XBLM Deal of the Week: Halo

Simple answer is the lead designer for Halo: Combat Evolved left Bungie for FASA (you know the guys that are singlehandedly responsible for the Xbox Live experience and standard you have come to love and enjoy). You can thank Halo fans for driving FASA into the grave after Shadowrun (most overlooked title of 2007).

Just to clarify John Howard was the lead designer on Halo: Combat Evolved and was responsible for the classic multiplayer experience in said game. He worked on Shadowrun as well, which is probably why I hold it as the best FPS on the 360 and perhaps the most innovative. Anyone who claims it to be a gimmick or rags on it for being multiplayer only simply has not sat down with the game for a few days to experience the depth of the gameplay and thought John Howard and FASA put into the game. The learning curve is higher than the typical run and gun game, which deterred the vast majority of players, the rest either being the pen and paper RPG fans or fans of Jeff "Shovelface" Gerstmann (who I might add reviewed Shadowrun and was nothing more than a bitter mindless fanboy rant about how it was not an RPG and was later cut from it's 3 pages down to a half a page after his firing).

And yes I am a Shadowrun fanboy, and no one can complain about the continuity and trueness of the game to the source considering the originators of Shadowrun some 20 years ago worked on the development of the Shadowrun FPS for the 360. I am also a fan of the RPG.

Shadowrun was lame.

The shadow run demo was great. Some of the spells really added depth to the standard fps gameplay.

The problem was, between H3 and COD4 there was no one to play it. I wasnt going to pay full price for a Multiplayer only game with a community of 4 people.

It came out at the wrong time, had the wrong price point, and wasn't promoted aggessively enough.

Shadowrun may not be as bad as many people made it to be but, "....I hold it as the best FPS on the 360 and perhaps the most innovative." I just can't see how you can think its the best FPS on the 360. That blows my mind. COD4, GRAW and RB6V were all a lot better in my book.

Shadowrun, nuthin' but love for ya....but Shadowrun was not that impressive.

Anticrawl -- Yes, Shadowrun was (and still is) a fantastic game. I still play it regularly, especially when I get fed up with all of the inconsistency of Halo 3. John Howard is a great designer, and I'd really like to know what project he's working on now.

Duke -- Did you spend much time with the game? Because of the steep learning curve, it can take a few days of playtime to really understand the intricacies of the gameplay, but once you take that step and invest that time, it is well worth it. The game isn't nearly as casual-friendly as Halo 3 or CoD4, and it's very hard to just pick it up and start playing (unlike the other two) because it has a huge skill gap. The thing that endears me to Shadowrun is the same thing that endeared me to Halo: CE -- the more I practice the game, the better I'll get. The game is much more rewarding than Halo 3 or CoD4, because even if I invested tons of time in those games, I'd still get screwed over by a bad spawn every once in a while, or have my shots not register over a smooth connection, or trip over someone's martyrdom grenade, or end up with one of those horrible "mutual beatdowns" that occur so often in Halo 3. In Shadowrun, a player who's invested a week in the game would never beat a player who's invested a few months of practice, but in Halo 3 and CoD4 it happens all the time.

Assault on the Control room too!

All were great, except the Library...no one likes the library.

I loved The Library.

zeus: .... go home.

That makes me rage as much as a PS3 fanboy telling me PS3 is superior because it has Call of Duty 4 and GTA 4.

Question: Will there be multiplayer in Halo? If yes, I'm buying it.

Most people who agree with the whole, "HALO 1 IS THE BEST ALL THE OTHERS ARE GARBAGE" crap, are pretty much the equivalent of people who still believe that Goldeneye is the greatest FPS game ever. It's really they're looking at the games through nostalgia goggles. Don't get me wrong Halo 1 was a good game, but Bungie definitely improved the Halo formula in the sequels.

I think halo 3 is far superior to Halo CE as well, but everyone knows that I'm joystiq's halo 3 defense force

Vegeta --

Do tell me how the gameplay of the Halo series has improved since Halo: CE. Please give me a specific example of something that Bungie has done right with the gameplay since that first game. Sure, additions such as Forge, Theater, Xbox Live, and an improved UI are all great, but they're not at all improvements on the core gameplay, they're just extra features included in the game.

Please explain to me how the introduction of a poor spawn system, a highly unbalanced and largely useless spawning weapon, map design that promotes camping and discourages flow and movement, a "latency window" based melee system that rewards a player with slower reflexes, default player movement speed that is barely above a crawl, equipment, and a weapon sandbox that is filled with superfluous weapons and is fairly unbalanced is, in any way, an improvement of the Halo formula.

Halo 1 is not Goldeneye, and it isn't just a nostalgia piece -- it remains, to this day, the best in the genre.

The speculations of what I've read says that downloads don't hold up as well as discs when it comes to performance. I don't know if that just isn't backwards compatibility as a whole being the issue or not. I have it on disc and it works just fine. Discs have the portability factor, but for $7.50 and if you don't have it you can't deny the convenience of cheap and immediate. Plus you'd never have to put the disc in. Just instant go.

I'm probably going to download this too, even though I own like 4 copies of it...from the old LAN party days mind you. I don't collect multiple copies for fun ;-)

Wait the final weekly deal?
That sucks, I was thinking it would go on for a long time...It actually has me consider purchasing items I normally wouldn't.

yeah, war and peace sucked.

I agree.

Someday, when Final Fantasy # is truly the final Final Fantasy, they'll compile them all into one ridiculous collection. That will be the gaming equivalent of War and Peace.

Not sure how you'll be able to beat 11, though.

Dear God War and Peace is being compared to FF and Halo I..I just need a seat.

What's next The Lord of the rings comparation with Maple story.
¿

no, the xbox originals are the same as they were for xbox

That sort of made sense.

Christ, how unnecessary.

So, basically your friends are idiots. Fair enough.

Eh, going off comments here it also seems that more people prefer Halo 1 to 3, LOL.

The achievement whore in you will be disappointed. Xbox Originals don't carry achievements.