Yeah I agree. Halo 2 was fun until the stupid cliffhanger ending.

Absolutely not.

Whats Halo ? ;)

The irony is, that I'm a massive geek for science fiction and HALO should be exactly my thing. I remember how excited I was when I was finally able to play the PC version. I remember playing (already a bit ticked off) until that segment were you had to retrace the excact same level again. "Are you fucking kidding me?" was the only thing that was on my mind then. I dropped the game and didn't pick it up again until I bought Halo 2. I finished 1 for the story and while I liked the beginning of the narrative of Halo 2, the sucking gameplay just drove me away. Never finished it, and I deinstalled my retail copy recently. Which means unless it comes to GOG or Steam, I will probably never play it again.

I should have loved that series! It was my brother! (bonus points for recognizing the quote)

It also had some bad level design and ugly graphics in some areas I thought. It felt like a corporate game, designed by committee to please a sector. I hope 3 and Reach are better (and 4).

Halo was my first FPS and since at the time the Xbox was my first console that I owned personally the Halo series has always had a special place in my heart. That being said I recently played through the Halo Anniversary and was exceedingly impressed by it! talk about the memories it evoked!

Anyway to answer the OP's question yes I'm very very very! excited about the next Halo game!

You can count me among your number. I don't suffer the self important delusion of thinking that consoles and their gamers are beneath me because I am a pc gamer. Consoles have their place for me too.

Halo 1 was absolutely brilliant when it came out. It was a first person shooter done well on a console, not only that but it had great local multiplayer, split-screen campaign so you could actually play through with a mate, a great score, good pacing (for the most part), a good atmosphere and interesting design, a nice couple of twists (neither of which were hinted at, one of which gave some extra gameplay variety and suddenly made the game feel more forboding.) vehicle levels that were actually good and vehicles you could get in but didn't have to and a lot of other game mechanics that are in just about every FPS now.

If you want to know how influential Halo's local multiplayer was... look at Unreal Tournament 2004 which all but copied the vehicle selection of Halo (most are different visually but VERY similar to vehicles in Halo.) and put them online before Halo did, making for one hell of a fun game.

Halo 2 was so big in scope that they had to cut it back heavily, it still made for an enjoyable game though and it had enough new features to make it entertaining... I enjoyed the greater fleshing out of the story and the level variety was interesting. I don't think it really pioneered console internet gaming, I'd give that one to the dreamcast (Phantasy Star Online, Quake 3 etc) and on the Xbox I found Return to Castle Wolfenstein had superior multiplayer for my FPS tastes.

Halo 3: Was a bit of a visual upgrade but I found it bland and piecemeal, there didn't feel like there was much innovation (probably as it was really Halo 2.5 and consisted of mostly of reworked content dropped from Halo 2) I did enjoy the multiplayer a bit.

Halo ODST: Felt more classic Halo and the atmosphere was great. The soundtrack really made the game. Firefight was also an enjoyable twist on co-op survival modes, and is another thing that's been copied a lot.

Halo Reach: Never really did it for me. The world didn't feel as alive as I expected it to. The story felt less humanized than ODST, we already knew the ending and the multiplayer was ruined by abilities, dull maps (either a circle with a central area, a multi floored rectangle with a central area or a long area consisting of upper & lower walkways) and stupid spawn points.

As for Call of Duty... enjoyed 1 but it hasn't stood the test of time well at all.... 2 was absolutely great and is still good. 3 was average, Modern Warfare was a great addition, nice to have it up to date, mechanics were still good. All games after that are pretty dull. Little to no innovation (single player) exorbitant DLC, and the campaigns consist of shoot X amount of enemies, move forward, see a 'stunning' spectacle, shoot more enemies, move forward, rail shooter section, spectacle, forward, shoot etc.

They really did lose the plot. I mean Modern Warfare was good because that nuke scene was genuinely shocking and it did feel like taking part in a modern war novel. The pacing was good, there was enough variety to be entertaining and the story was alright. It also brought in shooting through walls and stuff which may not seem a big deal but I've lost count of how many times I've tried to do that in shooter games that don't feature it and gone "oh."

Anyway back on topic... Am I looking forward to Halo 4? I recently picked up Halo Anniversary cheap and it's a pretty good remake. I am looking forward to it but I'll wait for reviews before I run out to buy it.

I used to hate on Halo until the trend of hyper scripted "aim down ALL the things!" FPSs showed me what dumbed-down shooter design really is. Halo may be a console FPS and have the infamous regen health and weapon limit, but at least its combat is fun, it allows for an appropriate level of freedom (for a decidedly linear FPS), and it doesn't involve iron sights.

Not really looking forward to Halo 4 all that much. But I'm not irritated that it's being developed, so that's something. I'm sure it will be pretty fun, as all the Halo titles have been.

Im excited, but im expecting a letdown. As Captain Brittigan's mother said "Always prepare for the worse, because its probably going to happen."

I had a birthday recently and Dairy Queen mixed up the cake orders. I almost ended up with a Halo cake and some kid almost ended up with my speedo man cake.

^ This is the main problem with halo, Too many kids on the servers.

But this has to do with the irresponsibility of parents, They just want to get kids out of their face so they get their kids an MA15+ Rated game (here in aus) and dont even care about how much violence is in it. I see 7 year old kids get away with playing stuff like RDR.

I don't own a 360 and didn't think much of the first one, on Xbox or PC. But I can kind of see why other people really get a kick out of the series. It just never really struck a chord with me.

For someone who quite likes sci-fi, I tend to be very picky.

It's really ironic that, despite the fact that I think the CoD games are perfect examples of bad videogame storytelling, they actually features two of my prime examples of GOOD videogame storytelling (i.e, uses player interaction to enhance the story in a way that another medium couldn't do). The nuke scene is one. And the "no russian" scene (despite being blatant sensationalism) is the other. Both use the player's presence in the game world to heighten the emotional impact. Which is good.

I'm not sure how to think of CoD4. On the one hand, it's the game that jump started nearly everything that I dislike about modern FPSs (along with Halo). On the other hand, I think that taken on its own it's a fine game. At the time, its particular brand of highly linear setpiece-heavy gameplay was unique and fresh. Yes, the Halflife series did something similar... but CoD4's was much less subtle and much more exciting. I remember how amazing that beginning scene on the boat was to me... everything was just perfectly calculated to provide the sort of adrenaline-laden narrative experience that I'd wanted an FPS to deliver. But then... well, numerous sequels and copycats have shown how shallow and limited this approach is when applied to the entire FPS industry. It's turned my favorite genre into something that I'm not sure I like anymore. Short, MP-focused, depth-less, skill-less, and freedom-less... the videogame equivalent of eating nothing but spoonful after spoonful of pure sugar. I usually love anything that gives me a gun and lets me shoot people, but even I have trouble drumming up enthusiasm for yet another CoD-style SP campaign.

But my question here is, who is really to blame for this? The game that started this whole thing? The games that copied its successful formula? Or the consumers that supported (and continue to support) this style of game with their money? I can think of good reasons to excuse all of these. Yet here we are, in a situation that a lot of people agree is not preferable. Who, or what, should take the flack?

This applies to Halo, too. A lot of people despise the game because it's what started the whole regenerating health and two weapon limit fad. But honestly, in the context of the original game, both mechanics worked marvelously. It's only the repetitive use of them in other games that has caused people to hate them, and by extension Halo (not that they are the only reasons to hate the Halo series, because there are some legit things to complain about in every game. Such as the atrocious level design in 1).

Yeah, sorry for the reply delay, forgot to logout.
There probably will, war ended, defeated flood...
You just cracked me up! +1
I'm more of a mix of traits, a variety of games gives me lots of Fun. :)
Yeah me too! Must resist... head... explosion... due to months away. *head explodes*