Halo - The Hate And The Hypocrisy

NextGN writes: "It's a controversial topic but one that needs some discussion. When Halo: Combat Evolved was released for the Original Xbox it blew many gamer's minds. It was one of the few games that had managed to match the caliber of Rare's Golden Eye for the Nintendo 64. The game quickly won people's heart over with it's successful combination of two player split-screen first person combat and vehicular mayhem. The game was praised for the amazing feats it had accomplished - but then something changed. The Halo series is now, ironically, both the most hated and most loved first person shooter game series of all time."

[BrownRanger]

It is one of the greatest first person shooters out simple because of it's diversity and community support. It's also a game that strongly discourages camping and I am all for that. Good read.

[SodoBot]

... but still just another FPS.

[FiLTHY ESKiMO]

... just another great FPS. :)

[elmaton98]

Yeah just another fps, remember halo was a great game and not anymore since bungie left m$. We Americans love fps and nothing more ( me, on the other hand, comes come from fps to racing thanks to GT5)

[-Alpha]

@elmaton

We don't know that. Bungie left, but some of their devs did stay. The next Halo game could be great, they are definitely looking to refresh the franchise from the latest news I've been reading.

Give them a chance, we will see what happens

[HDgamer]

Still waiting for Peter Jacksons Halo, that's supposed to be the new fresh breath of air. I honestly think it'll be a reboot but only in his vision.

[SaberEdge]

It's simple, really. Whenever something becomes successful there are always some people that jump on the bandwaggon of hating that thing because they think it makes them trendy or cool to go against the grain. It's really born of insecurity and a desire to feel above others.

[Dac2u]

Or it's simply because some of us have been playing better FPS games since Doom. Quake, Unreal, Half Life, Counter Strike and others all did everything before Halo. Halo is just a "run of the mill" fps. It's decent, but did nothing to push any boundaries. Hell, PS2 had online play a year earlier with SOCOM, not that it was any good, but it at least had online multiplayer.

[Skip_Bayless]

Halo 1 deserves the following because it brought shooters to consoles and graphically it was above all at the time. And the levels were huge at the time.

Now Halo 3 and Halo Reach are pretty mediocre compared to other shooters. The competition is much stiffer. I can easiley name a handful of shooters that do things better than Halo. But then somehow those games score lower in terms of review scores. Halo 3 and Halo Reach don't really do anything different but score between 9s and 10s, but then you give something a Medal of Honor a 7. That is a huge disparity.

The "hate" doesn't come from jealousy, but it's comes from people like me who don't think Halo 3 or Halo Reach deserve the sales or the ratings it gets. Certain franchises get away with the same rehash games such as Halo and Mario. No one dares giving these games less than a 8.5 pretty much. However games like Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, and Resident Evil they get lower ratings for doing the same rehash stuff. This is likea double standard and people like me find it annoying.

[heroprotagonist]

I would love to see these shooters that are supposed to be so much better than Halo. I've played them all and most of the ones people mention are really quite mediocre in my view. Unbalanced messes...many of them. If you really play competitively at the level I do I think people would understand how finely tuned and balanced Halo is.

[TROLL EATER]

HALI IS FPS. the others are saturating it

[Skip_Bayless]

I said DO THINGS BETTER and not IS BETTER. Halo 3 and Halo Reach lose easily in the graphics department to basically every shooter. That's just a fact right there. Because what you see on the screen is evidence.

Another fact many, shooters allow more than 16 players. Also Halo performs/designed best on only 4-8 players.

The game doesn't deserve above a 9.

[Seferoth75]

"Halo 1 deserves the following because it brought shooters to consoles" LOL it sure did bring FPS to consoles. If you are too young to have been around for the 10 or so that came before it. Wolfenstein, Doom. Golden Eye... Yeah those werent out years before Halo...

Always amusing when someone who knows nothing about gaming tries to tell others how things work.

[bananlol]

Wow seferoth, you made a comment where you didnt hate on sony, and one i agree with on top of that. Have a bubble.

[Anon1974]

OK. I love Halo. I do. But let's not blow this out of proportion. Halo and Goldeneye were good shooters - for a console, but at the time they paled to the shooters that were being played on the PC like Unreal, Quake 2, Dark Forces II. When Halo came out, PC gamers looked up briefly from counter strike, said "Meh," and went back to playing. They were good shooters considering they were on consoles, but the idea that Halo was "praised for the amazing feats it had accomplished" is some revisionist history going on. It did great for a console shooter - and I loved the hell out of it and still remain a Halo fan, but let's not get carried away.

[SaberEdge]

Oh darkride66, it's ok. I know you can't help dowplaying anything that is on the Xbox--it's basically a built-in reaction with you. But please, just go read the reviews for Halo Combat Evolved and try to tell me that it wasn't praised that way.

Personally, I think it is you who is overexaggerating how good those PC shooters were. Their mechanics might have been more precise on a certain level, but their narratives and overall atmosphere were much inferior in my opinion. Besides, most console gamers weren't playing those games and therefor Halo was being compared to other similar experience on console, not to PC games.

[Nicaragua]

If you think PC games have poor narrative then you should check out Half Life - it pisses all over Halo CE and all its sequels for narrative and atmosphere.

It was out 3 years earlier than Halo too.

[madpuppy]

only a clown would consider Half Life a lesser game than Halo CE. as for Halo CE, True it was and is a great game....on the console. It showed (like goldeneye before it) that a properly made FPS for a console could be done. Trying to say it is somehow leaps and bounds better and more innovative than PC FPS games is just stupid. All the innovation that the consoles enjoy with FPS have been done on the PC first.
give credit where credit is due.

If you disagree, man up and prove why I am wrong.

[Lich120]

It bugged the hell outta me when friends were talking about halo 2 being incredible because you could play it online. This was what, 2004? Regardless, I do like the Halo series but like darkride said. Lets not get carried away with what it actually did. To me, the most innovative part of Halo:CE had nothing to do with the multiplayer but rather with the top notch AI it had for the time.

[DARK WITNESS]

thank you....

it supprises me that few people really appreciated halo for that fact.

There were and are many reasons I love halo CE and i still like it a lot more then Reach or halo 3.

Watching the AI flood vs the covenant was something I never got tired off because you never new how it would turn out.

I also liked the way you had the hierarchy of enemies. when you saw a group of grunts and an elite they fought in a certain way, if you took out the elite first, it changed the way the others would fight.

and how about those Black Elite on the last level on legendary.

I have no such memories of 3 or Reach, but HaloCE. Call me a fan or whatever, yes I have played unreal and all the others, but personally ( it's just my personal taste ) I will take halo over them any day.

it does make me said that people forget this.

[JUDALATION]

This "PS3 Fanboy HATE" Is all B.S... Reach is a great game but for people who are new to the series it is not as fun as other shooters... It is unlike any other shooter out there and so... it takes alot of getting used to.. What is really sad is that the PS3 has more FPS than the 360 and Honestly Halo is not the console seller it once was... if Reach and Gears are all you have go go against Killzone, resistance, MAG, uncharted, socom, and Warhawk to name a few plus non fps... you are in deep trouble... trust me no PS3 gamers are envying Xbox and their thin lineup of games right now... I hope xbox can make it more of a competition cuz they have pushed fps alot in the past.

[kaveti6616]

I will bet hard-earned money that Halo Reach will be a better-supported title than other console shooters. It just is a better supported game. For those people who love Reach, that is what makes Reach stand out amongst the others.

And yeah, I'm talking specifically about consoles. If you bring PC into the convo, Halo falls behind CounterStrike, Battlefield 2, and a host of other great shooters.

But on consoles, I still believe that Halo is as of right now the unmatched shooter in terms of balanced gameplay and support

[Kitchen_Sink]

Who knows. Halo: Reach could win GoTY this year. Only time will tell.

[KillerCucumber]

As good as Halo may be it wont get GoTY. That belongs to ME2! :D

[PlayerX]

Or Mario Galaxy 2. Highest rated game this year.

[gaden_malak]

I think RDR will take GOTY

[maxcer]

gadenmalak is right RDR will get GOTY

[SaberEdge]

I think any of those games could be awarded GOTY at certain sites or magazines. It's not like there is just one GOTY. In fact, when you get right down to it, each one of us has our own GOTY.

[units]

halo = quality

[SuggestionBoy]

I concur. I think this article is going to start a war. :)

[Silly gameAr]

Won't start a "war" unless you want one to start, and @LBHalo. I believe PS3 fanboys hate Halo for the same reason 360 fanboys hate any PS3 exclusive.

It's not on their console.

Childish reason, but true none the less.

[SaberEdge]

I don't know why people are like that. I can love both Uncharted 2 and Halo Reach without experiencing any kind of internal cognitive disonnance or unrest.

[FiLTHY ESKiMO]

Bungie know what they are doing. PlayStation 3 gamers should be happy that they are no longer exclusively working for Microsoft. They should be excited!

[BYE]

I'm glad though that they can't do anything related to Halo anymore.

If I wanted Halo i would have gotten a 360 in the first place :)

[chidori soukou]

halo = milked.

[FiLTHY ESKiMO]

Hi, there. I respect your opinion but couldn't you really say that about every game? We have:

Halo: Combat Evolved
Halo 2
Halo 3
Halo Wars
Halo 3: ODST
Halo: Reach

Call of Duty
Call of Duty 2
Call of Duty 3
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty: World at War
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty: Black Ops

Gran Turismo 1
Gran Turismo 2
Gran Turismo 3
Gran Turismo 4
Gran Turismo 5

I mean the list goes on. We forget when these franchises started. They are old and therefor there are a lot of games. However, there is one franchise that I think has been raped beyond belief - Guitar Hero. YUCK!

[Eiffel]

Halo: Combat Evolved - November 15, 2001

Halo 2 - November 9, 2004

Halo 3 - September 25, 2007

Halo Wars(Ensemble) - February 26, 2009

Halo 3: ODST -September 24, 2009

Halo Reach: September 14, 2010

Six games in a span of nine years, that's not milked. It's not even a yearly franchise.

[-Alpha]

The Halo name is milked. The thing is that people associate milked with poor quality, and that's not true always.

Halo is a brand name that can be put on anything. That is why it milked. It's like the Simpsons. Slap Homer on a shirt and the brand power sells it.

This however isn't a bad thing. It can be when you start riding on the name alone for your games, but Bungie doesn't do that.

I find though that when you have a big brand name fans love the stuff you can buy with that brand name.

[NnT3291]

By your logic, almost every franchise is milked. We've had God of war 1,2,3 Chain of Olympus, Ghost of Sparta since 2005. Thats 5 games in 5 years.

[maxcer]

you want to see what milking really is?

Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero II
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Guitar Hero World Tour
Guitar Hero 5
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
Guitar Hero: Metallica
Guitar Hero Smash Hits
Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Guitar Hero: On Tour
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits
Band Hero
DJ hero1
DJ Hero2
Guitar Hero Carabiner
Guitar Hero Arcade
Guitar Hero (iOS)
Guitar Hero III Mobile
Guitar Hero III Backstage Pass
Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile
Guitar Hero 5 Mobile

[allyc4t]

Good read.

[gypsygib]

I don't hate Halo, I've purchased every game (except Halo Wars), but I find the MP very boring. After a week of playing Reach's MP I went back to battlefield and just found it way more exciting - I guess I'm just a fan of the CODs, BFBC and Killzone (military/future military shooters)

[rezzah]

Maybe thats not the reason for you, perhape you just just enjoy the war like battles and feeling found in the single player modes. MP cannot recreate that feeling of pure epicness when fighting alongside your allies. For some reason it feels empty. Im not bashing MP though because I do enjoy it but I prefer Single over MP for the story.

Personally I think you may enjoy Star War BattleFront 1,2, and 3 (whenever they decide to make it >.>)becasue those games replay wars that were fought. Only difference is that your fighting in a huge battlefeild with giant ships and vehicles around you.

[ceballos77mx]

because its xbox heavy hitter like GT is sonys and sharing the hate. Stopped buying them at halo2 rented 3 and i enjoyed them good games.

[Convas]

Let them hate, who cares. I play Halo cuz I want to play Halo. You play whatever the hell you like, and I'll be damned if them not liking a particular game upsets me.

See, people hate Halo because it's done something that very few other franchises have. It's fun, it's popular, it's deep, and it's made by one of the most Community-centric Developers in the industry.

This quote is one of the best I have seen in an article.

"The console-war pitted gamers against each other for the most illogical reasons. Who cares what console you play what game on? The smart gamer would buy both consoles so that he or she could truly enjoy the awesome line-up of current gen games. Those who are less fortunate and can’t afford both consoles still should not take it out on the game – they should respect that others enjoy the game and appreciate the games that they can play on their console – and we all know both consoles have a huge variety of great exclusive games."

[NnT3291]

LoL that's El Presador in the pic, this guy has made fun of Xbox and Halo for that past few years. Now all he plays is Black Ops and Reach, on XBox 360 lol.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I remember when I was introduced to Halo on my friend's Xbox. I had heard all the hype, but since I didn't have a box, I had no experience with the game. When I played it, it was with a group of us at his house. I think they had all played it before, and since they were all having such a great time, I didn't want to be the black sheep in the room, but the game immediately reminded me of Unreal Tournament, which I previously did have a lot of experience with, so I didn't really 'get it' with Halo. I didn't understand the hype, even years later. Is it because it's for the most part, a console exclusive? The disconnect between PC gamers and console gamers is obvious, so does Halo just represent 'that' game that console gamers otherwise wouldn't have experienced or no? What is it?

[Chnswdchldrn]

I hate halo, not because I'm a ps3 "fan" and not because I'm a PC "fan"

I hate it because I played all of them and they are all fucking terrible

notice the lack of jealousy involved in that statement ladies and gentlemen, halo is a terrible game. all there is to it.

actually, halo 1 was the shit when I played it for PC. the online multiplayer made it fuckin awesome, but the other halos since then have been shit

[ceballos77mx]

$hit i tought that was fred durst

[Mr Tretton]

haha, I thought it was at first too.

[Lizam]

I really like this article.
The gaming community would be so much more better if they shared similar views to this author (and I'm not talking about his opinion on Halo, but how we treat games and their franchises on various consoles in general)

[LordMarius]

I like Halo: Reach except for the multiplayer maps, awful they are

[JonnyBigBoss]

Great games, but I just never got into them.

[MysticStrummer]

Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

[xtremeimport]

i really dont like Halo Reach.

loved it for the first week or soo, but just dont find myself having fun when i play it. soo i am back to playing Halo3 when i want my Halo fix.

[xtremeimport]

im glad people can disagree with my feelings towards a game.
lol

[DaBadGuy]

I love Halo the online is great, the campaigns are....very hit and miss, but I always have fun with the games.

It's always good fun there's no camping or killstreaks or noob tubing BS the balance in the games is even.

It all depends on the player and the teams.

[rattletop]

Ahhh people. that's el presador lol

[d3nworth1]

I can understand why they believe ps3 owner are jealousy but there are many xbox owners who also hate halo. I heard straight from their mouth.

[Veneficus]

lol @ "both consoles". There are three consoles, and they do indeed all have their great exclusives. :)

[Veneficus]

Two disagrees? Those people should learn2videogameknowledge. It is power.

[InvaderZim]

I never understand all the Halo hate. It's like hating a game for being great. Makes no sense to me. Especially considering that Bungie are among the best devs out there. I'm not a fanboy. In fact, I don't even own a 360. I just recognize epicness when it slaps me across the face. Peace and gaming.

[ultramoot]

The guy in the pic looks like Fred Durst. LOL!

[Halo3 MLG Pro]

The #1 FPS franchise on any console that does something different than your typical war shooter. Halo brings in creativity and intelligence. It's the most competitive shooter on the market today. Only the hardcore play and excel in it. MLG is the premiere gaming league and Halo is the premiere game. COD comes in a close second. Halo Reach is still number 1. The hate comes from the other side that so desperately wants a "Halo Killer" Killzone and Resistance both tried but failed miserably.

I can see a lot of sony fanboys on here still pissed about the reviews of GT5. Here's a difference between both big guns. Halo 3 and Halo Reach met and exceeded the hype while GT5 failed to deliver.

[FragMnTagM]

It's called camaraderie. There is really not too many FPS's that allow you to play four players on one console, and then on top of that, go online. It is the perfect game for a group of teenage guys, or even adults to sit down, crack a beer and have fun.

Any other game, you have to wait turns, which gets boring fast and people lose interest. Who wants to sit there and watch someone else play a game?

If you had two friends with a XBOX, two TV's and two copies of the game.... you could play 8 players, sans the online. 16 players with four consoles. GREAT FEATURE.

I think these are the biggest reasons, at least for me that Halo is so popular.

That, and the fact that the game is very very balanced. Power weapons are not overly powerful. I have taken out many snipers and rocketeers with only a pistol, needler, a grenade and so on.

In other shooters, say COD. An unskilled gamer could toss a random grenade, get lucky with a triple kill, have hardline pro on and get to a chopper gunner and rape, even though they suck. And if you are getting spawn camped by it, it is not easy to take out.

Also, if someone surprises you in Halo, you usually have enough time to kill a camper, if you are good. In COD, or other games, it is usually a camper that kills you. That rarely happens in Halo for me.

Just for the record, I don't hate COD, I just prefer Halo. Also, I have been playing COD non-stop since it came out and haven't even touched Halo Reach. I am waiting for the new maps to come out and I will be going between the two games for a while.

This is what a GAMER thinks. :)