The story in Halo 3 was entirely unexciting, but I did enjoy Halo Wars, and the CG cut scenes are incredible

for gears of war and halo I basically ran with this:

Okay I am this space marine... And I am killing these aliens to stop them from destroying my entire race..

I don't think it so much has to do with the story, as it does with the action derailing and sitracting you from the story. I mean, fallout 3 isn't so action packed you forget about what's going on. But when you are dealing with a locust horde, or a covenant walker(?) it's easy to forget, imo.

Halo 1 had an epic awesome original story. The others...eh.

To those that say the Halo series has a crappy story, can you name any Sci-Fi shooters that you think have a good story? I always wonder about this, as I think it's pretty good for what it is.

And btw, why do people always think that Gears is a game about "Space Marines shooting Aliens"?

1. They are not in space, and don't even have the ability to travel outside their own planet.
2. The "bad guys" are not aliens. They are a subterranean group of hominid-like creatures that are at War, probably because the surface humans have decimated their underground home for decades from their own wars and mining of Imulsion, among other reasons.

I didn't like any part having to do with Gravemind.

I heard great things about Half Life 2's story.  Halo's story is incredibly hard to follow.  The story of the series should be commended for using grey morality and not be all black and white.

 You should read the OP.

I dunno, I have trouble caring. In my entire life I have never actually enjoyed a FPS in single player mode, so whatever the story might be is irrelevant to me since it's being presented in a format I don't care about. If they ever make a FPS where the story unfolds in multiplayer somehow, maybe I will start caring.

STFU! The story is the best video game story ever. It's the sole reason why I'm addicted to Halo. In fact it's the only videogame where fans froze the forums trying to work out the story of Halo 3 before it arrived.

Halo is bigger than just the 3 games. The fal of Reach book answers all of your questions. What Halo is, The background to covenant higherarchy and the twists of death. The story of Halo is only rivalled by Mass Effect.

Halo is like Star Wars. It has a massive cult following. You will always have the story haters. But the majority remember the characters, story, first time they found out what Halo was. First time they found out there are 7 Halo's. Priceless piece of gaming history.

According to every reviewer on the planet the day the game came out it had the best story in gaming history *halo 3*