Halo has preserved some of that feel with the XBox Live headset. You tend to hear a lot of smack talk when playing the open games, but still works well with friends that are distant or just unable to meet someplace for a fragfest.

If you still feel more need to insult, there is always tea-bagging . . .

Heh… In the good old times, we used to do mini lan parties and play Quake Fortress and Blood. It was especially fun since you could just yell insults across the room or actually throw something at the guy who keeps fragging his teammates. :)

Online play is just not the same.

Yes, the John Gabriel Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory has kept me from playing anything MP online. I have a couple of buddies who I play UT2K4 or BF1942 with but one of us hosts and we limit the human players to ourselves.

Actually, the Halo 1 community is quite big, although they use Halo CE (Custom Edition) which allows mods to just about everything. There are even people porting over the Halo 3 maps and weapons to work as they did in Halo 3.

Of course, there is still the XBox hackers that have made mods to Halo 1 and 2 as well . . .

Hmm… I wonder if people still play original Halo on multiplayer. I actually haven’t tried it yet. Then again, if people do play it I will most likely be fighting against some dudes that have been playing this game since it came out and will have my ass royally handed to me in no time. :P

I played few FPS games with the controller on PS1 but the experience was not that great. I mean, it’s not like the games were unplayable – just not as fun as on the PC.

Well, you saw how long it took for Halo 2 to come out for the PC, you will be waiting a long time for Halo 3. Especially with all the hacks the developers did on the graphics. It is very hardware dependent now.

Half-Life still is a much better game as far as single player goes, but nothing can touch Halo for multiplayer. Halo 2 got most of it right with Halo 3 pretty much perfecting the experience.

To be honest, I like the console controller. It allows me to relax on the couch to play. Yeah, I am a better shot with a mouse and keyboard, but it is nice not having to sit in front of a computer. I also like the fact that a friend can join me in a split screen environment. Yeah, I know you don’t like it, but it is nice to just have it as an option.

Bungie had always made good games. I was a Mac fan back before the time the Microsoft owned Bungie. Marathon and Myth were just awesome.

@Teague – after looking at some reviews, it does seem that Halo 2 is more of the same. Another Halo, another Flood breakout, another Monitor. Hmm…

Very good point on the co-op thing. A lot of games used to have it, and then it went away. What happened?

Btw, I hate split screen multiplayer on consoles though (both co-op and deathmatch). You’re playing with half your field of vision, and the other screen is always distracting. The only games that work with two people and one console are those that do not utilize split screen – fighting games, beat-them ups, and etc..

I played Halo 2 on console, and found it to be excessively repetitive going through the stroy line. I guess all the Halos really shine in multi-player. I played it co-op, and that works pretty well, even though you’re still following the story. Co-op’s the only real reason I’d get it myself for a console (I played on a buddy’s). Hey, that might be a good topic: Whatever happened to same-location multi-player on the PC? You can’t even play sports games on PC that way anymore.

Nope, I never got around to trying HL2. I suspect that if I did, I wouldn’t have time to comment on your blog ;) Plus, I’d probably be spending money I don’t have on new hardware.

Halo is lighter on thinking and puzzles. Most of the time you are just running down a pretty well defined path. But the environment is constructed in such way that it almost seems open ended. There are many outside sections that let you ride or fly vehicles over large distance. You also don’t really need to push and pull stuff around. It’s a very different game all in all. And since it’s newer than HL graphics are better.

Btw, have you played HL2? If you if you haven’t you are missing out!