I liked the origional Xbox. When it came out I had to get it. I liked the ham-fisted, brutish design of the system. I liked the freakin' gigantic, unwieldy, uncomfortable controllers. I dunno', it was just so American in design, and so cheesy (the black and green color scheme?) that it was endearing. And Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee was really cool. Unfortunately it was a short game, and I needed to have more that one title to justify what was at the time an expensive purchase. So Halo it was, unfortunatley. I have to admit that I enjoyed the co-op gameplay (I'd never played Perfect Dark, so I'd never seen a co-op FPS before), but that was about it. The story was silly, but not campy enough to be considered tongue-in-cheek. The graphics were nice, but too sterile and bland-looking. The vehicle controls were too awkward. The enemies were just stupid, and for that matter, so were about half of the weapons. Level design was not so great, it was pretty repetitive, I can go on and on. But still, I like the co-op gameplay and the game was competent, just nothing special. It certainly wasn't as impressive as GoldenEye was when it was released. I have pretty much the same feelings about GeoW. The game looks amazing and plays pretty well, it's just kind of derivative and ho-hum after you get past the graphics. But still, I'm not faulting the games.
But then I started reading the reviews for Halo. I mean, this game gets so much praise it seems like critics even now just make things up about the game just to say good things about it. These reviews were ridiculously hyperbolic too "Not just the best FPS ever, but just possibly the greatest action game of all time!!! No wait, probably makind's greatest accomplishment since the moon landing!!! Or no, even better than that, this game will probably cure leprosy!!!" Obviously I'm excaggerating a bit, but I think even at the time Halo would be a far cry from the best action game ever. Y'see, I hate Halo for the same reason I hate GTA III. Okay, that game was okay. But no critic seemed able to even suggest that it was slightly repetitive (actually, it was ridiculously so). Then for some reason people bought it, and bought it and bought it and bought it. Now, every Marvel Comics and Disney licensed game is a GTA ripoff, and it's ridiculous!!!! So when I go into Gamestop and see the every other Xbox 360 game is a freakin' FPS, I know Halo and its mediocrity is to blame, and I hate it.
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