The Top 7... ways Halo influenced the games industry

Correction, There are seven (7) novels of Halo in existance, not 6... with 3 more on the way. Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Ghost of Onyx, Contact Harvest, The Cole Protocol, Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe

i would like to point out you see what issac from deadspace looks like

I was expecting more of its gameplay innovations. And the biggest one: It made FPS's THE biggest genre in the west.

Most of these influences are influences we could have done without. Although I don't think Halo was the first fps to have cliffhanger endings, half life did it before halo. As regards the multiplayer, well I hate Halo for it. Because of it almost every single game released today has to have multiplayer in it even when it's completely unnecessary, like in bioshock and dead space! I so miss the days when games were all about the joys of the single player campaigns. Also they should have mentioned the rechargable shield that has almost been in every fps since even when it makes absolutely no sense like in every call of duty game. When you actually overlook all these 'influences' Halo the game itself was never really all that special in the first place. In fact I thought the original killzone was actually better than the first halo, at least the guns were very satisfying to use in that.

all awesome points... I was chatting with some people the other day at poker and they were talking about what was the most overrated gaming franchise. Surely enough, somebody mentioned Halo (a PS3 owner, followed by a CoD fan). I argued about 4 of the above points against them - you can hate the game all you want, but disliking it doesn't mean that it's importance as a franchise is invalid. PS - my suggestion was Dynasty Warriors...

Great article, your number 1 was spot on. Halo was the first proper online multiplaye game that console owners played

I could also make a good case for all of these 7 being full of excrement but i really don't care enough to try. Looks more like an attempt to appease those upset with an 8 for reach in my opinion

Um... SAMUS ARAN. Of course, Nintendo created everything in videogaming. /sarcasm.

This article is pure shit. Halo created nothing new. 7) Masked protagonist - For example: Silencer (from Crusader, '95); Doomed Space Marine (from Doom, '93, although his face can be seen as a status icon). And i'm talking only about games, there's a shitload of examples in other media. 6) Collectibles - the whole thing with collectibles is pure bullshit, especially in games like Halo or Arkham Asylum. They move games back into the arcade style, where you jump on shit and collect things for points, vide Mario, with the difference that you are rewarded with some shitty extra stuff that should have been put in the game in a different manner in the first place. A tool used to make players search for semi-hidden things just to artificially make the game longer. Besides, if you're looking for an older and better example of this: say, The Neverhood ('96). 5)"non-ending endings"? Seriously? That is supposed to be original? Hell, there are books that have done this that are centuries old. If you need a game example - Golden Sun for the GBA. Also, pulling out a cheap-ass, rage-inducing cliffhanger is not something that a franchise should not be proud of. It's just shitty story writing. 4) Marketing Blitz? OLD AS BALLS. I'm not even getting into it. You could say that there weren't many games marketed so heavily before, but it's not thanks to halo, but thanks to the growth of gaming industry as a whole, it's simple. 3) Expand the brand? Seriously? You think that Halo created the concept of and expanded universe? I'm not even talking about Star Wars or Star Trek, but there is much shit to be dealt with if you're talking about video games: Doom, Stonekeep, Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Final Fantasy, Unreal. Not all of them were expanded PRIOR to the expansion of Halo universe, but don't tell me that Blizzard was thinking "Wow, Halo is so awesome and Bungie is so wise, we must learn from it all" when they were spewing out yet another book. 2) & 1) Community & Multiplayer. Wow, that was really lame. Countless games that focused on that first. Want shooters? Quake III: Arena, or Unreal Tournament. Countless customizable game modes, provided map editors, hot and waiting to be modded (which is exactly what happened). Similar to Starcraft and Warcraft II, although modding wasn't easy (which is still better than Halo). Waaait... But maybe the whole point is to compare Halo only to console games? Well, that only shows how really revolutionary they are. And let's be clear, I'm not bashing Halo here. I'm just pointing out that this article, dear sir, is a pile of f4nb0i bullshit, and I want to express my feeling of confusion and shock due to finding this atrocious propaganda on GamesRadar. Cheers.

YOu got your comments about multiplayer semi-correct, but your outcome wasn't right. Halo made multiplayer unplayable crap, further cementing the idea that FPS games are not good for multiplayer. I honestly used to love online play (I spend literally 3 to 4 hours a day in muds), but it has gotten to the point where if the online component is too prevalent, I won't buy a game.

Good article. The best part was about expanding the branding. Some properties get whored out to the point where they lose that something that keeps things interesting. Halo has not gone that route. The books are good, though qucik, sci-fi reads. The figures are from McFarlane - arguably the one of the better mfc's of toys around. The brand has a stronger market penetration these days due to kids growing up with it - hence the block toys etc. This is one generation's Star Wars of sorts. One of the differences here is that you can say Halo maintains a certain level of quality (in general) where Star Wars tends to shit the bed and often. It has gotten better but only after 20-30 years is Lucas getting things right. Halo has been consistent off the bat.

I cant wait for the talk radar this week to hear you guys discuss this top 7!!! It should be interesting to hear the input of the group!

#2, #1, and partially #4 are the only one's I will accept. All the rest are not Halo popularised

So... This Top 7 article just validates the fact that Halo has become THE CONSOLE EQUIVALENT OF POKEMON. Global influence? Mass marketing? Importance of multiplayer play/cooperation? Ideas and innovations that competitors attempt to copy and modify? IT'S ALL THERE!

I thought for sure regenerative health would be on this list

Halo also brought us horrible things like regenerative health and the two weapon limit.

No, Bullcrud, Halo did nothing with Multiplayer, the multiplayer on halo was pityful from start to end. TimeSplitters had way better Multiplayer then halo could ever dream of. You people again are just halo fanboys.

I just wish that people wouldn't automatically say Halo sucks, because without Halo, console multiplayer would have taken longer to start up. So people couldn't play their precious MW2. Also, I wish that parents would actually read ratings and not let their 7 year olds play M rated games so we wouldn't have to deal with whiny kids calling us hackers and annoying the hell out of us.

Just for you, Metacritic! 8/10 +He used English words in this article. +He can correctly count to seven. +He spelled his name right. -------------------------- -Top 7's don't really innovate on the industry standard. -Grammatical error on the second page. -This article assumes you know every detail of the Halo universe. =)

Charlie, if you put the word Review in this top 7, it would have gotten more comments, and upset that there wasn't a review score at the end of the article.