Why is Halo considered good?

BlitzKrieg

Ok tiny bit of a rant here


-i've played Halo on PC and Xbox and in all fairness i can understand someone who has never played a half decent pc fps offline or online thinking its amazing but overall i thought the game was quite weak.


I mean yeah the single player was engrossing for a short while but nothing over the top amazing


then the multiplayer... on xbox it sux unless u have 3-4 xboxs hooked up and even then theres really only 1 good map and even then that map can quickly turn crappy when people camp at each end with tanks and just shell the two bases (bloodgulge) or camp in the bases with shotguns.


On PC single player i havnt really tried

But the multi-player is a tiny improvement (due to better controls and more people) but still nothing on the other great games available even with its vehicles...


The only aspect i've not tried which i guess i should is co-op but if its still only the single player then maybe not.


Apart from the HUGE hype this game had when it was pre-xbox i feel this game is unjustified with the praise it recieves.


so wha is it that everyone likes about it?


And no one say its the longest chart holding game, thats cause the x-box had nothing else for 6 months worth buying.

Giblet

It's the most boring game I've ever played anyway, and I've played XIII!

po0k

XIII I liked, Halo, I thought was washed down game, seen it all before, not impressed.

Deadwing

Reasons why halo is good:

First FPS to only let you use 2 weapons.
First FPS to have vehicles in it that were FUN to use, and well implemented.
It did that cool transparent sniper thing *L*
Great story.
First FPS to have good squad based shooting. (the opening level was classic)
You can see its influences in loads of games..from call of duty to...ech..mace griffin *feels dirty mentioning that one*
Okay well it was the first FPS i played with those things..maybe not the first ever with them, but still, you cant deny it IS a landmark game.

it's crap. I'm sure it's an OK game when you get into it and everything, but nothing like I was expecting it to be the way everyone was talking about it.

BlitzKrieg

Originally posted by Deadwing
Reasons why halo is good:

First FPS to only let you use 2 weapons.
First FPS to have vehicles in it that were FUN to use, and well implemented.
It did that cool transparent sniper thing *L*
Great story.
First FPS to have good squad based shooting. (the opening level was classic)
You can see its influences in loads of games..from call of duty to...ech..mace griffin *feels dirty mentioning that one*
Okay well it was the first FPS i played with those things..maybe not the first ever with them, but still, you cant deny it IS a landmark game.

1. Most half life mods offered limited weapon choice and even TF on the original quake did in a roundabout way

2. Battlefield 1942 implements more vehicles and more varied choices (ships to bombers) AND u can destroy them. And from my experiance can be as much fun (try making a bomb jeep coooool)

3. Medal Of honour as much as i loathe that too had squad based shooting before Halo

4. Story i give you.


The only reason these seem great is that i think halo is the FIRST CONSOLE game to apply all of them in the one package. Which can explain its pop with non-pc gamers. But I've seen PC gamers go as nuts over it (and pc mags...)



and another point i forgot the weapons in Halo seem either plain run of the mill fps guns (sniper rocket assault rifle) or stupidly out of balance the pistol is too powerfull and dominates most xbox games i play. The alien weapons seem useless and the new pc weapons suck too. THe only weapon i thought was really great were the plasma grenade (mplayer throwing them on attack fighters as they swoop is sweet.)

Anima

Crap game.

Single player is repetitive, boring, average and theres too many enemies. I just got feed up mowing down 60 1 bullet kill enemies. Waste off time.

Haven't played multiplayer that much but its going to be a cpl game so there must be potential if its going to be an e-sport.

Deadwing

Originally posted by BlitzKrieg
1. Most half life mods offered limited weapon choice and even TF on the original quake did in a roundabout way

2. Battlefield 1942 implements more vehicles and more varied choices (ships to bombers) AND u can destroy them. And from my experiance can be as much fun (try making a bomb jeep coooool)

3. Medal Of honour as much as i loathe that too had squad based shooting before Halo

4. Story i give you.

Halo was out a helluva long time before BF1942

po0k

Originally posted by Deadwing
Halo was out a helluva long time before BF1942

Operation Flashpoint tbh.

astrofool

It's the whole halo package really. The slickness of it all, the excellent vehicles system, the balanced weapons, the enemy AI. Still no better fps out there imo, and i've played them all (on a ninja system too ). This is going on the xbox version btw.

Manach

I'd rate Halo a B, enjoyable if you are not expecting cutting edge innovation from it. I especialling enjoyed the Warthog, ATV, though the annoying muppet voices of the mini-aliens grated after a while. Rollon Half-Life2 and Doom3.

Stephen

I was very disappointed by the PC version of Halo. Why oh why did they remove co-op?

Dooom

That was one of the fun things about Serious Sam 2. I mean the single-player was fun for a while (about 2 hours until you got sick of it) but the multiplayer was reasonable. It may not have been good as such, but it was fun. and then there was the co-op mode. Even though it was the same crap single-player, the fact that you and however many others could tear through it did add an aspect of fun to it. I played one level of Halo on the Xbox and didn't like it but on the PC it was much better. Did I hear a rumour not too long ago about a co-op patch thing? Didn't they do that with Deus Ex (or whoever made that bit of it)? Add in co-op?

Deadwing

Yeah, i gues some games did have vehicles, limited weapons before Halo. (id played Op Flashpoint and found the vehicles crap tho) But it was Halos masterful implementation of these factors that really put it on the map. It was the first game id played that really did all those things brilliantly, and didnt make them a chore. Some games when it came to having to having to use a vehicle or whatever youd think "Oh god..well lets just ge tit over with so i can get back tot he shooting", but in halo youd seek out the warthogs, just so you could tear ass around the levels and run over some alien scum
Great game, it convinced me to buy an xbox. Love it

amp

Having had a fair few multiplayer Halo sessions under my belt I can say it's one of the best games to play in a living room with beer. Yeah, there are a lot of really crap maps in it and it can get repetitive and boring but Halo is the first and only (at the moment) FPS I've enjoyed on a console. That's probably why it gets so much hype.

The vehicles are excellent. My favourite being the Pum..umm.. Warthog. It drives really well and having a human gunner watching your back is cool.

The singleplayer is alright, not particularly addictive or inventive.

Halo has brought the FPS to a whole new generation of people who only hear about Doom on the news after some moron shoots up his school.

Dont be at yourself

If Halo wasn't the only decent game in the XBox line-up, I doubt it'd be regarded as highly as it is. Fanboy journalists, merkin ones especially, placed it on a pedestal, trying to justify the purchase of an Xbox.

As it is, Halo is a fun game, and isn't too far behind Goldeneye in terms of bestest console FPS ever. Bar one or two innovations, it isn't anything original, and it certainly isn't the revolution many people make it out to be.

PiE

Single Player is atrocious; level after level of the same looking areas, weapons and enemies and to cap it all off.. you have to go BACK through all those levels?

Balls to that.

Played the multiplayer mode on the X-Box, maybe it was the sh*tty controls, maybe it was the bland maps and weapons... but either way it was still sh*te.

ykt0di9url7bc3

Originally posted by [-=RaVeN=-]
Crap game.

Single player is repetitive, boring, average and theres too many enemies. I just got feed up mowing down 60 1 bullet kill enemies. Waste off time.

me nods...

in comparisson to op flash or battlefied/DC the team based multiplayer is slow and repeditive after a few games...

The single player story offered nothing new to the genre...and although there were some good areas...it felt like all the same...

original takes on new ideas but still nothing really innovative about this game

BLITZ_Molloy

I've only played the single player. I found it rather aimless and repetitive. The level design in particular felt very unfinished.

_CreeD_

There's no one thing it does better than any other game out there. It does tie each element together excellently well though, producing a game that is to most who play it much more than the sum of it's parts. I won't say it's my favourite game ever but I've played it through 5 times now (3 in co-op with different people, one of which was my normally game-hating wife), more than those I would consider favourites, it's just so damn playable .... It's 'just' a great fun game.

Oh and reading posts where folks state things like "it is the only good Xbox game " etc. are always good for a laugh. Besides the fact that anyone who tries to completely categorise a platform like that is the epitomy of fanboy imho, it just pushes that pedestal even higher (where I agree it's been placed a bit unfairly). But I'm not getting into that, happens way too often here.

BlitzKrieg

Originally posted by Deadwing
Halo was out a helluva long time before BF1942

no...BF1942 was out before Halo. Halo was in production before BF1942 (they were doing that alternative history game which also had vehicles Operation eagle or something) But Bf1942 was released before Halo. Hell i think Halo came out the same time as the mission pack.

MrPinK

Originally posted by BlitzKrieg
no...BF1942 was out before Halo.

According to gamefaqs, the release dates were

Battlefield 1942 EA Games 09/10/02
Halo: Combat Evolved Microsoft 11/14/01

po0k

Originally posted by BlitzKrieg
no...BF1942 was out before Halo. Halo was in production before BF1942 (they were doing that alternative history game which also had vehicles Operation eagle or something) But Bf1942 was released before Halo. Hell i think Halo came out the same time as the mission pack.

It was Codename Eagle

When you patched that up with the unofficial updates it became a bloody great game

One of the things that majorly irked me with Halo was the vehicles.
They were bloody slow to get in and out of, you had to be at just the right spot (Flashpoint had this too, but it was far more lenient and was done *nicer*) and you couldn't change positions in the vehicle without getting out and running around.
The weapons annoyed me too. None of them felt effectual. And just being able to carry two really grated. Fair enough, plenty of other games limit you to a certain number of weapons, which makes sense, a man is only capable of carryig so much kit and ammo, but in every other game I've seen you at least have a knife, a sidearm, a main weapon and sometimes a heavy weapon.
Which makes sense when you see present-day soldiers carrying their knife, pistol, assault rifle and the odd LAW or three, plus ammo and kit.
Master Chief was supposed to be an enhance human super soldier with an exo suit, yet could only cary two pissy weapons at once.
Runt of the litter tbh.
The whole game just felt slow and clumsy, and while it may have been great for showing console owners how good FPSes are, it's still piss-poor compared to what is available if you're a HARDKOER LITHTECH 2.0 L337 "serioues" gamer

honru

Personally, I love Halo for its great balance, impressive AI, physics for weapons and vehicles, the thrilling story, and its great multiplayer. I haven't found an FPS that has touched it. And as an action game, it can truely rank among the best.

Admitingly, looking back on the game, I agree the level design was flawed (The Library, anyone?). But back in the day, the level design was just so overlooked compared with everything else. The points I made earlier were just my true complusion to continue playing. Kicking some covenant tail just never got old, and I still have no regrets buying an Xbox for this game.

I haven't played the PC version, but there seems to be very divided opinions on it. In any case, I don't see why it shouldn't hold up today. It truely mastered some areas in FPSs and gave me a hell of a lot of enjoyment.

Ryo Hazuki

Do I need a reason to like Halo?

No, Ive cleared that game on every difficulty, and not once did I lose interest, Savage Game.

Cant wait for halo2.

DRakE

Originally posted by amp
I can say it's one of the best games to play in a living room with beer.

SUPER MONKEY BALL.

BraveSirAndrew

Well to be honest, the game is ****ing savage, especially when you consider the fact that it is 4 years old!!!

BlitzKrieg

i h8 to do this but how old is half life now?

theciscokid

i've heard this alot too and didnt think much of the game

stick halo on the hardest level there is (legendary i think) and play it

you'll see why!

i_am_dogboy

I wasn't going to write in this thread because i absolutely HATE xbox......but i wont let that sway my opinion on halo

To be honest it is a good console fps, but that's not really good enough for pc gamers. I only played the xbox version enough to comment on it-it was immense fun to play the co-op, it wasn't too challenging, and it suited the xbox controller very well. It should have been changed to suit the pc market. For one we have far more versatile control, and can handle enemies appearing from every which way without having to wait half a second to properly face them. It wasn't as hard as what i was used to with the likes of nolf and avp. And why the hell couldn't they have made the vehicles and mounted guns destructable, that was a big let down for me, because it allowed me to be a crap driver. If bungie hadn't been bought out by bungie i feel it would have been far more suited for the pc since it wouldn't have been xbox only at first, maybe they would have ported it from pc to xbox.

Even though i did defend it, after playing metroid prime I don't really think it deserves to be called a game.........and if people are going to defend it-please at least state an argument. Saying it's "savage" isn't enough.....unless you're talking about parappa the rapper or pikmin. Sorry for going so off topic there.

lordsippa

Halo is a funish WAY overrated game. I've played it here and there in friends houses but only on X-Box... dunno... just sick of it now. It's just so bog standard tbh. So now to smash it by mentioning oldies with "revolutionary" stuff it has (and done well too)...

Quake had multi-player co-op.
Blood had akimbo pistols.
Tribes 2 had vehicles AND squads.
Unreal had equally amazing seeming graphics when it came out. Actually am kinda disappointed by Halo's graphics. Saw an early video of it before Microsoft bought Bungie and it hadn't seemed to change much since then. <tsks>

oh and the weapons in it are absolutely rubbish (cept the plasma grenades). They just lack the punch that the ones in Quake or Halflife had. There's no feeling of WHAM! when you hit an enemy... I mean where's the FPS world without the equivalent of the BFG?!(or the rocket launcher in Quake:p)

po0k

Originally posted by lordsippa
oh and the weapons in it are absolutely rubbish (cept the plasma grenades). They just lack the punch that the ones in Quake or Halflife had. There's no feeling of WHAM! when you hit an enemy... I mean where's the FPS world without the equivalent of the BFG?!(or the rocket launcher in Quake:p)

I've played it on both the PC and XBox, though mainly on the PC, and I have to say, I though the weapons ahd been dumbed down to compensate for the increased accuracy and fluidity of the PC mouse+keyboard control combo instead of upping the AI/enemy rate of fire (which I felt was piss poor to allow the Joe Spud on the couch time to aim the weapon with the joypad on XBox).
You're revved up to unleash holy fiery death by perforated ruination with your blaster by the intro movie and the sudden jump into running battle at the intro, and when you press fire - instead of the voracious hail of screaming plasma-charged death you get a limp squirt, like a mouse ejaculating into a sponge cake. And you instantly lose your hard-on for the game.

Comparing it with XIII tonight, I much prefer the *thud* response you feel when squeezing off a few rounds at your foes. It makes me all the the more immersed in the game world. Halo never drew me in past the first 5-or-so minutes (including the in-game intro).

Bottom line: the game is over-hyped, was dated before it was released (on the PC at least) by using game elements which had already been pioneered quite some time before it, and left me with a huge feeling of disappointment and sorrow.
When I first saw the rolling demo clip, I wet myself with joy and anticipation, only to have my nuts caught in the vice-like grip of Microsoft's aquisitions department when they bought Bungie (which would have released a great game for the G4/nVidia/OSX platform along with Q3 and RTCW).
For the above reasons I feel it is a bad game.

amp

Originally posted by DRakE
SUPER MONKEY BALL.

Originally posted by amp
I can say it's one of the best games to play in a living room with beer.

Deadwing

Well one thing i dont think any of us can deny, is that Halo saved the Xbox's ass in that shaky first year. I doubt the Xbox would have sold quite as much if it werent for the master chief.
On a side note, all this talk of halo convinced me to buy it for the P.C. (with a 20euro voucher, of course) Suhweeeeeet!

Ronaldo7

didnt like it.

Cant pinpoint why exactly i didnt. Its just too boring...i hated all those monsters.

monument

Originally posted by DRakE
SUPER MONKEY BALL.

Halo, then the above, and a few bottles (one per person) of buck fast before going out - that was some night.

The Library, among some of the other later missions in the singler player game got repetitive. However, the same can be said for Halflife and other FPS.

For PC multiplayer - although I like both - Battlefield 1942 is a different type of experience, while BF is mostly large scale maps, more like real warfare – capturing points etc…, Halo is a bit more light-hearted and is some where between BF and older types of FPSers.

muffen

I hate Halo on the xbox.. 3D shooters aren't good on consoles, they should be played online with a mouse and keyboard. And... looking at the PC, there are many 3D shooters that are better than Halo, multiplayer atleast.

Halo might be good singleplayer. I've never really played it by myself, but in the end I prefer playing online.

My opinion anyways...

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

Big Chief

Originally posted by Deadwing
Halo was out a helluva long time before BF1942

wasnt out before operation flashpoint though which implemented the vehicles which were fun in multiplayer (tanks, helicopter, planes etc..)

Retr0gamer

i've mixed opinions about Halo. The first half of the game was great but when you had to do levels like the library and then go through levels a second time it got quite boring. However I'd call it a great game for the time that you play the first half of the game. You'll come back and play those levels again and they last longer than your average Kojima game. Multiplayer was good crack. Also it was the best example of a FPS since Half Life and Deus Ex. The PC FPS games before it were terrible and repetitive crap. Halo was the best FPS money could buy until Metroid Prime came out and is still probably the best game on the xbox.

mrblue

I've played numerous PC shooters, & only the best can stand up next to Halo. I agree that the game tales off & doesn't last long enough, but the pure goodness of Assault on the Control Room on co-op play makes this one of the greatest shooters available.

Don't slag this game, although it has been overhyped like crazy it is at its heart a gem, & a game that nearly never got made. Be thankful for games of this quality!

DrEvil

i think halo is a quite good console FPS but it is very overhyped and not as revolutionary as some people like to think.
the graphics and the coop play were very good but overall nothing special in gameplay terms compared to console FPSs before it.

Quake2 on the PS and Red Faction on PS2 were much better for their time IMO.
quake 2 as far as i can remember introduced the dual analog control system which is found in all console FPS today and Red Faction had vehicles(which were good) and also u could blow up any wall you liked(almost). after playing them 2 before halo i was never really blown away by it. Also another good FPS was half life on PS2 it was a perfect recreation of the PC version and u could use a keyboard and mouse so it seemed exactly like the PC also had a good 2 player coop which required players 2 work together 2 progress. All i'm saying is that halo is good but nothing special

Lucutus

I like Halo PC because...

...out of the box, it's multiplayer is easy to get into, there's no configuring the game for hours just to get online and play. It's a lowest common denominator FPS game, anyone can install it and be in a game on a level footing with other players online in minutes.

The only other game with fun vehicles was Tribes 2, much superior game than Halo, especially teamplay-wise, but unfortunatly, Sierra screwed us over with that one, too many crashes, configuring, downloading of patches etc.

Singleplayer Halo was good up until the point where the game started to double back over all the the same levels, but with different nme's 'egg things' to kill. I stopped there and then, just didn't have the heart to go on. Someone in Bungie has some explaining to do. :mad:

Anyway, I agree, it is over-rated, but the online multiplayer, it's a great 'starter game'.

Luc

[DF]Lenny

Having played PC games for many years i have to say Halo is the most overrated,overhyped game in years.Not even a decent Multiplayer mode can save it.Complete waste of 40 euro.

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

User45701

I went for a all nighter some time ago and i had the choice of playing CS or Halo So i played halo for a short time but to me it was not that good CS was much better.

My First FPS love with units was CnC Renegade and i believe Renegade is much better than Halo - Howeaver I can see why people would play it.

honru

Originally posted by smiaras
PC gamers should understand that the hype attributed to Halo stems from the console version, which compared to other console FPS is peerless.

Damn straight.

Sure when Half Life was originally released on the PS2 its reception was lukewarm at best.

Retr0gamer

My First FPS love with units was CnC Renegade and i believe Renegade is much better than Halo - Howeaver I can see why people would play it.

C&C Renegade = Pure dire (mp was kinda fun)

That is all

po0k

Originally posted by mrblue
I've played numerous PC shooters, & only the best can stand up next to Halo.

.....
I've played pretty much every PC FPS I could lay my hands on in the last 2 years, and I wouldn't rate Halo as anything special.
Here's a few that kick it around the place:
QW
Q3
Deus Ex
Half-Life
Deus Ex
N.O.L.F.
Delta Force
Operation Flashpoint
Battlefield 1942
Aliens Vs. Predator
Jedi Knight series
Unreal Tournament
Planetside (Halo, only better, and MMP)
Hitman series
Mechwarrior series
System Shock series

I agree that the game tales off & doesn't last long enough, but the pure goodness of Assault on the Control Room on co-op play makes this one of the greatest shooters available.

Co-op is pretty much the only thing it has going for it.
More FPSes (PC and console alike) should use this feature to it's full extent. If you have a SP and MP element why not bring the two together and have Co-Op too?
The doubling-back smacks of Bungie getting lazy, running out of combinations for the handful of different terrain map blocks (seemed there was about 4 types of hills and a few variations of the same boulders).

Don't slag this game, although it has been overhyped like crazy it is at its heart a gem, & a game that nearly never got made. Be thankful for games of this quality!

It should have been released years ago, and it really feels dated. It was yet another case of Mac gamers (a much-maligned breed indeed - keep chasing that rainbow guys!) coming close to having what everyone else has long taken for granted, but was snatched away by MS to float it's console in the market.
Shameless.

The game is mediocre to average at best if you look at it objectively, comparing it against the best available today, or 2 years ago (on any platform).

mrblue

I have played nearly all of the games on your list. I don't think you can really compare Half life & Deux Ex. Halo is more action orientated. They are all good, but for the most part I think that the action in Halo is about as good as you will find offline on a console. As a matter of personal preference, I would take it above the stellar AAA PC shooters on account of its enormous replayability (is that a word?) & the excellent co-op mode. But hey, diversity is the spice of life. Just be glad that shooters like Halo, Deus Ex, Half life & soon Doom III, Half life 2, Halo 2 etc are still being made in this era of main stream gaming mediocrity.

mrblue

Oh, and by the way I think gamespot disagree with you:

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/halo/index.html