Google+

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

A decade later, you can still see the ripples

Words: on September 13, 2010
Back to Article

74 comments

  • TheWhiteLight - September 14, 2010 12:56 a.m.

    Good article, though there are two huge gameplay elements that Halo kick-started that I think deserve note. The first is recharging health. This has become almost completely standard in the shooter genre and I've seen it in other places as well. Secondly would be the limited weapon selection. Again, mostly a shooter convention, but it's difficult to find any today that don't limit you to one or two main weapons. Everything up through Half Life 2 pretty much allowed you to carry everything you had on you.

  • jesusfrk15 - September 14, 2010 12:40 a.m.

    i still say halo has the best multiplayer for any game

  • Spartanoffaith - September 14, 2010 12:33 a.m.

    Charlie really did give Halo Reach a ten but then the sites auto-bias-filtration-system took it down to a 8.

  • KnightDehumidifier - September 14, 2010 12:30 a.m.

    I think the biggest impact that Halo has created from its first release is the mass influx of adolescents with controllable tourettes who feel the need to call me an asshole cocksucking fag that sucks fags' cocks and assholes.

  • mattrickhoffman - September 14, 2010 12:26 a.m.

    I would argue that Blizzard has a much more active and involved community, in all of their games and specifically in WoW. Between all the bloggers, addon makers, forum posters, and theory-crafters, you have a community that obviously loves and deeply cares about the way the game is developed. Add to that the Blizzard employees, such as the infamous Ghostcrawler, who constantly read and respond to forum posts and update players on the development of the game and you have a company that obviously loves their community. Not to take anything away from Bungie and Halo, I just think Blizzard does it bigger and does it better.

  • Crabhand - September 14, 2010 12:20 a.m.

    I enjoyed this list. I actually understood every entry rather than "Oh, 1,3, and 7 are good, never heard of the rest". Kudos to catering to my simplistic taste. Unfortunately, I have to give this Top 7 an 8/10. There's just too much Halo!

  • EnragedTortoise1 - September 14, 2010 midnight

    Wow, not real flame wars yet? Good job, community!

  • Estacado - September 13, 2010 11:59 p.m.

    Bored (-_-)zzzZZZzzzZZZzzz

  • JohnDagger - September 13, 2010 11:50 p.m.

    And that is why I still love halo.

  • Ravenbom - September 13, 2010 11:44 p.m.

    Yup. No doubt that Halo made console multiplayer popular and eventually online console multiplayer. To be more contentious though, I would go so far as to say that Halo is the other big factor that we never hear about in the death of PC gaming is that Halo basically gave you everything you could expect from a PC game. Halo was the first game that made you believe you weren't just getting a shitty console port.

  • JeffK - September 13, 2010 11:44 p.m.

    Now, I know I missed basically all of gaming in the gap from the Sierra heyday on PC (kid) to SNES/N64 (college), and then again from N64 to Halo 2 (first console purchase since Atari 2600.) However, I was pretty sure Halo was the game that introduced the "Get shot? Just hide out of the way for a bit and your health and shields will recharge." game mechanic. Am I wrong there? If I'm not, that's *clearly* above everything besides #1, and I'd argue that it's had more of an impact than the MP has.

  • FrozenImplosion - September 13, 2010 11:40 p.m.

    If games are going to make like Halo and add multiplayer then they should damn well make sure it doesn't suck. So many multiplayers that I've been trying out recently have just been major trash. ONE very good multiplayer I discovered recently is Singularity's. The modes are very fun, albeit simplistic.

  • SausageLozenge - September 13, 2010 11:36 p.m.

    @bug I'm totally serious. It was a pain to make stuff (thankfully they fixed a lot of those problems in Reach), but if you were active in the Bungie community it was insane the stuff that people created. Some examples http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9046067

  • SausageLozenge - September 13, 2010 11:33 p.m.

    They briefly mentioned Forge and sold it a little short. Its more than just a map maker. You can also change/create your own game variants. I had Timesplitters 2 and Future Perfect on my Gamecube, and yeah, your totally right. But Forge really dwarfs what Timesplitters had.

  • bug56 - September 13, 2010 11:29 p.m.

    @SausageLozenge. Are you serious? Forge was such a piece of garbage (I don't even count it as a level editor). Not even close to as good as most console level editors, which plenty console games had before Halo.

  • acehard - September 13, 2010 11:23 p.m.

    thank you bungi

  • Pantas - September 13, 2010 11:18 p.m.

    @SausageLozenge The article DID mention forge, and forge is late to the console mapmaking party. Ever heard of Timesplitters?

  • SausageLozenge - September 13, 2010 11:01 p.m.

    You could have mentioned Forge, which to my knowledge is the first real level/map maker for console games. Also the customization is CRAZY. Game types like Griftball Kart racing, Rub Goldberg machines, School, Monster Trucks, Ninja Training, Milkman, Trash Compactor, Duck Hunt, Pirates, Ghostbusters, Shark, Donkey Kong, Bull Fight, Pinball, and a slew of others.

  • batmanboy11 - September 13, 2010 10:48 p.m.

    Some of these effects are good, others are bad. Also, another entry could have been regenerating health, but these 7 are bigger and more important.

  • FantasticMrStarFox - September 13, 2010 10:43 p.m.

    more Halo coverage. GamesRadar you are so biased. Talk more about Killzone.

Showing 41-60 of 74 comments

Join the Discussion
Add a comment (HTML tags are not allowed.)
Characters remaining: 5000

Featured Content

Connect with GamesRadar

Connect with Facebook

Log in using Facebook to share comments, games, status update and other activity easily with your Facebook feed.