Twenty-five years ago, Microsoft entered the console market with a hulking black machine, an enormous controller and a game called Halo. What followed changed the industry in ways few could have predicted, and today, the original Xbox is finding an unlikely new home in our pockets.
I bought the whole Halo collection (maybe one of those Humble Bundles, I don’t remember) after hearing everyone raving online how great it is, not realizing that it was a console game.
I was never a console gamer, because I hate walled gardens. Also, I prefer mouse and keyboard, having spent way too many hours on Doom, Quake and Half-life.
Halo felt… weird. There were levels where you would go into nearly the same room (with small variations) to kill the exact same number and type of enemies.
Some parts were fun, like the vehicles. But by then I’d already played Half-Life 2.
I was underwhelmed by the whole thing, I did not even finish trying all the collection because of the huge amount of space it took on disk, even if you only wanted to play one of the games of the series.
This is just the opinion of someone who is not into consoles. I’m sure that if I’d bought the console and this was the only game I had, I’d probably love it, warths and all.
Halo was incredible for it’s time. While the original didnt hold up too well, Halo 2, 3 and Reach are still incredible experiences. They could make an entire movie out of Halo 2 and it’s remastered cutscenes.
It was like the Half-Life of consoles. I had some of the best times with friends playing Halo, so maybe I’m a bit biased from nostalgia, but they are some of the best games made, just raw fun. The set pieces were amazing, Bungie really knew what they were doing and for the time and the technical limitations, they smashed it.
That was shoehorned into the game last-minute to increase the play time. Lame but they had to get it out by launch.
Yeah if you play it now it seems basic. But that’s like listening to the Beatles now and saying they aren’t very interesting, when everything current is based on what they did.
I though as much. A quick way to increase playtime. In 80s games we had soul crushing difficulty to achieve the same result.
Regarding nostalgia, I would also have a difficult time to convince you that Elite was a groundbreaking game as it seems so basic nowadays.