Grand Theft Auto 4 must also be a masterpiece...... 

Halo: Combat Evolved released on a console with a minuscule userbase back in 2001. During that time there was no competition on the console, it was a wasteland of PC ports and anything that was good would have been praised to high heaven. It's not only tied to the Xbox either, the N-Gage was a horrible gaming machine (I owned one) and when Splintercell was released on it, it got great reviews and praise. I played the game and it was broken, but it was better than anything else on that platform and so it's reviewed higher for it.

Since then the franchise falls into the 'must have' list, which means that no matter what the quality of the game is, it will always be reviewed ridiculously high. Metal Gear, Grand Theft Auto, Modern Warfare, Mario 3D, Zelda 3D etc. Halos a great franchise, but calling it a masterpiece is a bit far fetched. If anything, I'd probably say Combat Evolved would most likely be considered one, but every other Halo title after it doesn't deserve that much praise.

Halo may have made FPS on consoles great, but it also caused a lack of creative direction in the industry and had FPS games not become popular, something else would have. We could all be playing 7 AAA puzzle games a year or Arcade fighters could be the dominant genre. 

Obviously this is just my opinion and you can have yours, I just think your wrong and I'm right (that's how opinions work).

Its an "I hate Halo thread" I don't think that should surprise anyone. In any case its just as dumb as saying "What if the PS3 released in xx with xx price" because all that yields is pretty useless speculation and wishful thinking.

I can agree on this. You are wrong and I am right! :)

That's how opinions work = )

Except theres this one thing. The best FPS's were made before Halo.

They're called Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena and  Half Life (  mods like Counter Strike).

Bah! They are pretty lame. Unreal > Unreal Tournament arcade BS. Blood was a way better FPS than Half-Life ever was. Lets also not forget the awesome which was Quake 2, Quake 2 >>>> Quake 3 any day.

Meh! Unreal Tournament > Unreal, single player BS . HL is way better FPS than Blood ever was, is and will be. Lets also not forget how awesomely Quake 3 improved over 2, Quake 3  >>>> Quake 2 any day.
Yea, everyone can do that. (but seriously, I played UT online a lot and loved it, never played Blood and I guess since I played Quake 3 before 2, I got more into it.)

Either way, all those games were made before Halo, so you just further proved my point.

Also HL2, it was released after Halo, but I'm pretty sure it would be as awesome as it is.

Yeah and halo > half-life&unreal&quake and so on.

1. First person shooters wouldn't have had a gate into big time mainstream console gaming without it. COD, Killzone, Resistance all would have no place on consoles. PC would've still reigned supreme.

2. The Xbox wouldn't have sold as well as it did. Used copies of Halo weren't logged, and I believe Halo could've sold nearly half of the original Xboxes.

3. Shooter multiplayer would suck on consoles.

4. The Halo control scheme is the prototype for all Xbox 360 FPS titles or at least one of the control schemes of the usual three

Man, Doom with ZDaemon and Skulltag >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> any other shooter out there. Yeah, you heard me right.
 

(IMO, of course)