@Grave8890 this could use a whole thread as a response.
Growing up with Halo was awesome. I got CE and an Xbox for Christmas in 2001 when i was 5. It was my first video game and upon starting the first mission i thought “this game looks so realistic why would anyone else make another game?” (This thought occured right after Captain Keyes handed me the magnum, i hadn’t even shot it yet). Not sure why i thought that because i had never seen any other game but back then it really did look so good.
To this day Halo CE is still my favorite game. I loved the air of mystery around everything. No other Halo has that feel; this is mainly due to CE having to set up a whole universe and then each game following has the job to go more in depth and explain more so its only natural.
I mainly played the campaign with my dad and friends. Assault on the Control Room is my favorite mission because it had awesome vehicle sections along with tight indoor combat. I love every mission of CE, even The Library.
People look back on it with more negativity now then i remember there being at the time. Granted i wasn’t into gaming news back then but i don’t remember anyone finding The Library annoying. The point of the mission is to feel like you are alone in a vast confusing place fighting endless hordes of the undead. The Library does just that.
I would love to say i remember seeing the Flood for the first time and it being a huge twist but i simply can’t remember the first time i saw the Flood. I could go on and on about things i used to do for fun in the campaign but that would no doubt be too long for a single post.
On to Halo 2. The story was just awesome. The best cutscenes in all of Halo are in this game. Sgt. Johnson has some of his best dialog in this game as well. Dual wielding added a whole new dynamic to the game and really made you feel powerful because normal humans couldn’t do it. Fighting new enemies like the scarab and brutes was a blast. The Arbiter story line was so cool and being able to have Covenant allies was awesome. Tartarus was a fun final boss fight. I did miss the AR being in the game and still miss the CE AR (even if the SMG is basically the same thing it’s just not as satisfying to use). I also don’t remember people hating on Halo 2’s ending like they do now (but again not really into gaming news at this time) and all i could think about at the end of the game was “I can’t wait for Halo 3!”
I played the local multiplayer a lot in this game as I didn’t get Xbox Live until Halo 3. I did play online once or twice at a friends house but really can’t remember too much about it. I do remember people thinking you could get a Gold Warthog to spawn on Headlong if you did all sorts of goofy things. Again i could go on about all the things my friends and I did but we would be here for a long time.
Then comes Halo 3. First off, Halo 3 had the best hype train set of trailers of all time. There is no game that has had near as many great trailers. Then we get Halo 3 and it has it all. It is probably the best overall Halo when you take into consideration the quality of the campaign and the multiplayer.
While the campaign is awesome and a great ending to the trilogy i would rather talk more about the multiplayer here. This game defined my Xbox Live expectations. Lobby chat and vetoes let you feel like you were in a community (and trash talk). All a rmor being tied to specific unchanging challenges is the best system and Halo 3 nailed it. I did get Hayabusa and the Katana but never got Recon but not for lack of effort. Giving players an armor to show off for a very difficult and unchanging challenge felt so rewarding and cool to see in game.
Custom games were amazing and i still think overall the best forge maps were made in Halo 3. Forge was much more rudimentary than it is now and to even get objects to float was quite the task. This difficulty in use led people to develope most of the best maps i have ever played. Last thing about the multiplayer: Social Big Team Heavies is still the best game mode in all of Halo and no game has matched how well it was done in Halo 3.
I will be short about Halo 3 ODST. For one it felt overpriced but you got all the Halo 3 DLC maps so that made up for it. I loved firefight (ODST still has the best firefight as it was actually difficult and not arcadey like subsequent versions have been) but do have some bad memories about the campaign. I had a glitch where if you skipped the cutscene before the bridge demolition section my whole campaign would restart. Well the first time i accidentally skipped it by bumping my controller. On the subsequent 2 play throughs i skipped cutscenes i had already seen to try to catch back up. Only on my 4th play through did i find out what was going on. Needless to say i find the campaign very irritating to this day. Is it a fair judgment? Not really but that was my experience.
And finally the last Bungie game in the series: Halo Reach. Reach is much more fondly remembered now than i remember people reacting back then. As i still wasn’t really into gaming news i don’t remember people complaining about bloom at all. What i do remember is people hating that elites were no longer fully customizable and that dual wielding was gone. Not only that but Warrant Officer Grade 3 was such a slog to make it through before they patched it up. Sadly that patch came after i had already grinded through the rank so it didn’t help me. Not only that i remember people loving the Reach Beta and then when the full game launched it played a lot different. Specifically the pistol felt much weaker in the full launch and the DMR was so overpowered it made playing a mode with vehicles borderline impossible to have fun in as the DMR and team shooting could smoke just about any vehicle. Not only that but the DMR just felt so OP. I know i hate the DMR more than most people but i do remember having friends who also found it annoying. I remember people loving how much armor was in Reach but not how you unlocked it. Recon was no longer super cool and rare and any rare armors just meant people spent a lot of time in the game and not that they were actually good. Not a single armor set showed off any skill and that was a huge disappointment.
Forge world was amazing and really needs to come back and the single greatest forge map, Writer’s Mind, orignates from Reach. Its an infection mode where the infected only have swords and hammers and spawn at the bottom of the tunnel. The survivors spawn in an energy shield protected zone and choose a mongoose or a warthog to go down this super steep tunnel. I and one friend first played it after we had been up super late and a random from one of our games invited us.
Now i will quickly sum up how Halo 4 and 5 made someone like me feel.
Halo 4 portrayed Chief and Cortana drastically different than the original games. I would say they are really completely different characters. I hate just about everything to do with the art design and story direction from Halo 4. The prometheans are just bad enemies too, they are not fun to fight and don’t look like they fit Halo but then again nothing in Halo 4 or 5 does. I remember lots of people not liking the campaign for similar reasons. Only later after really getting into gaming news have i seen people say they love Halo 4 and the story was great but that does not represent anyone i ever met who played Halo at the time. Spartan Ops was just trash. Halo 4 had a fun multiplayer (and still has the best version of oddball as you can pass/catch the ball) but was not what i wanted out of a Halo multiplayer. It finished the step out of arena shooters that Reach started.
Upon playing Halo 5 i really felt lied to by the whole Hunt the Truth ad campaign and i think everyome did. By this time i was into gaming news and it felt like everyone felt this way. Halo 5 also has a trash story and art direction but the gameplay was a bit more fun than Halo 4. Firefight is back but not really the same but still fun. Warzone really wasn’t that fun of a mode either. Coming from the Titanfall series i had an idea of how AI should be in a large PvP and Warzone was far from that. It felt cheaply made. Same goes with all the multiplayer maps in Halo 5. Not sure what happened because Halo 4 had great maps but i can’t think of 1 from 5 i enjoyed. Similar to how advanced movement in COD didn’t work, it didn’t work in Halo. Halo 5 also has the worst armor system in any Halo as you can only choose a helmet then everything else. Helioskrill is really the only armor that looked like it belonged in Halo and 343 really needs to bring it to each game with the same challenge to unlock it.
Infinite feels like the sequel to Halo 3 i have been waiting for (gameplay and art direction wise). Its just sad the amount of problems it has had. But aside from a total retcon of Halo 4 and 5 the story is as good as its going to get and the more stoic Chief is finally back.
I truly do feel sad that not eveyone will get to grow up with Halo like i did. And won’t get to experience the most popular Halo ever in Halo 3 during its original lifespan (if you look at sales H3 is the highest selling Halo by far and the series cultural impact on the gaming industry was at an all time high). Playing Halo 3 online is some of the best gaming memories i have and that time is filled with a lot of incredible games. If you go look at games released between 2007-2011 most major franchises had what is considered their best games or their start back then. Video games were also just becoming mainstream so it was a huge deal when basically everyone was talking about them.