Xinen wrote:
Halo is indeed overhyped I'd say,but not overrated.It helped usher in the mainstream FPS on consoles and helped rejuvinate a stagnating genre.Half-Life was my baby,played it to DEATH & all its mods.Games started aping it like crazy and occasionally a few found those specialty features,like Red Factions destruction.
Halo is notable for being so large with a HUGE feature being co-op & stellar multiplayer.And it looked and sounded great for the time(imho it still does),and best of all all one needed was an Xbox,not a suped up gaming rig.The production values were also great,and the whole experience clean and seamless.Another fantastic element that subsequent Halo games lost was that open-ended gameplay.Being able to assault an enemy base anyway you wanted was awesome.I'd take the snipe,my friends would drop me off up on a hill and they'd go berzerk in the warthog running through the base.
As good as other FPS are now,there is no denying what Halo has done for gaming,including better production values,focus on story(a novelty for a FPS or action games in general),excellent multiplayer,ingame loading,console/pc friendly design,regenerating health etc.Hell,even Crysis is coming to consoles,and as good as Half-Life 2 is,I personally enjoyed Halo 2 & Call of Duty 1+2 more,and does 4 even need mentioning.They are all more tightly focused intense moments of games that have come prior in some way shape or form.So sure,its overhyped anytime a new game comes out,but they are damn fine games with alot of afterlife once the main game is finnished.
Stylistically its ripping off Starship Troopers something awful,and gunplay/handling soundeffects vary in preference from preson to person,I honestly am not a fanboy.But I respect it and give it a chance.In fact I'll be playing this new one when I go home to visit my sister for her wedding,hotseat multiplayer FTW.
Halo was the very first FPS I ever played when I was just 8 years old back in 2001, and set the standard for every for me FPS since. To this day, nothing tops the original Halo in terms of style and open-endedness. It's a shame that open-endedness is now gone from the games, but Halo 2 and 3 both had some very big battles.
The Flood has always sucked though. Just saying.