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Made in ca
Poisonous Kroot Headhunter





Halo Combat evolved was the first X-box game I ever played. I'd had experience with shooters before in Goldeneye and Turok for the N64, but nothing like this. I still remember that music and the opening shop of the Pillar of Autumn, just...

So with Infinite literally a couple days away, I wanted to take a minute to think about the series I've loved so much and what I think worked and didn't about each of the games in the series. Not a full review by any means, but my impressions of each of the games as I had when I played them and as I have now in order from best to worst. This is just about the campaigns however, not counting any multiplayer here.

1. Halo Combat Evolved:
It truly was, when I first turned this on, it was like nothing I'd every played before and it left a huge impression on me. The gameplay was enthralling and remains enjoyable to this day, even if I can practically beat Legendary on autopilot (for the most part) as I've played it so many times. The story was fresh and new with just enough information to keep us invested, but with plenty of mystery to keep it interesting. It felt like creativity was pouring out of every crack in the game, the needler was fascinating to me, the whole Ring World concept, ect. The biggest draw to it that the many Halo imitators (and many of the sequels) over the years seem to have failed to grasp the desperate feeling of the game. Even though you are this super soldier far and above the common man, the forces arrayed against you were such that it was the bare minimum needed to survive. Every level (especially from 343 Guilty Spark forward) felt like you were just barely making it through and that it wasn't a fight to win, merely to survive to accomplish your objective.

2. Halo 3:
This has shifted up and down my list more than any other Halo game, but I think I'm finally happy to settle with this here. It has a lot in common with my 3rd pick but I think for the most part executes it slightly better in more than half the cases. Halo 2 for all it did, felt like an interlude to connect the two big moments in the series and to me at least, I never felt the weighty stakes of it all. Yet here for that was used against me with some key character deaths making the story really feel like one of sacrifice and cost. I feel like they struck a good balance with the nostalgia from the first game and innovation with new weapons / gear. However, I don't think that the Brutes felt like a proper replacement for the Elites, I've got a lot of critiques about Halo 2, but despite that, I think they did the Brutes best there. Here, the just felt like reskinned Elites with different vehicles. Even though the gameplay doesn't capture it anywhere near as well, the story at least has the same desperate feel as the original which I loved. There were a few stinkers of dialogue choices here and there (that line "Squad leaders are requesting a really point, where should they go?" "To war." still makes me cringe every time) but for the most part, everything felt sufficiently bad ass (I still say "Were it so easy" to this day.)

3. Halo 4:
I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for this, but I really loved Halo 4. It felt like a true to form attempt to come back to the routes of the Halo series. A desperate battle across a crumpling ship, stepping out onto a strange alien construct world for the first time, it really brought a lot of nostalgia back to me. The stakes were different, saving Cortana, vs stopping the Flood, but in a way it felt almost like there was more at stake with how attached to her we had become over the series. The introductions of the Prometheans and the re-introduction of elites made for interesting enemies and new weapons and tactics, while on the flip side the new characters really suffered with Lasky being the only interesting one of the bunch. The Didact had nowhere near the personal grudge of Spark or the Gravitas of The Gravemind, Palmer just fell flat with very little to do/say, and the whole bit with Del Rio and and the intro cinematic stinks of an abandoned plot line. However, I loved that we got to finally see some cracks in the Chief's armour and at the end, for once, we didn't win and he has to find a way to emotionally deal with that. I legit teared up at the end when they say goodbye. Both 3 and 4 had stinkers for final boss fights, so that's dead even. In the end, I think it's close, but 4 falls just short. This is the only Halo game aside from the first where (though it was only at some points) it felt like a fight to survive rather than total badassery and I was really hoping that would continue onto the rest of the series as it went forward.

4. Halo Reach:
Bungie's last hurrah and for the most part, it works. This to me is very much the middle of the road of a Halo game. I does everything well enough, but doesn't really stand out in any particular way. The characters are likable, but not memorable, the maps are fun, but not very interesting, the weapons are well designed, but not inventive. It was a decent length, but felt like a story of this scale could have been twice as long easily had they the time and resources.

5. Halo ODST:
This would be higher, but it's just so short. The stealthy at night sections were a lot of fun, but feel like the could have been greatly expanded upon. The daytime stuff varies, but feels again feels too short on average. The story was interesting, and I really liked how it played behind the scenes of Halo's 2 and 3. The characters were interesting enough, but again it came down to not enough time to spend with them. Despite playing as normal humans, they don't differentiate you enough from the Chief's playstyle and you don't really end up feeling as vulnerable as you should just playing a regular human, even if you are essentially Spec Ops.

6. Halo 2:
When I played this the first time, I loved it to bits. I've played it more than any other Halo game save Combat Evolved. That being said, it hasn't aged anywhere near as well as any of the other Bungie titles. There are a lot more cracks in the game and you can really tell this was strapped together at the last moment for a deadline rather than being completed to the desires and expectations of the people making it. This is also the start of the chief playing like an unkillable badass, which I've never enjoyed. I'm mixed on duel wielding, so that's a net neutral for me. With everything going on, it didn't really feel like there were a tone of stakes, at least not in the way the others did. I like the Arbiter as a character, but the mishmash of him and the chief make both feel like they didn't get enough screen time. I did like vehicles could finally be destroyed and that you didn't have to always drive anymore, but that is more detractions from the original and logical changed rather than anything Halo 2 did particularly well. I did like the expansion of the Covenant's roles then. The drones were a really interesting enemy and this is the only game I've ever liked the Brutes in. In the end, it feels like a project far too ambitious for what they could accomplish and while they pulled off a solid 6 point landing rather than a faceplant, I can't play Halo 2 without thinking of the game that could have been.

7. Halo 5:
I consider this surprisingly close to Halo 2 and have even ranked it 6th in the past, but at the end, it has many of the same problems 2 does, just more so, and them some of its own, with not enough it does well to offset it. This is doubly painful because I think I was more hyped for this game than any Halo game since 2. I's just read Ghostlands and listened to Hunt the Truth so with the way Halo 5 was marketed I thought it was going to be a story of the Chief against ONI type story, but no. The "conflict" barely existed and had no weight to it and the decision to bring back Cortana felt like a slap in the face to the emotional impact at the end of 4. The swapping back and forth between the characters just felt like Halo 2, but worse since we got even less time with the Chief. Conceptually, I think the story of a team tracking down the Chief could have been really good, a mystery of trying to follow this (near mythical at this point) hero's footsteps and discern what they are doing and why sounds great on paper. The execution just fell flat with the aforementioned conflict but not really. I was also really excited to finally see Blue Team in a game (something I'd wanted since Halo 2) but they never really got fleshed out and I cared about them because of the books. Team Osiris was even worse off with me only really caring about Buck and again that being because of OSDT, not Halo 5, I don't even remember the other two that weren't Locke. That being said, the second level was one of my favorites of the entire series and felt like a real Spartan Team mission for the most part. I also thought the Human settlement was well done and the Covenant city very interesting. The locations were great, it was just most of the things that happened there didn't work. Did I enjoy the game, at the end of the day, yeah I still did, but it's the only Halo game I have not played through a second time. (For comparison, I've played CE and 2 over 100 times each easy (though I had far fewer games to play as a kid when I owned these), 3, ODST and Reach probably around 20 times each, and Halo 4 probably 5 or 6 times. I've even played Halo Wars 3 or 4 times, but that's a whole other thing.)

So far, with what I seems, Infinite stands upon a precipice. I could really see the game going either way. One one hand, the open world could really make you feel immersed in a Halo Ring, however, it could also just turn into needless busywork like some other open world titles have. It seems like they are trying to go back to the classic feel with a modern touch, however I guess we'll have to wait and see if they really understand what that classic feel meant. So far 343 is one for two in good Halo games so, I guess we'll just have to see for ourselves.

So what do you all think? What are your fondest memories of the Halo series, what draws you to it? What games did you like the best / worst and why?

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Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





The only game I really LOVED was the original. The level design and pacing are just fantastic and it scales so well in difficulty in both single player and co-op. It doesn't hurt that I was in college and 4v4 LAN was possible. Online has never been as fun for me.

I liked 2 okay, but it was overhyped in the aspects of the series I really like and a lot of its greatness comes from those online enhancments I'm so so on. I was still in college, but online made playing so much less social and it just never became a "thing" the same way.

Halo 3 was the last game I really played and the difficulty balancing was what killed it for me. On higher settings every arena was littered with snipers that you had to pick off before you could even start the encounter and turned any replay value into tedious busywork. I also spent more time in online muting people than playing and I was mostly done.

I did play ODST in co-op but at a friends in a very fractured way that I can't fairly judge. It felt better overall, but didn't quite capture the gravitas of earlier games. Reach, 4 and 5 I have honestly never played.
   
Made in ca
Rampaging Carnifex





Toronto, Ontario

The original was absolutely my favorite as well. Played the hell out of it and knew the game inside out. Easily one of the best co op experiences I've ever had. It was just an exceptionally well designed game start to finish.

The rest of the series... not so much.

I also liked 4, so you're not alone there. I rate Reach a lot higher than you did though. It's nowhere near as good as CE but I think I enjoyed this one more than any of the other sequels and spinoffs. ODST was also very good and went a long way to keeping me invested in the franchise after 2 and 3. I didn't much care for 3 and I really didn't care for 2. When they came out with an anniversary edition for 2, I tried it out of curiosity to see if the campaign was as bad as I remember. I hadn't played 2 since it came out all the way back in 2004. Every bit as terrible as I remember.

5 is the only one in the series I couldn't even be bothered to finish. I can't tell you where I stopped because it was such a long time ago, but man... I was crushed. As someone who genuinely enjoyed 4, I don't know where they went wrong.
   
Made in us
Fiery Bright Wizard





California

I really like the atmosphere and noirish elements of ODST...I grew to like that game a lot over the years. At first I was underwhelmed with it but it grew on me over time.

I played CE way back when it first came out, there was nothing else quite like it at the time. I was born in 1993 so in a lot of ways the old Halo games were my Star Wars.

Really thrilled with Halo Infinite so far as well. It's a very good looking game on the series X. Probably my favorite game of the year, but tbh it wasn't hard to beat BF2042 and cod vanguard...both kinda sucked.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/12/10 02:51:04


 
   
Made in gb
Lord of the Fleet






London

Ooh ok I'll have a go at the rankings from worst to best.

7th: Halo 4

What a disappointment. To give 343i a bit of a break they had a lot to live up to after Bungie so I went in with an open mind and underwhelmed was an understatement. They've really gone off the rails a little in terms of expanding the storyline; Halo 3 had humanity on the brink of extinction, yet in 4 years they've built a gargantuan battleship and are ready to conquer the galaxy, as well as going into a bit of a ridiculous expanded universe of "actually humanity were better than the Forerunners all along".

Overall it was boring, and nearly every objective consisted of "fight though the Covenant to press this button, now go to that button guarded by Prometheans, now go to this button guarded by Covenant and Prometheans." What could have been an interesting enemy in the form of the Prometheans became boring re-skinned Covenant archetypes and weapons. To me, there was no real drive to complete it, I felt no attachment to any of the characters.

6th: ODST

When it was first announced it sounded like a pretty awesome concept and alternate take on part of the story, but I feel it was rushed. I could never get the hang of the sneaking sections, as in my view, you always had to use VISR to just see where you're going, meaning you're instantly exposed. And once you are exposed, well good luck taking on a pair of Hunters with a silenced SMG and Magnum.

On that note, I still remember Staten in the announcement saying "anyone miss the Halo 1 pistol?", what the bloody hell is this useless thing they gave us?

The characters themselves couldn't be taken seriously, the bouncy animations and cheesy lines made it more like a parody rather than a serious plot. There's a conversation in there almost verbatim out of Chicken Run! The only part of the plot I felt some seriousness in was the final Warthog Run bit with the cruisers flying over and glassing the city. On a personal note I also found it bloody difficult to understand what was going on due to the muffled speech in places, subtitles only help to an extent.

5th: Halo 5

This was a huge improvement to 4, but when you're basing against a pile of crap you can only improve. Overall there were some solid bits but it was really, really let down by the need to have read all the books, graphic novels and short films beforehand. Suddenly we have all new characters and plots that, for the more casual gamer like me, just adds confusion into the mix. I think that while Diadact was a pretty piss-poor villain in H4, they could have improved him in 5 but just went with "Cortana sacrificed herself in H4 but she found magical Forerunner tech that made her better again", which just diminishes the emotion of H4's ending.

Warzone...I have words for Warzone which due to the forum's rules I can't repeat here. Just felt like a broken gametype to encourage microtransactions filled with mindless bloat. Oh great, I have an AR with a Forerunner-inspired sight. That really helps when the enemy is spamming Scorpions and Gauss Hogs.

I still maintain that the plot was disappointing. As mentioned before the so-called "conflict" shown in the marketing had no part of the plot. If Infinite goes down this route whereby you need to have read all the books first to understand any changes then it'll be a big no from me.

4th: Halo 3

I enjoyed Halo 3. The only thing I can really critique about it was the graphics seemed a bit of a side-step, with the faces and overall textures being pretty unnerving at times. The plot could have been expanded somewhat as some parts felt crammed. Multiplayer was a nice step up and Forge was just incredible when we first saw it, something that only got better with time.

3rd: Halo 2

I've seen criticism of the Arbiter's introduction in H2, as there was less time with the Chief as a result. I disagree, I think it was a nice idea to introduce a much more detailed insight into the Covenant. The greatly expanded array of weapons, vehicles and tech was just right in my opinion; every game since has just removed or changed stuff for no apparent reason, but with H2 you had a nice variety of weapons for different roles.

I was very disappointed that the original incarnation of New Mombasa wasn't included. The dark city level in the original demo looks so much better than the brief city-road we got in Metropolis.

2nd: Reach

This is quite tough to decide, but Reach has to be 2nd rather than 1st. Reach had been mentioned in the previous games and text but being able to play this first-hand was even better, and really put in place the idea of humanity on the backfoot. You're just fighting to survive rather than conquer or fight back.

The aesthetics were pretty brilliant, as were the choices of environment and hostiles. Exodus is one of my faves from that game and is what Metropolis should have been. I've heard critiques of the characters lacking depth and I do agree to an extent, but we had that with the Chief in H1 didn't we? If we had a Reach 2 or a prequel to Reach then they'd be packed out but I think they did well for a single release.

1st: Halo 1

This is first over Reach due to it being my first leap into proper FPSs and the Xbox in general. I had popped over to a friend's house and he had this brilliant-looking sci-fi shooter game (I still remember what he was playing, Two Betrayals, near the first Rocket Launcher as you exit the control room). The Flood scared the crap out of me and as you entered the last few levels the music portrayed such a sense of desperation and loneliness fighting alone. So many of these concepts were new to a youngster like me. I think given that this game brought me and my best friend of 20 years together, it has to be my first choice.


And while we're on the topic of Halo, can someone actually answer this: In the Infinite trailer with the pilot stranded in space, he's been stranded aboard the Pelican long enough to grow a great big bushy beard, yet where are his supplies? How could a Pelican possibly hold enough air, water, food, and toilet space for that long? I can gather that he's probably got a few days' worth of ration packs, but not that much?

   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Valkyrie wrote:


I was very disappointed that the original incarnation of New Mombasa wasn't included. The dark city level in the original demo looks so much better than the brief city-road we got in Metropolis.



I do love the story behind this and how the guy who ran that demo had to practice a perfect run on it because looking the wrong direction caused it to crash. Pretty early example of E3 overpromising.

On the subject of the pistol, I do have to say that part of my love of Halo 1 is my friends and I used to love playing Goldeneye with pistols only and dropping heath to where head shots were instant kills. Halo 1 really tapped into that specific multiplayer feeling.
   
Made in gb
Lord of the Fleet






London

 LunarSol wrote:
 Valkyrie wrote:


I was very disappointed that the original incarnation of New Mombasa wasn't included. The dark city level in the original demo looks so much better than the brief city-road we got in Metropolis.



I do love the story behind this and how the guy who ran that demo had to practice a perfect run on it because looking the wrong direction caused it to crash. Pretty early example of E3 overpromising.

On the subject of the pistol, I do have to say that part of my love of Halo 1 is my friends and I used to love playing Goldeneye with pistols only and dropping heath to where head shots were instant kills. Halo 1 really tapped into that specific multiplayer feeling.


What's all this about the guy and the perfect run?
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut



London

I liked the 1st one. It had some great set pieces, but also a fair amount of boredom. I will still cheerfully play set pieces like the beach assault. Wandering around not so much.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Valkyrie wrote:
 LunarSol wrote:
 Valkyrie wrote:


I was very disappointed that the original incarnation of New Mombasa wasn't included. The dark city level in the original demo looks so much better than the brief city-road we got in Metropolis.



I do love the story behind this and how the guy who ran that demo had to practice a perfect run on it because looking the wrong direction caused it to crash. Pretty early example of E3 overpromising.

On the subject of the pistol, I do have to say that part of my love of Halo 1 is my friends and I used to love playing Goldeneye with pistols only and dropping heath to where head shots were instant kills. Halo 1 really tapped into that specific multiplayer feeling.


What's all this about the guy and the perfect run?


The original New Mombasa wasn't technically feasible on the original XBox. It was running on the hardware, but only by rigidly controlling what was loaded into memory throughout the demo. If the guy playing the demo looked the wrong direction, the whole thing would crash trying to display things that didn't exist. So that whole demo was heavily rehearsed to ensure he could play through it without breaking the fragile boundaries it was functional in.
   
Made in au
Regular Dakkanaut




Hiding behind terrain

Halo CE had a truely outstanding sense of scale, view distance and clever level design for its time.
Halo 2 built upon CE and intruduced many to Xbox live. Campaign was good but was rushed in development. Halo 2 is tied as my most played Halo game due to all the co-op LAN and LAN pvp mulitplayer I played.
Halo 3 was a strong end to the trilogy. Tied most played. I played a decent amount of solo/co-op campaign but mostly xbox live pvp multiplayer.
Halo ODST I enjoyed walking around the city fighting the covenant deployments. This also intruduced firefights where I spent a large amount of time on Xbox live.
Halo Reach was the first halo I didnt enjoy as much. The campaign was forgettable. Halo Reach also saw the start of armor ability experimentation which I didnt really like. It still had firefights that I enjoyed but I preferred the ODST firefight system. This one was more about fighting over high value targets than surviving as a team.
Halo 4 I hated. The story was a mess and it felt like the end of a trilogy, not the start of one. This was the first multiplayer that didnt feel like a Halo game to me too. I also was letting my Xbox live membership lapse by now so only played some of Spartan Ops which I didnt like either.

Halo 5 I didn't play, having largely gave up on modern gaming and not buying the new (now oldgen) consoles.


Another thing I'll add is to me, Halo has always largely been a product of its time:
Halo CE took advantage of the xbox's power.
Halo 2 took advantage of and was alot of peoples introduction to Xbox Live.
Halo 3 being on the 360 saw another increase in power and the continued growth of online gaming and the slow death of LAN.
Halo ODST gave us firefight.
Halo Reach gave us armour abilities and a worse firefight.
Halo 4 wanted to be Call Of Duty and also wanted to push always online practices via Spartan Ops.
   
 
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