When did Old School FPS fans turn around on Halo?

[LadyMistDragon]

1 hour ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I always liked Halo (haven't played Reach or anything after that, though). Even regardless of its level design issues in the original, it always just felt like a series that had its heart in the right place. I can tell that the people who made it enjoyed making it, it actually had a soul compared to its competition like Killzone, Haze, etc. I liked Resistance though. Even Killzone was alright. But I think Halo is different than those in a special way.

I didn't expect anyone else to mention Killzone! Only played the first game, but I was rather impressed with the environmental variety. And gameplay was mostly quite solid. But the plot was a little meh, at the least.

 

 

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When did Old School FPS fans turn around on Halo?

 

They didnt. Halo is a weak ripoff version of Doom and Im sick of pretending its not. Worse than that, it was a complete subversion of the entire first person shooter genre. I had to endure a near decade of master chief fans bold face lie to me about the quality of their games. I played Halo 1 and Call of Duty 1 and I remember going "Neat, but I don't see it catching on." Next thing I know, I get banished to the shadow realm where all the new games started to suck. It still hasnt recovered, but we finally get something half way decent and Microsoft buys all of it out. Doom 6 might completely suck.

 

You could try to argue against Alfanso, but only on small detail. Youve no idea the amount of hate this topic stokes up for old gamers.

Edited 17 hours ago by Dreamskull

The radiating smugness of this post should be comedy gold.

Edited November 28, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Rudolph]

19 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

I didn't expect anyone else to mention Killzone! Only played the first game, but I was rather impressed with the environmental variety. And gameplay was mostly quite solid. But the plot was a little meh, at the least.

Guerilla seems to have found their calling with the Horizon series, which also seems much more solid in terms of plot than Killzone.

[Herr Dethnout]

9 hours ago, Kinsie said:

If a platform is two generations ago and no longer regularly receiving officially-licensed titles, it's retro. As such, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are now officially retro platforms.

I'm sorry that this is how you had to learn that you're old as dust and you'll probably be a skeleton before long, but that's how it goes.

This means that the Wii is not officially Retro(tm). Yeah, i'm looking at you, Just Dance 2020...

 

Spoiler

As a little off-topic, is really fucked up that a console released in 2007 still having games in a time that even the company that made said console has terminated all support and online for it... I suppose that theres a market for Gym grannies. :P

 

[BGreener]

2 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

I didn't expect anyone else to mention Killzone! Only played the first game, but I was rather impressed with the environmental variety. And gameplay was mostly quite solid. But the plot was a little meh, at the least.

Speaking only on behalf of the second, the online for it was delightful. Looked great for the time, heavy and fun gunplay, classes to choose and customize, but they sealed the deal with dedicated servers supporting up to 32 players - and all for a console FPS!

 

Killzone 3 would get rid of lots of this as well as join the “quick and easy melee kill” bandwagon that was popular for shooters for a time.

[Koko Ricky]

This may sound silly or closeminded to some, but I never got around to playing the Halo games because I don't like the art direction. I've never seen a single character, weapon, or environment in any of the games that has caught my attention and made me want to engage. It's down to aesthetic.

[Chezza]

Hate is a strong word. I'm just not a fan and don't think it quite deserves the praise as one of the best FPS games as some people claim. But they are well made and multiplayer can be a blast. I do understand why people enjoy it and doesn't deserve any hate.

[Jello]

I think quite a bit of the hate for Halo stems from Microsoft coming out with a console in the first place, and it was their flagship title. I get it, I was around for it, and I personally didn't think a software company should be delving into the console wars with Nintendo, Sony, and Sega. I thought Microsoft should stick to making operating systems, software, and peripherals to go with them. But they did it anyway, because they have plenty of money to throw around. And I remember plenty of people complaining about that as well, they can just throw money at something until it succeeds.

 

And it did. I was certainly dubious of the Xbox when it first came out, and I played a display Xbox with Halo at Software Etc. and I was very underwhelmed. It was the first level, and it felt competent, but it didn't exceed at anything; it felt cookie cutter boring. I had been playing games on both PC and console for a decade at that point, and console FPS games; and I knew that Turok, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, and Medal of Honor had shown that FPS games could be done really well on consoles. And Halo didn't show that to me, because it had no character, it was just "land on the ground, and people already know "Master Chief" and hand you their keys, and then you shoot some weird turtle people, some bird people, and some Skaarj ripoffs."

 

And after playing through Half-Life, Quake 2, and Unreal, Alice, and Serious Sam in the last three years, it didn't really stand out to me. Until I played co-op with a friend that bought an X-Box, and then I understood why it was going to be a phenomenon. And a good portion of that has to do with the dual analog controller, because it was the first time that I played an FPS game on a console and it felt somewhat similar to using a keyboard and a mouse. Yes I know the PS1 had them, and the PS2 had the dualshock, but they never felt quite right. But having a flagship title that specifically showed why your controller was the way games on consoles were going to be played was a tremendous advantage.

 

And having four controller ports designed in helped tremendously. It was an absolute hoot playing co-op and multiplayer. The solo campaign was crap, and I still think it is. I have the Master Chief collection, and I still haven't gotten through Halo 1, 2, or 3. I think Reach is the place where the single player campaign finally peaked, because it is intense and I care about the team; even if it does get extremely melodramatic at points. The level design and combat of 1 is extremely forgettable, and while 2 and 3 expanded on it, they aren't great campaigns.

 

But the one thing that Halo did right was to bring really good controls, smooth co-op on a console, and multiplayer to the masses. So that's when I was converted to thinking it was a really good game. It's absolutely not perfect, and the campaigns are nowhere near as good as most FPS games, but it's a very solid game. I wouldn't place it in my top ten, but it's extremely competent. And then there was just the interactions with friends while you were playing it that you can't replace.

 

"Hey, get on the Warthog gun!" "Alright" "Okay, let's go!" "Why are you driving towards that cliff?" "It's a shortcut!" "You sure?" and then I dive out of the drivers seat while the Warthog goes over the cliff with my friend in the gunners turret. And then I get punched. To be fair, he did it to me too.

[Budoka]

10 hours ago, Koko Ricky said:

This may sound silly or closeminded to some, but I never got around to playing the Halo games because I don't like the art direction. I've never seen a single character, weapon, or environment in any of the games that has caught my attention and made me want to engage. It's down to aesthetic.

I get that, it's the way I feel about Earthbound. Well that, and the mechanics seem overly basic for what they're trying to do. I think Halo's aesthetic is great, however.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

10 hours ago, Koko Ricky said:

This may sound silly or closeminded to some, but I never got around to playing the Halo games because I don't like the art direction. I've never seen a single character, weapon, or environment in any of the games that has caught my attention and made me want to engage. It's down to aesthetic.

It has somewhat of a subtle art direction I suppose. A lot of soft colors are used, and it doesn't stand out in screenshots compared to other games. Actually playing it, it feels different. The aesthetic feels sophisticated and natural, and it's fairly atmospheric at times. The sound design also helps a lot, as does the weightlessness of movement. For a fairly violent FPS, it has a soft touch, which is what makes it unique to me.

[Boaby Kenobi]

On 11/21/2022 at 8:12 PM, Mr. Freeze said:

Back in the day nobody would've given a Halo campaign the time of day! Same with Call of Duty, one of the oldest communal punching bags for well over a decade. 

I bought an Xbox in 2003 just to play Halo. It was incredible and there wasn't really anything like it on console at the time. 

[TasAcri]

I never liked Halo. I always thought it looked boxy and empty. And it irks me how so many people still credit it as the first console FPS with dual analog controls, even though Alien Resurrection on PS1 did it before Halo and Goldeneye did it before both in 1997 (though Goldeneye required two controllers for the dual analog to function).

[Rudolph]

4 hours ago, TasAcri said:

I never liked Halo. I always thought it looked boxy and empty. And it irks me how so many people still credit it as the first console FPS with dual analog controls, even though Alien Resurrection on PS1 did it before Halo and Goldeneye did it before both in 1997 (though Goldeneye required two controllers for the dual analog to function).

History is written by the victors, as they say... or by those backed by Microsoft, who banked on Halo to become their new console's killer app! :P

[Lippeth]

So a few weeks ago a friend of mine bought an XBox series X and convinced me to get Gamepass for pc so we could crossplay some games. I ended up downloading Halo Infinite and played the first few maps of the campaign out of curiosity, and while at first I was annoyed at things like the sentimentality and music, the gameplay is so good that it got me to download the Master Chief Collection to check out the old games. I played through about half of Halo CE and then I downloaded Xemu to emulate CE and you know what? I think I love Halo and I haven't even started 2 or 3. So it was when I got Gamepass when this old school FPS fan turned around on Halo.

[rzh]

When I said "screw it, I already tried Marathon and Myth and loved them, might as well try Halo too" and actually played CE for the first time.

Halo is a good game.

Haven't tried the rest of the franchise (I do plan on playing through all Bungie titles, not the 343 ones).