I tried but I don't play multiplayer and soon glazed over part way through the single player in Halo 2.
Good blog though
In Defense of Halo
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 On 01/04/2014 at 08:41 PM by Casey Curran See More From This User » |
I've been wanting to write this for a while, but Blake recently wrote something once again condemning this series, and I really think a good portion of the hate against this series is misdirected. Now, this is not directed at people who just don't like or don't get Halo (SanAndreas, I'm looking at you). No, this is for people who act like Halo is something that makes gaming worse, a series that should have never existed. That it didn't earn it's spot as one of gaming's greats. To that, I say bullshit.
The main thing that makes me love Halo as an FPS is that everything around it is built for a game. The story, universe, everything is specifically designed for a video game. Take the Covenant, for example. Every single enemy is designed to pop out and feel very distinct. You know a Grunt, Jackal or Elite when you see one. Which is important because each has their own strategy to take them out, a sweet spot or weakness to exploit with that. With a large variety of enemies to fight, this gives the shooting a lot of variety.
The Flood also means three way firefights. Which are indisputably awesome.
Master Chief has no depth or personality, sure. But as a one man army against a group of aliens, he's awesome. This is why he could only work as a video game protagonist. The meat of what there is to enjoy is not in any plot or character development, but the gameplay. So when he just says a few badass things in a badass way, that's all you need for a memorable video game character.
In fact, I wish more games would take this kind of approach if story is not a draw. Don't waste time fleshing out characters or a plot when for the sake of it, just get the basics down and let the gameplay speak for itself. It's even one of the reasons why I was less interested in 4's cutscenes, there was too much focus on fleshing out Cortana and Master Chief's relationship when it wasn't that interesting.
I bring these up because I seldom see an argument against Halo without bringing up how bland the story, universe, and characters are. This is a game after all, and there shouldn't be anything wrong with a game focusing on gameplay. But even then, I love the Covenant outside a game. I think their religious cast system is pretty fascinating and gives their culture some depth. Are they as interesting as the races in Mass Effect? No, but not every game needs a Mass Effect sized story and universe. Sometimes they can just be good at a few things in terms of story and let the gameplay speak for the rest.
Good overall character? Not really. Good video game character? Definitely.
Speaking of gameplay, there are really only two arguments I ever hear against it: Regenerating health and two weapons. Let's focus on the first one, something which only half the games in the series (2, 3, and 4) actually do have. The rest have regenerating shields and once their gone, anything else you lose is gone until you find a health pack. And in Halo, this works just fine.
See, one thing that separates Halo from Doom is that you're facing enemies with guns. Not slow moving projectiles or melee attacks, bullets that hit you quick. Meaning you are expected to get hit without necessarily doing anything wrong. With Halo's health system, however, there's nothing wrong with that. You just shrug it off and try to take out a group of enemies before your shilds wear down too much. If there's too many, get creative. Use grenades, find a heavier weapon, find somewhere to take cover between shots.
Try turning a few of these on Legendary and telling me regenerating health makes it too easy.
The last part is what gets flack, but it's always an easier said than done thing. And what makes it so is the enemy AI. Take cover too much, and the enemy will expect you too, then throw a grenade or try to flank you. Areas are even designed so there are spots to take cover, but relying on them is too risky for you to rely on them. Seriously, go play through any Halo on Legendary and tell me you could get through just by finding somewhere to take cover. Especially in the giant battlefields full of vehicles and over two dozen enemies.
Half Life 2 was able to design a shooter with guns used against you and a health bar, sure. But there are some differences between Half Life and Halo. Half Life's a lot more linear and enclosed, there's not much like Halo's large battlefields. Even the more open areas aren't really as big as Halo's giant ones. And when they do exist, they're shorter and the game's always liberal with its health packs. This is based on my playthrough of HL2, so maybe the episodes do something different in the episodes, but Half Life's health works in Half Life, not Halo is the point I'm going for.
See, regenerating health is not bad in and of itself. It is bad in a large number of contexts, which many FPS developers do not understand. It's easy for the game to just end up being "take cover here when you take too much damage." This can be due to the enemy AI, the area design, or the mechanics behind the weapons and health. Yet Halo is designed so these all work in their context. That's why Halo works.
Let's go to the other point, the two weapon slots. Like regenerating health, it does limit you severely in most games and circumstances. Yet Halo was designed around it. Unlike say, Bioshock Infinite, Halo litters weapons everywhere. After taking out a group of enemies, you usually have three to five weapons you can take with you after that. That's not even counting the weapons your allies offer you, or may be just lying around unused. I'll go through the average level of Halo using eight to ten weapons. Rarely less and sometimes more, but I'm often using just as many weapons as a weapon wheel offers.
This ties into the diversity among enemies. Certain enemies have their own weapons and don't stray far outside these areas. So by offering a large variety of enemies, each with a couple weapons specific to themselves, there's always a plethora of weapons to grab. It's very different than Bioshock Infinite where the game basically forces certain weapons in your hand by making it the only one around and therefore the only one you can get free ammo for.
Then I might as well address the last elephant in the room, this idea the series has never changed. Bullshit. Halo's always been adding new features and modes between games. Halo 2 gave online multiplayer. 3 gave online co-op (with I might add some excellent features to make co-op a step up from the average FPS) and Forge. ODST gave Firefight mode while Reach revamped all the mechanics and basically rebuilt the engine from scratch. 4 then added Spartan Ops, but I felt its contributions to the campaign were less signficant.
Even when you factor ODST and Reach, 6 (more like 5&1/2) games in 11 years is not that bad.
Because Halo does a damn great job of diversifying its campaigns. 2 gave a new character with the Arbiter, 3 took full advantage of the technology with things like the double Scarab fight and battlefields that required more processing for one fight than the original Xbox could handle for a full game. Reach then took that power 3 added and gave an insane amount of variety where every level felt more distinct from the other than any Halo before it.
If you don't get Halo, fine. I'm not going to argue against that. Like what you like and enjoy that. But on the other side, it's not a bad game or series.It's reputation and the changes are the only reason I really feel it gets hate. If it flopped, it would be a cult classic. And it can't help that other games copy it. Hate the copycat games and the developers that don't have the balls or brains to think what their game really needs, not what they're copying. That's just stupid.
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