Would Gaming be better off without Halo?

[GamingAwesome1]

Halo did provide the inspiration for many a game to come, and some have been brilliant, others.....not so much.


But then again as the OP stated it has taught the lesson that total unoriginality sells games.

It's kind of a mixed bag really. Gaming will have benefited in one aspect and faltered in another.

Halo has it's place, without it many other fantastic and not so fantastic games will have ceased to be.


That was really hard to type for someone who really doesn't like Halo. Yay for not being a douchebag!

 

[Scumpernickle]

I don't really enjoy Halo's multiplayer community, too many 40 year old men and 10 year olds.

This is why I like to play nice quiet RPS's, but I don't think gaming would be better off without Halo. Where else would videogames get their idea of a space marine?

 

[T-Bone24]

The thing is, it wasn't really unoriginal when the first one came out. It started the trend, and how can a trend-setter be unoriginal?

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

Where else would videogames get their idea of a space marine?

Warhammer 40k? They even patented the term.

 

[The Wooster]

The two games you're comparing Halo to, the Void and Pathologic were both heavily flawed. Both games are deliberatley obscure and misleading and Pathologic suffered from a piss poor engine that ruined the experience.

I might also add that a preference for flashy, obvious entertainment is not limited to the game industry. All entertainment, be it books, movies or games, has it's giant crowd pleasing cash cows and these big names have never prevented art from being made. The lack of a "Citizen Kane" in gaming is not because the audience is largely retarded (this is true yes, but it's also true of every other medium) but because of the youth of the medium (keep in mind there was 40 years between 'The Great Train Robbery' the first narrative film and Citizen Kane) and because the barriers to entry in the game industry are a lot higher. It takes very little technical skill to pick up a camera and shoot something that passes for film. Conversely it takes far more technical skill to produce even the most rudimentary game.

I think you'll find as the medium grow older and the tools for producing games become more user friendly (flash, Unity etc) you'll see a vast increase in the number of intellectually stimulating games.

 

[gamefreakbsp]

I think the Halo series is one of the best ever. So I suppose my answer to your question is, no gaming would not be better without Halo.

 

[Thaius]

Obviously not:

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=BeAHero

OT: Halo was not unoriginal. At the time, it was pretty freaking awesome for what it was. It popularized a lot of concepts, and beyond that it was simply a well-designed game, and it had a great story.

If it wasn't Halo, it would have been something else. The fact is, there are only so many artists out there with actual vision: when one of those artists makes a fantastic game, all the moneymaking guys copy it. That's how it goes, and if Halo wasn't the one being copied, it would have been something else.

Halo is not bad for gaming. At all.

 

[sephiroth1991]

If halo didn't do it someone else would

 

[Sacman]

let me quote myself from last week:

I think it's bad not terrible not good just below average, but I hate the series for what it did to fps genre as a whole and that is basically create a standard for which u can make money. I mean for a while there it looked like fps' could go anywhere because the original standard(being Doom) is only slightly more technically advanced then a piece of graph paper. to me it seemed that before Halo came out fps was really a genre to experiment with story telling, concept and gamplay encompassing RPG, platforming, and cinematic elements that can turn out very well done and original ideas that both take huge leaps for the genre and medium as a whole by making an interactive intelligent experience that appeals to both adults and children being both fun and philosophical but then Halo came along and somehow became extremely popular and cutting out well told story and intelligent hybrid gameplay for straight forward kill everything that moves gameplay that really set the medium back both in the eyes of the media and in my heart because of it's simple badly written story and cookie cutter characters that might as well be a reunion of the cast from predator but after 100 years so only the unlikeable ones show up and even then they don't know whats happening...
-Sacman

 

[The Kangaroo]

And I'm not seeing the point. The Halo games are very good. The first one was a revolution in literal art and engine, and the second was a revolution in online capability. If later games aren't as good as those (you bring up "coffee stained graphics," which Halo has a noted lack of), it's because they totally missed the point.

That's the problem with assuming that "artistic" games will inevitably enhance the medium. You bring up Citizen Kane and The Godfather as though it was a natural progression, which I dispute. After all, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen were masterpieces. What did they inspire? The Dark Age of comics.

I know that the Halo games were very good but what they are also is an example of why games are not taken seriously, about how they can get away with a flimsy story and nothing pushing the story apart from violence.

I assume that artistic games will improve the medium because if good artistic games like The Void sold well, developers would realize that there is a market for truly good games that do more than give you a gun and tell you who to shoot.

The dark knight and Watchmen mightn't have been made into films because without citizen kane and the godfather, nobody would take film as an artistic and storytelling medium seriously.

 

[The Kangaroo]

Obviously not:

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=BeAHero

OT: Halo was not unoriginal. At the time, it was pretty freaking awesome for what it was. It popularized a lot of concepts, and beyond that it was simply a well-designed game, and it had a great story.

If it wasn't Halo, it would have been something else. The fact is, there are only so many artists out there with actual vision: when one of those artists makes a fantastic game, all the moneymaking guys copy it. That's how it goes, and if Halo wasn't the one being copied, it would have been something else.

Halo is not bad for gaming. At all.

I never said that Halo was unoriginal (even though the story was kind of ripped off of ringworld) but what it did was make it profitable to be so for other companies.

I never said that gaming being taken seriously would stop the unending waves of mindless shooters, just look at movies for every Godfather and Dark Knight you get a hundred transformers and GI joes

I don't really see how Halo hinders gaming as an artform. First off, when it came out it was rather original. Secondly, if you're comparing games to movies, the existence (and popularity) of movies such as the craptastic Transformers 2 doesn't mean good movies are suddenly not made any more. Not saying that Halo is anywhere near the patheticness of Transformers 2, but Halo's existence (and popularity) did not stop the creation of something like Shadow of the Colossus.

Gaming is big enough now that it serves a large portion of the population and that pretty much demands catering to a large variety of tastes. Pretty much everyone watches movies, but not everyone wants to see Citizen Kane.

Halo isn't the first game to be blatantly copied by many other game developers for the sake of making easy money. Think back to the Nes; there were tons of crappy platforming games that tried to cash in on the success of the Super Mario Bros franchise. Would gaming also be better without Mario?

The thing is, Halo clones sell, Mario clones don't

There are always going to be games like Halo. Uncreative people who are only interested in making money are always going to copy the most popular games available on the market. The absence of Halo would not change this trend. These people are not going to produce the types of games you desire. The people who make many of the games that could be considered "artistic" are indie developers, and they're are plenty of them.

There are always going to be games like Halo because Halo proved that it's profitable. If halo hadn't come around maybe developers wouldn't have figured that out and tried making good games to profit from.

Also, don't insult people based on their preference of games. It makes you sound like an arrogant jerk.

It isn't insulting their taste, really. It is insulting their closed mindedness.

I don't see how it's close-minded to dislike certain games. Just because those games happen to be "artistic", it does not mean they have bad taste. We all have different opinions.

What's close minded is to not even give them a chance to impress you and it does mean that they have bad taste, if someone hated The Godfather he'd have bad taste even though he's entitled to his opinion.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Without Halo, gaming wouldn't exist as we know it today.

Halo basically opened the way for gaming, both single-player and multiplayer (MP for consoles, anyways) as we know it today.

Sure, Halo itself may not have been as great as many people make it out to be, but it made many good games possible by opening the way for them.



No one, not Valve, EPIC, IW or anyone else can say that.

 

[The Kangaroo]

No, they are great games.

Also, I met all my closest XBL friends on that game!

Did you even read my argument?

 

[NeutralDrow]

And I'm not seeing the point. The Halo games are very good. The first one was a revolution in literal art and engine, and the second was a revolution in online capability. If later games aren't as good as those (you bring up "coffee stained graphics," which Halo has a noted lack of), it's because they totally missed the point.

That's the problem with assuming that "artistic" games will inevitably enhance the medium. You bring up Citizen Kane and The Godfather as though it was a natural progression, which I dispute. After all, The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen were masterpieces. What did they inspire? The Dark Age of comics.

I know that the Halo games were very good but what they are also is an example of why games are not taken seriously, about how they can get away with a flimsy story and nothing pushing the story apart from violence.

Did we play two different games? What was flimsy about Halo's story?

Not touching the comment on Halo meaning games aren't taken seriously. You seem to be under the assumption that games were taken seriously to begin with. If anything Halo by itself (not counting the clones) probably helped.

I assume that artistic games will improve the medium because if good artistic games like The Void sold well, developers would realize that there is a market for truly good games that do more than give you a gun and tell you who to shoot.

So...if there was a market for games like The Void, developers would see there is a market for them.

I'm confused now.

The dark knight and Watchmen mightn't have been made into films because without citizen kane and the godfather, nobody would take film as an artistic and storytelling medium seriously.

<url=http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5862/001batmandarkknightretu.jpg>Not films. <url=http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4499/watchmenav.jpg>Comics. Those were a pair of unbelievable masterpieces of characterization and dark storytelling, and are remembered to this day as such.

Which is merciful, because almost everything they inspired was crap. The Dark Age of comics was a bad time. That was my point. Just because something is artistic and medium-defining doesn't mean it inspires greatness.

 

[Souplex]

The entire FPS genre is built around copying what came before.
Wolfenstein invents the genre.
Doom allows the genre to go into unrealistic situations.
(I don't know what order things come in around here but it doesn't matter)
Duke Nukem 3d popularizes user created content.
Quake/unreal (I don't know which came first) takes the FPS multiplayer.
Half Life popularizes power armored non-characters, melee weapons, that type of story telling where what could have been done well in cutscenes is butchered by having it take place in game and having your character not actually contribute to them. and physics engines. (Could be wrong and someone else did physics first)
(I also probably missed a lot back there but this list isn't going to be used in any scholarly articles)
Goldeneye proves that FPSes can work on consoles.
Halo popularizes limited weapon capacity, dual wielding, regenerating health, space marines, and online console multiplayer.
Far Cry popularizes open world gameplay in shooters and starts the trend of games with graphics so far ahead of the curve that PC gamers will use certain games as the technical benchmark for their rigs.
Gears of war popularizes third person and cover systems.
Space wizards repopularizes the Shooter RPG which had been dead for a while.
Call of Booty 4: Modern warfare popularizes "Realism"
And I think that roughly takes us to where we are today.
Without Halo we would lose a lot.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

why are you so peeved about this? if you dont work for the video game industry, then why are you getting such a weggie over it? just dont buy the games, that simple, jeesh, your being way to nitpicky about it, leave halo alone, its a great series for what it did and thats that, no need to depict it down to its ibbles and bits and try and destroy it for something that just happened, people liked the game so they bought it and other companies thought they could do the same thing, didn't happen, so big deal, the world goes on just fine, and at one point in time YOU were part of the mainstream crowd, we all were, and i dont really get what makes you so elitist to say that the mainstream are "Uh lOoK at newbz! THEY BOUGHT baddd games, they are badddd" people have preferences to games, and it was halo, overall its made the video game community way larger and more profitable therefore its going to be more corporationalized and things are going to change

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Honestly, I beilive the gaming world actually prospered from Halo. The games were fun and they pretty much put the Xbox on the map and the tatic you are talking about was apparent long before Halo. Madden and other brand name games have been pumping out sequel after sequel for years and if anything were the inspiration on that way of thinking.

Halo at least brought in many new features with each sequel and the third one is proably the biggest example. A theater mode,forge,new weapons, equipment, new vehicles, and new maps. The game did plenty for the FPS genre as a whole and I think it did it's job well.

 

[The Kangaroo]

Did we play two different games? What was flimsy about Halo's story?

For one the fact that the Covenant never tried to accept Humanity into the Covenant

Not touching the comment on Halo meaning games aren't taken seriously. You seem to be under the assumption that games were taken seriously to begin with. If anything Halo by itself (not counting the clones) probably helped.

Just to tell you of my experience, my friend, who loves movies as an art form, had just argued with me for about 10 minutes about the validity of games as an art form walked into the room where my other friend was playing Halo and saw him shoot aliens in the head with a bright blue plasma rifle going "pew pew pew" and you say that that helped people take games seriously

So...if there was a market for games like The Void, developers would see there is a market for them.

If the void sold well then developers would realise that there is a market for good games and make good games.

<url=http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5862/001batmandarkknightretu.jpg>Not films. <url=http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4499/watchmenav.jpg>Comics. Those were a pair of unbelievable masterpieces of characterization and dark storytelling, and are remembered to this day as such.

Which is merciful, because almost everything they inspired was crap. The Dark Age of comics was a bad time. That was my point. Just because something is artistic and medium-defining doesn't mean it inspires greatness.

That is exactly my point and yes it kind of would as it proves just what you can do within that medium.