Words Of Wisdom said:
I don't believe I was directly addressing you with my post. My mentioning Goldeneye should have been a clear indicator of that. And no, Halo CE is inferior to its competition and was such from the start compared to PC FPS games of the time. I'm not sure where your "more substance" comes in as many of the weapons weren't that useful, the level design was bland and disappointing, and the story was passable but nothing more. |
Halo CE has some of the most balanced weapons in the genre, every single weapon have their own equal amount strengths and weaknesses.... except for the pistol... man the damn thing even had a scope.
The story is familiar but it took familiar, old ideas and made them interesting again. Lone space marine vs. alien hordes had been done before. However, casting the aliens as religious fanatics was unusual - and remember, Halo came out not too long after 9/11. Of course, given that the aliens had vastly superior technology, relied on air/ space strikes, and were vulnerable to guerrilla warfare on the ground, you could see the game as a political metaphor from both sides. The "sleeping menace" idea (the Flood) had been done, but usually it's the player character's fault that some ancient terror gets awakened, and usually the player character is responsible for cleaning it up. In Halo, you basically just run away from the ancient menace. The "unstoppable superweapon that is our only hope against the Evil Ones" had been done before, but the twist that the Halo rings would stop the Flood by killing everything else in the galaxy, and that you therefore DO NOT want to activate the ancient superweapon that is the only hope of stopping them, was unique. Zombies had been done before, but fast zombies created by alien parasites that used weapons and attacked your enemies just as much as they attacked you? Hadn't been done before, and, though it's common now, virtually no FPSes had three-sided battles when Halo came out. Eccentric ancient guardian who tells you how to stop the Evil Ones? Done before, but 343 Guilty Spark was unique in that he was trying to save the world by destroying it, and wasn't actually truly good - or truly bad, for that matter. Fairly sexualized female character who advises you? Done in countless games, but Cortana was unique in that she actually acted intelligent, had an independent personality, and had a friendly but completely non-sexual relationship with the main character. Lots of stuff was borrowed from Aliens (dropships, badass black sergeant, space marines in gray armor), but it was integrated seamlessly.
Also, Halo is just as good as most or any PC FPS as shown in this review.
