Umm, you're a gamerscore whore with 25,000+ points, and you're thinking of skipping the biggest Xbox360 title of all time? Just like no big deal?
In a time of year where nothing else much is coming out?
Just buy it.
I'm prolly taking off work too. It's a tradition. That's how big this game is. I remember standing in line for Halo 2 and the guy in front of me saying "I've been waiting years for this". I'll probably see that guy again in line for Halo 3 LOL.
I also agree with everybody about Halo 2 not being as good as Halo 1.
Here are some of the revolutionary (from a console perspective) things about Halo 1:
IMO, it was the first highly playable FPS on a console. Every previous console FPS I had tried on the Dreamcast ( such as Quake 3), fighting the controls was paramount. Halo, made the controls no longer an issue, now you could focus on the game. Remember, at that time FPS were not the dominant console genre like they are now, they were few and far between.
It had the best console graphics to date at that time. The sweeping scale of things was unprecedented. The early second level where the covenant dropships swooped in, was pretty mindblowing from a pure "wow" graphics perspective. As well as other things such as that blue laser firing into the sky..it truly had a great sense of identity and style. Unfortunately, Halo 3 will be lacking the "best graphics" aspects of it's predecessors.. however it should be pretty enough, and maintain that great clean Halo look.
The squadmates, it's odd to talk about now because sqaudmates are so common, but back at that time nothing was like it on console, possibly anywhere. Having an extremely active, communicative squad fighting alongside you was revolutionary. I remember raving about it on message boards..
Oh an a little thing..I loved how those little chicken aliens, cant even remember what they're called, were always jabbering and retreating and talking shit at you..but in a way that you could never exactly tell what they were saying but you're sure you heard them say something plain as day..again it was technically amazing at the time, but also just fun. I used to laugh because they were such little chickenshits..but then they'd stab you in the back quick..contrast say with the Elites which were no-nonsense badasses and you did not mess around with..the enemies had real personalities in that way.
The "only two weapons at a time" system was also revolutionary at the time for FPS and added a ton of strategy.
The set piece battles were great. I still can tell stories..I remember I must have fought this one battle 20 times..it was like a half hour battle on an open plain in the snow..a lot of tough enemies, enemy vehicles etc..finally after many tries I had it beat, or so I thought..but there was a cloaked Elite I forgot about...standing what I thought victorious all the sudden I realized that Elite was still there, he made a noise or something, and I just started running for safety..it was too late, he cut me down like nothing. I remember running running running across that open field hoping I could make it to safety so I didn't have to fight that whole battle for the 34 time..such a great moment.. Oh another thing that really made an impression on me was guilty spark. Trudging through those cold corriders for so long with him spouting insanities..just great stuff, like from a sci-fi flick. I remember I used to think about that game when I wasn't playing it, for a period of days..
Anyways, if you like or even can tolerate FPS, GET THIS GAME.
