Halo

Unsure of what to write about this week, I was browsing through a few videos I had favorited on Youtube when I came across this little gem. It's really worth watching to the end if you've got a moment as a true testament to the time and effort put into crafting the worlds we regularly stain with alien guts and zombie giblets. This video inspired me to speak on a subject that has been a long time coming for me.

I'm a big Halo fan.

Halo has become somewhat of a punching bag among gamers. The series has been accused of being stale, unoriginal, milked, and responsible for the rise and domination of first person shooters we see today. There are plenty of good arguements on this side and I'm not here to try and disprove or devalue any of these opinions/accusations. I'm just here to defend one of my favorite franchises to the best of my ability.



The Campaign

The most common complaint I hear about modern shooters is that the campaign is too short with too much development effort spent on the multiplayer. In most cases, this is true. You can clear most Call of Duty campaigns in a weekend before hopping over to the multiplayer if you didn't just skip it like most players. With a quick glance, you could say the same about the Halo games as well. Yet when I play Call of Duty, I notice that I can't play the campaign with a friend unless we play some shorter version designed only for two players that I can't access without him. I can't modify the way the campaign is played in any way aside from changing the difficulty. I also have little freedom to tackle the challenges of the campaign in multiple ways due to the multitude of scripted sequences.

In any Halo game, I can play through the entire campaign with a friend. In every game since the second one, I can activate special modifications that vary from silly things like enemy heads exploding into confetti accompanied by the sounds of cheering children after successful headshots to extra difficulty modifications like disabling my radar. From Halo 3 onward I can view an entire replay of the campaign mission I just finished and immortalize the time I fought through an army of The Flood using a depleted energy sword. Oh, I can also change the difficulty settings.

While messing around with all of those tweaks, I can also tackle every mission in the game pretty much any way I want. Since I don't have to worry about quick time events or linear battlefields with only one real way to accomplish my goal, I can explore the battlefield looking for different ways to deal with the challenge in front of me. I can grab the vehicle nearby and load up some fellow marines for a full-on rampage, I could snag the rocket launcher from the marine standing next to me, take up a good position and snipe way way to victory, and you get the idea. In Halo you've got options.

What I'm getting at here is that Halo offers replayability with its campaign. It makes you want to go back and try different strategies on different difficulties with a friend possibly in tow. I remember one particular level in the first game where I could literally clear an entire room without alerting any enemies by sneaking around and taking out the patrolling Elites with a melee attack to the back, making the sleeping Grunts easy pickings.

TL:DR

Halo can stand on its single player alone, in my opinion.


Multiplayer

I don't need to go into why the multiplayer for modern first person shooters has a bad reputation. We've all dealt with the pleasant individuals that reside on Xbox Live and the scholarly PC gamers with headsets community. The way people behave while playing online multiplayer shooters shouldn't itself be a reason to criticize the genre. However, I think the way a game chooses to reward you for your time spent with its multiplayer can be criticized. In Call of Duty, you are rewarded with perks and bonuses when you're doing well. The system itself is very creative and certainly gives players something to work for, but it brings out the worst in gamers. I don't think it's that far-fetched to suggest that this system encourages cheap play tactics, singling out and ruining the fun of inexperienced players, and just overall sucks the fun out of everything. The multiplayer of Call of Duty brings out the worst in competitive human nature.

Every Halo game thus far has had deathmatch multiplayer. Once the series' multiplayer went online, one could see their progression in the form of a ranking based on their success in multiplayer matches, if you decide to play ranked matches. However, aside from cosmetic changes for your character model there isn't as much incentive to cheap your way to high ranks. The rank is still there and I know many of the mongoloids we deal with online will treat it the same way they would their Call of Duty rank, but hear me out. This rank's sole purpose, from a gameplay standpoint, is to make sure you're matched with people with your general level of experience. In my experience, I felt like the system worked pretty well. If I was doing well, I'd rank up. If I hadn't played in a while and ended a game with no kills, I'd drop a few ranks, which I appreciated. It makes sense.

Then there's the custom gametypes. With every game this system increased in complexity until it all culminated into a full on map editor that gives you full control down to the placement of spawn points. These gametypes and maps can be shared online with other players. You can also share videos of the hilarious time you shot a guy right in the nads and he realistically crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Sharing is caring right? These features encourage community and creativity. I'm sure some level-desginer-to-be will start with Halo's map editor. Maybe a few players will meet online and arrange a time to work on a map together.

TL:DR

Call of Duty's multiplayer only rewards success with gameplay advantages and gives little incentive for inexperienced players to join in. Halo's multiplayer features encourage creativity, community, and don't flip the bird to inexperienced players.


The Point

I guess I just want anyone who criticizes Halo for being a representive of what's wrong with first person shooters to take another look and decide if it really deserves said criticism. Sorry, Call of Duty fans, if I've offended you. You're allowed to disagree with me. You can call me out if anything I've said here is false. But I stand by my opinion. That's assuming anyone actually reads this.