The real reason Halo was/is so popular

[pink.spartan]

ohm. hello.

energy swords.

sticky grenades.

guns with bullets that stick to you.

endless tirades of people on xbox live proclaiming how much better they are than you, thusly ending in hours of duels.

music that will instantly make you want to fight someone.

how is this game NOT phenomenal?

 

[NoDamnNames]

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

This is about as circumstantial as Americans firing on American ships in the Cuban missile crisis. Why would they do that? Just to say they were fired upon to appease their own needs. Why did master cheif walk with a limp? to appease arguments just like this and give fanboys the leverage just used.

"Hey kids im master cheif, im going to walk with a limp so y'all don't think im tooooo invisible so you can fool yourselves into identifying and bonding with me on a mortal level, god bless the USA!"

 

[GDW]

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.

To be completely nerdy and off-topic, there were two succesful clones: Joseph and Rico Dredd. Dredd is only the perfect Judge because of his mentality, the fact that he's a clone gave him no special abilities, just gave him the dedication he needed, as he was urged on by the organization that created him. Rico is a testament to this because he proved himself VERY human by fallign into corruption only to be arrested an eventually killed by his twin.

Dredd is completely human. He's an every man and shows the triumph of the human-spirit better than any other comic-book character I know.

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?

Might you also recall everything he did leading up to that game and how nobody seems to survive BUT him? Chief's practically proved himself a God by walking away from everything he does, and he knows it.

 

[Lift]

ohm. hello.

energy swords.

You mean like in Star Wars

sticky grenades.

Like in Golden Eye?

guns with bullets that stick to you.

You mean like the bio rifle in Unreal? Relay aren't you more interested in how effective the gun is?

endless tirades of people on xbox live proclaiming how much better they are than you, thusly ending in hours of duels.

You mean like in Golden Eye, or Unreal, or Quake, or Decent?

music that will instantly make you want to fight someone.

You mean like in Golden Eye, or Unreal, or Quake, or Decent?

how is this game NOT phenomenal?

Limited items, Cliche story, console controls, a bunch of 10 year olds squealing in your ear...

You actually diffident mention my two favorite pars of Halo. I thought the level design was really good, and The AI was some of the best in the industry.

I'm not going to say that Halo is bad, but "Everything in it has been done before, and better." I think the reason its so amazing is that this is the first time we've seen most of this stuff on a console. So congratulations and welcome to relatively old technology. but people who have been playing First Person shooters online for nearly a decade are wondering what all the fuss is about. I played Halo one, and thought it was Ok, but nothing stood out too me, and considering I played Marathon in my youth i was disheartened.

 

[NoDamnNames]

In my mind turok was a superior console shooter to golden eye in every aspect but a lack of multilayer (the first turok) Smoother engine, a benchmark for modern control schemes and weapon interfaces, being able to send enemies flying and destroy environment with explosives, a slow motion bullet time style element before they were exhausted, Raptors with Plasma cannons mounted to their arms and fire breathing robot T rex's that shot lasers from their eyes(you know that is awesome), Gorey death sequences where enemies would roll around dying for a few minutes screaming and coughing up blood before finally croaking, and a wild array of interesting weapons that had different effects on different enemies, and better smoother graphics.

And most importantly a cheat code that could make dinosaurs disco dance.

What did golden eye have? James fucking bond and a trail of fanboyism wider than an octapussy.

That is not to say golden eye was not a great game, it was, it was just not the superior shooter for its time like it was made out to be. Sure most of peoples moms let them play golden eye, it had James bond in it, a strangely family friendly face. Which is why it has so many dire hard fans today, simply because kids were allowed to play it and grew up on it.

For people that were old enough/had moms that didn't have a crush on Pierce Brosnan, there were superior games like Turok, quake 2, and hell i even enjoy doom 1&2 game play more than Golden eye.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

"Everything in [Halo] has been done before, and better."

I'm waiting on a shooter that does vehicles better than Halo.

 

[pink.spartan]

;/ i guess i'm just a young doe, but i didn't play goldeneye or turok or quake or anything beyond much of what came out on xbox (besides the awesomely awesome nintendo empire requirements, a little sonic, and a very small dose of n64).

could it just be simple enough that halo was completely successful and phenomenal because it tapped into a whole new generation and made it okay to be OBSESSED with playing video games?

i think so.

 

[Ace of Spades]

I like it better when I'm just a normal soldier and I have a sprint button.

 

[avian304]

Halo is the World of Warcraft of FPS. It's simple, decently done, very well polished, and easily accessible to the masses (Console users)

Thats why it was popular.

 

[Trivun]

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

This is about as circumstantial as Americans firing on American ships in the Cuban missile crisis. Why would they do that? Just to say they were fired upon to appease their own needs. Why did Master Chief walk with a limp? to appease arguments just like this and give fanboys the leverage just used.

"Hey kids, I'm Master Chief, I'm going to walk with a limp so y'all don't think I'm tooooo invincible so you can fool yourselves into identifying and bonding with me on a mortal level, God bless the USA!"

No, Master Chief walked with a limp because he is still only human. He had plenty of physical augmentations according to the backstory, so he is much more powerful and faster than any run of the mill ODST even, but he's still only human. Fine, a normal human would have died of exhaustion or been killed in battle save for a few badasses like Sgt. Johnson (who is actually a Spartan predecessor) by the time Halo 3 came around, but the Master Chief had been in battle all through Halo, then didn't get a rest as he was in battle all the way home (see Halo: First Strike), then had literally a short break of maybe a couple of days shore leave back on Cairo Station before Halo 2. Then Halo 3 follows almost straight after his torture by the Covenant after being caught on the Forerunner Dreadnought (see Halo: Uprising). Basically, he hasn't had a rest for ages, so it's not surprising he walks with a limp in Halo 3.

P.S. Bold text in your quote are grammar corrections. Try using the right language if you want to be taken seriously. Plus, know what you're talking about before commenting.

P.P.S. There is absolutely no evidence that the Master Chief is from the USA. In fact, he was raised on an Outer Colony world, nowhere near the USA, so there's no point to him saying "God bless the USA!".

 

[Obliterato]

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".

I Concur, Power Armour and the whole space marine was started in the 50s, also Chief is alot like the Warhammer 40,000 space marine, E.G. Bigger than average man, superhumanyl strong, implant to help him use the suit and the energy shield on his suit might as well be either the Chaplain's Rosarius, A Force Commander's Iron halo or a Terminator's Crux Terminatus. I do like Halo, but my liking of it is basically based on the first one that in my opinion was first rate. Its a shame that storyline took a back seat when they decided to concentrate on the multiplayer in Halo 2 and 3, the Multiplayer was excellent on Halo: Combat evolved I feel and the only problem with it was it was not on Xbox Live, to be honest the Purity of the first game I.e just you, your suit and the 2 guns and nades you carried were so much better than all the bells and whistles they began burdeoning you with by Halo 3.

 

[Same River New Water]

You can say that Halo may have the most mixed reactions in the gaming community than any other game, or at least one that is popular.

Not really. Halo is one of the most well-liked games ever released. It's only in niche gaming communities like this where hardcore gamers think it needs to be knocked down a peg because it's so popular with the beer-swilling masses. Its popularity causes it to be criticised more harshly than any other game. Few people argue that it's bad, if you read closely; most of them say "it's average". The ones who say it's totally rubbish are usually PC elitists (for whom no FPS can ever be good without a mouse and keyboard) or borderline trolls (who say things like "it's totally broken, how could they release it like this?" which is obvious nonsense).

I'm sure you can all recall a game before Halo that had regenerative health, wars with aliens, vehicles with turrets, even energy swords (or something like it).

...

But I think cynics miss the main selling point of Halo: The Spartan.

Nope. As with most people who wonder why Halo is popular, you're looking at it the wrong way. It's not what it does (regen health, vehicles, ally NPCs) or its story (sci-fi setting, save the world, be the Master Chief) that makes it popular. It's how well the gameplay is engineered. Plenty of FPS games had vehicles, but few or none had made a vehicle as fun to drive as the Warthog. Recharging health wasn't important because it was new, it was important because it dictated the pace of the game: it forced you to alternate between combat and short pauses, which is fun - and Bungie have refined the timing of the shield recharge in Halo 2 and Halo 3 to make sure you have just enough time to catch your breath, but so it still feels fast-paced. The AI is not necessarily the most intelligent around - and your allies wouldn't pass a driving test - but it gives them enough personality to keep the world from feeling lifeless.

I can't be sure of this, but it seems to me that most of Halo's critics are people who played more of the single player campaign than the multiplayer: they always ***** about the allies' driving skills or the weak plot or how its over too soon. And they're right, the single player is not as good as something like Half-Life. But Halo's strength is as a competitive sport rather than an interactive story: play a few rounds of multiplayer and you should find that it really comes into its own.

I can't point to anything about Halo that is better than other games and I don't think it's the Best Game Ever. But I think of it more like a sport than a book or movie, and I've never got sick of playing it, like you never get sick of playing golf or tennis - and nobody criticises Wimbledon for its plot.

 

[spuddyt]

I can't see how a [a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeaponOfChoice"]weapon of choice[/a] makes him suddenly better. Easier to picture, yes.

DAMN YOU, DAMN YOU TO HELL FOR POSTING THAT LINK I JUST SPENT 3 HOURS READING RANDOM SHIT ON

 

[avian304]

Halo is the World of Warcraft of FPS. It's simple, decently done, very well polished, and easily accessible to the masses (Console users)

Thats why it was popular.

I guess that's how Doom became popular.

You could pretty much say that.
Except Doom didn't have countless other FPS's to get ideas from (with the exception of castle wolfenstien(sp?))