kade47
Shared on Sun, 03/08/2009 - 17:21Is Halo dying? Not in the sense of gasping for breath and dragging itself across the floor, but in the sense of being infected with a disease that slowly, but surely, kills it.
For everyone there is The Game. The Game is the one that you get drawn to, over and over. With the addition of online multiplayer, many games that would have been merely good became great. Games that were fun to play, but you would eventually move on from, became staples of your gaming addiction. I used to love to play Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo. That was back in the days when there was one house everyone congregated at. All of your friends would end up at this house to socialize and to party. With all of my friends gathered around, we would fire up the Super Nintendo and start our Mario Kart ritual. It was all about two words, winner stays. Honing your racing skills, being ruthless with the red shells, and strategically placing the green ones insured your seat in the most comfortable chair as the winner. You took on all comers, and with each win you further cemented you butt’s impression in the winner’s throne, that comfy and ripped recliner in the center of the action.
Eventually we moved on to other things. We stopped playing Mario Kart, and when we did play it was the few and far between pick-up game. The ones where your skills have diminished from lack of playing time and those previous never-had-a-chance losers could now beat you. Games popped up now and again that would have our attention for a little while, but none captured our gaming spirit like Mario Kart had. What if online multiplayer would have been around back then? This truly good game could have been great at its time.
Years later I picked up my used copy of Halo 2. I had never even tried the first Halo. I toyed with the campaign and absolutely hated it. I had never been a fan of FPS’s. This one was no different. But then I looked into the online capabilities of Xbox Live. I was intrigued. I subscribed and a new frontier was open to me. I took my Halo skills online and was summarily crushed. I took beating after beating. But day after day I could not help but fire it up again, to try my luck once more. I eventually got a little better, but not much. I was having fun. This horrible game was quickly becoming addicting, this okay game was becoming a great game. While the campaign held no interest for me the idea of playing with people in different cities, states, even countries, was amazing. Hearing people with strange accents cussing up a storm was hilarious.
But along with being online comes the bane of all gamers. Timmy. He was everywhere. He was in seemingly every game. From the team killer to the suicidal waste of space, there was no short supply of Timmies willing to ruin my fun. After a few months of playing this game that I had now fallen in love with, I was about ready to call it quits. While perusing my gaming magazines one day I came across an article explaining sites for older gamers. Low and behold there was a place called 2old2play that sounded like a haven for someone like me. Within an hour I had signed up and introduced myself, and within a day I had found my first clan.
My friends list of approximately zero quickly climbed to full. Everyone that I played with that was a member got a friend request and in a short period I had no shortage of people to play with. I went from almost giving up on the game to playing nonstop. Halo had become The Game. We played customs far into the night, we played matchmaking every day. There were tournaments on the site with different clans representing themselves, and rivalries between clans were rampant. There seemed to be an endless supply of teams who were always playing one another. There were clan matches being scheduled all of the time. It was a great time to be playing Halo. It seemed as if everyone on the site owned this game and played it on a regular basis.
The forums were packed full of teams talking trash and scheduling matches, clans questioning each other’s skills, and of course the age old argument of glitches that never failed to get locked. Bungie kept releasing maps and there were so many to call your favorite. There were epic matches being played on Midship, Warlock, and Lockout. With videos in the forums the next day complete with all the audio. I had fun playing on Ascension, a fortress in the sky, Ivory Tower, sniping on Burial Mounds, racing for the sniper rifle on Colossus, spawn killing on Zanzibar, more custom games than I can count on Coagulation, and tons of clan matches on Waterworks and Headlong. The clan forums were packed full of clans dedicated to Halo that were all busting at the seams with members, and everyone was actively playing and posting.
Then Halo 3 came along. Everyone started the countdown, with threads even dedicated to it. Every scrap of evidence was posted, sifted through, and deciphered. The beta finally came and everyone was all over it. There were many improvements made, and many fan favorite aspects omitted. It was different, just…different. It had a new feel to it. It was still Halo, but it just wasn’t the same.
With the new forge feature it seemed like the possibilities were endless. At first everyone tried their hand at it and what came out were a bunch of confusing games with weapons hidden everywhere and unclear objectives with even more confusing rules. Everyone quickly realized that you had to keep it simple. The more you changed the more complaints you would hear in the lobby. The maps that fared the best were either the simplest, most symmetrical, or the ones that were the most like Halo 2 maps.
Slowly but surely clan members faded away. They moved on to other games. With the addition of Gears of War and Call of Duty, many members were lost. The Game for them had changed. Clans split, died, or included more games. Instead of focusing on Halo, they focused on FPS’s in general. With the destruction of the ever loved clan blade it became increasingly difficult for Overlords to keep track of members and to get them all gaming together. Many clans ceased recruiting members until everything was straightened out. The “friends of friends” has been a help, but will never compare to the clan blade.
Clan matches were few and far between, and the rivalries that once drove competition died. Tournaments were poorly run, with few people actually signing up, and many who did simply didn’t show. It became increasingly hard to get enough people to even justify having a tournament. The epic battles that were once posted seemingly every day were now gone. Some simply decided to keep playing Halo 2. With all of your friends now playing Halo 3 you are quickly reminded what you hated about the online experience. Without your friends you can no longer own Timmies, instead you are forced to team with them.
Clans still sprout up from time to time to try to gather all of the competitive players that once drove much of the Halo action on the site. At first everyone is excited but they all slowly die and posts are fewer and farther between. There are still a few noncompetitive clans that play nonstop, but it just doesn’t seem the same as it did in the days of yore. The MML has tried hard to reinvigorate the interest in Halo, and to get people together to play from all corners of the site.
I can’t help but feel that in today’s world of Halo, something is missing. It’s just not the same. While I realize that a new game means that things will change and it will never be the same, it threatens to turn what was once The Game to so many people into just another game. New maps are being added, new forge possibilities are coming to the forefront, and as the ones before them they will be judged against Halo 2.
So as I asked you at the start, is Halo dying? I know I took you the long way around, but I think the answer is obvious and sad. Halo is infected with a disease that slowly, but surely, kills it. For Halo players there is no other game that compares to it. If you pick up COD or GOW you have to judge them on their own merit, these games are not interchangeable. So where does that leave us now? Hope is the first word that comes to mind, hoping that they will eventually get it right, hoping they’ll take what we love from the Halo series and leave out what we don’t to make the best Halo yet. Yes, I will say it, hoping for Halo 4. While some would argue that it has only been a year and a half since its release, I would argue that without something being done to make this game great once more, it will eventually die.
I’m sure many people would not agree with me, but the fact of the matter is Halo just doesn’t seem to hold the same appeal to gamers as it once did.
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