And the Halo Killer is… Halo?

Will Powers from TPR writes: "So this really comes down to one thing: When are people going to wake up... rather than just drinking whatever brand of Halo Koolaid that Microsoft tries to market to you next?"

[ubiquitious]

I completely agree with the article - Bungie's innovation mixed with Microsoft's money means those two can do anything. If they keep making gold...I will keep buying it.

Keep up the excellent work guys.

[tplarkin7]

Nobody can buy success. It is earned. This article is bogus conspiracy theory.

[StanLee]

It's a ridiculous article. I can't believe I read the whole thing but I kept waiting for the writer to make a valid argument. Successes speak for themselves and Halo has been both a critical and commercial success.

[Headshot81]

COD MW; as much as i hate saying it, its true and its MULTIPLATFORM. Hopefully BF:BC2 will kick ass.

[Turn 10 Studios]

Halo is like Forza for Racing Sim

It's the best FPS for now

Halo Reach will be better

[UNCyrus]

Best FPS on YOUR console maybe, I am fortunate enough to own all of them, so I have the option to choose what game I call the best

[Shang-Long]

ive never seen anyone with one bubble.. looks strange.

anyways halo has such a huge fan base.. im not a fan but alot of my friends are. and ya they will buy anything with halo..but thats their choice

[DrRobotnik]

I hate when people keep talking about a halo killer. Halo is a franchise now. The only thing that can kill it now is the developers. It's like saying "Here's the next Mario killer" Doesn't quite make sense.Franchises can't be killed from outside threats, only assassinated from the inside buy its own company. i.e. SEGA/Sonic the hedgehog.

...and I bet you can't guess who was on that grassy knoll. HA!HA!HA!
(cough)....but seriously.

[Tex117]

Did you actually read the article?

It said that due to the Microsoft slapping the word Halo on anything they want to sell, it will ultimately lead to a distrust in the quality of the Halo series.

You don't have to agree with the point, but thats the point being made.

[Bot Smasha]

Halo killed itself we didnt need a Halo killer, metacritic score of a wimpy 83 tells you all you need to know about this series.

[GHOSTR3V0LV3R]

You fail to realize 83 is an excellent score.

It's terrible today a 7 becomes known as Meh, an 8 is OK, a 9 is good, and a 10 is excellent.

A 7 should be good, an 8 should be great, a 9 should be excellent, and a 10 should be perfect.

It only makes sense.

[Turn 10 Studios]

PS3 got no game to compete with Halo

It's Very Sad

Maybe they'll get some game 2010 that more than 100000 People buy

[lh_swe]

Halo 3 wasn't Halo or Halo 2, those games rocked. Halo 3 didn't it was too much of the same to entice me.
Uncharted 2 is THE best game I have played this gen, MGS4 is probably the second best game I have played this gen, third goes to Gears or Mass Effect (if we are just talking exclusives). Halo 3 never amounted to the hype, it never was the defining game for this gen, it's just marketing.

[free3sixty]

84 for an expansion pack is extremy GOOD!

Everybody knows that ODST is just an expansion pack i mean its called "Halo 3..... odst"

The only guys who think that ODST is a game itself are POS3 owners, lol!

what was meta for the R&C expansion?? oh wait... lol

[Nathan Drake2]

free3gay
so why does odst cost 60$ like other full games when is just an expension pack?

[reintype]

When so called "Game Reviewers" gave this games free pass, as well as inflated scores. I mean just look at this past mo. how many "HALO ODST Justification Love Letter", have gamers like myself seen? Believe mme, it borders on the absurd. I don't think any other game for that matter, ever had one person write an essay convincing gamers of it's price/value, much less that many.

It only reinforces my belief, that there is really some monkey business happening in our industry.

Being a PS fanboy, as much as I hate MS, I cannot fault them for this, bec. they are here for the business. Even if their Business Strategy/Practice maybe unsavory to some.

Like they say "There's a sucker born every minute", it's up to you to take advantage of them.
Hook a Fish
Train a Sheep
Program a Bot
And believe me, no one does this better than MS, it's their Dogma.

[JonnyBadfinger]

and whats your point?

you aint happy with marketing tactics?....MS just like Sony are money hungry corporations, they dont care about what you like or want. all they want is the money thats in your wallet.

i had thought the world was use to this by now....

I for one will buy every Xbox MS put out and every Halo game thats released..... why you ask? simply because i like MS products and games better than that of Sony. Only a PS3 fanboy would say Im and idiot, but i can live with that because i know at the end of the day they are in debt and im probably the only adult here who ISNT in debt. So i will sleep just fine with my choice in gaming preference.

[divideby0]

they failed with ODST...totally....
even a few budz who are Halo diehards didnt buy it

Halo Reach....we will see

[Perjoss]

games get good reviews for a reason, maybe it didnt get many 100% scores, but it got good reviews form the websites that count. I'm not a big Halo fan and I say its a 9, not a 10 as the engine needs updating to at least 720p and some anti aliasing.

[dragonelite]

Have you seen the sales numbers.
They halo fans knew what they were going to get only the fanboys made a big hassle about it. Like ooh noez its just a expanzionspax.
It delivered what it was promised to deliver i enjoyed it and its was 40 euro well spend.

You guys need to understand that the price microsft and activision said are the value they see in the products and its up the store to decide if they are gonna sell it at ms/Activisions chosen value.

[chrisgay]

Personally I loved ODST, it was only £30 at most retailers in the UK and for that I got an awesome campaign which I've played through 3 times now, firefight which is ace although, no matchmaking was a bit of a letdown and I had held off on Halo 3 DLC maps as I knew they were coming with this. Seriously, its an awesome game- cool art style, great soundtrack, clever storyline. It really doesn't deserve all the bashing.

[Cenobia]

Halo and MW are BRANDS. The pricing has nothing to do with how good Activision or Microsoft think their games are. It has to do with knowing how much people are willing to pay for their established game franchises.

You should be making a hassle about it. If you keep buying whatever companies throw at you they'll just keep raising the prices. I'm sure MS could raise the price of any Halo DLC, but they don't because they KNOW people will b!tch despite the fact that they'll buy it.

MS and the Xbox brand would take a hell of a lot of heat for doing something like that. That's the only reason they don't.

[SoX FireBlade]

Most of the people bought halo 3 odst to get the maps and the recon armor

Even if you downloaded all the DLCs you will gain access to these maps faster than before and if you have another Xbox Live accoutn you won't need to buy them again

[TheMailman]

Fanboys will ever be Fanboys...

All heart and less brains...

[GHOSTR3V0LV3R]

I'm a huge Halo fan, possibly one of the biggest I know. I really dislike Microsoft making Halo their flagship franchise, but in all honesty, I don't think Halo is being milked or oversold...yet. I agree 110% Halo ODST should not have had a $60 price tag, but that sure as hell didn't stop me or 2 million others from buying it. But still, it was a good game. So were the other games. And the novels were great, the comics equally good. In reality, nearly everything Halo has been OK to great. So how is it being milked if everything Halo that has been released has been a good product? Sure, they're selling tons of things Halo, but until something bad comes out, it won't necessarily be overdone in the sense of being "milked." Yes, they're using Halo to sell everything, but if it's good, nobody should really care.

[Ninjamonkey82]

Uncharted 2 just play that single player game threw. Then move on to the MP thats my goty and true halo killer.

[IQUITN4G]

ODST is a quality title though

Shorter than anybody wanted it to be but it's not a rubbish game

My only trouble with Bungie lately is in how long their games have lasted.Fair enough ODST was never going to be huge in one sense but also Halo3's campaign felt short both in it's campaign and some of it's exciting encounters - some of which come to an end just as you're having the time of your life

You can finish some of ODST's missions very quickly at around 15-20 minutes and that's on legendary - clearly this a joke

My worry is that Bungie's games seem to be following this trend of shorter level design and it's not one i'm at all that happy about - it just doesn't cut it and they need to return to the awesome level length and structure of Halo1's glorious design

If Reach falls short then i may just say bollacks to Bungie because although their games are always brilliant for the most, there is always something else to drag it down, be it a lack to a large and satisfying campaign or just silly inclusions like that of the Arbiter - great character mind just the way it his missions broke up Halo2 was in truth badly handled considering that's not at all what people wanted

Truth is Halo1 is still the best overal experience minus the better refinements from all the sequels.I consider Halo3 a more fun combat experience than Halo1 due to this level of refinement polish but so far Bungie has yet to equal the same epic believable quality that was Halo1 - ODST did better though i thought in some respects here

So at the very least if Reach doesn't provide that epic length to the campaign, i'm not sure i'll care as much for the next installment.I'll likely get it but it wont be the same love afair

I play Halo3 campaign regularly and it remains my fave 360 game, but even though,i honestly think Reach could be my last chance for Bungie

[EVILDEAD360]

LMAO @ one game for the Halo fans EATING these Halo hates alive.

As I've been predicting all year Halo:ODST is by far the biggest exclusive of the year. All the huffing, puffing, whining, jumping up and down from fan blogs like this have and will do absolutely nothing to change the bottomline.

The game is for fans, who unlike this idiot, actually play and love Halo games. The fans answered the call regardless of clear attempts to hurt the franchise from Metacritic by letting fake review sites try drag the score down.

In the end, the big sites that mattered gave the scores that the game deserved. Every actual Halo fan that I know who have played and still play the game are playing Firefight for hours and are now reaching back into the MP level that they never played. In fact, Halo:ODST reunited old and new halo fans back into the already robust community.
You don't have to believe me, Bungie stats and Halo Waypoint will prove it when it drops

What the idiotic blogger will never understand is that Microsoft marketing has nothing to do with the fact that 1 million+ fans come back to play Halo everyday.

So when Halo;Reach drops and fans come out and help it crush every sales record in the book, these irrelevant Halo haters can sit in a dark room and catch carpo tunnel writing to fans that don't exist.

Evil

[GHOSTR3V0LV3R]

I have lol'd.

Your last line is QFT.

[Unicron]

"clear attempts to hurt the franchise from Metacritic"

And they say PS3 fanboys are delusional... hah.

[EVILDEAD360]

'And they say PS3 fanboys are delusional'

LMAO! Nope your the only one who said it. See I can cut a sentence to make my point too.

Nice try though

[lurkurgus]

This is not news.

[STICKzophrenic]

Dude is a retard.

"The next point of contention of course is Halo 3: ODST. This was originally slated to be downloadedable content for the megaseller, Halo 3. However one could only assume that Microsoft needed another big First-Party exclusive title for this year, so they decided to change it into a fullfledged game. That’s fine, but in this transition, somehow the content didn’t mirror the change in packaging. Translation: The content is still that of a $19.99 download, yet retailers are charging a premium of $59.99. Despite all of this, the game still managed to move 2.2 million units on the first day of sales. But who came out on top in all of this? Don’t get me wrong, ODST is a really fun game and I enjoyed playing through the 5 hour long campaign..."

First, it's 'downloadable,' not 'downloadedable.' Second, it was never ever planned to be DLC. It was always stated to be a STAND ALONE EXPANSION. Third, a price of $19.99 was never announced. Bungie stated they didn't view it as a full priced package. At that point it was only supposed to be a campaign, and then they added FireFight.

Some people may not think it's worth $60, however, I'm not one of those people. I've already played the game a lot and feel like I've already got my money's worth. Value is in the hands of the player.

[Another One]

Agreed wholeheartedly.

And on top of that, the whole Halo Wars commercial deception was ridiculous. Everyone who had any intention on buying the game should know what it is. Sure, maybe it sold well because it's Halo, but those who bought it knew what kind of game it was. If they didn't know, that's their own fault, not MS or the commercial. You can't blame a commercial on someone being a moron and not doing their own research.

Terrible article.

[STICKzophrenic]

To add to your point about Halo Wars...it was also one of the most downloaded demos on the Marketplace. I'm sure a lot of those turned into purchases, because I'm one of them. I saw a few videos and didn't think much of it, and then came the demo and convinced me to buy it. I played the game a good amount as well and it's a really fun game and easily accessible, a lot more than RTS games for the hardcore RTS fan.

[twintipskis34]

1.5 -
"no games you like have topped halo thats why you mad "

hahaha this is SOOOO true. ;) hate on halo all you want, hell...even call it gaylo if you so please. BUT the truth is that Halo is an absolute blast, and wouldn't be the #1 online played game 2 years after it came out if it wasn't. So...if you suck at halo dont hate on yourself, maybe when another competitive shooter (exclusive to ps3) can compete with halo's online multiplayer then you can talk.