Second Opinion: Halo Was Never Great. Just Lucky.

This week's episode of Second Opinion does a deep-dive into the many flaws and failures of the original Halo: Combat Evolved.

[derkasan]

I was never a huge fan of Halo, but I see the appeal.

[BiggerBoss]

Halo 3 was great IMO. I never had an OG Xbox, but 3 had a great community and was genuinely fun with friends and split screen. Halo has steadily been getting worse though IMO. Reach was alright, 4s multiplayer was garbage, and 5 had a bootleg-ass story that had nothing to do with what was advertised from Microsoft.

[Profchaos]

The first game earned it's merit unfortunately the series went downhill with s few exceptional levels here and there to overall Mediocrity campaign wise.

Since 2 it's only played for its mp

[jerethdagryphon]

1998 jurrassic park tresspasser released using pistal and long gun 2 weapon combat and had a intrgrated real physic engine. Long before halo

[EatCrow]

Right. How did flailing your arms feel like?

[jerethdagryphon]

Ah yes the immersive control system that needed work but my other points stand still wass a good game

[TheColbertinator]

Reach,1 and 2 are among my all time favorite games. The rest were everything from average to boring.

[bluefox755]

I was never really a big fan, but just assumed it was me, since plenty of other people liked it.

[n1kki6]

Easy to criticize in hindsight. At the time it was revolutionary. The multiple player, FPS on a console, story driven gameplay etc....

[PhoenixUp]

Halo combined elements of previous FPS games, I wouldn't call that revolutionary.

[n1kki6]

Exactly, no other console FPS was able to pull off the perfect mix of ingredients. Halo 1 changed console shooters and how they were developed. I would call that revolutionary.

[PhoenixUp]

That's more evolutionary than revolutionary

[DARK_WOLF]

And the graphics were amazing. There was no shooter on halos level at the time. Not to insult other games but halo 1 deserves credit where its due

[lptmg]

I still think Perfect Dark's multiplayer was more complete with more customization and options at the time, but Halo's maps were huge and the LAN matches were awesome

[TheOttomatic91]

Ouch I'm not a big Halo fan but even I wouldn't agree with that.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I liked Halo, it was THE GAME to own on Xbox (a real console sale pusher), it's the multiplayer aspect that made the game and the Xbox such a big hit. Everything before that was mediocre, thus no one wanted an Xbox before (I remember when everyone used to make fun of Xbox and the people who owned them, funny how the times change).

[lptmg]

Halo did create some uber-annoying trends in FPS games, such as autoheal, but I can't deny, the 2nd one was fantastic, especially for the time

[GamePeace]

Finally someone spoke the truth. Sometimes it takes a good amount of courage to do so, but you really did it boy ...

[spicelicka]

Can't really call it the truth, not does it take courage. You can make this type of comment about any popular game and the controversy will carry the popularity right to the top.

The truth is that Halo exists and rightfully belongs in the gaming hall of game. I'm sorry but your agreement with a minuscule minority does not make it the "truth", unless you believe the majority of the world is crazy for thinking otherwise.

For this one video there are dozens of videos proving why halo is great, ain't that the truth.

[GamePeace]

No, there's a small difference: the are big games that might be slightly overrated and there are big games that are waaay too overrated. Halo belongs to the second category.

[PhoenixUp]

So by extension you're saying the Xbox brand as a whole got lucky with Halo

[Powah1]

Yup and x360 got lucky too.

[Bismarn]

The video maker forgets that before Halo no one had even figured out how to map a FPS correctly to a console controller. Try playing the original TimeSplitters (a PS2 launch title that came out a year before) using the default controls; it's insane. For a year or two after Halo came out in 2001 other console FPS games would include Halo controls as an option, and then within a year or two after that the Halo control scheme (left stick is the WASD, right stick is the mouse) became the de facto standard and remains to this day. Forget story or Master Chief or anything like that, Call of Duty, Overwatch, etc all owe their existence on consoles to Halo because of the controls.

[Powah1]

Glad someone said it.

[spicelicka]

Shouldn't be too glad considering majority of the world thinks otherwise.

[Powah1]

You don't know shit what the 'majority' of the world thinks.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

So I can play devil's advocate, just because the majority thinks it doesn't make it good or true (look at how much mediocre or shit-tier stuff gets popular e.g. pineapple pen or fidget spinners).

I still think Halo is a pretty decent series, especially the early entries.

[3-4-5]

Halo 2,3 & Reach were all amazing games to play...as was the first even if it was a bit limited.

Halo 4 was trash and Halo 5 catered to about 5,000 "Pro" players and the other few million of us were forced to play "their" game and it just wasn't as fun.....It wasn't Halo.

343 just isn't good for Halo and they need to bring in a new developer who actually understands Halo.

They also don't know good map design either.

[EmperorDalek]

So basically you weren't good at Halo 5. There's plenty of fun still to be had in the big team battle/warzone game modes, no need to be a pro for that. The maps were good, so I think that's just you being frustrated with the game rather than bad map design. Lets face it - if only 5000 people liked it, it would have died shortly after release. It still has a good online player base.

Halo 4's campaign was excellent, I don't think an FPS has had a better campaign since it released. Hell even the multiplayer was pretty good, it just strayed too far from Halo to be considered good for a Halo game.

'But it wasn't Halo!" - Halo 5 is Halo 3 with faster movement and traversal... that's it. Halo 4 wasn't much different from reach... It was again, just a bit faster with a bit more polish.

[spicelicka]

LMAOO GTFO "lucky".

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

It was the best game on the original Xbox, until then, the xbox had nothing, so there's no surprise it got popular.

[BeOpenMinded]

I do understand. Half life was a more impressive game by many standards before this. Halo I found was just more fun, I wouldnt say lucky. Now when Morrowind made it to console my mind was truly blown

[EmperorDalek]

It's still pretty good to play, even after 16 years.

[DialgaMarine]

The first one definitely had a lot that made it stand out, but the series overall has long since dried up and lost a lot of its appeal.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I think sequel syndrome is killing the franchise (alot of series have that going on, e.g. Final Fantasy).

[EatCrow]

Let me see...diverse enemies and dynamic ai.
Plenty of different kinds of weapons.
Different kind of enemy found in the campaign halfway through (the flood).
Best lan multiplayer since perfect dark/goldenye.
Co op campaign which has never been to prevalent in games.

No. Game was and still is great.

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I miss lan gaming, why did it have to die (I blame Steam).