Anyone who thinks Halo is just some generic shooter needs to grow up. First offI just want to say I do not consider Halo to be the be all and endall ofFPS's, neither Halo game even makes my top 10 favouriteFPS list. But the Halo haters need to realise something,there is rarely any real innovation in the FPS genre. Other than some tweaks and the obvious improvements that come with better technology (graphics, AI etc.), there isn't a huge difference between Doom and most shooters out today. You have guns, you shoot stuff, you go from the start of the level to the end. You might need to find a key or kill a certain bad guy or blow something special up, but in reality there has been little innovation. The only real differences between a great FPS and a mediocre one these days are the story, presentation, polish and gimmicks.
Story is a pretty obvious category. Is the story any good (or even existent). Now as most WW2 shooters and Gears of War have shown, story isn't even that important in a shooter. But the shooters that are considered truly special all have a good story at least by FPS standards. We're not going to see any KOTORs or Final Fantasy's here, but its like an action movie; the plot helps drive the action, offers some insight into the characters and maybe offers a couple of neat twists. Despite what people seem to think, Halo's story is pretty much on par with other revered FPS's like Half Life.
Presentation is the overall effect of the games graphics and sound. Generally the aim is to make it "cinematic" and make the game feel like you're the lead character in an action movie. Again we see that Halo does a good job of this by providing some great moments (ex. the Scarab in Halo 2, the first time you meet the Flood in Halo CE) and also has one of the best soundtracks in gaming. Presentation along with story help turn an FPS from a Doom-like corridor sweeper into something more substansial.
Polish is about the way the game plays. How its balanced, how the AI reacts, the animations andthe feel of the weapons. Basically, a game with good polish just feels right. This is generally (at least in my opinion) the reason the good WW2 shooters do so well, they just play right. As for Halo, probably its best feature is its polish. Halo CE pretty much wrote the manual on how to make a console FPS with its control scheme and balance between auto-aim and accuracy. Also if you read the reviews forthe Halogamesthelevel of polish is always mentioned as being some of the best.Its a tough category to explain because it is very personal. Its kind of like music, you know if you like it, but you probably don't know the technical reason why.
Finally we come to gimmicks, the little wrinkles that help set a game apart from the competition. This can be many things, historical accuracy, vehicle use, dual-wielding and other gameplay additions, basically anything included in the game that is not considered a must have in a game. For example in Half Life 2 there is the grav gun. Hardly anything revolutionary or even really all that impressivein and of itself, but it has that "cool" factor. Or look at Gears of War and its chainsaw. Again nothing revolutionary, we've seen chainsaws in games before. But my god is it satisfying when you pull it off. We see alot of gimmicks in Halo, the seamless use of vehicles (used much less before Halo CE), dual wielding (again rarely used before Halo 2), the weapon design, on their own hardly worth a second look, but they add up to something special.
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