What Irks Me About Halo

"There's literally a metric frag-ton of other shooters out there doing the same thing Halo does. At least a few of them are at least as good or better." ~ MeatSpace, Halo vs Pokemon

Hey all,

There's a few things that annoy me about Halo.

I don't understand what made this game so popular in the first place. I don't understand why everyone who owns an Xbox owns a copy of at least one Halo game. Everyone. Even I have a copy of Reach. I've played it once since I bought it. Once. I bought this game because I knew a lot of people that played it. Apparently not enough. And having this game on my shelf has brought me shame among the ranks of my coworkers. Not to mention this game is forever etched into my profile, so there is no hiding this disgrace. But I digress. There are better multiplayer shooters out there in my opinion. Call of Duty has better gameplay. Gears of War has better action. Team Fortress 2 has a better concept (and is free.)

Why do I harbor such contempt for this game do you ask? You didn't ask? I'm going to tell you anyway. It mostly has to do with the first iteration of Halo. I found the story to be very bland and not engaging. Here's the story in a nutshell:

People on spaceship. Hero wakes up. Ship gets attacked. Kill aliens. Crash on alien planet. Some people die. Kill aliens. Move forward. Some people die. Kill aliens. Move forward. Awaken ancient evil. Some people die. Kill aliens. Move forward. All people die. Kill aliens. Move forward. Escape alien planet. The end.

I may have exaggerated about the simplicity of the story but not by much. I just don't get how a tale that is so uninteresting gets so much praise and a series of books. It simply boggles my mind.

It might have been better if the characters were any good. They were as engaging as a bucket of sand. Their personalities were all very static, there was little character development, and they were all cookie-cutter life-or-death honorable military people. It was hard to relate to any of them. Of course it must be hard to develop character when you're fighting for your life throughout the entire story. You would at least figure a cadet would grow in some way or a veteran would realize something about his platoon. But I guess that's all hard to do when the camera is focused consistently on Master Chief up until the point when you're killed off.

Speaking of Master Chief, he's as bad as the rest of them. His character doesn't develop at all; even throughout the series as a whole! He is a very generic action hero, similarly bland like the rest of the characters, and I know this is a huge complaint from some people. You could practically substitute any other action hero for Master Chief, and the game becomes much more compelling.

Except for maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger. (This video would probably be a good indicator of his role as a Spartan in Reach, jetpack and all.) How about Keanu Reeves? Steven Seagal? Clint Eastwood? Harrison Ford? Chuck Norris? Can you imagine Halo with Chuck Norris in place of Master Chief? I guess it would be too short if that were to happen. Also we would end up having jokes like "Chuck Norris beat the campaign on Legendary without using guns." and "When Chuck Norris saw the Flood, he thought it was a Puddle." There are already a ton of jokes like that? I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

And what's worse: This all warranted a $40 remake on the Xbox 360!

Later,
ArgentStew, the Gaming Sage