The Complete, Untold History of Halo

[tetris42]

I see it the exact opposite. Most PC users shat on Halo because it was on console, without ever playing it. I was big into the UT and Quake 2 multiplayer communities when I first played Halo and I loved it. I still wanted to play UT2K3 when it came out, but I also held regular Halo LANs.

Well there's a couple layers to this. I don't think anyone can argue Halo wasn't a decent game. It was competent, had a lot of production value and didn't have any sort of enormous shortcoming. The problem is so many of players and the games industry at large were praising Halo as the second coming of Christ. I mean hell, the guy above me thought that it was the FIRST to do all these different things that it wasn't. So hearing over and over again how it's the best game EVER for all this ORIGINAL stuff got old fast, because seasoned FPS people knew there was a lot more that came before it. So instead of being the okay game that it was, fans thought it was the BEST game and people who had played more were saying it SUCKED as sort of a counter-reaction. Plus, it is true that some PC players were going to dismiss it outright, not so much because it was on a console, but because it was on a gamepad. If you were a seasoned FPS player, moving to a gamepad, even to this day is such a step down in terms of accuracy and control compared to a mouse. So it could have been one of the best games ever made, but having to play a FPS on a gamepad is still a slap in the face for a lot of PC players. Even if the game was designed for that, it still feels like playing golf with one hand tied behind your back, hence a lot of the dismissal.

Also, what games did what Halo did prior?

Besides the stuff I mentioned in the previous post, even though they're very different games, the most obvious one that hit me was Starsiege Tribes. It had a similar sci fi aesthetic, large open maps, and vehicle use. The thing about Halo is that it's sort of a milder remix of many games that came before it. There are individual elements that you can point to that came from other games, often done better and more refined, but just for those specific elements. Deus Ex and System Shock 2 had better stories, Serious Sam had more intense action, Starsiege Tribes had more tactical focus and movement control, Alien v. Predator had more innovative gameplay mechanics, etc. the list goes on. Halo is more of a jack of all trades, master of none situation. The element that Halo truly stands out as being "best of class" in, is the gamepad control. Nothing else came close to that and it truly did innovate in that area, which is where it counted for a console-targeted FPS. That's also an area that had no real bearing on the PC. Again, Halo was in the right place at the right time.

 

[Aireoth]

It's one of the best FPS's ever made.... for a console. Some people think that's the same thing as one of the best FPS's made.



If you had played other FPS's, Halo was okay, but nothing amazing. If all you had was a console, it likely seemed the most amazing thing you had seen. People's reactions to it were similar to what Quake was for PC users; being a competent online FPS, which in itself carried a lot of appeal.

Halo took bits and pieces from other games and made it a competent launch title on a new console. If you had been gaming on PC for the past 10 years, it was nothing special. I mean we had Tribes 1 + 2 by that point, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Serious Sam, No One Lives Forever, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Aliens v. Predator, Counter-Strike, all BEFORE Halo. Halo was amazing to people who hadn't played many FPSs, that's about all there was to it. For everyone else, it was just okay. On the contrary, I remember thinking it was some real bullshit design that they led you through these 90 degree hallways onto a ship, then had to go all the way BACK out.

Take almost any individual aspect of Halo, the gameplay, the story, innovation, the action, the mechanics, and it had already been done better by FPSs that came before it EXCEPT for playing with a gamepad. THAT'S what was remarkable about Halo, it was tuned for console play more than any other FPS that came prior. Just about everything else was okay, but nothing special for a FPS enthusiast.

Halo was only amazing and the best FPS ever if you were ignorant of what came before it.

Sorry Tetris, but your wrong.

All those games you listed are for PC, I never once mentioned pc and specifically stated console (come one man, no straw manning!)

Halo Redefined the console fps experience, was the best console fps ever upon release.

To briefly address the pc, yes everything is/was/best on pc, except for playing multiplayer on the coach, took pc a long time to catch up. I loved all of those games, and still loved Halo to. Why? Because I could not sit on a sofa a play split screen with 3 others, we all had to have a compy.

So at least in my comment, never said best game ever, limited it to consoles because that was Halo and what Halo did. It opened the door for the biggest fps franchises ever because consoles are mass market.

 

[tetris42]

Sorry Tetris, but your wrong.

All those games you listed are for PC, I never once mentioned pc and specifically stated console (come one man, no straw manning!)

Halo Redefined the console fps experience, was the best console fps ever upon release.

To briefly address the pc, yes everything is/was/best on pc, except for playing multiplayer on the coach, took pc a long time to catch up. I loved all of those games, and still loved Halo to. Why? Because I could not sit on a sofa a play split screen with 3 others, we all had to have a compy.

So at least in my comment, never said best game ever, limited it to consoles because that was Halo and what Halo did. It opened the door for the biggest fps franchises ever because consoles are mass market.

Well I'm not wrong, I did literally say it was one of the best FPSs made for the console. I wasn't trying to misrepresent you, I was a little confused by your post since you were talking about rose colored glasses, assuming that everyone was playing it after the fact. As someone who got to play some Halo in 2001, I was not blown away, but I had played FPSs mostly on the PC prior to that too. On the contrary, I saw the reaction of the people who were FLOORED by it, and saw it as being similar to the reaction of people playing a multiplayer FPS for the first time on the PC. For a lot of PC users, that was Quake. For a lot of console users, that was Halo.

The point in my bringing up the previous games was that it wasn't bringing that much new to the table as a general FPS. Now as a console FPS, yes, it really didn't have much competition, I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.

 

[Aireoth]

Well I'm not wrong, I did literally say it was one of the best FPSs made for the console. I wasn't trying to misrepresent you, I was a little confused by your post since you were talking about rose colored glasses, assuming that everyone was playing it after the fact. As someone who got to play some Halo in 2001, I was not blown away, but I had played FPSs mostly on the PC prior to that too. On the contrary, I saw the reaction of the people who were FLOORED by it, and saw it as being similar to the reaction of people playing a multiplayer FPS for the first time on the PC. For a lot of PC users, that was Quake. For a lot of console users, that was Halo.

The point in my bringing up the previous games was that it wasn't bringing that much new to the table as a general FPS. Now as a console FPS, yes, it really didn't have much competition, I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.

Fair and accepted. You may have been directing that at others, I was not directing the rose color at you but at many of the post that said 'I played it in 2003, it wasn't that great' to be honest most of those games are not that great. Only Tribes and Half Life have a place with me today.

Rose Colored as in people think to highly of other titles, and mixing up their timelines (someone mentioned HL2, which came 3 years later than Halo) and many compare it to PC gaming, which I still think isn't a great comparison. I had a ball with Quake, but most of my direct friends did not have PC's (in my area they where a bit of a luxury in the late 90's and early 2000's) but everyone had some kind of console. Even today, the best multiplayer experience is still one in the same room, if not on the same sofa. Nothing beats being with people all enjoying the same thing.

I still get together with a group weekly to play games, often on PC because technology is just so much better today, and this is [H]ard, we all know PC gaming is just better.