Halo 1-2 single player still worth playing?

[DaveSimmons]

ODST and my new Elite have me thinking about finally trying out MS' most popular franchise. Instead of starting with Halo 3 single player, I'm wondering whether people still think Halo 1-2 are worth playing?

I'm not a graphics snob, so how is the single-player gameplay?

(Not that I need more games, with Direct2Drive $5 games added to my already daunting unplayed stack.)

 

[Queasy]

Story-wise, I have to say I really enjoy the Halo games and if you're into story, it makes sense to play the Halo trilogy from the beginning...and possibly read at least the first Halo novel, The Fall of Reach. I'm a big space sci-fi geek so this is right up my alley. Even though some of it is derivative...I think they've done a good job with Halo Universe overall.

Halo 1 and 2 are good plays IMHO but there are parts of the game where you'll want to swear at Bungie. Particularly the Library levels in Halo 1.

 

[BD2003]

I personally think the entire Halo series is overrated. The first one got off to a great start because it was head and shoulders above other console FPS's of it's time. This was back when FPS was dominated by PCs and consoles had very few if any quality ones before then. But times have changed, and without the launch goggles that made the first one seem so great, I really dont think it holds up very well.

The mechanics of it are solid, but FPS games with solid mechanics are a dime a dozen nowadays, so that's hardly a reason to play it. The level design in the first one was particularly atrocious. Like queasy said, there are parts in it that make you lose it, and the parts that arent completely aggravating are pretty bland. The story seemed to strike a chord with some, but if you're interested in the story, you'd be better off reading a synopsis than slogging through the game.

If you're dead set on the Halo series, I'd say you'd be just as well served by reading the backstory set by the first two, and just picking up Halo 3. The core gameplay and graphical style has changed so very little over the three iterations, that there's no real need to bother with the first two.

Not that I'd really recommend any Halo in the first place - I'm a huge FPS fan but never had the fanboy love for the first one, and just never saw what the big deal was when I finally got around to playing them years after they came out. The multiplayer is the real draw with Halo. If youre going to be doing this strictly single player, there are much better FPS games out there to spend your time with.

 

[Darthvoy]

Personally, I didn't play through the first, second, and third campaigns. Quite frankly, I found them all boring. I'm did enjoy the online gaming portion though.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Queasy
Story-wise, I have to say I really enjoy the Halo games and if you're into story, it makes sense to play the Halo trilogy from the beginning...and possibly read at least the first Halo novel, The Fall of Reach. I'm a big space sci-fi geek so this is right up my alley. Even though some of it is derivative...I think they've done a good job with Halo Universe overall.

Halo 1 and 2 are good plays IMHO but there are parts of the game where you'll want to swear at Bungie. Particularly the Library levels in Halo 1.

this, all the books are worth reading BTW

 

[mugs]

I never played Halo 2. I played part of Halo: CE. The age is apparent when they re-use parts of levels over and over again. The Library level is where I stopped. I actually got through a lot of it, but I wanted to take a break and mistakenly assumed the game auto-saved. When I realized I was going to have to replay that level I lost interest in ever playing it again. The vehicles are fun though.

I hate the Flood. I was glad when I heard the Flood wasn't in ODST.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Halo 1 was great in terms of story, definitely worth a play.

 

[ObscureCaucasian]

They're all great campaigns IMO

 

[dguy6789]

I second playing through 1, 2, and 3 in order. Halo 3's campaign does almost nothing to explain what is going on or who anybody is, it really isn't a good idea to start off on it.

 

[Auryg]

Halo 1's story and gameplay is much better than 2's. The Halo series has an odd form of feature creep - they felt like the needed to add more more more to each game, at the expense of the actual game mechanics.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I played through Halo 1 and 2 co-op just prior to playing through Halo 3 and I think they've held up well. In fact, I liked Halo 2 better the second time. I've played all the way through Halo 1 I think 3 times now and I've enjoyed it everytime. It gets boring around the middle (the Library straight up sucked), but there's enough great parts throughout the game that make it worth it. The second I feel is worse, although it has its moments. The third was even a further step down, and had few really good moments.

The key is co-op, it makes a huge difference. I'm not sure how well they hold up single player. Oddly enough, I felt the first one was actually the funnest, despite co-op being very tacked on. Oh, and also I think it had the best difficulty. Legendary co-op made the first game more fun, while it was too difficult in Halo 2, and Halo 3 was too easy.

Story-wise, I liked the first, as the second was a pretty big letdown, and the third's story just never got good at all in my opinion. There were some fun moments, but I think Bungie really screwed up the story and I absolutely hated the Gravemind. It had so much more potential and really should have dropped the Flood after the first game. I think in the first game, the story mostly got out of the way and let the gameplay take over.

 

[zerocool84]

I enjoy the actual gameplay much better than the story. The story throughout the series sucked for me but the gameplay was always fun.

 

[KB]

All of the Halos have been very repetitive, with you swearing you have been in the exact same room like 5 times before. But if you like FPSs, then you will still enjoy them.

 

[AstroManLuca]

I remember playing Halo 1 over and over and over again on my brother's Xbox. I must have finished the campaign six or seven times (with at least one playthrough on each difficulty level). It was a damn good game.

You may as well find a cheap copy of Halo and try it out. Worst case is you're out $5 or $10.

 

[mode101wpb]

My first Xbox was the lime green Halo edition with Halo 1 included. I enjoyed it along with Halo 2 which I thought was the best Halo so far, giving the fact you can play an Elite and it was a long game. Halo 3 wasn't bad but it seemed rather short to me.

I never found too many FPS games to be non-repetitive, Half Life, Gears of War and Halo all share that and plenty of others come to mind. Though it seems that some elements of Halo were nicked from Half Life, the Flood is one that is obvious.

I still have not made up my mind if I'll buy ODST, have to admit I'm somewhat tired of the Halo series after playing 3.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: mugs
I never played Halo 2. I played part of Halo: CE. The age is apparent when they re-use parts of levels over and over again. The Library level is where I stopped. I actually got through a lot of it, but I wanted to take a break and mistakenly assumed the game auto-saved. When I realized I was going to have to replay that level I lost interest in ever playing it again. The vehicles are fun though.

I hate the Flood. I was glad when I heard the Flood wasn't in ODST.

Truthfully speaking then... you played through most of it all. Because the second half is just going through most of it backwards. IIRC, the next stage is a rescue from a Covenant ship as sort of the middle where you turn around and go backwards.

 

[Shadowknight]

I played through Halo for the first time ever two months ago. It's okay, but I agree it was considered great because at the time, most console FPSs blew. I hated the first two levels where you are on ships, they were very very cut and paste. The rest of the game is cut and paste as well, but it gets more interesting once you get on the Ringworl- I mean, Halo. Personally, I liked the Libray level as it was more visually interesting, though at one point I went in the wrong direction and lost my way. I was annoyed that you go backwards through 90% of the game at the half-way point, though. Worth $5 if you need something to play on the weekend.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Thanks all, I'll pick up a cheap used copy for when I can tear myself away from Lost Odyssey and Titan Quest (PC, $5 at direct2drive).

 

[exar333]

Yes.

 

[BoberFett]

The whole series is overrated. Dull story, repetitive gameplay. Obviously just my opinion, since millions of people disagree. I've played dozens upon dozens of FPSs all the way back to Wolf3D and there's just nothing that Halo does which hasn't been done long before.

 

[Glitchny]

It's funny, maybe I just play games to have fun, but generally when I played Halo 1-3 I didn't really take notice/care about the reuse of level artwork. I never wandered around a corner expecting new art or "ooo graphical feature X" sure the library is kinda repetitive but I was playing with a friend and it was so damn hard on whatever difficulty setting we were on I never really noticed/cared what the scenery looked like in the midst of blasting the shit out of the flood. Also... it's a damn military/doomsday installation why would it look anything other than gray metal corridors etc, I doubt they were thinking of aesthetics when it was built...


also the books are good, decent sci-fi story, nothing deep or morally relevant which on this forum usually means "garbage" cause of everyone riding their high horses. And all the side story elements involving Cortana that happen in game and relate to the books etc make it very interesting.

 

[techwanabe]

I remember my first FPS, Unreal, on the PC. It started in a space ship and moved to the planet and was a lot of exploring and only a modest amount of shooting. Is Halo sort of like that?

 

[dguy6789]

Halo has more combat and less exploring than Unreal and no puzzle solving. That said, it's an enjoyable game in its own right.