[Cryio]

Halo is a loved brand. Personally, I STILL don't know why. I never had an Xbox/360 so I could only play the PC games. The thing is ... they never seemed special to me.

I 1st tried playing Halo Combat Evolved in 2008 and besides the great lightning and textures for the time, I wasn't impressed. Poor as far as ports go (PC was released in 2003 with Pixel Shader 2 support, but it features very basic visual improvements). The game itself? ... Eh. The voice acting is ok, but both Chief, Cortana and everyone else don't sound especially special or intelligent. They all talk like grunts. This disappointed me deeply. The primary enemies are unique, that much is true, but they look hilarious. Pathetic. Not threatening at all. Also, I HATE HATE HATE most of weapons in the game. It's like I'm shooting with water pistols. I liked the sniper and the shotgun. The rest are "pew pew pew". Annoying sounding .. I swear. Even though I didn't like the game especially, I WAS impressed by the twist in the 2nd half/last 3rd (totally unexpected, so big plus for this). I managed to finish it, but my GOD the last 3rd of the game had repetitive design. I don't think I've seen a more repetitive segment in a game all my life. So Halo 1 for me is a solid 7 and nothing more. Fun and that's it.

I tried playing Halo 2, but most people know how it's a total disaster on PC. Most of the time it doesn't run even on Vista, if you're not using the original GFWL software. To my surprise, I installed it today on Windows 8.1 x64 and it worked flawlessly. I'm really blown away by this. Now, on to the actual game. Man, does this game look terrible. I mean, look at all Prince of Persia games, Splinter Cell 3 and 4, Half-Life 2 on the Xbox. Halo 2 is **** poor from a visual standpoint. Luckily its art is half-decent so that is what its keeping it afloat.

The game itself? Well ... it plays mostly like H1. The novelty now being dual-wield. It really speeds up fights, so it's a great addition. Master Chief himself looks ok, but everything else is meh. I still find it hilarious that almost nothing in the game has shadows. Character occasionally have shadows, but they are just a slightly improved blob. I would've like to hear Cortana more, but subtitles don't work during gameplay, unfortunately. I didn't play much so far, I've been at max 1 hour so far on Earth, but everything looks brown/square/generic as hell. Does it get better? Does the story GO anywhere (to be clear, even from the start, H2 appears to have more story content than H1, so yeeei for that ^_^ )?

One game and a bit from the 2nd one in and I still don't what is so loved about these games. Sure, the main character looks bad-*** in cutscenes, but that's all I can see. There is nothing special about this series that appeals to me. Maybe the 2nd game becomes better later on? Maybe I'll even rent a X360 to see what's the deal with 3, ODST, Reach and 4.

My question in the long term. Is this series worth it?

[rockstarzzz]

Halo is worth EVERY penny! However, I have only played it on Xbox always so my opinion comes from gaming console point of view, no clue how it may be on PC.

[Keith Wallace]

Yeah, it's hard to take criticism of 2001 graphics from 2008 seriously. I mean, you couldn't have legitimately gone into that game with high expectations on the non-story stuff, I think. You're playing it 7 years later, and saying you're unimpressed with the visual and audio quality. I mean, go play a game from 7 years ago NOW and see how you feel about its voice acting and visuals, and I'm sure you'll have a similar effect.

I'd say that today, Reach is the one to start with. It's the first in the series, from a chronological standpoint. In addition, it probably tells its story the best, since it has more interaction with others than the Master Chief-Cortana exchanges in the other games. You're in an actual squad, so you have a lot more dialogue and such.

[Cryio]

I don't have issues with old games and I can appreciate gfx for their time. For example I think that Half-Life 2, Riddick, Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell 3/4 all look infinitely better than Halo 2.

Anyway, I have an issue with the gameplay/fun/woah factor/story than anything else. I'm determined by now to finish all the Halo games. I just hope they'll be worth it.

[Keith Wallace]

I guess that just is what it is. I mean, I tried to play the first Half-Life over winter break, but I gave up (for the time being) because playing it with a mouse and keyboard on a bed sucked too much. So, I don't be playing it until I get something to my controller keys, so I can use my 360 controller to play it. However, I got a few levels in, and it wasn't especially impressive to me.

[Funky Cricket]

Halo 1 was a great game, IMO. I played quake, quake2, Action Quake 2, half-life, unreal turnements, etc etc, all PC. The BIGGEST issue I have is how slow it is. slow to turn, slow to jump up and down and my god is the machine gun under powered. 2-3 clips to kill a shielded guy point blank? The story kept me playing.

Halo 2, was good, but a repeat, some decent story with the covenant and a few twists. I replayed it a few times.

Halo3, seems okay, I just started (on a crappy old 19" tv) as I just got a 360.

[gingerbeard87]

The series is w well worth it, I got the original Xbox for the original halo. Then halo 2 came out and it introduced online multiplayer which was alot of fun. Odst was Ok, halo 3 was once again fun, the online was simply amazing. Halo wars was horrible. Halo 4 really changed the online experience of halo.
When they released the HD remake of halo combat evolved. That made it the first time that you could do online coop for the single player. Spartan assault is a pretty good mobile game.

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