I don’t know if anyone else feels the same as I do, but Halo has just gotten boring for me. I’m unsure if it has to do with the series being out over a decade now and I know what to expect, but the time I’ve spent playing Halo multiplayer has gone down drastically since Halo 2.
There was once a time when I didn’t have Xbox Live or my own Xbox, but that didn’t stop me from going to my friend’s house and playing three player split-screen after school until 10 o’clock. This was pretty much a daily occurence in middle/high school. Even after the release of the Xbox 360, my friend and I continued to play Halo 2 because there wasn’t a 360 game out there that could compete with how much fun Halo 2 was.
Halo 3 was a great game, and I mean great. By this time I had my own Xbox and I played this game non-stop throughout high school. This game was what I looked forward to at night and it’s what I discussed with friends between classes at school. My friends and I played this game for years. The one thing that might have made it the perfect game would have been hitscan.
Halo Reach was probably the most hyped up Halo game, in my opinion. I couldn’t wait to play it and my friends and I followed all the pre-release details on Bungie.net practically drooling over every little detail we could soak up. Then, the game hit stores and after about two weeks we realized that this game just wasn’t Halo as we knew it. I continued to play the game, despite all of my friends giving up on it after the first month. They all felt that Halo was no longer what made it great. The additions of reticule bloom and armor abilities had destroyed the game we had all grown up with. Overall, I played Halo Reach on and off until the release of Halo 4.
Now I come to Halo 4. November 6, 2012 - I waited until midnight at my local Gamestop to pick this game up. The first 48 hours after purchasing Halo 4 were amazing, but quickly the same flaws of Halo Reach caught up with it. You see, we all had to play for awhile in order to unlock armor abilities like active camo and jetpack, and the first couple days, not many people had them yet so the game felt smooth and precise like the Halos of the past. Afterwards, I felt a decline in this great game. This game was supposed to be the redeemer for Halo, the game that would put Halo back on top and that my friends and I could play right up until Halo 5’s release. I find myself playing the less-than-fun Action Sack playlist tonight and I realize, this is probably it for me, Halo. I have no more urge to play multiplayer, and spartan ops just doesn’t appeal to me the way firefight did. Four months and two map packs after release, you’ve let me down.
Not sure if Halo 5 will be a future purchase of mine, despite the fact that I own every Halo game out there. It’s been fun, Halo. You’ve just lost that glimmer you once had, and you’re showing no sign of it coming back.
/end rant