Halo Series Part 1 : Multiplayer

I was on IGN and reading the reader's top 100 games of all time, of course I come across Halo, and this is what I read.

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You've got the phrase "one of the greatest games of all time" followed up with statements using the words "decent." Now what I don't understand is how a game of such great caliber can even have the word decent used in a description. It goes to show that people don't really have too much to say about it. What people fail to mention about Halo is that it really popularized console shooters.

So apparently one of the greatest games of all time is decent. Weird. I'm going to try to explain, why Halo was such a big deal.

Here's what I have to say about this.
Back in the day, the computer was THE machine to play just about all FPS. Think about it, it was 2001 and the PS2 and Game Cube just came out a year ago, Nintendo has never been known and remains to this day, not known for shooters. The PS2 on the other hand, didn't have much to work with in the shooter department, sure there was Unreal Tournament that was ported to the PS2, but it had no online functionality, not until 2003 and by that time Unreal Tournament was outdated and was replaced by Unreal Tournament 2003. So let's take a look back at 2001, anyone who wanted to play some hardcore shooters had to have a good PC that could run awesome games, then came along Microsoft with the X-Box and have a game called Halo. You're this guy in bad ass armor that looks like Samus, but you don't have boobs and you don't have a gun attached to your arm. What you do have though, is an assault rifle, the strongest pistol known to man, 8 grenades, recharging shields, and you can whack people with your gun like you're on steroids.
The people who happened to buy an X-Box are graced with 4 controller ports, internal memory and a FPS for a console that works.

Now here's where Halo + X-Box makes the biggest impact. PS2 only had 2 controller ports unless you bought an add on allowing 4 people to play at once, and still not many games for the PS2 supported more than 2 people. So you have 3 friends over to play some videogames, oh darn, this isn't like Golden Eye where all 4 of us can play at the same time, darn. Well, Halo comes along, and all 4 of you can fight each other and have a fun time, but wait. They're taking it to the next level, despite the lack of XBox live at the moment, there was LAN. People could hook up two X-Boxes together to have 8 people playing each other, but wait, it doesn't end there. Up to 16 people could play with each other, provided you had 4 TVs, X-Boxes and 16 controllers. Despite this people still managed to get friends over to play Halo in a large group.

Halo you could say, is Golden Eye taken to the next level. Golden Eye had 4 of your friends duke it out, with Halo you could have up to 16 people fighting. Later on X-Box Live would be introduced to the world and a whole new era of gaming began, soon online multiplayer would be the norm and a game without it would be like a sin.

I would like to elaborate more on the multiplayer part. Prior to Halo, not many games allowed you and some friends to get together and play a game sitting 2 feet apart. I remember Super Smash Brothers and Golden Eye, those games were and remain gems to the gaming industry. We go into a new millennium and the shooter scene generally still remains in the PC world. Aside from games like Golden Eye, you can't really get together with friends and shoot each other up. This is what makes the biggest difference, even with today's online multiplayer which is so easy to set up and do.
Nothing beats you and a few friends sitting down and play a game together. Being able to laugh and talk directly to each other, punching your friend that stole your kill, and just being with your friends. Inside jokes are formed and unknown bonds are found. (I found out that my friend John and I make for a killer capture the flag team) You can't really do that with the PS2 seeing as how most games only supported upwards to two players save for a select few that supported 4, and you had to go through a bit of trouble to do that. Game Cube didn't really have any good shooters to play, they had Mario Party and Super Smash Brothers, but there is something different about shooters.

Here's what I have to say about the shooter party vs. other games.
The person hosting the party, would kick ass at fighting games like SSB etc. regardless of button mashers, when you own the fighting game, you are almost guaranteed to win.
In shooters, you never really have to be good to win. Hell you could suck but end up winning. Because there are so many ways you can kill and die. The noob of the group could always be on the search of the cheap weapon (coughrocketlaunchercoughplasmaswordcoughshotguncough) and own everyone, the kill stealer, the scavenger that picks up the scraps of a firefight and kills someone after he's killed someone else, the vehicle junkie, the screen looker. All of these contribute to a diverse experience that can give even the most inexperienced player an unfair advantage. There is always the risk of dying versus fighting games like Super Smash Brothers where I always dominate to the point where winning so much just isn't fun anymore.

Well, you might be asking, "Well, what about a PC LAN party?" you trying getting 8-12 friends together with computers good enough to run what ever game you'll be playing. Sufficient wires to connect all the computers, monitors, and not to mention SPACE for all of this, as opposed to a TV or two, an X-Box or two, and alot of controllers. It was just alot more convenient.

In a nut shell this is what was so great about Halo in the beginning. Being able to have 4 friends together and play a shooter hasn't been so easy and functional since Golden Eye. Not to mention you can go up to 16 players. In a time when multiplayer FPS at such a size required a ton of computers and wires, Halo put it into console size and offered lots of convenience, specially when the PS2 generally only supported 2 players and the Game Cube was sadly kinda a flop.



To be honest, Halo isn't a bad game, but it isn't an amazing game. It has good controls and is one of the best console shooters, it doesn't compare to what PC shooters had to offer. When you are not a PC gamer, but wanted something to shoot up, Halo was your answer. If you were a PC gamer, Halo was nothing special.

Halo delivers an experience that was not so common in the console scene at the time.
A first person shooter, with multiplayer that works well.


Part 2 will be discussing gameplay.
Alright.
This post turned out a bit longer and ramblier than I want it to be. Oh well, I hope I got my point across.



Personal Rant

On a side note, I'm not all too big on Halo. Though I do enjoy the series and have fun play the games. I generally think it's over rated. Thought it is undeniable that it has influenced countless games since it's release, people seem to like it for all the wrong reasons. I remember someone not really having a good reason to like other than other people liked it....and graphics. Though visual presentation is important it shouldn't be the prime reason someone likes a game. More on this topic later.