Halo has to be some sort of freak of nature. The game got so much hype during the original XBOX launch. My friend got an XBOX for Christmas 2001. We both played it together that day, but in the end, I just didn't believe the hype. I never played it again until earlier this year.
Still, over the years, I watched in awe as the game kept selling month after month, year after year. Halo was jokingly refered to as the "only" game for the XBOX. In a way, it was. If you had an XBOX, you buy Halo. Halo 2 was a major step forward, but I never had any desire to play it. XBOX fans ate it up. The media presented it as the second coming, and to many, it was. I still don't think it deserved the hype it recieved, but it had strong multi-player. It satisfied it's fanbase.
Halo 3. I finally started drinking the Kool-Aid. The hype for this thing was like nothing I'd ever seen in my 25+ years of gaming. In preparation, I bought Halo and Halo 2. Halo 3, in my opinion, was a great game. I didn't dream about it when I wasn't playing it or anything, but it didn't dissapoint.
Long story, short. As the "only" game for Microsoft's hardware debut last generation, Halo recieved a lot of (in my opinion) undeserverd hype. So many games this generation are so much more deserving, but unless some new Pokémon type phenomenon is created, NO GAME (I can't count Wii Play or Wii Sports with a straight face) is going to beat it.
*edit* In my rant, I completely forgot about the portable systems!
