Why is Halo so critically acclaimed?

[Jodites]

Every gamer (Including I) know that the Halo series is without a doubt one od the most overhyped and overrated game series of all time. There's absolutely nothing special about these games and apart from the music there's nothing excellent about them either, they're about as generic and average as first-person shooters get. The fanbase for this series is the worst out of any game franchise I've encountered; it ranges from fratboys and bratty twelve year-olds. However, they recieve nothing but scores of nines and tens from video game critics around the world and even won many GOTY awards. They even consider it as one of the greatest game franchises ever… *facepalm* Yeah it’s influential but it ruin the FPS genre and influenced FPS to become mindless, run n’ gun shooters. 98% of PC gamers were never impressed by Halo to begin with, only console gamers who haven’t played a decent FPS before Halo were impressed with it.

Sure the multiplayer is pretty good but there are many other better multiplayer FPS games and the single-player are total snooze fest. There are many other superior and underrated first-person shooters that don't recieve as much praise from critics.

Such as:

Section 8
Red Faction
Breakdown
Prey
Black
Command & Conquer Renegade
TimeSplitters series
Killzone 1
Resistance series
XIII
Project Snowblind
Star Wars Republic Commando
The Darkness
Call of Juarez series
etc.

The only few FPS that match the same critical acclaim as the Halo titles are the Half-Life series, Call of Duty series, Fallout 3 and BioShock however they should’ve scored much higher than Halo (Especially COD4 because that’s one of the most tactical and complex FPS ever) . Haze is just as or probably less generic as Halo but it was critically panned.

Why do the Halo games get so much praise from critics?

My guess is that they're either being bribed by M$ or they trying to comfort and please the fanbase because they might lose a lot of hits if they speak to their minds about Halo, considering Halo has nothing going for it other than it’s hype machine.

 

[purplerat]

This is another topic that's been beat to death. But you essentially said it yourself - mutliplayer. Sure there are better multiplayer FPSs but Halo brought it to a completely new level for the consoles. Before Halo people talked about FPS games and multiplayer as basically being PC exclusives. Halo pretty much changed that and brought a ton of new gamers into the loop of that genre. MW2 probably wouldn't have a fraction of the player base it has today if Halo hadn't opened the door for that type of game on the console and for players who otherwise wouldn't have been drawn to that type of game. I've never really played any Halo game and from all I know I think you are right when you say most people like you and me wouldn't like the game. But it did have a huge impact on gaming for a reason that can't be denied just because you or I don't like it.

 

[SpinachEater]

Halo was the first FPS multiplayer for consoles allowing 16 people to join in. I remember everyone going ape, hooking up their xboxes and having halo parties. To strip it down to numbers...that was a breakthrough compared to traditional 4 person multiplay.

It was also important because it came before xbox live. Xbox live would have flopped without the interest of console gamers to play other people rather than bots. Halo was sort of the stepping stone to make console gamers interested in online play just as purplerat said.

I always saw Halo for xbox as Mario was for nintendo or Sonic was for Sega. It was what made xbox a true competitor in the console world.

So whether you hate it or not, it is what it is.

 

[purplerat]

I worked at Best Buy when Halo 2 was released. You probably wouldn't believe how many people setup home networks for the first time because of that game. Home networking would have caught on anyways but a lot of people jumped into it years earlier because of Halo. It also made network connectivity a must for all future consoles.