Half-Life 1 vs Halo 1

[Orchid87]

The title says it all. Let's compare two of the games that were groundbreaking for their respective systems and are still on many "best ever" lists.

[imp1979]

I have a feeling the end result here will be:

[Memfis]

yellow key card (or was it red?)

[kristus]

I still don't see how either game was ground breaking.

[Csonicgo]

kristus said:

I still don't see how either game was ground breaking.

One was story in a game, the other was cash cow in a game. or maybe it's the other way around.

[kristus]

Neither of which was unprecedented.

[Jodwin]

Halo is less boring than Half-Life is.

[DeathevokatioN]

Half Life 1 for sure... blew me away when I was a kid. Halo 1.... not so much...

[Khorus]

HL1 simply because the weaponset made for some oddball DM games back when we played LANs. Otherwise I don't care for either game.

[Marcaek]

Halo was entertaining but hardly groundbreaking. HL1 is one of the few linear games I manage to enjoy, but honestly I hated it's deathmatch mode.

Improvising demolition derbies in Halo was fun.

[MRB_Doom]

I choose Half Life because of it's story. I guess I'm soft for stories that never seem to end, or so it seems hehe.

[Marcaek]

MRB_Doom said:

I choose Half Life because of it's story. I guess I'm soft for stories that never seem to end, or so it seems hehe.

The Halo story won't end until Microsoft milks it dry :V

[MRB_Doom]

Marcaek said:

The Halo story won't end until Microsoft milks it dry :V

I must confess to the fact that I've never played Halo so I can't comment on the game story really. Can you describe it in one sentence?

Speaking of games, I remember how my dad showed me a PC game magazine in early 1998 asking me if I wanted him to buy Star Craft for me. I said no I want that other game, some "Off Road Racing" mediocre release. Man, I fucked up big time there.

[yellowmadness54]

I liked Halo more....

[Remilia Scarlet]

Neither are very groundbreaking, but as far as which one I like better, I'd have to go with Half-Life. I liked the first Halo when it came out, but those feeling waned really quickly. Half-Life was opposite, where I didn't care for it at first but it later grew on me.

Also, Gordon is just more of a hot badass.

[PRIMEVAL]

Never played either, but seen people LP them. HL1 looked a lot more enjoyable.

[octopus]

MRB_Doom said:

I must confess to the fact that I've never played Halo so I can't comment on the game story really. Can you describe it in one sentence?

Speaking of games, I remember how my dad showed me a PC game magazine in early 1998 asking me if I wanted him to buy Star Craft for me. I said no I want that other game, some "Off Road Racing" mediocre release. Man, I fucked up big time there.

[imp1979]

Halo for me. Just loved the music, the environments, the firefights(on harder difficulty) the driving. I loved Half Life 2 deathmatch though, simply for the endless supply of maps from the mod community.

[Vordakk]

Half-Life 1. Halo just sucks.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Anyone claiming Half-Life wasn't groundbreaking is full of themselves. Valve pretty much invented modern FPS game design; they should hate themselves for that, but at the time it was definitely groundbreaking and something that had never been done before. It's kind of unfortunate that games never tried improving on what it did wrong, and instead made it worse. Especially its own sequels.

I can't really comment on Halo; I think the only thing it really pioneered was the lousy two weapon, melee, and grenades setup. I forget if any other FPSes did vehicles as well as Halo when it first came out. A lot of people claim it was the first console FPS on par with games on the PC, which is a joke considering GoldenEye and Perfect Dark exist.

[lazygecko]

I don't care much for either really. I always found Half-Life's pain thresholds for enemies frustrating, especially for the marines. Made the gunplay not feel as good as other games.

C&C Renegade came out a bit before Halo I think and had major vehicle gameplay. And there was also a Terminator FPS with vehicles by Bethesda.

Goldeneye did raise the bar significantly, but I think it was still a far cry from what was being offered on PC at the time.

[TwinBeast]

Halo was full of copy pasted corridors and rooms.

Half-Life 1 had interesting levels, even they were linear, but at least they didn't all look the same. The enemies were also better, though the human enemies could have been a bit weaker.

[kristus]

MRB_Doom said:

I must confess to the fact that I've never played Halo so I can't comment on the game story really. Can you describe it in one sentence?

While the story from Half Life was lifted from Doom and Quake, the story from Halo was lifted from Quake2. Though to Halo's credit they added on the story by adding muppets and balloon animals to the cast.

Dragonsbrethren said:

Anyone claiming Half-Life wasn't groundbreaking is full of themselves. Valve pretty much invented modern FPS game design; they should hate themselves for that, but at the time it was definitely groundbreaking and something that had never been done before.

Just because you say it doesn't make it true. I still don't know what HL1 did that was groundbreaking or new in any shape or form. Except that the game was extremely linear, which wasn't as common back then. But that's hardly something I'd boast about.

[Shaikoten]

HL1s real innovations are in the method of its storytelling rather than the story it tells. Think back to the 90s and how most games handled their stories. You had the FMV/Pre-rendered games which you couldn't control for shit, or the games with pre-rendered cutscenes spliced in between levels to tell the story, but rarely did you have the entire thing contained in-engine. In Half-Life you were allowed to play through the entire thing through the use of heavy scripting, and sequences unfolded like a movie.

This does not seem like a novel concept now, but before this, it did not exist. At least not in the realm of action games/FPSes.

Halo has the "best FPS for this console" syndrome going on. It's just like people who rave about Goldeneye 64 being a great game. It's not, it's just the most memorable FPS for the N64.

[Dragonsbrethren]

kristus said:

While the story from Half Life was lifted from Doom and Quake, the story from Halo was lifted from Quake2. Though to Halo's credit they added on the story by adding muppets and balloon animals to the cast.

Wait, what? I can't remember a single storyline concept from Quake 2 that was in Halo outside of octopus's image macro.

Shaikoten already covered your second point.

[Belial]

Halo on Legendary is still one of the most fun challenges FPS games could offer me.

[kristus]

Shaikoten said:

This does not seem like a novel concept now,

It wasn't back then either.

Shaikoten said:

but before this, it did not exist. At least not in the realm of action games/FPSes.

That's simply not true. Not only did games like Strife and more so System Shock tell deeper and more engaging stories. They did it better than HL1 ever even came close to.
They also did it without keeping you stuck in a tram for what seemed like an eternity.

Granted Strife did have the odd Cut scene, as did System Shock. Though these were rare and blended well with the games. But unlike the case of HL1's not only incredibly boring and pointless intro, they were actually skippable.

[kristus]

Dragonsbrethren said:

Wait, what? I can't remember a single storyline concept from Quake 2 that was in Halo outside of octopus's image macro.

Well I wasn't being entirely serious. But the concept of Halo is basically the same as Quake2's. Aliens give humanity shit, so humanity fights back and we got big fancy ships. Then we crash onto whatever world we crash on and fight on foot while we look for the big nasty weapon that we need to stop the aliens from using. In Quake2 it was Big Gun, and in Halo it was... the halo. Or if it was the baloon animals. I really can't recall which one it was the covenant was after.

I mostly just wanted a reason to mention that Halo got enemies that makes me think of muppets and baloon animals.

[[PROTOTYPE]]

I guess Half-Life.Some of the mods were really awesome (They Hunger,anyone?...).Also,it had 2 expansion packs,which were really cool.I loved Opossing Force.Sure,HALO had it's fair ammount of coolness too.Anyway,i think a real gamer should play both.

[Technician]

Half-Life all the way. Halo is definitely the best console shooter, but there wasn't anything new and, sadly, set an obnoxious precedence for shooters today.

One thing about Halo 1, the enemies are boring as fuck. The game got good when the flood were introduced, but again, sadly, were needlessly shoehorned into the story as the squeals progressed. Also, the covenant's political story was about as engaging as the Star Wars prequels.