Halo - Zero Love?!

[Erasmas]

How is it that there are absolutely no threads on this entire forum dealing with Halo?
I understand that it isn't everybody's cup of tea, but... really?! Not one?! We are talking about the single best-selling game series of all time here. I guarantee that the majority of the posters here at least played one of them at some point.

So, c'mon... where's the love?

[Maxios]

It's not the best selling game series. It's not even in the top 26, by the way.

I played Halo, Halo 3, and Reach and enjoyed them. They were a bit too linear for my tastes, though.

[Erasmas]

Huh... I stand corrected on that statement, my apologies.
I was way wrong!

But anywho... I can see that, especially if you prefer sandbox gameplay. Several of my close buddies and I have all played them together through the years, so they have a strong secondary appeal to me. A lot of high-five-after-the-smoke-clears kind of moments, and "Man that was a bad-@$$ grenade throw!" type stuff. I really dig the universe that they established with it as well... so much so that we came up with a tabletop RPG version to play.

[Zevox]

Yeah, Halo is definitely nowhere near the best-selling games series of all time. That is Mario, by a landslide - if Wikipedia's numbers are accurate, it still has more than twice as many sales as the second-place franchise, Pokèmon.

But yeah, anyway, part of it might be the low number of FPS players around here. This is a forum formed around a comic based on a tabletop RPG, it should be unsurprising that most players here are big into RPG video games, less so into other genres. I myself for instance do not play FPS games at all, and tend to avoid anything with the first-person perspective even if they're not shooters (i.e. Bethesda games).

Zevox

[Erasmas]

Yeah, I completely own up to that comment being a total mistake on my part.

And I can see the FPS versus RPG argument, though I play plenty of both. Though there are a lot of RPGs (and FPSs too, mind you) that fall way short of enjoyable for my tastes. I definitely prefer mine at the tabletop, with a group of friends to look in the face and to hear that rattle-rattle the dice make as they come tumblin' down!

That's why we decided to combine the two and try to get the best of both worlds.

[ShinyRocks]

I did complete the original Halo on the Xbox. I thought it was great, as FPSs go, but ultimately it was still an FPS and therefore not for me.

I don't really like shooting, and first-person makes me queasy, so...

[Comet]

The singleplayer campaigns are exciting, grand rollercoaster rides with some pretty damn great key moments.

Multiplayer is a lot of fun hotseat-style. Get a couple friends in the room, go through those memorable campaign moments co-op or play around with silly vehicles and laser sword duels in deathmatch for kicks and giggles. Good, fast , simple fun.

The online multiplayer deathmatch thingy... not something I ever want to do. It has all the stupidity and none of the charm that comes with knowing that you're experiencing it all with good friends. Instead you get emotionally and socially handicapped scream machines as your playmates and that's just sad.

[Grif]

How is it that there are absolutely no threads on this entire forum dealing with Halo?
I understand that it isn't everybody's cup of tea, but... really?! Not one?! We are talking about the single best-selling game series of all time here. I guarantee that the majority of the posters here at least played one of them at some point.

So, c'mon... where's the love?

I'm still disappointed that Microsoft decided not to bring this series to the PC starting from HALO 3. That was also when I lost my interest.

[Erasmas]

Well, the queasy thing... I can totally understand. That would send a game like Halo to the top of my "Do Not Play" list with a rocket for me too. Sorry to hear that though, Shiny - totally not shiny (snuck a Firefly reference in there... d'ya see that?).

I completely agree with the campaign vs. local multiplayer vs. online multiplayer point. The local LAN parties that we used to throw were so much fun. And there are, unfortunately, an apparently unlimited supply of trolls/bad-sports/jerks online which 's me to no end. But, there are too many great clutch-type moments where your team pulls it out of the fire at the last second and triumphs for me to walk away from it.

The point about them not bringing it to PC could be annoying, if mouse+keyboard is your thing... for sure. Personally, I don't like the combination myself, but I understand that a lot of other people do.

[Lhurgyof]

I really enjoy Halo, I've been playing since Halo 2.

It is one of my favorite game series by far.

[fred dref]

Call of Duty may or may not have been balanced for lean, but Halo was most assuredly not balanced for PC. The game went from a semi-tactical shooter based largely on controlling space (keeping enemies from cover, using grenades to deny areas to make shots easier, etc.) into just another twitch shooter (pistol and sniper only weapons used). The game just wasn't build for the type of mouse-and-keyboard precision PC is capable of.

[Mutant Sheep]

I love Halo and definitely prefer it to Modern Warfare. (Though I guess that's not saying too much.).

Ignore this very paragraph.

I think the lack of a thread is because really, there isn't much to discuss, and this is a discussion board. Only so many posts can be "I enjoy/do not enjoy said game", and since Reach came out a few years ago and its still a bit early for Halo4 speculation, any thread would die out pretty quick. The reason fellow shooter Mass Effect has such lively threads is because its ending is so crappy it demands conversation and the story choices make great discussion. Add that to the multiplayer being a new development for the series and you have a good few months of discussion. Halo has a (great) formula, but you cant discuss that formula for a prolonged amount of time. There isn't really much to say about it. Once more Halo4 information comes out, I HOPE we get some speculation threads, because fighting Forerunners is a sweet idea and the multiplayer has a fraggen storyline. (Spartan Ops, at least. Others just have a vague Holodeck Handwave)

[shadow_archmagi]

As a member of the PC gaming master race I see no reason to play a console based war-themed hat simulator with very little variety.

[Seerow]

I love Halo and definitely prefer it to Modern Warfare. (Though I guess that's not saying too much.).

Ignore this very paragraph.

I think the lack of a thread is because really, there isn't much to discuss, and this is a discussion board. Only so many posts can be "I enjoy/do not enjoy said game", and since Reach came out a few years ago and its still a bit early for Halo4 speculation, any thread would die out pretty quick. The reason fellow shooter Mass Effect has such lively threads is because its ending is so crappy it demands conversation and the story choices make great discussion. Add that to the multiplayer being a new development for the series and you have a good few months of discussion. Halo has a (great) formula, but you cant discuss that formula for a prolonged amount of time. There isn't really much to say about it. Once more Halo4 information comes out, I HOPE we get some speculation threads, because fighting Forerunners is a sweet idea and the multiplayer has a fraggen storyline. (Spartan Ops, at least. Others just have a vague Holodeck Handwave)

Wait fighting the Forerunners in Halo 4? I thought the point was the Forerunners had wiped themselves out, and humanity was like an offshoot of that civilization.

[Lhurgyof]

As a member of the PC gaming master race I see no reason to play a console based war-themed hat simulator with very little variety.

We're talking about Halo here, not TF2.

[Mutant Sheep]

Wait fighting the Forerunners in Halo 4? I thought the point was the Forerunners had wiped themselves out, and humanity was like an offshoot of that civilization.

Well, there is a new enemy race/group of enemies in Halo4. And Bungie is very hidey about them. And in the Aniversary edition, good old Guilty Spark mentions (in the terminals) the Diadact, the super Forerunner general, as if he were alive. And there are various shield world things that are Halo-proof, which the glowy planet seems to be, since (spoilers!)its a giant hallow orb around another planet. With plant life. And SOMETHING that Bungie isn't telling. (spoilers!). So, I assume we see live forerunner. And I am very excited.

And now, from what I gather of the Halo prequel books (I haven't actually read them, I'll try to find a link or something), humanity and Foreunners? Different species. Big war between the two a long time ago, which is when the Flood came in. Forerunner were starting to crush the humans Homo -somethingus due to the humans trying to hold off the Flood. They bioengineer billions to be immune to the Flood (but it reaaaally shortened lifespan or something) and send them as cannonfodder. The Forerunner don't notice the Flood or something and 'deevolve 'humanity, and then the Flood come crashing into their faces. And the rest is in Halo 3 terminals.

[Zen Master]

I've never played the Halo games.

It's because I was a fan of Bungie, really - and because I really loved Marathon. So when they went to MS, and redid Marathon without everything that made it Marathon, how could I continue to love them?

Of course, having never played the Halo games, it's a bit iffy whether or not that was actually what they did - but it seemed that way at the time.

[Erasmas]

Hey, look Sheep..........
[whisper]We're talking about Halo![/whisper]


{{scrubbed}}

And Acromos, that is a shame. I am sorry to hear that they betrayed your trust like that. When a company does that, it is very hard to justify the continuation of support (both monetarily and fan-wise). It is such a good story-arch so far, and I hope that it continues to be so.

So many people out there have no idea of what the campaign is about (hell, I have met several players that have never played the campaign... mind-boggling. Anyways, I am super-hyped about Halo4. They will be focusing on Master Chief's character, his humanity, and his relationship with Cortana. Both are finally feeling the effects of isolation and war... and how much they need one another to lean on emotionally. She is nearing the end of her lifespan as a Smart AI and Chief needs her as a reminder of the humanity that he is fighting so hard to preserve. It's a great duo - a hero who's persona has been so finely honed and refined that he is more of a machine of war than a man; coupled with a completely synthetic program who has developed so much compassion and understanding of us as a race that she has become as close to human as she possibly can. And that's not even to begin to discuss the new planet, the new alien races (whoever they are), and all the multiplayer goodies they are dropping from orbit for us!

Yeah... I'm excited.

[Comet]

I literally have no idea whether Halo 4 is going to be good or horrible.

Bungie established a long time ago that they can build a world and an engaging sci-fi story. Marathon, Oni, Halo... They're good at storytelling.

These new guys, as I understand? Not Bungie. No way to predict whether or not they know how to create compelling personal arcs for the Chief and Cortana as they've been promising.

Might be good, mind, but it still feels like milking the franchise. As far as I'm concerned the magic of Halo was all about Bungie's own style of story- and worldbuilding. These new guys are not Bungie. Or are they? Did any of the personel stay behind to work on the newest Halo or is this, indeed, an entirely new team?

[Erasmas]

The new company is called 343 Industries (named after the Guilty Spark left behind by the Forerunners). The only reason I have hope for the next installment is because the initial 30 or so employees all came directly out of Bungie. As I understand it, several of them did not want to quit working on Halo, so they amicably split from the "mothership". Since then, they have swelled up to around 250 or so employees... all from the gaming industry already and (supposedly) huge fans of the series themselves. So... we shall see.

That being said. The point will come when this franchise will run dry and Microsoft will continue to attempt to milk every last drop as they kick the poor dead beast. I do not foresee that they will have the wherewithal to know when to end on a high note... because as long as there is money to be made, Microsoft will go after it.

[Knight13]

I played Halo 1 on PC and found it to be a fairly decent FPS with a mediocre, but enjoyable, single player and a craptastic multiplayer. Seriously, I absolutely do not understand why the Halo multiplayer became so popular, it felt like a tacked on afterthought in the first game. The original Unreal Tournament has better multiplayer than any of the Halos and it came out in '00.

I bought Halo 2 a few years after it came out, since I could get it for cheap and thought it might be a decent way to spend a Saturday. I found it to be pretty much the same as the first: decent singleplayer, crappy multiplayer. The Gravemind and the Arbiter were pretty cool.

None of the rest have been released on PC and I'm sure as heck not going to play them on console. I consider trying to play a shooter with a controller to be a form of masochism.

[Gnoman]

I played Halo 1 on PC and found it to be a fairly decent FPS with a mediocre, but enjoyable, single player and a craptastic multiplayer. Seriously, I absolutely do not understand why the Halo multiplayer became so popular, it felt like a tacked on afterthought in the first game. The original Unreal Tournament has better multiplayer than any of the Halos and it came out in '00.

I bought Halo 2 a few years after it came out, since I could get it for cheap and thought it might be a decent way to spend a Saturday. I found it to be pretty much the same as the first: decent singleplayer, crappy multiplayer. The Gravemind and the Arbiter were pretty cool.

None of the rest have been released on PC and I'm sure as heck not going to play them on console. I consider trying to play a shooter with a controller to be a form of masochism.

Halo is a console FPS franchise. Console FPS's, in every sense but graphics, were until recently ~5-15 years behind the PC variety. Halo 1's multiplayer, while mediocre compared to Quake III or Red Faction, was leaps and bounds ahead of what had been done on a console to that point. (The GoldenEye/Perfect Dark multiplayer wasn't good for much besides repetitive deathmatch, while TimeSplitters, while much more fully featured, had only two players (+bots), and was restricted to local only.)

[shadow_archmagi]

And uh, hey Shadow - don't jump into a thread just to bring up hate speech. Go back and hide under the bridge you were hiding under... I think I hear Billy Goat clopping down the cobbled path.

...

I'd forgotten how bad GitP tended to be with sarcasm. I thought packing a dozen cliches into one sentence would do it, but I guess not? Sorry.


Halo's okay.

[Thanatos 51-50]

...

I'd forgotten how bad GitP tended to be with sarcasm. I thought packing a dozen cliches into one sentence would do it, but I guess not? Sorry.


Halo's okay.

It's okay, Shadow. I understood you.

Personally, I find it kind of hilarious. OP asked for opinions on Halo, you gave one that wasn't glowing, and you get accused of being a troll.

As for my opinion re: Halo:
The first one was amazing, because there were no other FPSs like it. The controls were tight and smooth and the Xbox was a whiz-bang piece of tech. I'd played Doom and Duke Nukem 3d, so I wasn't completely unfamiliar with FPSs, but Halo was really awesome. I spent a lot of time at the local youth centre playing couch Multiplayer.

And then every console FPS ever stole the formula and expanded on it. When Halo 2 came out, and they didn't expand on the formula. It became "throughly mediocre". Halo 3 ended up doing the exact same thing. ODST was a return to the awesome formula by making you feel severely small and underpowered and giving you back a health bar. I don't, however, understand why being a piddly human and not a Spartan made bullets less killy. Reach was so mediocre it was boring.

The series had so much potential and the 'verse was good. Then it just... kinda... stopped being good and became bland.

[Zevox]

It's okay, Shadow. I understood you.

Personally, I find it kind of hilarious. OP asked for opinions on Halo, you gave one that wasn't glowing, and you get accused of being a troll.

Methinks that had much less to do with it than the "PC master race" thing making him come off as a jackass.

Zevox

[Mando Knight]

We're talking about Halo here, not TF2.

You're right! It's a war-themed helmet simulator!
(Seriously, how many people spent too many hours in Reach trying to unlock that one customization option, then ranked up and saw there was something even cooler available?)

[Aotrs Commander]

Methinks that had much less to do with it than the "PC master race" thing making him come off as a jackass.

Zevox

That particular tongue-in-cheek phrase was coined by Yatzee of Zero Punctuation in his Witcher review (specifically 0:50) in a swipe at the tendancy PC-exclusive RPGs tend to have a less....streamlined approach to the UI than console ones.

(I got it, for the record...)



As to Halo... Never played it, ever will (not into shooters, and Mass Effect is absolutely as close as I'm prepared to get to one, though I will admit to playing Voyager Elite Force and failing to complete C&C Renegade.)

[Erasmas]

Sorry, Shadow... didn't catch the sarcasm.
My bad.

Thanatos - I have no problems with someone giving "non-glowing" reviews, in fact this thread is full of those. But I was accusing someone of trolling when (under a misunderstanding) I saw them pop in, drop a purely spiteful reply (with nothing constructive in their criticism), and then disappear. And even with that, I tried to respond with levity and sarcasm as well.

Your comments, though I disagree with them wholeheartedly, would never invoke the same response from me. A difference in a matter of opinion is fine, but nobody like it when someone enters a room and takes a dump on the floor.

As for continuing the conversation...
They reinvented and revitalized the FPS genre, in my mind. I played Doom, I played Quake, I played Golden Eye, I played Perfect Dark, and I played Counter Strike (EDIT: I even played the original Wolfenstein, not to date myself too much). And they were all great games and I had a lot of great moments doing so. But Halo sparked something (with me, at least) that I don't know that I can fully explain. The dual-analog controls, the plasma grenades, and of course... the Warthog. Man, oh man, was I in love! It still to this day (IMHO) is the only FPS to have successfully integrated vehicles into combat with foot soldiers with any sense of balance at all. Is it realistic? No, absolutely not. A tank rolls down the street and you get the h#ll out of Dodge. But why play a video game for ultra-realism? It is escapism that we are all after when we put that disc into the tray (or hit that .exe shortcut).
And are they formulaic and strikingly the same? Yeah, I guess so... a bit. But each one brought something new to the table that changed it just enough for me (Halo 2 - dual wielding, Halo 3 - equipment, ODST - Firefight, Halo: Reach - armor abilities). And Halo 3 and Reach even allowed you to create your own custom Spartan... and I am a big fan of customization within a game.

So, it's all in the eye of the beholder. Which is fine by me!

[Zevox]

That particular tongue-in-cheek phrase was coined by Yatzee of Zero Punctuation in his Witcher review (specifically 0:50) in a swipe at the tendancy PC-exclusive RPGs tend to have a less....streamlined approach to the UI than console ones.

(I got it, for the record...)

Ah. See, I don't watch his videos, because I don't like his sense of humor or style (the whole constant babbling thing he does that he named the segment after especially) in the least, so it is kind of impossible for me to get references to him. Which honestly probably makes that a very poor one to be tossing around casually, because yeah, it's going to make you sound like some elitist jackass to people who don't know it's a reference.

Zevox

[Erasmas]

And, on a side note... since it is what originally inspired me to post this thread...

A shameless plug for my Halo RPG!
Right here, on your very own forum.
Come on down and check it out... it's gonna be a blast!