Things went downhill after Halo 3

Been a Halo fan since the original Xbox. First 3 Halo games were innovated and added lots of great content. After that, MS cheapened the brand with numerous spinoffs. Reach moved the series into iron-sights Call of Duty territory. Halo 4 was a linear Doom-3 corridor shooter with a weak story and no real advancements in online multiplayer. Halo 5 is more of the same.

After Halo 3, has the Halo series evolved one bit (aside from having better graphics)?

Majority are claiming Halo 5 to be the best multiplayer Halo to date. Sounds good to me and seems they are on the rise once again. I like the innovations they brought to the gameplay in the latest installment. Too many games like Uncharted just continue to rehash things.

Don't let my avatar and sig fool you. I'm every bit as upset with the way Uncharted has been going.

@drekula2: Many are, i hear the multiplayer has people very upset. I still cant believe no dedicated servers, thats pretty crazy, people still complain Wii U uses peer-to-peer. But in defense, Wii U kinda has to since they cant afford to do dedicated servers on their games.

Eh, Halo 4 isn't as bad as people make it out to be in my opinion.

I had a load of fun in the campain and multiplayer.

Things went downhill, or at least plateaued, after Combat Evolved.

I couldn't give two shits about the Halo franchise as a whole but the first game was legitimately innovative and one of the better FPS's I've ever played. James Cameron's "Aliens" is one of my favorite movies ever and I loved how inspired the game was by the movie at the time. The space marines, the assault rifle with the ammo counter, the drop ships looking identical, etc.

Halo 2 and 3?

You were still fighting the same covenant aliens, using the same weapons, playing as the same Master Chief, and even the endings (escaping a crumbling planet/area via Warthog) were essentially the same if I recall correctly.

But hey...at least you could dual wield.

Hated all 4 of the ones I tried on the MCC, no interest in 5.

Sure the MP looks ok but I detest online MP.

ODST was great, Reach, fine, I don't love it but it is not CoD and it has one of the best FPS missions of all time in New Alexandria, didn't play 4, 5 is awesome so far. I love it.

I can't agree with this more. ODST is one of the top Halos.

I agree. Halo 3 had the best multi-player of the bunch. Don't remember the single player much but I think it was adequate.

Reach blew ass. Halo 4 had a solid multi-player but lame single-player. Sounds like Halo 5 is the same thing.

I personally think I might be done with the franchise. If I had an X-Bone I would at least check out Halo 5. But even when I really enjoyed the multi-player of Halo 4, it just couldn't keep my attention the way Halo 3 did. I put wayyy too many hours into that muti-player....

halo 4 and halo 5 both evolved a lot. halo 5 is the best in the series in both MP and SP. halo 4 had the best SP IMO, but it failed at the MP due to (as people would say) COD-ing it. with the load outs and the ordinance system, it ruined what made halo so great. It still had grifball, swat, and some other good modes but BTB and slayer were ruined in halo 4. Halo 5 has improved on everything, BTB has been replaced with warzone which is amazing and much better, and the arena modes are back to balanced fast paced fun. They've listened and gave the fans what they wanted. Anyone who skips halo 5 is doing themselves a huge disservice.

I just don't think IP's should be cheapened.

Star Wars shouldn't have made the prequel trilogy, Terminator should have stopped after 2, Indiana Jones should have stopped after 3.

I liked you better when you were a sheep. >:(

Well everyone is entitled to their opinions. I think Halo 4 is a great game....just as good as all the others in the series. IGN, gamspot, metacritic, etc have given Halo 5 either a 4/5 or 8-9 out of 10 for a reason. I myself out of 10 would rate it a good 9. It is an awesome game to say the least. IMHO of course!

But, aside from graphical effects, did Halo 4 push the series into a new direction or add anything highly original to it?

Story-wise I think the series started goofing things up as early as Halo 2. I've never liked the alliance with the Elites thing that happened in that game and having the Covenant speak in English was ridiculous. Gameplay-wise though every Halo I've played has been fun.

I am, i wont be buying Xbox One or PS4, i refuse to pay a middle man for online service. I get better online service for free on PC, so ill be waiting on NX. I usually always buy Sony though anyway, just not this time. Will be first time ever i dont purchase a Sony console, "knock on wood."

No. But for myself......i don't always put all my emphasis on a story line....dont get me wrong......a story line is very important to a game. BUT the gaming part of Halo 4 was enough for me. IMO!! LOL.

I lost touch with Halo when, during the second, the Covenant were speaking better English than ppl who teach English at Oxford University.

I was like..."this doesn't draw me in".

Yep, at that moment the Covenant became less like alien enemies to me and more like Muppets.

343 is not Bungie. Halo won't be the same. But it sells so expect MS to milk it.

The storyline is only one facet of it. The gameplay itself is mostly the same. It's just about shooting enemies, walking to point A, using an elevator, shooting enemies and walking to point B.

I don't see any point in using the "iron sights."

If you stop and smell the roses (shooting games in general) they are all the same as you just explained. Think about it......all games have some sort of a lame story line and shooters are all about running around shooting enemies.....PERIOD. Destiny, Halo, GOW, COD, MW to name a few ALL have their own story......run and gun games.....all of them. But once again....I myself like to run and gun....that is what a first person shooter is all about!!! I will not lose any sleep over a lame story line. Carry On!!

I believe Halo has always been known for it's multiplayer more than for campaign. Given the fact that many are claiming, and I myself think, that this is one of the best, if not the best, Halo multiplayer ever, how is the IP being cheapened. If anything, it's being enhanced.

The games certainly have gotten worse. It's not just 343 either ODST was made by Bungie and that game was awful.

I totally agree. That title gets so much unwarranted hate. Its the "cool jazz" of the franchise.

Haven't tried 5 yet, and I'm not feeling desperate to play it at the moment, so I'll pick it up next year on the cheap. I have a few friends on the X1 that have told me that they actually prefer TTK>>Halo 5 so I'm actually looking into that. I wasn't a Destiny fan, but it seems TTK has made a lot of changes that actually bring the game to life for a lot of people. (If anyone here has a thought on this, please let me know. I don't want to get burned on TTK like Destiny)

I personally think Halo peaked at 3. I think 3 was better than both 1 and 2 in story and level design. Just my opinion of course. Warzone does look like a cool mode and it's the main part of the game that interests me.

Imho its not HALOs fault that it feels worse than HALO 3. The issue imho is that FPS genre is saturated and as of now weve seen everything someone can imagine. Space shooters , horror shooters , graphics like no other shooters , arena shooters , MMORPG shooters ... you freaking name it.

Cool graphics in FPS genre became standard so theres no wow factor anymore in 90% of new FPS games , gameplay wise there is minimal evolution because of genres nature , X1 hardware ( all new consoles actually ) has really weak hardware in order to push massive scale battles in decent fps/resolutions and you get the grip.

There is a serious saturation when it comes to FPS genre imho so i wont blame HALO 5 developers for this flop rather than its really hard to really stand out in this era as something extraordinary when it comes to FPS games.

@drekula2: Did you play Halo 5 yet?

Halo 3 was good but the Cortana level is one of the worst Halo levels in the franchise's history. And I didn't like the absence of the Elites either but I guess they felt that kinda had to happen because of the stupid alliance that occurred in Halo 2. Overall it was good though.

Did you watch the Gamespot discussion on it? Im not sure how in depth it is, but Mike Mahardy and Eric Tay debate against each other on which is better, its pretty good and fair.

Which is Better: Halo 5 or Destiny? - The Lobby

It was a series that didn't need more games after the third, considering it was supposed to be the last.

I'm going to check that out now, thanks for he link.

Yeah agreed. I don't get the hate that the campaign especially gets... I really enjoyed the campaign. And it's a helluva lot better than the H5 campaign.

whats wrong with Uncharted? The new new looks like it could be the best one yet.

Uh no, Halo 5 is back on form.

I don't think anything will ever top multiplayer from Halo 2 but Halo 5 comes damn close.

Reach had iron sites in the game? I thought that was a Halo 5 thing.

Really? I think it's easily the worst out of all games. The only good thing in the game was Firefight and they took that out. :P

>moved the series into call of duty territory

Neither Halo 5 nor Halo Reach played like Call of Duty or took things that were exclusive to Call of Duty. Halo 4? sure, with the addition of perks and loadouts the way they were, but that doesn't even apply to the other 2. Can't bring myself to care for a Halo campaign or a Halo story after the original game, but mp wise sure it never reached the highs of Halo 2, but if I'm being honest I hold that against even Halo 3. That BR spread was lame, BTB was straight up lag, the netcode on that game stunk, some of the worst maps in the series come from that game. It was Halo without the fun, Reach brought the fun back, but botched it with that stupid ass armor lock and some doo-doo maps. Forge World was butt ugly, but once those maps joined the rotation I had a blast playing Reach multiplayer.

Halo 4 was aids, but Halo 5 has been top notch gameplay wise. Mechanically it's strong, Warzone is a great addition to the game, team slayer doesn't have an irritating map so far. I don't care for any of the maps right now, but i'll take that over the maps I've hated in Halo 3, Reach, and 4. And we still have older playlists to be added, Forge, and a myriad of custom games options. Larger issue with the series is that it's an old series, without doing something remarkably different, it's hard to get all that excited when playing another one of these.

I'm pretty damn sure Halo 5 has the best multiplayer in the series?

Halo 5 is cool.

I was a huge fan of Halo Reach and, eh, halo 4 was okay but it didn't captivate me as much as Reach did. ODST was okay as well

Of course Reach was the first halo game I actually ever owned myself (while Halo 1-3 was solely experienced at a friend's house), so Can't really give much of an opinion in regards to OP's main point.

At least they added some new guns and enemies.

Cool. Disagree.

I loved ODST and Halo 4 so yes I think Halo has evolved. Both of those games showed a completely different side of the Halo universe and Halo 4 got you up close and personal with the chief and Cortana and did it in style.

Halo 5 campaign is literally all over the place but I wouldn't say the franchise in general went downhill just because Bungie left (which is quite clearly what the OP is implying).

I'll beg to differ, loved halo 4 and even more so halo 5.

It's a shame because this was the only decent console exclusive shooter. Now its shit.