Why I now suddenly love Halo after 11 years of total, uninterrupted indifference towards the Chief

In other news from 2001, Windows XP pretty good

Words: David Houghton on November 22, 2012

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ParagonT - November 22, 2012 4:47 p.m.

Everyone is missing out here unless they have at least read The Fall of Reach book. Please, I implore you all, if your a fan of Halo, bless your eyes with the mystical text of Eric Nylund.
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rodger-walker - November 23, 2012 2:49 p.m.

got it earlier this month. quite enjoying it.
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ParagonT - November 25, 2012 4:49 p.m.

She seriously needs to think of the bigger picture when moral issue's arise. It seems that she has totally turned Mendez into a hypocrite, Halsey into a scapegoat of hate, and more. She is the reason that I'm starting to lose interest in the Halo universe, but its as if she's the cheapest writer they could possibly pick off the street. I'm with you, she is a cancer, they need to ditch her on the side of a road. What do you think?
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ParagonT - November 25, 2012 4:50 p.m.

Great to see another has been added to the fold!
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AlphaSixInsight - November 25, 2012 6:09 p.m.

I'm with you 100%. Send me a communique on FanFictiondotNet. I'm author/writer: EmeraldReporter. Help me write something, yea?
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ParagonT - November 25, 2012 6:56 p.m.

What do you have in mind?
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ObliqueZombie - November 22, 2012 4:06 p.m.

Great read, Mr. Houghton. You're as great a writer as always. Glad to have you aboard, too. You remind me of why I love Halo so much, but also to do away with my fanboyism of any kind, positive or negative.
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BobDillinger - November 22, 2012 2:57 p.m.

It's nice that you finally see Halo as more than a generic shooter, it was the first FPS I played that I just didn't bumble through so it holds a special place in my heart. It's funny that you came to enjoy Halo at the 4th, because this is probably where me and the series depart; the forerunner enemies aren't as fun as the covenant or even the flood, the new forerunner arsenal overlaps too much with other weapons, the art direction isn't as strong as the old games, especially the Covenant, who aren't nearly as characterful. Not a terrible game by any means, it's just going down a path I can't follow. Oh and for the first time ever in a videogame, the sound effects bug me, everything sounds weird, the WINNIE of the flood, the peg-on-a-bike tire sound of the Storm Rifle, weird.
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FierceDeity - November 22, 2012 5:55 p.m.

this
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JimmyP91 - November 22, 2012 12:16 p.m.

1st off, I've only played the multiplayer aspect of Halo a handful of times and I know that is the main attracion to the halo series. However, this is going purely by my single player experience with the series. I can't stand the 1st Halo, I mean I absolutely cannot stand it. If I was to rank my least favorite games of all time I'd put CE at the top. I played it as a kid and was left thoroughly unimpressed and a couple years ago I decided I would try and play through the whole trilogy and give the Halo series a fair go. Now I could (and have) ranted for hours about how awful I think the 1st one is but I don't want to get into a fanboy debate so I'll my reasons out. However IMO the series gets far better after CE. Despite having massive problems with the plot in the 2nd (you could push small moons through some of the plot holes) I enjoyed the heck out of the 2nd. They fixed pretty much every problem I had with the CE gameplay wise (and ironically took away the one thing I liked about the 1st, the health bar). The 3rd left me feeling meh. Storyline wise it has the least amount of problems in the trilogy but it was short and way too easy. Overall my reaction to the halo series ranges from really good to beyond awful. I might try the new one at some point but from what I've heard, it's story is the best of the franchise and the gameplay is ramped up back to the level it was at in 2. This makes the new one look more than promising.
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FierceVoltage - November 22, 2012 11:57 a.m.

First of all what's a uni friend? Second what is McGuffin style button pressing? Also glad you are now part of the Halo fan base, it's a great game and a generally great community.
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ShortFuse - November 22, 2012 12:16 p.m.

1) a Uni friend= a friend you make while at unviersity 2) basically a plot device with no real narrative significance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin hope that helps
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h8ful - November 22, 2012 11:49 a.m.

Excellent piece; I always ignored Halo because me, I'm a PS3 instead of an XBOX, but I always felt high and mighty because of all the justification you just provided. Time to rethink.
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Marcunio88 - November 22, 2012 11:37 a.m.

Nice one Dave, as a fellow stubborn opinionated chap I know the hardship of admitting you were wrong. Believe it or not, I actually hated Half-Life 2 for a very long time, until this year in fact. Don't worry, it now ranks as one of my favourite games, but for years I just couldn't get along with it. I've actually been working on an article quite similar to this one, hopefully to be completed this weekend.
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Redeater - November 22, 2012 11:21 a.m.

I'll be honest I ended up enjoying Halo 4 way more than I thought I would but I wasn't too keen on the whole "Tron/Cyber enemies" type thing. I wish they had more environment interactions though.
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ShortFuse - November 22, 2012 10:20 a.m.

I am not a huge Halo fan but in terms of multiplayer and functionality it is a far more balanced shooter than most. And that is what you want on an online shooter, balance. Halo whilst without being spectacular in terms of its campaign is such a well weighted shooter where upon learning the basic techniques you can really do some cinematic stuff. whilst like you I am a fan of far more other FPSs over Halo, I struggle to think of a game where I have had more epic firefights online.
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Luchalma - November 22, 2012 9:29 a.m.

I really respect when someone can admit they were wrong about something. Glad to see you were able to overcome your anti-fanboyism. If you loved the campaign of Halo 4, you're in for a treat if you play the others.
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aviator189 - November 22, 2012 9:24 a.m.

ive loved halo sine halo ce. halo 4 is definitely a change, but it's a good change, imo.
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Mathead - November 22, 2012 8:59 a.m.

Halo was certainly the most anticipated game in the community of Mac owners in the late 90's. I played all of its revolutionary predecessor, Marathon, which was at that time only available to Mac users. I never could help but think that this is where the hype had its source. When Bungie moved to Microsoft and Halo appeared on XBox, I couldn't help but wonder what actually made it better than anything else. Last month, I bought an old XBox on a flea market and had my chance, after all these years, to have my first personal experience with Halo and the result after trying it out for a few hours: my opinion hasn't changed a bit. I still think of Marathon to be a deeper, more atmosheric experience and of many other FPS of that time to be way better (specially HL2!). I'm sure Halo evolved over the last versions but it still looks generic and I very much agree with David's past first impressions about Halo.
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thomas1980 - November 22, 2012 8:53 a.m.

There is always a lot of shit talked about Halo, and there will always be elitist pricks who poo-poo Halo and kiddies first FPS for retards. However its good to know there is now one less of them. Bravo Dave. Now just self flagellate daily for a decade to make up for the years of you being a dick to Halo fans who you previously thought of a lower beings. So Dave, should we expect another post like this in 2022 with your realisation that CoD isn't the most shitty game series of all time that is destroying gaming?
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