same thing that the "halotards" do, you're just making the opposite point. There's a thread here somewhere about exactly that.

I agree with you on the point you made about SUPER super-humans. I can't stand Superman. He's way too damn invincible. But every once in a while he goes up against something that rivals or exceeds him in power and the story becomes about what he has to do to defeat them, not about how strong he is.

I think the same is true with Master Chief and all the other Spartans. The real story isn't about how srong they are and how they use that strength to defeat everyone. Look at the Brutes. They surpass the Spartans in almost every way. That's when the physical advantage is taken away and it becomes a struggle against a stronger foe. The same when he goes up against how many hundred or thousand covenant. All MC's strength and speed don't count for shit against that. It's been proven by other Spartans. He is the last one remaining of about seventy or so.

All I'm saying is that the enhancements he's been given count for less and less the more enemies he has to face at once.

But I think we've lost track or the true topic of this thread...

 

[Galletea]

Personally, I like Halo, the gameplay is fairly straightforward, the mêlée being a vast improvement upon anything I'd played until that point, the plot is engaging without being over complex and getting in the way of fun. The graphics are suitably shiny and the environments are adequately varied from open green areas to the oppressive inside atmospheres. The variety of enemies and the plot offers a decent amount of tension. Yes the Spartan is rather cool, but he is not a reason for my liking of the game.

I don't see any real reason to despise the franchise, other than perhaps as a defence to fanboyism.

 

[MercurySteam]

I know of a few people who actually HATE the franchise because of it's popularity without doing anything particularly amazing/new to deserve it.

I've said the same thing before [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.83162.1163170]

 

[Anstrup]

I might as well bring up Halo and Half-Life comparisons since every other guy brings it up.

Here's what each game are better at.
{I can't wait to get a lot of hate from Half-Life fanboys}

Gunplay & Combat:
Halo

Storytelling & Characters:
Half-Life
{Halo 2 was a narrative disaster}

Enemies:
Halo

Art Design:
Half-Life

Immersion:
Half-Life

A.I.:
Halo
{Half-Life 2's A.I. were pathetic and the friendly A.I. in Halo 3 were awful}

Action & Set Pieces:
Half-Life
{Halo is very close though}

Weapon & Item Switching:
Halo

Game Mechanics:
Halo

Weapons:
Half-Life
{Only because of the Gravity Gun}

Vehicles:
Halo

Variety:
Half-Life

Pacing:
Half-Life

Music:
Halo
{Obviously}

Originality:
Half-Life

Universe:
Halo

Level Design:
Half-Life
{Obviously}

Game Design:
Half-Life

Agree on a lot of this. I liked both, but to me, halo was anf to certain extend is the biggest and best console shooter to date. Though in my oppinion, the campagins declined with each new game, the multiplayer made up for ir.

Halflife (as a whole), is THE best singleplayer FPS ive played yet. But the multiplayer didn't do alot for it. The way i see it, is that halo is the multiplayer game of the two, and half life is the singleplayer experience.

CS not withstanding.

 

[Anstrup]

I might as well bring up Halo and Half-Life comparisons since every other guy brings it up.

Here's what each game are better at.
{I can't wait to get a lot of hate from Half-Life fanboys}

Gunplay & Combat:
Halo

Storytelling & Characters:
Half-Life
{Halo 2 was a narrative disaster}

Enemies:
Halo

Art Design:
Half-Life

Immersion:
Half-Life

A.I.:
Halo
{Half-Life 2's A.I. were pathetic and the friendly A.I. in Halo 3 were awful}

Action & Set Pieces:
Half-Life
{Halo is very close though}

Weapon & Item Switching:
Halo

Game Mechanics:
Halo

Weapons:
Half-Life
{Only because of the Gravity Gun}

Vehicles:
Halo

Variety:
Half-Life

Pacing:
Half-Life

Music:
Halo
{Obviously}

Originality:
Half-Life

Universe:
Halo

Level Design:
Half-Life
{Obviously}

Game Design:
Half-Life

Agree on a lot of this. I liked both, but to me, halo was anf to certain extend is the biggest and best console shooter to date. Though in my oppinion, the campagins declined with each new game, the multiplayer made up for ir.

Halflife (as a whole), is THE best singleplayer FPS ive played yet. But the multiplayer didn't do alot for it.

Nah, Halo 3 campaign is far superior than Halo 2's, because it didn't have a cheap marketing cash in ending.

Halo 3s ending sucks. Overall i thought the campaign was way too short compared to halo 2, and halo.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Gordon Freeman is mortal.

In my experience, Gordon Freeman can take a full magazine of assault rifle fire to the face and walk away without even a crack in his glasses. (Man, what's his prescription like?)

Next, Judge Dredd. He is extremely mortal. He has had more injuries than every Marvel Super-Hero put together. Broken bones are common, he's had punctured lungs, concussion, broken jaw, gone into cardiac arrest and been declared medically dead by the Med-Judges more often than anyone should.

Yes, Dredd usually (note, usually) triumphs, but so do a lot of people. Dredd is held in fear and awe because he is the best Judge on the streets. He's done it longer than anyone else, he's the only member of his class that didn't turn out to be evil, and to top it all off he's a violent sociopath who, where he not a Judge, would be one of Mega City One's Most Wanted.

Dredd is also the genetically-enhanced accellerated-growth clone of Chief Judge Fargo, part of an attempt to mass-produce Judges that failed (as you noted) save for him. Hardly an example of an every-man triumphing over circumstances.

Put simply, what I despise about Master Chief is what I despise about most American Super-Heroes, with Batman and Ironman being the only exceptions I can think of. There's nothing Heroic about facing down an army of evil mutants when you can shit grenades and piss napalm. The heroism comes from facing down said army as a mortal man.

Did you notice that the Master Chief limps when he walks in Halo 3, as well as all the pitting and scoring on his suit?

-- Steve

 

[Rahnzan]

Can everyone please having flame war arguments about Master Chief VS Gordan Freeman?

We all know Duke Nukem can beat them both.

I concur.

---

Something on topic. I think what Halo did right was that it just did everything iconic in an FPS. It's familiar. Step on the health pack, get 7 weapons, blow shit up. Get to the next point and do it again.

It's a fresh take on all the old mechanics. It changed them up just enough to make them different without alienating us from a typical (typical doesn't always mean bad) First Person Shooter experience. It's like Left4Dead. Anyone is familiar with the concept of 3-5 morons stuck in a world full of undead, shotgun's RIGHT over their boys, the idea behind the game is apparant. Kill the bad guys and live to see the next level. You know what you're doing, you know who you are, you know your motivation and it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out where the enjoyment of playing this game comes from. Be the hero, beat the bad guy, blow shit up. I was bloody amazed at just how 'action movie' they were daring to go with Halo 2. The guy grabbed the friggen alien's bomb, flew out an airlock, sailed through unguided space, landed in an alien mothership, and skipped town riding the explosion out. OH COME ON..Tell me that's not badass!

Not that halo is my favorite game in the world, I dont play it anymore, it's gone it's course for me, and now it's in the past. Guh'bye Halo, so long and thanks for all the fish.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Master Chief is just another cookie-cutter space marine. He is not special.

Except he's the original mold.

There are many pages in this thread so I don't know if this has been said, but I'm pretty sure the original Doom had a space marine as the main character. Everything based off the Aliens franchise included space marines. Heinlen's "Starship Troopers" introduced space marines to sci-fi writing back in the 50s or 60s, so I'm pretty sure Master Chief is not "the original mold".

 

[ThePlasmatizer]

Ask yourself: "if Halo didn't have multiplayer mode would it be able to hold its own with its single player mode and would it still be as popular?"

Ask yourself, if portal didn't have a portal gun would it have won game of the year?

That example isn't even relevant to the point I was trying to make as the TC pointed out the campaign as one of the best features. Also Halo 3 didn't create the multiplayer mode and nothing in it hasn't been done before.

In it's entirety I believe Halo 3 is popular because it provides players the ability to feel supremacy over other players which isn't really a bad thing in a multiplayer game but in this case I believe it's unwittingly bred an immature community.

 

[The Wooster]

Ask yourself: "if Halo didn't have multiplayer mode would it be able to hold its own with its single player mode and would it still be as popular?"

Ask yourself, if portal didn't have a portal gun would it have won game of the year?

That example isn't even relevant to the point I was trying to make as the TC pointed out the campaign as one of the best features. Also Halo 3 didn't create the multiplayer mode and nothing in it hasn't been done before.

In it's entirety I believe Halo 3 is popular because it provides players the ability to feel supremacy over other players which isn't really a bad thing in a multiplayer game but in this case I believe it's unwittingly bred an immature community.

Portal didn't create the concept of using mobile portals to advance, it simply refined it and (this is relevant) made it more user friendly. A lot like a certain other game...

Judging Halo purely on it's single campaign (as people looking for flaws are apt to do) is like judging a game based on it's bonus content. Single player hasn't been the focus of the series since Halo 2.

Halo doesn't provide the players the ability to feel 'supremacy' over other players any more or less than any competitive shooter does. It's popular because it's balanced, accessable and rather fun.

 

[PureBredGentleman]

A game doesn't have to be innovative to be good, improving upon already existing elements is what makes many great works of art. However, while Halo is fun, I don't see where all the perfect scores reviewers are giving it comes from. It just seems a bit overrated, where games like "Legendary" and "Haze" and "Timeshift" are all given the shaft because they are "run of the mill" shooters. Yet Halo is given praise for this? It just doesn't seem...dare I say the word? "FAIR"