I hate Halo.
I have never played Halo. I've never owned an xbox, i don't plan on owning an xbox. But that doesnt mean i cant hate the game
and its not even the game that i hate really. I don't even hate the idea of a game.
its just a fucking FPS like ever other FPS to come out in the last 12 years.
i just find it very strange that this game, of all games has become such a cultural touchstone.
please enlighten me
20 comments:
Moer Liek GAYLO.
G4 is doing a countdown to Halo 3 special.
So if you enjoy the sensation of rising bile check it out.
I think the "Halo r teh FPS LAWL" argument is basically the "Disgaea is teh Strat RPG LAWL."
There's a way to do the format well. If a game does that it gains renown.
it seems like there is more going on than that. Q2 and UT were damned good games - but they never reached this level of mainstream coverage. I think goes deeper than "they are good games within the context of their format" arguement.
I really need Adam and kylebrown on this one....
Halo is better than Q2 and UT, because it slowed the game down and incorporates more combat strategy and less best twitch reflex = winner
At least the first did. The second slowly progressed back towards the every other fps out there zone. Just my opinion.
That is no disrespect to UT or Q2. I am one of the biggest UT fans out there.
One thing, I think worth noting is that having an FPS that allows rich mutliplayer locally always tends to boost a games appeal.
That is the reason that god awful game, Golden Eye is so well loved.
It wasn't because it was good, it was because it allowed 4 person local FPS without a giant mess of cables,system fans, and fighting windows networking, as one would have had to back in that day.
hrmmmnn
i am going to have to mull that over....
all those things might be true - but i do know if those things add up to being the kind of cultural...phenomenon that it seems to be
Jay throw out there that it part is just marketing....but that assumes that people are 100% influenced by what the see in ads. I am sure the marketing has played a part, but it cannot account for the whole thing.
I agree about Goldeneye and Halo and local multiplayer being very important for this kind of game, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of Halo's initial popularity came from it being the next Goldeneye in every college dorm.
As for why Halo has become mainstream while Quake and UT remain as somewhat niche titles, I have to think it's because a console itself is more easily adopted by the mainstream than a PC. It's cheaper, it's played from a couch and not a desk chair, multiple people can play at once, you don't have to check on system requirements before you buy a game, it's just plain easier to own. If Halo had come out for the PC as planned, it may well have just been another good FPS that the mainstream wouldn't ever care about because it wasn't on a platform they could access.
Plus, it's an American game on an American console being sold to Americans. There's no Microsoft of America PR guy regurgitating month old press crap at us while the real action is going on in a far off land. The event is here, and I think that might be exciting for some people. Japanese people make Dragon Quest and sell it to Japanese people in Japan, and the place shuts down for a day to go buy it, and I think Halo was our version of that.
Another part is this:
Diablo II Lans : Us :: Halo Lans : Them
Lots of people slightly younger than us (and our age) had Halo lans. And they didn't have to amass computers in basements. It was a lot easier to amass consoles, or just Golden Eye it.
The Multiplayer is a large part of it. Multiplayer begets community begets lasting appeal. Quake II and UT never had that to the degree that Halo did.
A lot of it was timing, too. Halo as a great console FPS arriving at the time of the console wars, etc.
The Multiplayer is a large part of it. Multiplayer begets community begets lasting appeal. Quake II and UT never had that to the degree that Halo did.
I don't know if that's true. It certainly might be, but Quake has it's own convention, and a mod community that Halo will never really get to have. The difference, I think, is that Quake's community (and UT's) is essentially invisible to the mainstream, regardless of how large it is.
I don't know why that is, exactly, but I suspect it has something to do with the public's taste for console over PC games (above), and maybe because Halo doesn't have much negative press surrounding it, so it's ok for it to be marketed heavily to practically everyone (teen and above, which is everyone with money). On the opposite end is something like Grand Theft Auto. It's huge, it's on consoles, it's regarded as excellent, and sequels come out amid much excitement, but you don't see the hype machine working the cross merchandise like with a Halo launch, and it's probably because nobody wants to cross promote what politicians are trying to protect our children from. Quake is the same way. Even if Quake Wars somehow happened to be a breakout hit that revitalized non-MMO PC gaming, id wouldn't be able to use it to sell Mt. Dew because some group would take that to mean that Columbine wants us to boycott Pepsi Co.
I think anyone that regards GTA 3 (and beyond) as excellent has serious issues.
I totally hate those games, it has nothing to do with the violence or moral issues, it has everything to do with it being a bad game. It's just like a bad comedian, who simply goes for the crude joke for the cheap laugh, rather than a Carlinesque rampage through a topic that requires some from of context and thought.
MSNBC article that says some things.
On the drive to work I thought about buying an xbox 360 and Halo 3 tonight.
If you haven't played the first two, you're going to be so lost.
I didn't know anyone ever actually played the story mode..... I treat Halo the same way I do mario party, there is no single player.
all of these are good point - but i don't think they address the central question. Yes - Halo had good timing, good multiplayer and in a form that non-hardcore PC Gamers could deal with.
and yes - Halo shifted the format away from the run and gun, balls out death match that will all love so much.
skimming through blogs and such, where people are talking about the launch etc, the seem to be arguing that the game has some lasting and general social importance beyond the fact that it is a game.
I still don't think i am being clear....hrm -
So, given the things that made Halo stand out and have a lasting impression you still don't know why Halo has stood out and had a lasting impression?
And, yeah, probably best to play Halo 1 and 2 first so that I can grasp that dense, epic story in Halo 3.
skimming through blogs and such, where people are talking about the launch etc, the seem to be arguing that the game has some lasting and general social importance beyond the fact that it is a game.
They may be having the typical "games make me feel things so they must be art" conversation about the single player game. Or maybe they're reacting to the thick, gooey media coverage and assuming that since the Corporate Dick is Fucking Us in the Ass with Halo™, the game must have some cultural significance. And I don't think they're entirely wrong on either point, but this is an era when a guy crying about Britney Spears being called fat can become "culturally significant" in its own right, so claiming that Halo is culturally important seems fairly hollow.
Just from watching Halo 3... the story is a big part.. which makes sense, as Rod and Nate were always messing their pants over Marathon...
"Culturally Significant" really doesn't mean anything anymore. It probably never meant anything, but now it's much harder to argue that it does mean something.
It's all just dogs on skateboards.
Thinking about it, though, I'm in favor of release parties.
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