Alright you Halo fans of mine... For years you've put up with my jaded comments about your favourite franchise. And yes some of my comments were only said to troll you because honestly... A lot of you take Halo WAY too seriously. Silent Hill is by far and away my favourite franchise but when people start knocking on it... I don't flip my shit. I like Brink. The rest of the world doesn't. You like Halo and that's all that should matter.
Before I give you my impressions on the series you should know I played up to "The Library" in Halo CE and completed Halo 2 in it's entirety before I ever got cynical about the series. So here we go.
Halo Anniversary: The graphics bump was all this game needed for me to appreciate it. At the time the original came out my complaint was how ugly it looked. Then I played it and got frustrated at the lack of dual wield, Master Chief's floaty jumping, the waiting between key plot triggers and the general moving from point A to B only to wash rinse and repeat the same process. However now that my eyes dont have to look at 64 bit looking puke upscaled to 128.. And get to see the subtlety of the sky, the clarity of the Covenant and the look of anger on the faces of a charging enemy... I can appreciate what it did at the time even if I still don't think it lives up to the hype.
Halo 2: ok Now we're talking. This should have been the graphical fidelity of the first game. Matter of fact if they decide to give Halo 2 the HD treatment, I'd buy that. I wasn't angry about playing as the Arbiter. I prefer him actually. Master Chief just reminds me too often of DOOM and it makes me wish I was killing demons in Hell rather than aliens on a planet I just don't care about. Halo 2 is a large improvement but it's still just the epitome of generic shooter to me. I do however greatly approve of the vehicles. This is the area where Halo shines the brightest. Co-op with vehicles adds another dimension to it and kicks it up a notch.
Halo 3: Maybe I was going through fatigue of the franchise by this point but all I cared about was Cortana who was in the game less than Harley Quinn was in Arkham City. So needless to say this game, though slight improvements were made, disappointed me. I liked some of the environments but when that flippen orb turned on me it took me another day to muster up the energy to play the rest of the game after a shitty plot twist. The ending however was perfect. "Wake me up when I'm needed." Or whatever Master Chief says is the best way to close out the trilogy.
Halo 3 ODST: I cared so little for the plot in Halo 3 that I barely see how they relate other than how the ending explains it. Other than that this game is actually not bad. The lone rookie wandering the streets trying to piece everything together as he finds his squad. The story held it together fine. My only beef is the ODSTs can do what Master Chief does but without the suit, and a weaker shield. Plus they can't even hold two pistols but can wield a gravity hammer. But ODST is better than I thought.
And thats where I stopped. I started playing Halo Reach but I'm taking a break so I can appreciate it. I'm a little burned out on the series. But I look forward to seeing what Reach has to offer.
My final thought is that Halo is better than I thought but not as good as you'd lead me to believe.
Kudos. Tell your friends about me.
The Jaded Gamer.
Psn/xbl/twitter/playfire/raptr: IamFN2K
