I was given Halo as a gift, played up until the bit where Cortana yells at you to go stop Keyes, said, "This is terrible," and shut it off.

When Halo 2 came out, my brother played it, but I remembered how little I liked Halo, and figured this would be just more of the same.

When Halo 3 came out, I was brow-beaten into buying it by most of my gaming friends who wanted to play with me. However, since I care about storyline, I fired up Halo 1 and finally beat that, then borrowed Halo 2 from my brother and beat that, then finally played 3. The whole experience was not unlike pulling off a scab that isn't quite ready. It was painful, but it was also going away.

For those still uncertain, it is my opinion that the "epic story" was not worth playing through those three games.

- J

ElArabDeMagnifico:

Teh EDIT button shall save you!

but will doing that screw up or wipe clean the current statistics?

I read every book, every comic book, and played all of the games. Now, I just wish I could afford the action figures so I could make my own fights!

Played all (Halo:CE,Halo 1 for PC, Halo custom editon, Halo 2,Halo 2 PC and Halo 3)
Love Most (All except Halo custom and Halo 2's single player after mission 3)
Read Fall of Reach,Flood, First Strike, and Ghosts of oynx.
Didnt bother with action figures and comics

Actually, I figured out pretty much the entire plot from in game expostition. Halo's story is just really, really terrible, and the only reason I played through campaign was for armor (and also because doing so helps improve your online abilities).

when you consider that halo 3 sold more copies in it's opening weekend than halo and halo 2 combined, and that it has since sold more copies than both of it's prequels by ridiculous amounts, it should be pretty obvious that a large chunk of people haven't played the originals. it's simple math.

Aries_Split:
Did you just use the word Halo and plot in the same sentence? The actual game's plot sucked. And go burn if you are including universe stuff like books, because including a books expansion on a GAMES story, is retarded.

What's wrong with it? You may well have valid points but when you put it like that it just makes you sound like a fanboy, so please explain.

I had CE when it first came out, and loved it, completed through the campaign on all difficulties with my cousin.

Got halo 2 when it came out, again, went through it all and completed it, it was cool but not as great as the first.

Pre-ordered halo 3 in a hope to relive the fond memories of halo addiction, it was okay but not as great as i hoped, still managed to complete it on legendary which wasnt too challenging. Had some new effects but overall gfx werent much diffrent, didnt come close to gears of war gfx.

Played some halo3 online but i found it a bit un-co-operative.
I didnt like how short the rounds were and how you couldnt really choose what to play, as in exactly what map and what game mode. And was constantly populated by kids spamming mics.

A great series, just didnt go all out enough with halo 3

Halo 2 was so boring I doubt I will ever bother with 3.

Geo Da Sponge:

Aries_Split:
Did you just use the word Halo and plot in the same sentence? The actual game's plot sucked. And go burn if you are including universe stuff like books, because including a books expansion on a GAMES story, is retarded.

What's wrong with it? You may well have valid points but when you put it like that it just makes you sound like a fanboy, so please explain.

I don't see what's wrong with it. It's a decent plot for a video game.

J'aen:

Geo Da Sponge:

Aries_Split:
Did you just use the word Halo and plot in the same sentence? The actual game's plot sucked. And go burn if you are including universe stuff like books, because including a books expansion on a GAMES story, is retarded.

What's wrong with it? You may well have valid points but when you put it like that it just makes you sound like a fanboy, so please explain.

I don't see what's wrong with it. It's a decent plot for

J'aen:

Geo Da Sponge:
[quote=Aries_Split]Did you just use the word Halo and plot in the same sentence? The actual game's plot sucked. And go burn if you are including universe stuff like books, because including a books expansion on a GAMES story, is retarded.

What's wrong with it? You may well have valid points but when you put it like that it just makes you sound like a fanboy, so please explain.

I don't see what's wrong with it. It's a decent plot for a video game.

Decent for a generic plot. Your a supersoldier.(Do we need more?) Your the only one that can save life as we know it. Theres a alien group trying to kill us.Everythings basic even the weapons have no flavour. Pistols check, assult/sniper rifle check, SMG check. Rocket launcher check. Do any of those do anything differnt then shoot projecticles? No. Theres a big huge sword that should be useless in fighting...

Half-Life is just so much better. If halo gets the best plot of the year award i'm slitting my throat with a spoon just to make it take longer and hope that its just a mistake..

Bulletinmybrain:

Decent for a generic plot. Your a supersoldier.(Do we need more?) Your the only one that can save life as we know it. Theres a alien group trying to kill us.Everythings basic even the weapons have no flavour. Pistols check, assult/sniper rifle check, SMG check. Rocket launcher check. Do any of those do anything differnt then shoot projecticles? No. Theres a big huge sword that should be useless in fighting...

Half-Life is just so much better. If halo gets the best plot of the year award i'm slitting my throat with a spoon just to make it take longer and hope that its just a mistake..

For the whole 'you're a supersoldier' thing, Halo was one of the first big games to do that (as far as I know), so what's the problem? Name several other games which had a supersoldier as a main character that came out before the original halo, and then maybe I'll concede the point. As for alien groups, there's actually two of them, and the covenant is more than your generic run of the mill stuff. And no, you don't have to go into the books to realise this, you just have to tune out the mass droning of fanboys that "Halo has no plot".

As for the weapons, have you looked at the 'Favourite weapon' thread? In that, pretty much every other post includes a weapon from Halo. You seem to have just looked at the human weaponry, where the whole point is that it's recognisable. I mean, let's expand what we're looking at. The game has a gun which fires pink crystal shards that home in on an enemy, and if enough go into one enemy, he explodes. There are grenades that stick onto enemies. There is a plasma pistol that is seemingly useless until you realise that the overcharge shot has so many weird uses. In Halo 3 there is a giant hammer and a super-powered laser, as well as a shotgun you can dual-wield. So yeah, I can name three weapons that don't fire projectiles; a sword, a hammer and a giant laser. As you put it, these obviously have 'no flavour'. I mean, I like Half-life, but every weapon you listed is included in Half-life as well. As for your comment on the whole energy sword thing, have you heard of something called a light-saber?

And lastly, what the hell are you talking about, plot of the year? No halo or half-life games have come out this year, so you just seem determined to shove in one final jab to show how you hate halo so much. I don't have a problem with people who don't think Halo was 'The Best Game Evar', but I'm fed up with people loke you who badmouth it but don't have a clue about it. You say Half-Life is so much better, but that doesn't mean Halo's bad. Just because there is one example of something which is better, doesn't mean you have to shun everything else.

And by the way, you fail at using quote properly.

Geo Da Sponge, Excellent post I agree with all of your points. It is irritating that people just leap onto the "Anti-Halo" bandwagon with accurate or truthful points. While Halo's story isn't the best at least it works, it explains why things work the way they do, why you have to do something, and where you are. It's not as deep as a book's story is but for its medium it is good. In addition many of halo's story criticisms are true for most other games out there. Half-life isn't this god of gaming stories that many people make it out to be, for the most part its pretty bland. Evil aliens attack, humanity is losing until a"super-soldier" rises up, kills the crap out of aliens and saves the day. in essentials half-life's story basically equals Halo's. The misconception is that since Half-life's characters are more-believable and well-written the story is automatically better. The characters may be better but the story is not.

I think thats enough to stir some people up.

Also more directly on topic, I played Halo2, Halo:CE, then Halo3.

I was expecting to be submerged in a torrent of fire for my post, not congratulated. Thanks.

Mmm BJ Blaskowitz was for my money the first FPS super soldier, if not how about JC Denton. Doom marine, quake, quake 2, etc, etc. Contra probably if we want to leave the FPS genre.

I thought Halo 1 was awful, although I only played it on PC and we have had a longer history of playing the things so I guess I'm spoiled. To me it was pretty much the same room copy and pasted with a main character who couldn't move fast if his life depended on it...which was generally the case unfortunately.

What I've read about H3 and heard about H2 was that the plot was unsatisfying/unintelligable. H1 was hugely generic I'm afraid in plot terms. HL2 has a strong plot because of it's characters - it's crazy to entirely separate the two, as both are needed. Bioshock had a really good premise and story too.

I imagine if you got Halo 3 then you'd need a different console to run 1 and 2?

fuggles:

I imagine if you got Halo 3 then you'd need a different console to run 1 and 2?

You can play Halo 1 and Halo 2 on the 360.

Bulletinmybrain:

Decent for a generic plot. Your a supersoldier.(Do we need more?) Your the only one that can save life as we know it. Theres a alien group trying to kill us.Everythings basic even the weapons have no flavour. Pistols check, assult/sniper rifle check, SMG check. Rocket launcher check. Do any of those do anything differnt then shoot projecticles? No. Theres a big huge sword that should be useless in fighting...

Half-Life is just so much better. If halo gets the best plot of the year award i'm slitting my throat with a spoon just to make it take longer and hope that its just a mistake..

So I guess everything besides half-life 2s plot suck (when half-life 2s awesome? Half life 2 had an really gripping story, but if you didn't think about the characters, the plot wasnt really moving forward. Halo had some cool plot twist and fitted perfectly for the game. I also think its kind of ridiculous you complain a shooter for only having guns that shoot projectiles. I suggest you try halo: CE before opening your mouth again, since it has a lot of original weapons that has tactical usage (some is great against enimies without shield, some is great to take out an enemys shields, some is great for one enemy to destroy many).

rayman 101:
the first halo game i bought was 3, but i wanted to play the other ones so i got CE & 2. CE's singleplayer was really fun but the level design was a bit confusing and got kind of boring on the fifth level. Halo 2's singleplayer started off good, but then turned kind of mediocre and i stopped playing it because I didn't like it. For multiplayer i stick with 3, infact halo3 would also have had my fave singleplayer if it wasn't for that god damn cortana level and stupid team AI. I also have no idea why people hate the library so much, the level wasn't as frustrating as the cortana level.

I agree. I like the library level much more than cortana, but I think that it should win an award for repetitive level design.

I played Halo: CE and Halo 3, but there isn't an option for it. Can you edit the poll so there's a Halo:CE and Halo 3 option? Oh, and I downloaded Halo:CE on my 360 because I never played it on the Xbox or PC. lol

I got Halo: CE with my Xbox, so I played through it as an inagural game. I played Halo 2 because I loved the books and wanted to see how the story continued. And I played Halo 3 because I wanted to play Halo 3. No other reason.

Got Halo:CE in 2001 with my Xbox. Halo 2 rented then bought sat on it for a year till I got a 360. Halo 3 Legendary edition bought but Xbox 360 was from 05 so it had to be changed then I was able to play past the 1st mission with Disk Read Error every time I went on it. Halo:CE Best SP,Halo 2 Best MP and Halo 3 has maybe more replay value with forge theater stuff like that.

i actually played them all in order. I tend to find myself missing out if I don't play the previous installments in any game except final fantasy. After getting RE4 as a gift I went out and bought the previous 3 just to catch up on the story line.

I never had any interest in halo. My roommate got halo 3 for me and I only play it with other people around. I am not saying Halo:CE or Halo 2 are bad games or anything, it just doesn't interest me at all.

Played em all but in the wrong order.

Halo 2--->Halo CE--->Halo 3

I got Halo 2 as a present and i was like "This game is freakin awesome, where do i get the prequel!"

Played them all in order, read all the books and most of the comics, desperately cling to the prescedent set by Spider-Man (the movie) that they let the Halo movie stew in development hell for a while then make an awesome movie when they run out of less risky ideas.

Also Shatnershaman: by third level in Halo 2 do you mean Cairo Station, Outskirts, or Metropolis? They can all be considered third (third: in menu, with player control, with combat).

I never got the opportunity to play Halo Multiplayer until I got Broadband for the 360. Adored Halo 3 MP, yet was bored by Halo 2 MP.

As to the campaigns, the first game has its flaws (The Library went on too long, then you get teleported! Yeah, thanks for doing that now Cortana...), yet I did feel that the combat was evolved - probably the only rival to Goldeneye 007 as the best FPS of all time.

However, Halo 2's campaign was awful (although the Arbiter plot line was interesting), with textures popping in late and greater linearity. Whilst Halo 3's campaign got the graphics right but totally lost me on the story. What was that thing that opened up in Africa? The Ark?

I've never liked fighting Brutes. The insectoid enemies would presumably need anti-grav to be able to hold the weight of their weapons, but then their gossamer-thin wings would be hopeless and tear themselves to pieces if they tried to use them in a thick Earth atmosphere. Why were the Prophets taken notice of? Why did the Covenant think the Halos were a good thing even after the flood appeared? Are they dumb?

Given that the Elites figure out the truth and side with the humans why can't some of the other races be persuaded?

Well, I appreciated the Forge, detested chat (which was only used to coordinate the team I was in twice in over 2000 games), got the DLCs, plan on getting the Mythic Map Pack (out on Marketplace - Nov 7th?), yet are currently dismayed at the changes made to the Multiplayer - with adjusted maps and not starting you off with grenades in Team SWAT. Aaarggh! Bungie. What have you done? What scant skills I had can no longer be employed, I'm playing worse and I used to be uncompetitive.

Good job Far Cry 2 is just around the corner...

Uncompetative:

However, Halo 2's campaign was awful (although the Arbiter plot line was interesting), with textures popping in late and greater linearity. Whilst Halo 3's campaign got the graphics right but totally lost me on the story. What was that thing that opened up in Africa? The Ark?

I've never liked fighting Brutes. The insectoid enemies would presumably need anti-grav to be able to hold the weight of their weapons, but then their gossamer-thin wings would be hopeless and tear themselves to pieces if they tried to use them in a thick Earth atmosphere. Why were the Prophets taken notice of? Why did the Covenant think the Halos were a good thing even after the flood appeared? Are they dumb?

Given that the Elites figure out the truth and side with the humans why can't some of the other races be persuaded?

I always feel compelled to explain the Halo story to those who don't get so I'm sorry if you don't care.

The thing in Africa was mistaken for the Ark originally, but it turned out to be a device which created a portal to the Ark, a massive installation far beyond the outer edge of the galaxy.

I agree that Elites are better to fight but Brutes can be interesting (the Brute Cheiftain at the end of The Ark challenges you to a duel which I think is neat, although I've only once answered the challenge properly). Covenant weapons aren't that heavy, plasma pistols aren't at least. And you don't really know how strong the Drones wings are or what they're made of. The Covenant has believed in Halo for thousands of years, and they've also known about the Flood for a very long time as an enemy of their gods (the Forerunners). I doubt it was a terrible shock for them to find their gods' enemy trying to prevent their ascension to godhood (which is what the Covenant believe the Halos were built for).

The Elites where only persuaded away from this belief because the unquestioned leader of their race found out the truth and because they were declared rebelious heretics by the Prophets and because the truth had tangible and irrefutable evidence supporting it.

Eldritch Warlord:

I always feel compelled to explain the Halo story to those who don't get so I'm sorry if you don't care.

The thing in Africa was mistaken for the Ark originally, but it turned out to be a device which created a portal to the Ark, a massive installation far beyond the outer edge of the galaxy.

Thank you. That was an immense help.

All I need to know now is why Master Chief had to rescue Cortana from Gravemind. Why bother?

I'm seriously asking this. I really didn't understand any of the events in the game, such as where Master Chief had fallen from (I coudn't remember the end of Halo 2 and I hated that game so much that I wasn't about to replay it to remind myself of the cliffhanger) and why that massive human spacecraft lands and sends all that equipment and vehicles flying... killing the saviour of the human race.

Let's just hope Halo 3 Recon makes more sense.

I played them all in order but I only finished Halo CE a few weeks before Halo 2 came out.

One thing I didn't understand about Halo 3 is why the Grunts and hunters started fighting for the Covenant while in Halo 2 they joined the Elites and humans (I suppose).

I felt a bit disappointed by Halo 3, I thought the campaign could have been so much more than it was. I expected it to have an epic conclusion that would both end the story and leave me in awe. While the end driving part was fun (could have done with a timer I think) it felt like Bungie had no idea how to end it so put this in. I would have liked some sort of giant battle between all forces in which the chief and the arbiter had to fight through to stop Truth from lighting the Halos. The level "The Covenant" came close to this but it wasn't the end of the game and didn't end the story in any way.

I would have also preferred levels where you play as the Arbiter. While it was good to have Co-op characters that aren't mysterious clones, playing as the Arbiter would have given us more game play and might have helped explain the story.

Uncompetative:

All I need to know now is why Master Chief had to rescue Cortana from Gravemind. Why bother?

I'm seriously asking this. I really didn't understand any of the events in the game, such as where Master Chief had fallen from (I coudn't remember the end of Halo 2 and I hated that game so much that I wasn't about to replay it to remind myself of the cliffhanger) and why that massive human spacecraft lands and sends all that equipment and vehicles flying... killing the saviour of the human race.

Let's just hope Halo 3 Recon makes more sense.

Sure:

1) He needed the Index from Cortana to activate Halo, the newly built Halo didn't have one yet. Sadly there's a glitch which prevents a rather crucial piece of dialog explaining the from being heard. It shows up in subtitles though.

2) He jumped off the Forerunner dreadnought that was previously used to power High Charity, the Covenant capital.

3) Forward Unto Dawn landed because it needed to get out of the fight above the Ark, the slopply landing because it needed to be quickly. And it needed to get out of the fight because it wouldn't last long against 30 some Covenant ships even with the Elites helping it.

I do believe a problem with Halo 3's story is that it's somewhat hard to follow, being an obsessively observant person I don't see this problem but I had to explain a lot of it to my brother who normally gets things rather well. I've sort off been advertising this site alot on the Escapist lately but Ascendant Justice has some pretty good retrospectives on the Halo 3 campaign levels that explain the story progression rather well.

Agreed about Recon, with the added wish that it's awesome.

The thing with Halo CE's plot is they purposefully wanted you to think it was generic, in order to surprise you that much more when the flood appeared half way through. This is because a good way to make a game memorable is to positively dash expectations. At least, that's the way I see it.

You see, the flood changed everything, they are why the Forerunners built the Halo rings and the Arc, as weapons of last resort. The flood were the missing link in a person's understanding of the story.

On to Halo 3. The story, pure and simple, sucked. One thing in particular I didn't like was the thing with humans being the forerunners' descendants. I actually remember being half way through Halo 3, seeing an obscure reference to this, thinking "hey, maybe humans are the forerunners' descendants," then immediately dismissing the idea as retarded. And then they tell you that's exactly how it is. My first thought was "how could that be possible, even in this alternate universe?" after all, if the Halos wipe out all life that has enough mass to be food for the flood, and the forerunners activated them, how could they have descendants? Sorry, rant over.

Eldritch Warlord:

Agreed about Recon, with the added wish that it's awesome.

Fantastic. Thank you again, I don't have any more questions now.

I hope you enjoy Halo 3 Recon as much as I hope to. Also, there is rumored to be another Forge-like thingy in the Mythic Map Pack called Sandbox, although this could be wishful thinking. What would be nice is if you could author your own cooperative campaigns like in Crysis.