i don't enjoy halo that much either but you can't ignore what it did for the genre on consoles - it popularized fantastic workable fps controls and game-play mechanics, if not for halo on xbox, then the console gaming market will most likely be very different. Halo was the beginning of microsoft killing the pc games market if you ask me. I hardly think that these 360/pc games are good for the pc market.

see marathon (1994) a game who date to before starcraft and was made. marthon is by bungie, it has all the features you describe, and is far more the basis of halo then starcraft, it is felt that halo might be a set before marathon, and that the master chief is the protagonist (unnamed) from marathon

edited funky wording somewhat 

DP

I'm not a Microsoft fan but i got a free X-box and a copy of Halo back in 2003 and played the co-op Campaign with my flatmate to death. I had played plenty of shooters on the PC prior but still enjoyed it immensely

It had great graphics, epic music and great sound with your team mates spouting off cheesy and sometimes hilarious lines throughout the battle scenes, had great physics, a cool cast of characters good and bad, a nice selection of guns where nearly all had their place and could be very effective if used properly and generally just a great feel and atmosphere in the game. The only real problem i had with the game at the time was the repetition and reuse of some levels and the somewhat uneven level design in the game with some being epic and others falling a little flat. The thing is you could play those good levels over and over again.

I never played that much multiplayer, and i've played very little of Halo 2 and 3, so i can't speak to the progression of the series, but back in 2002/3 Halo: CE was an excellent and quite unique shooter on consoles.

It's a great console FPS {maybe} but it doesn't live up to the high standards of PC shooters.

The reason due to halo 3 being so popular is that, it grasps all the fanboys who played it before hand and now it reaches out to majority of the xbox live community. With the addition of forge, screenshots, films, game variants the game has a extremely long lasting appeal. As soon as someone gets sick of the usual team slayer on halo, bungie releases grifball, a great fast paced game that changed how many people play halo 3. Another reason why halo is so popular is that bungie updates the playlists every month with changes to various playlists/maps. IS there any other console based fps that have such support from the developers with the influx of map packs that are not released too quickly nor to late, but at perfect intervals. The various custom games that you can come up with also makes halo 3 so popular, their is endless possibillities in which you can play the custom games in which all can be downloaded from a friendly internet tie in to the game, bungie.net. These are some of the reasons why I love to play Halo 3.

I remember when the original Halo was on the local news. It also had a massive marketing campaign behind it and a lot of hype among Xbox owners. The game pretty much revolutionized how console gamers play online, which is most likely the reason its popularity exploded.

It's all marketing and hype, thats how it became popular.

It's all marketing and hype, thats how it became popular.

so you saying all you need is to put a tv ad, couple news reports etc of your product and your destined for success?