Halo

Lets just come right out and say it. The original Halo is a fantastic game, the sequel to Halo is so awful I cringe every time I hear someone talking about it. Of course, I don't think I can win for losing. Hating Halo is the trendy thing to do, loving Halo is the trendy thing to do, and here I am riding the fence.

It's easy for some to dismiss Halo as a fanboy delusion, but there are some things about the game which make it one of the best first person shooters I've ever played. Here is a quick summation of them, in no particular order:

1. The story has a compelling storyline (for a first person shooter anyway) which goes above and beyond the standard FPS modus operandi of "get the story out of the way so you can start killing lots of interesting creatures."
2. The weapons system was well thought out. All of the weapons, except the pistol, are very well balanced. The human weapons act exactly as I feel they should handle, and the alien weapons feel...well, alien. You aren't given ridiculously overpowered weapons such as the beam sword, and the flow of battle is very natural.
3. The vehicles in the game are very well designed. The Warthog (lightweight vehicle) is very agile, the Scorpion (tank) feels slow and tank-like. The vehicles which provide you protection (IE you are not hurt while in them) all have health of their own, and you are hurt when hit inside an invincible vehicle.
4. The game has a nigh perfect PC translation, so you can play with a mouse and keyboard with all it's wonderful benefits.

The only things I can say bad about Halo is the pistol needs to be rebalanced, and the console version cannot be played over Xbox Live. All in all, if you are an FPS fan, and you have missed the original Halo, you should pick it up. Aside from being the trendy thing to hate, there's no reason not to.

Halo 2, on the other hand, is FPS gaming gone horribly, horribly wrong. I honestly cannot fathom why people aren't up in arms over the various aspects of the game. For the sake of fairness, lets look at what Halo 2 got right:

1. Online multiplayer! This was incredibly lacking from the original.
   
2. Matchmaking is done very well. So long as you aren't on the bottom of the ladder, you can find a match of equal skill level almost instantly.
3. Better graphics.

These things cannot make up for the flaws though. In no particular order:

1. The single player game is basically unfinished, and the storyline is rather disappointing.
2. The weapons have been changed, and mostly for the worse. The plasma pistol acts like a cruise missile, making it impossible to get out of the way unless you are at point blank range...and even then it's iffy. You have to be using a two handed weapon or dual wielding to be competitive. The beam sword instant kill is irritating, but not completely unbalanced. And so on.
3. The vehicles in the game have been completely changed, mostly for the worst.
4. The most damning aspect of Halo 2 is the huge head hit boxes combined with crazy impossible auto-aim corrections.

It's really hard to stress how much point 4 ruins the game. You really have to see this to believe it:



In most FPS games you need at least a modicum of skill to pull off a headshot or even just to hit the other players. All of this combines to make multiplayer farcical, and a complete waste of time. Why not just play a real FPS and see how you stack up?

Edit: It's really just the hit boxes and auto-aim issue which makes me hate the game so much, but I suppose I really should have added a more as to what my specific problems with the vehicles are. That's what I get for rushing a post out the door.

I have two complaints about the vehicle system: The warthog is entirely too destructible. I can't seem to get from point A to point B without it blowing up due to small encounters which I was trying to avoid anyway. The banshee is the same way, only good for 2 to 3 encounters with ground units (minus rocket launchers) and it's ready to explode.

On the other hand, Halo 2's vehicle system is still better than a lot of the other FPS games we see out there. Perfect Dark's jetpack and uncontrollable hovercraft come to mind. Those two honestly seem like they were tacked on as an afterthought.