Do any of the Halo titles deserve critical acclaim?

[Scoobes]

CollectiveCynic said:

Scoobes said:

CollectiveCynic said:

That doesn't make it innovative in any sense because it hardly brought anything new to the table, but that doesn't prevent it from being a classic game. The Half-Life series isn't particurly innovative either but they're outstanding games.

Now excuse me, I'll running off before the Valve fanboys grab their torches and pitch forks.

Where's my pitch-fork gone?

Anyway, the original Half-Life was innovative. Quite simply for its time, nothing like it had been done. Bringing together a narrative; sequences that weren't all out action and instead, nicely scripted. People actually spoke to you for prolonged periods. No FPS game before had an introduction sequence that didn't feature shoving you straight into the action. Half-Life built tension by having you enter what was supposed to be another day at work.

Then there was the AI, it came out at a time when most FPS game AI either just shot straight at you or would end up running into walls trying to get you. In HL they actually ran for cover, flanked you and flushed you out with grenades.

To a lesser extent the shooting mechanics hadn't been done before either, at least not with as much polish as in HL. It added an extra layer of realism to FPS. Just compare the shooting mechanics to Sin or Quake II.

First-person perspective storytelling through scripted sequences has already been done before in; System Shock, Unreal, and Trespasser. Half-Life was the first to execute it well, but the story itself was bare bones. Unlike System Shock, where the storyline was actually well written and though provoking. Unreal also offered a scripted introduction shown in a interactive first-person view as well. The A.I. was brilliant, but Unreal also provided impressive A.I. for it's time as well, Half-Life just did it better. The realistic gunplay was already presented in GoldenEye 007 and Trespasser, Half-Life just refined it.

Does this make Half-Life any less of a masterpiece, of course not. Half-Life is even a superior game than any of the game's I've just mentioned, but it wasn't particurly innovative. It's just like Halo, it's a classic FPS that didn't do anything new, but it refined everything that was done before and combined it into a well polished package. Both games also contained one atrocious level. :P

I forget about Syetm Shock when talking about FPS games as it had so many RPG elements (well, no. 2 did, never played 1). I also forgot that Goldeneye was released before Half-Life, I only ever played it after. As for Unreal, my memories of the game are virtually non-existant as I hated the shooting mechanics and I remember not being that impressed by the AI, unlike with Half-Life which really stood out. As for the scripted events, it obviously wasn't that memorable. When I first played Half-life I remember thinking "OK, how's this going to screw up then?" constantly... until of course they did screw up :P.