Halo Games and Preferences

I've always wondered what people believe is the best halo game experience. Tell me what Halo game you enjoyed the most and why.

I'd put my rating system out like this

1. Halo 1
2. Halo 3 ODST
3. Halo Reach
4. Halo 3
5. Halo 2
6. Halo 4
7. Halo Wars

Halo 1 was always my favorite, it really set me in tone for the rest of the halo games and quite frankly, none of the other games really had as much of an impact as Combat Evolved did.
Halo 3 ODST had an amazing atmosphere and the storytelling was solid, and the music really closed everything together and made for a great game.
Halo Reach opened Halo up for faster gameplay and slightly deterred from the the standard halo style, but did so in a good way.
H3 didnt really peak my interest as much as it should have. New weapons and designs were cool though.
Halo 2 was....eh...
Halo 4 was ew, no, never again
Halo Wars i never played, cannot comment

I'd have to go with Halo 3 for the art style, and Halo 1/Reach for the game design. Let me be clear though, I think Halo 3 has the best gameplay/social features, I just really love what Bungie did with Halo 1 and Reach, in which they really gave each weapon its own niche on the battlefield (and 2 grenade types). Halo 3 did this too for the most part (and all Halo FPSs, as this is one of the key things needed for [fun] Halo multiplayer and one of the reasons why Halo 4 flopped), but a lot of weapons were shunned when it came to competitive use.

Idk, I guess I'm just spouting things everyone understands and I'm complicating my own opinion.

Halo 3 I suppose.

...but the Halo 2 days though ... :(

You make good points, R93. I have very similar points of view.

1. Halo: Reach
2. Halo Combat Evolved
3. Halo 3 ODST
4. Halo 3
5. Halo 2
6. Halo Wars
7. Halo 4

Reach (although a lot complain about it's contradictions with books and all that) had, in my opinion, the most enjoyable campaign. While it's story isnt as good as the original trilogy, it was solid for what it was, in my opinion at least (I never read the books, see). Gameplay was alright, different, but alright.
Customising in-campaign armour was something I liked, and the credit system too.

Halo Combat Evolved, the original, was as we all could probably agree one of, if not, THE best. What it does, it tends to do well, and regardless of it's lack of gamemodes other than campaign and multiplayer, it still retains replayability, which says something.

ODST, with that sexy saxophone, comes in third, with an interesting storyline, that is well told in it's flashback format. Gameplay is basically Halo 3, except you cant see your shield bar and it's dark so you have to use your visor thingy. Firefight is certainly a good drawcard, while lacking options is a little sad, it's still nice to have a challenge you can't fix to be too easy.

Halo 3, same as ODST, had a good campaign and multiplayer, though did seem to lack replayability in my view without having friends to do multiplayer with. Forge is a welcome sight, though a bit clunky to use. Oh those custom maps were fun.

Halo 2 did some things right and others... not so much. I won't talk about the ending, but will comment of how Halo 1 looked nicer than Halo 2. Gameplay was good, the addition of dual wielding and hijacking were rather good. Though it is sad that some of the ideas in Halo 2 both were created in Halo 2, and died with it. Influencing maps like shooting the stalactites in Waterworks to make them fall were awesome things, but never really appeared in Halo 3 and beyond. Also having chief hold the weapons you were actually using in the cutscenes - why that stopped in other games puzzles me. Basically, good game, good mechanics, bad ending, bad looks.

Halo Wars was a mixbag. RTS was one i didn't expect from Halo on a console, but seemed alright. Most of my issues with it is the fact it has very little replayability due to the fact it had a bunch of potential and never acted on it. In 10 minutes you can have just about all of your units maxed out, and the only thing in the entire game left to do is attack, which gets... boring, really. Storyline in campaign was average, nothing amazing, but not bad either. Cutscenes were pretty good though, I'll give it that. I've played it about 4 times, 2 to finish the campaign and the others for skirmishes. I haven't really touched it since.

Halo 4 is Halo 4, if I poo-poo on it and write a rant, everyone will jump on my hide for inaccuracies and contradictions, because I'm the kind of guy who writes something and regrets it later. Basically I didn't like it, didn't think much of the art style change, thought the lighting was tacky among other things. I felt I wasted my $128 on the Limited Edition, but I'll bite the bullet and learn from my mistake. All part of the process.

My rating system:

1. Halo 3
2. Halo Reach
3. Halo CE
4. Halo 2
5. Halo 3: ODST
6. Halo 4

Halo 3 had the most balanced and competitive multiplayer of any Halo in my opinion and Reach wasn't as balanced or competitive but it was still a refreshing change from the usual Halo experience (unlike Halo 4). Reach also had phenomenal custom games.

I honestly don't understand why so many people hate on Halo Reach. It was a great game, but I think it seemed bad to people that expected something like Halo 3. I'm pretty sure if Halo Reach multiplayer was just a clone of Halo 3 multiplayer, like everyone wanted it to be, people would have gotten tired of it as fast as they got tired of Halo 4. Bungie had no choice but to go in a different direction because you can't further improve perfection (Halo 3). It concerns me that so many people seem to want Contingency to be a PC port of Halo 3.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have Halo 3 and when I play online, it's laggy as heck, but when I play Reach, it's buttery smooth. I would enjoy Halo 3 if it wasn't always laggy..

I've never had that problem

Me either... cause I've never owned Halo 3!  :)

Lets be reasonable people Halo 3 is by far the Best Halo game ever IF NOT the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME!

RockMetal&Time wrote:Lets be reasonable people Halo 3 is by far the Best Halo game ever IF NOT the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME!

Dual wielding ruined the gunplay because one would have to have 2 dual-wield weapons in order to compete with a non-dual-wield weapon. Rest in peace, my beloved Plasma Rifle.

Master Noob wrote:

RockMetal&Time wrote:Lets be reasonable people Halo 3 is by far the Best Halo game ever IF NOT the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME!

Dual wielding ruined the gunplay because one would have to have 2 dual-wield weapons in order to compete with a non-dual-wield weapon. Rest in peace, my beloved Plasma Rifle.

Still Halo 3 Introduced Forge and Theather mode
also the Ranking system is one of the best out there
because there were Two Social ranking and Competetive Ranking

Master Noob wrote:

RockMetal&Time wrote:Lets be reasonable people Halo 3 is by far the Best Halo game ever IF NOT the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME!

Dual wielding ruined the gunplay because one would have to have 2 dual-wield weapons in order to compete with a non-dual-wield weapon. Rest in peace, my beloved Plasma Rifle.

Solution: make dual wieldable weapons harder to find.

That way, when you get a weapon, you A: have to be good with all of them so you can use what you find and B: get a sense of excitement that you now have a weapon. Not necessarily a power weapon.

But by spreading out dual-wieldable weapon spawns and upping their respawn times you would have a harder time finding two of them.

Or... We could just remove dual wielding..

Or have dual weilding and balance it more like halo 2 had it

Heatguts wrote:
Solution: make dual wieldable weapons harder to find.

That way, when you get a weapon, you A: have to be good with all of them so you can use what you find and B: get a sense of excitement that you now have a weapon. Not necessarily a power weapon.

But by spreading out dual-wieldable weapon spawns and upping their respawn times you would have a harder time finding two of them.

Why would making them harder to find give them any advantage at all? Alone, they are designed to be significantly underpowered because of the pairing possibilities, making them harder to find would result in dual-wield weapons never being used ever again. The hassle to get 2 weapons would never pay off.

RockMetal&Time wrote:Lets be reasonable people Halo 3 is by far the Best Halo game ever IF NOT the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME!

Yes, but if I wanted to play Halo 3, I would play Halo 3. This is a different game, therefore, it should be different. I'm fine with using Halo 3 as a base to build onto but it needs to be different; and I'm talking more than just a couple weapon tweaks and some new equipment/weapons.

D. Emile wrote:a lot of weapons were shunned when it came to competitive use.

He means Halo 3 when he says that. If we want contingency to be the best, we need to emulate what he says about the niches. That is why I voted Reach.

PunxsutawnyFil wrote:

RockMetal&Time wrote:Lets be reasonable people Halo 3 is by far the Best Halo game ever IF NOT the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME!

Yes, but if I wanted to play Halo 3, I would play Halo 3. This is a different game, therefore, it should be different. I'm fine with using Halo 3 as a base to build onto but it needs to be different; and I'm talking more than just a couple weapon tweaks and some new equipment/weapons.

I dont want another Halo 3 because times have changed I'm just saying Halo 3 was the game that changed Halo alot! more than 4

This isnt an argument over stuff for contingency, this is my curiosity peaking towards what the consensus is about official halo games.

That being said, this topic has over 100 views and the poll only has 8 responses, wth guise

1. Halo 3
2. Halo 2
3. Halo CE
4. Halo 3: ODST
5. Halo Reach/Halo 4

Spoiler:

Master Noob wrote:
Dual wielding ruined the gunplay because one would have to have 2 dual-wield weapons in order to compete with a non-dual-wield weapon. Rest in peace, my beloved Plasma Rifle.

I get that it would be very difficult and time consuming for the devs to implement into PC. However, duel wielding is not responsible for ruining gunplay. If that were true, then Reach, which removed duel wielding, would have brought the PR back to its CE status. That obviously didn't happen, and the reason why is because it needed to be balanced with the rest of the sandbox.  

Precision rifles (or in CE's case the pistol) have been statistically better than full autos in every Halo game. The transition between Halo CE to Halo 2 had us move from a 3sk pistol to a 4sk rifle as the spawning weapon. This meant slower killtimes, which resulted in nerfed weapons across the board. This is why Halo 2's plasma rifle, as well as its rockets, shotgun, plasma pistol, etc. were all toned down from their powerful CE versions. Dual wielding was nothing more than a cool new feature that allowed you to trade the ability to use grenades for double the firepower. And I wish it was never removed.

Haven't the developers basically said that it would be far too difficult to implement duel wielding anyways? I don't think it's worth it.

PunxsutawnyFil wrote:Haven't the developers basically said that it would be far too difficult to implement duel wielding anyways? I don't think it's worth it.

I'm not asking them to implement it. I'm explaining why it isn't responsible for ruining gunplay of other Halo games. As fun as it would be to have in PC, it would be a lot of work for the devs and probably shouldn't be bothered with.

PunxsutawnyFil wrote:Haven't the developers basically said that it would be far too difficult to implement duel wielding anyways? I don't think it's worth it.

I have nailed the concept before. Instead of having one weapon, you have two, and two variables for everything. I have programmed, just not in any capacity the devs could use. I don't know their languages or their methods.

C++ and Lua is whats used.

Also, Dual Wielding wouldnt be hard as far as i can see it. I could be overestimating our programmer's skills or underestimating the complication of the situation, but i dont quite see how it would be difficult, especially since there's multiple ways of going about it

The main problem I see is counterbalancing the Duel Wield weapons with the Single Wield weapons both when Single Wielded and Dual Wielded.

If done incorrectly the Dual Wields could be massively inefficient when Single Wielded and over powered when Dual Wielded.

If the Dev Team is able to properly balance the weapons then I see no problem with integrating Dual Wielding into the game,. But if it poses too much of a problem I would not mind having an only Single Wield game. (Just please make the Needler one gun and no Needle Rifle please!)

I really understand 343 trying to make multiple variants of weapons (DMR and Needle Rifle for example) but I see no need if you properly balance the weapons beforehand.