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What made Halo such a huge success?
- Thread starter Gamezone
- Start date
nkarafo
Member
For online multiplayer maybe. For single player it had some advancements but also some regressions compared to console FPSes of the past.
DarthWalden
Banned
Like what?
Davey Cakes
Member
I know that, personally, I didn't think it was particularly fun back in 2001. The single player at least.
It wasn't until 2007 that I enjoyed Halo and even then it was purely Halo 3's online.
It wasn't until 2007 that I enjoyed Halo and even then it was purely Halo 3's online.
I'd be lying if I gave some non sensical bs about it doesn't matter to have steering assists but I love racing games.
If it's competition of any type in racing no I don't think you should have an assist, I'm like that in general on many genres when the issue crops up. If it's casual than by all means let users do as they please when they get the chance. I'm not that much of snob to start telling people they can only enjoy games from a certain perspective.
Brolic Gaoler
formerly Alienshogun
It was the first console FPS to play well. It refined the controls for FPS. It was revolutionary at the time. That and ar charging shield paved the way for console fps.
Yea, I'm aware of how it's generally used, I just don't think that the term itself is inherently negative, even if that's the intent of many people saying it. "Old-fashioned" is the same. It pretty much just means something's old. Whether that's a bad thing or not, is up the individual. In this case I agree that the individual is using it wrongly, as there's been very little progress from Halo CE to today. Its design fundamentals are still very much relevant.
Yea, that fair, as long as you're saying that kb&m players would kill joypad players, and not that Counter Strike is better because of that.
I don't believe there was a period of time where kb&m players couldn't play on the Dreamcast servers though... I may be misremembering, but I feel like I was online day 1 on it, and there kb&m players on there. It was only the PC players that arrived later with their nasty 125fps allowing them to skip areas of the map to grab the damn megahealth...
Preach. I remember 2001 pretty clearly, and despite what some will tell you, there weren't single-player first person shooters on PC that offered what Halo did.
AI was smarter than FPS players were used to at the time.
Large scale battles with vehicles were uncharted territory.
Typical FPS progression and level design were ignored.
Melee and grenade use were as important as shooting.
Inventory management actually mattered.
Recharging shield hadn't been done in this way before.
It isn't perfect but it did a lot well and did a lot of new things.
Large scale battles with vehicles were uncharted territory.
Typical FPS progression and level design were ignored.
Melee and grenade use were as important as shooting.
Inventory management actually mattered.
Recharging shield hadn't been done in this way before.
It isn't perfect but it did a lot well and did a lot of new things.
It was practically revolutionary for a console FPS.
nkarafo
Member
Dull level design.
Too simplistic and linear when many successful past FPS games were more complex in a good way.
Seems there is no difference where you hit an enemy (either head or legs) or its so subtle that it makes no difference. Hitting a huge bullet sponge is one of the most archaic design choices in the genre.
Good controls, good AI (at harder levels) and vehicles are pretty much the only thing the game had for it IMO. And the regenerating shield paved the way for all those casual shooters we have today (even though it made sense in a Sci-Fi game like Halo).
I know this has been mentioned already but no other FPS game, on consoles, had the same tight controls, gunplay, level design (silent cartographer) and enemy AI as Halo. Goldeneye handled like a tank and Timesplitters was kind of bland.
Halo 1 didn't have online.
And split screen multiplayer wasn't new.
I remember Halo 1 having a huge ad campaign - I don't recall a game with that many ads aside from maybe GTA3. In fact, I'm pretty sure the ad campaign for Halo 1 was larger than the GameCube and PS2 launches combined.
veloxStrix
Banned
I love how a lot of the arguments about Halo in this thread are the same arguments against it when it came out.
Even back then, people kept saying that the PC had these masterful FPS games the likes of which no console had or will ever see. I played a lot of PC games. The only game that really compares to Halo was Half Life 2. I think people have a lot of nostalgia for GoldenEye and Timesplitters 2.
I'm going to let the "dull level design" fall as an opinion.
Halo 1 was about as linear as Half Life. Half Life is widely regarded as the greatest PC shooter of it's era, only beaten by it's successor. A lot of maps allowed different paths of progression. The second map is effectively a huge sandbox to run around in.
"No difference where you hit an enemy" makes me think you haven't even played Halo. Grunts, jackals, and non-shielded Elites died in one headshot. Hunters could be one-shotted from the back. Jackals had shields you had to avoid. You could blow the limbs off the flood. What game are you talking about again?
Halo was the first game to do regenerating health well. The longer time to kills made each fight a measure of skill rather than CS-esque popping around corners to maintain health totals (not saying that doesn't require skill, just a very different kind. Obviously CS is one of the most complex and punishing FPSs that exist.).
Even back then, people kept saying that the PC had these masterful FPS games the likes of which no console had or will ever see. I played a lot of PC games. The only game that really compares to Halo was Half Life 2. I think people have a lot of nostalgia for GoldenEye and Timesplitters 2.
I'm going to let the "dull level design" fall as an opinion.
Halo 1 was about as linear as Half Life. Half Life is widely regarded as the greatest PC shooter of it's era, only beaten by it's successor. A lot of maps allowed different paths of progression. The second map is effectively a huge sandbox to run around in.
"No difference where you hit an enemy" makes me think you haven't even played Halo. Grunts, jackals, and non-shielded Elites died in one headshot. Hunters could be one-shotted from the back. Jackals had shields you had to avoid. You could blow the limbs off the flood. What game are you talking about again?
Halo was the first game to do regenerating health well. The longer time to kills made each fight a measure of skill rather than CS-esque popping around corners to maintain health totals (not saying that doesn't require skill, just a very different kind. Obviously CS is one of the most complex and punishing FPSs that exist.).
It was also interesting that the PC version wasn't received as well. PC gamers at the time cited it as proof Halo was overrated and didn't hold up compared to PC shooters. But I personally feel that it was because the game was designed around a controller. It didn't feel as nice on a mouse and keyboard.
I guess this is basically just a subjective view then really. I found Halo's set pieces to be far more interesting than those of any other FPS I'd played up to that point. Like, it really wasn't any sort of contest. And stepping out onto to Halo ring for the first time has very few peers in gaming as a whole imo, let alone in FPS games. Halo's setting and atmosphere (especially with that music) are some of its strongest assets, and are intriguing enough to carry the series is various other forms of media too. I don't really think Half-Life (or GoldenEye) compares very well here at all.
This is actually just incredibly wrong. They even created a specific enemy type to take advantage of this.
Zvonimir Boban
Banned
I think you're being harsh by telling racing fans they should be screwed if they don't buy a racing wheel with pedals and a clutch but as long as you're being consistent.
That doesn't apply to Halo though, everyone on the Xbox used a joypad to play it. There was no question of KB&M users so no matter whether there was aim assist or not everybody was on a totally level playing field and that's the most important part of any competitive game.
Nobody won a round of Halo because aim assist took precedence over skill.
SeventhSon
Member
I suppose it really is real.
I was about to bring up the Seinfeld Effect.
Before the accessories came out and they didn't come out at once. I had to wait to get my keyboard when I had a mouse couple weeks. I bought Q3 dc at launch and in the us getting both at once was a pain due to availability.
The game died in slight stages. Basic players coming in that could use KB&M that didn't do much but once pc players got the patch that let them come in and then had configs or systems that went well above what the dc could do it was all over.
diffusionx
Gold Member
As someone who was playing a lot of Counterstrike at the time... Halo was better than other SP FPS games at the time. If it came out on PC in the exact form it was on Xbox at launch in 2000 it would have been just as lauded. It's just a really great FPS. I don't see why this is a big deal - Halo was such a huge success because it was *great*.
I mean, you compare Goldeneye 007 to its contemporaries on PC (games like Jedi Knight) and it's a joke. Goldeneye was a fun single screen MP game and good for N64 but that's about it.
Reach was the best in the series. Fact.
nkarafo
Member
What was that enemy? You don't mean the one with the shield that has a convenient gap to shoot through. That's what i remember, it's been a long time since i played the game. Half of it actually as i was bored and didn't have the will to go through the whole thing so i maybe missed things.
Natureboy99
Banned
I always thought it was because it was one of the first easy to set up LAN party games.
I don't think you're screwed using a pad necessarily, certainly not in some of the racing I've loved like gt, trackmania, or daytona usa. I don't think you should get assist and be allowed to think you're at the same level as someone without it, that as far as I go with that thinking.
No people on xbox didn't have to use a joypad to play I'm one of the few gaffers here who knows how to get devices or splice wires to let me use a kb&m on just about anything. That generation was the first generation such devices started appearing and going light mainstream. They are banned at tournies but I had no trouble rolling amongst various groups of friends with my setup and finding a spot to play.
Aim assist makes various aspects of aiming easier. So in effect yes it does help anyone and everyone aim better, but keep telling yourself that I prefer reality. The reason I hate it is cause when I use one of the devices I mentioned especially any decent version of xim to exist it makes my advantage as KB&M user even worse.
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Always-honest
Banned
Kids in 2001?
(I don't know.. I started olaying Halo when Halo 3 came out. Great multiplayer, mediocre single player imo)
(I don't know.. I started olaying Halo when Halo 3 came out. Great multiplayer, mediocre single player imo)
Mr. Giggles
Member
Brolic Gaoler
formerly Alienshogun
Reach was the best campaign, followed by ODST, then Halo 3.
TS2 also played like shit and controlled even worse.
You really don't sound familiar with the game at all. Aside from the obvious animation/damage reactions for body vs headshots (and the rock-paper-scissors dynamics of energy vs bullet weapons with shields and health), the Lekgolo were armored aside from the neck and spine, the Jackals had a gauntlet shield that blocked shots from the front except for the clip-gap, the grunts' breathing apparatus blocked headshots from the back, and the flood could have limbs shot off to prevent attacks. The melee system allowed stealth and one-hit kills on basically every enemy type. I don't think it's a matter of opinion claiming that the enemies are bullet sponges, because it's manifestly not the case.
The outdoor vehicle battles, including ground-to-air and vice-versa, were pretty darned novel.
DarthWalden
Banned
You are really reaching here...
I'll chalk up dull level design to being your opinion (which I think is wrong... The first half of Halo CE has some incredible level design IMO, polygon wrote a whole article outlining why truth and reconciliation is one of the best designed levels of all time).
However give me a game that released around or before halo that was less linear and simplistic.
The third portion makes me wonder if you even played halo. The enemy design was brilliant and a huge part of that was the strengths and weaknesses of the enemies based on where you shoot them... Were you hoping for a silly animations of them grabbing there toe?
Zvonimir Boban
Banned
Lies!
Hmm I guess that makes sense. I bought an import copy (I'm in the UK), so there may have been a delay on when I started.
Hunters were the huge tank-like enemies, that were a nightmare to drop. Unless of course you manage to shoot through the gap in their armor... in which case a single pistol bullet will do. Similarly shooting Grunts in the back is a good way to waste ammo, as they have that shell-like armor plating. And when you have a sniper-rifle and are aiming at an Elite, you're certainly not aiming to hit his arm.
Where you shoot the enemy is more important than it is in GoldenEye if anything. Both have instant death headshots, but Halo has various other meaningful variations, where nearly anywhere on the body in GE produces a similar stun effect (just with a different animation).. with I guess the exception being shooting a weapon out of an enemy's hand.
nkarafo
Member
The third point i guess i was wrong. I didn't play the whole game because it bored me and maybe i didn't saw all the enemies neither i felt this feature at all. Except that enemy with the gap on it's shield. I also remember those silly little aliens looking like alien smurfs or something like that and i remember myself wondering if they are serious or it's some kind of satire (but that's a different issue).
Second part is easy, there were plenty of more complex games with more complex level designs/exploration. From Wolfenstein 3D/Doom up to Quake 1 to Turok and Goldeneye/PD that had levels you had to explore.
First part is probably just my opinion so i guess it doesn't matter.
I think that was in Perfect Dark not Goldeneye. But i stand corrected about this matter.
veloxStrix
Banned
I think this thread shows why Halo was one of the greatest FPS of it's time.
Bring Halo up and a dozen different members of GAF can tell you which games did things before Halo did them. But there is no game that combines all these elements in a way that Halo did. The game felt complete. Yeah, you can compare it to GoldenEye and Timesplitters, but those games were full of bugs and played very loose. You can blame the success of the Halo franchise on the introduction of matchmaking in later games, but I doubt that GoldenEye or (especially) TimeSplitters would have ever had such a large competitive scene. The biggest argument against Halo seems to be that it didn't come out on PC, honestly.
We often forget that MLG and Halo were a huge launching pad for games as a serious competition. Yes, like the arguments against Halo, there were other leagues and other games (Starcraft and Warcraft 3 being the largest), but Halo was a game changer.
And what are my claims to back it up? I don't really have to. The sales, critical reception, and lasting impressions the game left on the community are more than any other FPS (besides maybe Half Life) at the time. I suppose you can chalk it up to marketing, but that's really just a cop out.
Bring Halo up and a dozen different members of GAF can tell you which games did things before Halo did them. But there is no game that combines all these elements in a way that Halo did. The game felt complete. Yeah, you can compare it to GoldenEye and Timesplitters, but those games were full of bugs and played very loose. You can blame the success of the Halo franchise on the introduction of matchmaking in later games, but I doubt that GoldenEye or (especially) TimeSplitters would have ever had such a large competitive scene. The biggest argument against Halo seems to be that it didn't come out on PC, honestly.
We often forget that MLG and Halo were a huge launching pad for games as a serious competition. Yes, like the arguments against Halo, there were other leagues and other games (Starcraft and Warcraft 3 being the largest), but Halo was a game changer.
And what are my claims to back it up? I don't really have to. The sales, critical reception, and lasting impressions the game left on the community are more than any other FPS (besides maybe Half Life) at the time. I suppose you can chalk it up to marketing, but that's really just a cop out.
Close enough, to be honest I wasn't even sure if it was in neither and I was just thinking of Virtua Cop 2, lol. The hit reactions in GE always reminded me of that.
There's a difference between arguing what made a game sucessful and then to call it ground breaking, innovative or revoultionary. You can make a very good evolutionary argument for the game anything else you're living in a delusional bubble. BTW I've stated that all in one package point once in this thread and if need be I can look up my history and use other halo threads on this site as other instances. Again people are having different arguments about it success and what made it great comes with the territory.
Quake did that and CS did that as well Halo easily belong after that but not to acknowledge or know about their lan communities makes your argument look weak. CS version 1.3 and 1.6 blew up at the time you mentioned and were hosting bigger tournies than halo ever managed to get numbers for US or EU. CS also never once was challenged in the main area of it's popularity which is most users on at any time for fps until COD.
Living in a bubble doesn't stop the reality around it.
Paracelsus
Member
Same for Gears of War: find another third person shooter with mindblowing-for-2006 graphics allowing you to coop and compete. It was the complete package in an environment with barely any package whatsoever.
Isn't Modern Warfare the first fully multiplatform perfectly multiplayer-capable futuristic shooter coming after Halo?
Isn't Modern Warfare the first fully multiplatform perfectly multiplayer-capable futuristic shooter coming after Halo?
Journey
Banned
IMO, when Xbox launched, it was more of a must own console than PS4 was at launch in every sense of the word. It truly was a much more powerful than the competition machine, offered incredible value for it's price, with double the ram, double the controller ports, build in HDD, built in ethernet, 5.1 discreet digital audio available to all games, was the first console to support HD resolutions: 720p and up to 1080i and had arguably the best Killer app of it's time: Halo, at launch no less.
PS2 turned out to be the best console over time because of it's games, but in 2000 it had nothing that could match Halo. PS2's success came from the amazing popularity of the PS1, the hype behind it's legendary power, rumored to be 10 times the power of the Dreamcast, and from having zero competition until Xbox and GameCube launched.
I was a Dreamcast owner day 1, PS2 owner day 1 and Xbox owner day 1 and I can assure you that the best day 1 console was the Dreamcast, Soul Calibur was perfection, and Ready 2 Rumble and Power Stone provided so much fun that it was unbelievable. Xbox comes in 2nd to me as the best console launch in my experience. I got Halo, Project Gotham Racing and Dead of Alive 3, fucking good times. PS2 was the most underwelming, I got Tekken Tag Tournament, Ridge Racer V and Unreal Tournament. Jesus H Christ was the system lacking Anti-aliasing TTT felt like knives cutting my eyes, I know it's just a graphical complaint, but that was my first impression, and the games weren't that great either, nothing like Soul Calibur or Halo.
I was really expecting a lot more from this machine after all the hype, and it did end up being the best machine that generation, but it was basically forced, it became the developers bread and butter, so despite how difficult it was to optimize, they had no choice but to move all of their projects to PS2 after the DC's demise.
If you ask me, Xbox should have been the supported console like the PS4 is today, the machine offered the best tools for development, had an online system that was light years ahead of the competition and had a true significant power advantage over the PS2, by true I mean not just raw power, but a new generation in feature set with programmable shaders still used in todays games and a standardized HDD that introduced texture streaming and almost instant load times. Unfortunately gamers weren't as informed as they are today, because initially, the PS2 user base didn't have to swell the way it did based on its weak launch and underwelming hardware.
veloxStrix
Banned
I actually mention CS in another post earlier. I mention that Warcraft 3 and Starcraft were the top "e-sport" games (they had channels that just played tournaments of these games on loops on cable). Quake and CS have their spot, but as far as broadcasted e-sports go at the time Halo seemed to me to be far more popular. I don't have stats to prove that, but if someone does I would be fine with conceding that point. I might have simply not been paying enough attention. Having played CS 1.6 when it was first released, I'm sure it was more popular as console gaming was never a competitor to PC gaming at the time. No argument there.
Blame intel and nvidia on that one. MS wanted nothing to do with xbox once they realized the long term costs of supporting the platform.
Not a single major system of the generation was weak especially if we talk about early 3d consoles or 3d accelerators vs what they did. All of them did things that basically took gaming to new heights in graphics.
I'd concede Halo to Counter Strike in terms of esports imo. Counter Strike was a reeeeaaaally big fucking deal back in the day.
So what if halo had more broadcasts. How does that lessen huge tourney prizes or the fact CS was bigger in tourney size. The games were only a year off so they are a good example to compare audiences.
I'm not putting down Halo either rather let me put some perspective on it. Consoles had next to no lan presence and even with a big title like CS halo managed to actually get a sizeable and respectable community. Like I always say too halo isn't pile of casual crap I find COD to be.
Zantetsuken
Member
Man, Team Slayer/Sniper in Halo 2 was brutal if you didn't have a team. I loved every bit of it.
PooBone
Member
I agree.
PooBone
Member
I think it's less to do with the amount of creativity and more to do with new features finding their way into a game that is ridiculously fucking successful.
We're all just guessing though. But seriously, after Halo 1, what was the next FPS that hit that standard for consoles? Call of Duty 4? 6 years later?