How come Halo Combat Evolved was the best Halo?

Combat Evolved is widely considered the best Halo, far superior to the sequels. A true masterpiece that still hasnt been topped imo. But it is well known that Bungie had very little time to create and finish the masterpiece as opposed to the years they spent with the sequels. How did Bungie managed to create such a masterpiece in such a limited time. Was it because of the pressure and that their lives were on the line?

Halflife.

"that their lives were on the line?"

O.O

Because if you play it now its shit just like the rest of them.

I didn't play Halo:CE until MCC. From my understanding, the original wasn't online. I find it's campaign average at best.

I personally think Halo 5 is the best Halo and really enjoy the direction 343 took with the series.

Here's what I loved about HALO:CE.

Every scenario was one where you had to really think about how you were going to approach the enemy. You also had to think long and hard which two weapons you were going to carry around. God help you if you didn't have the shotgun in the library.

I remember thinking that every combat scenario required real thought, you couldn't run in guns blazing. This is what I loved most about the first game. The sequels seemed to have forgotten all about this part of the original game.

While I think that Halo CE was and still is an excellent game I still feel that subsequent Halo games have improved progressively for the most in general. Perhaps with the exception of Halo ODST which even though I felt it was a good game was kind of not up to par with the rest of the series.

Because it was the first game in the series.

It was probably the best Halo for its time, I still have fun with it even today, the Anniversary upgrade gave it more life for me. But, qualitatively, I hardly feel it's the best one in the series.

CE was the only Halo I beat from start to finish (on the PC) and, honestly, I never saw the hype... I always thought its sequels were far better for the series to be revered as it was...

Nostalgia plays a role no doubt. For me, Halo CE and Halo 2 stand out from the rest because they were still during a time where LAN parties were a huge thing. There were local events constantly, and it was just fun having a large group shredding Halo together. As for the campaigns...I think Reach is better than both CE and 2.

Play Reach.

To be fair, Halo CE became so successful because coming out in a era when gaming on PC was just becoming a thing. Having a great campaign story and a fun multiplayer other than modding compatibility made it easily spread across the internet. Playing Halo CE and owning Xbox made it like I was playing on a high-end PC at it's time. For me, Halo 1 and 3 get an A+. Halo 2 is a B-seems like Bungie tried way hard to cram in new aliens and weapons, had a transition story so most casual players couldn't get it, but Halo 2 did set the bare introducing XBL so that I can say is get's a pass for not being such a lousy Halo game.

One thing I can say what also made Halo CE fun and why it's always consider the best in the series was the introduction of the Flood. The way the Flood first appeared in Halo 1 cannot be recreated as well in the other Halo games. It just can't be done. Going into the swamp, hearing the creepy message from Pelican Victor 933, seeing yellow dots on your radar as you cross the tree-bridge and looking up at the cliffs to see what they are, and you see very faint outlines of the Flood in the mist. Seeing the Covenant running away and panicking (seriously, they were presented as a super-race that cannot be stopped, it was very creepy seeing them flee en masses from something). Finding the Marine who babbles about the squad being gone. Finding that creepy, awesome video from Jenkins, and then they all burst in from every angle. The actual gameplay in the level is pretty cool, the presentation and atmosphere were incredible.

In 2001? Hmmm.... If you say so man.

I think what's more plausible is Halo: CE was so successful because by then Microsoft had built up their reputation with consumers with Windows and other Microsoft related products.

Although technically the later games were better in most areas, I still rate Combat Evolved as my favourite... especially if you take in to account the time it released and what it offered. It revolutionised FPS on console. And the world itself & the atmosphere, the feel of the combat (facing those elites for the first time, the AI was very impressive for the time), the audio & graphics etc, were all incredible.

Damn I gotta play it again soon!

PLay Oni forget about halo great bungie game

I felt the campaign, local MP, and music were just top of the line all throughout.

I have never enjoyed another Halo game anyone close to how much I enjoyed the OG.

@samfisher56:

The best goes to Reach, at least in my eyes. CE was great for its time but it lacked so much in terms of replay value. Reach had an awesome mp and firefight to keep you entertained past the campaign. Campaign was great too.

Preferred Halo 2 tbh. Probably the best online shooter I've played on consoles.

It was great when it came out, but I found it touch to play in the Collection.

huh? I'd agree that PC gaming seems to become more mainstream with the passing of each year, but I didn't notice anything special in the status of my hobby around that time. I had been playing PCs with monochrome screens - 2001 was just another year for me

Halo: CE is definitely the most enjoyable Halo game out there.

And for those that say Halo 2 had multiplayer... Well, Halo:CE had co-op (and a campaign that wasn't 2 hrs long)

@R4gn4r0k: Halo CE also had multiplayer through XBC. Obviously it was not properly built into the XBL system since XBL came out years later, but online multiplayer still worked. Hell, some people used XBC for Halo 2 as well.

Halo CE came out in 1990?

No. I think 2/3 holds that honour.

@R10nu: Stay on topic.

You mean like hooking up several Xboxes locally and doing multiplayer ?

The entire Halo series was, frankly, completely mediocre at best. At best. CE was indeed the best one, but it was also a terrible game in its own right. So boring. Just running around and mindlessly shooting aliens. No story, no fun. Multiplayer completely devoid of life and fun. Generic, bland, no imagination at all.

Lemms forced this filth down our throats. Hell, they might have pretended to love it themselves in a messed up Stockholm like situation. Anyone who says that they had fun playing any Halo game? I don't believe them...one of the blandest, most boring, and devoid of life series I ever played in my life. It's like they just took all the most generic elements of every genre - scifi, shooter, military, etc - and combined them into one. The gameplay is just shooting, completely and utterly unimaginative.

You know, with all that happened with gaming websites and media recently, it wouldn't surprise me if reviewers were paid off to give high reviews. The Emperor's new clothes is here, folks! Anyone who would've gave Halo 1 above an 8.0, Halo 2 above a 6.5, and then any Halo game beyond that beyond a 5.0 - is out of their minds.

This is the most overrated series in the history of gaming, hands down.

A very good case can be made for Halo 3 being the best of the best of the best.... Sir. :P

Halo 3 is AwesoneSauce on steroids baby. :D

New franchise on a new console - everything about it was just done really well and felt well thought out, e.g. the a.i, the limitation to 2 weapons and how that impacted the way you approached it, the use of the hard drive to ensure everything felt seamless, and visually it felt like a step up from what the PS2 was showing at the time. Other Halo’s may have pushed the series along and improved certain aspects of the franchise, however none quite had the impact that CE had.

EDIT: Wasn't it in development for a fair while and evolve quite a fair amount? I vaguely remember it being shown somewhere when it was destined for the PC/Mac and the reaction wasn't great. Anyway I don't recall much in the way of time constraints during the games development...

LOL it wasnt, easily one of the most repetitive and boring shit i've ever played

Why are you saying that to me and not to a mod who called you out the same way i did?

I'm calling bullshit on your reasoning for Halo CE's success. Seems very on topic to me.

Hello Sam from 20 hours ago. It is I, Dark-Sam. You are very wrong. Halo:CE was a success because Bill Gates and his cronies performed satanic rituals around the first copy of Halo:CE in the basement at Microsoft. That way, the mediocre piece of software became possessed and would infest the minds of 13-year olds everywhere. The "Halo" disease was transmittable by word of mouth or by simply looking at the game! Symptoms of the "Halo" virus are weight gain, sitting in front of a TV large amounts of time and virginity.

The novelty wore off, I guess. First one was fun, you had fun weapons to shoot shit with and the low gravity made for some fun jumps and grenade throwing. I was however already pretty spoiled by all the better FPS games we PC gamers had already played by the time Halo came, so Halo: CE wasn't that impressive to me. I can understand why others were impressed by it, but I had already seen lots of cooler shit.

I was already bored of Halo in time for the 2nd game, which I thought sucked btw. I've also played the 3rd, Reach and ODST quite a lot and didn't enjoy them very much. Still better than the 2nd game, but ultimately a waste of time.

Looking at Destiny, Bungie is still doing the same shit so I'll just ignore all Bungie projects in the future. They have shown what they're capable of, and it isn't much.

It was a few years after Half-Life and FPS with great storylines weren't as popular back then, especially on consoles.

Hate halo all you want, that franchise was key to proving to the world that FPS do work on consoles.

Halo 2 opened the flood gates, and soon Call of Duty abandoned the PC only formula and went consoles, and bam.

Consoles are FPS haven these days

Very well true. In fact, when both Sony/Nintendo saw what Halo CE brought to the gaming table, Sony wanted there own FPS AKA Killzone. The so-called Halo Killer and when Killzone release, it didn't set the world on fire as Sony had hope, believe me, that game game suck!

Nintendo on the other hand wanted there own FPS and we got Metriod Prime. I gotta admit, Prime was a fun game it it's own right and it may not set the world on fire, it was a hell lot better then Killzone.

Halo was always vastly overrated because of hype.

The story is garbage: "Hey Master Chief, Blow Up the Death Star/Halo Ring"...."Okay". And he does this for 3 games straight.

I have beat every halo game(except 5) and I still have no idea why the halo rings even exist, who built them or what they even do. All I know is the Black Admiral guy wants me to blow them up because they are bad.

The audio and voice acting sucked in Halo 1&2. It slowly got better over the years but the first 2 games are unplayable without subtitles.

The gameplay is halos main focus and strongest area. However, Halo 1-3 just consist of shooting. The controls are tight which is great, but the environments and mission design are lazy. Boring Bland.

ODST tried to fix this by adding stuff like setting bombs and attempting mission variety which I appreciate, but it still sucked.

Reach is the BEST halo game because it has the best Story of the series and the best Ending by far.

4/5 sucked. Something something Cortana dying, something something some guy trying to kill master chief for some reason. Yawn.

Shocker, the SONY fanboy doesn't like halo.

combat evolved has goat fps gameplay. Everything about the gameplay mehcanics is perfect. Masterpiece that will never be topped.

And dat ending wow

I agree...the flood made things more difficult in the game. There were some portions of the game where I personally believe their presence was underdone. Nothing is perfect. The biggest thing I disliked about the Flood was their use in the Halo books. Imagine the scene where you are in the tunnels and the flood randomly show up here and there. Now...imagine that in about 10 pages in a book...it was awful! Don't get me wrong, I loved the books, but the amount of detail added into a portion of this story could have been left out.

It was a surprise, it was top notch, and it was a serious upgrade compared to previous console fps (2001). The game does have pacing issues and horrible level design in the last third of the game.The Library was and still is one of the worst levels I encountered in a video game. I also find MC to be dull. But it was still an excellent experience, especially in co-op.

Plus LAN multiplayer was so much fun pre-xbox live.

I'm not sure its "widely considered the best Halo". You can really make an argument for all three.

Say what you want about the single player, it was great for the time, but the multiplayer was and is amazing. If you never played Halo CE with 4 boxes, 4 televisions, and 16 friends...you haven't played Halo. The maps, the pistol, health packs, hour long battles, timing the perfect rocket as the other team rides away with your flag...I'm getting a boner just thinking about it!

H2 had amazing potential from the E3 presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax1nvd8DF1Q, but it turned out weak. The trade off for losing the pistol was supposed to be the battle rifle being fully automatic unzoomed and single shot zoomed. What was got was the annoyingly bland 3 round burst battle rifle, which was half the equation to the lame "noob combo" (br + plasma pistol +no health, just shields). It added mp, but that was plagued by cheaters for far too long. Locking rockets, destructible vehicles, dual wielding, super jumping, swipe sniping, etc. H3 added a replay function...

It was a program on PC (I think) that helped trick your Xbox/Xbox 360 to use system link (LAN) to actually play online with other people. I'm not too sure how else to explain it, but it worked with any game that supported system link. It was a great way to play Halo CE online with friends, but the lag could get pretty bad depending who you played with.

Oh yeah, I've heard about that !

You kinda playing LAN but over the internet :p

Talking about PC, the PC version of Halo CE did have a multiplayer mode. I remember a lot of people playing it.

Because it DIDN'T have Multiplayer.

Halo 2, imo, was meh. Never owned a 360 so Halo 3 I never played.

If game designers could learn more about how SP focused Halo:CE was, there would at least be more SP focus FPS games out there today.

Wolfenstein (by MachineGames) is heading in that right direction. Doom, somewhat.

Halo:Reach was the best Halo in my opinion.

I've only played Halo 1-4 and 2 is clearly the best imo. Great story, better than the original imo, at least the way the sp is set up. In terms of Halo, it was the last time the sp actually felt like a big deal andn ot tacked on to a mp experience (halo 3 was awesome online)