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?
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?
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