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this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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With Halo, you're probably running into the same problem as Ocarina of Time. Both caused massive changes to their genres, but later games also built on that and refined the formula so they feel dated now.
Well, I played a bunch of classic FPS games from that era, starting with the original Half Life. The gunplay of Halo felt like a step back from Half Life.
I didn't just play one Halo game either; I bought the Master Chief Collection, played Reach, CE, and by the time I was most of the way through Halo 2 I realised this whole time I was treating Halo like a chore and waiting till I get to the part where the game gets good... When it clicks and I see what people were talking about.
I enjoyed the Half Life games significantly more, despite having technically less story.
Half-life is such a joy to play even today
Ah, there's the problem. You're comparing Halo to shooters on PC, which were much more developed when it came out. Console shooters were in such a bad state that Halo 1 was still competing with Golden Eye. Just having fluid motion and an aiming scheme that emulated mouselook was a massive step up in the console space.
Personally, I enjoy the wide variety of enemies and quirky weapon behaviors. The only other shooter released since then that's scratched that itch for me is Doom 2016. Doom Eternal probably would if it didn't hurt to play. Most other shooters I've tried just used human enemies with no variation in behavior and guns that all felt very samey.
I know a lot of people don't like the long time to kill, though, and the high points for narrative and gameplay are completely divorced from each other.
Yeah, this is the other issue I have with Halo; I've been told repeatedly that the story of Halo is incredibly deep and next level. Gave me the impression I'd get story and lore comparable to Mass Effect.
The one thing I was impressed by in Halo was enemy AI. That was really well done. Somehow, despite it being so old, most games don't bother making AI like that today.
I have absolutely no idea who said that to you about the story. It's good for a turn-of-the-millenium FPS, but it's not amazing or anything. The game writing peaks with Halo 2 in complexity and ambition, with later games being good at hitting vibes or emotional cues, but lacking the intrigue and twists that 2 had. I remember the expanded universe being interesting, but Halo's continuity eventually started being dependent on reading all the books to understand the games after 343 took over from Bungie and the whole thing really suffered for it.
It really is one of the best things about the games. Each species of enemy has its own AI package with distinct behaviors, and depending on the game, there are up to three, I think, variations on that that scale with rank. Higher ranking Grunts/Unggoy are less likely to panic if their leader is killed in most of the series, for instance. It's really weird that this kind of thing doesn't seem to be common outside of high fantasy games. Zelda does it, but Ghost of Tsushima doesn't have much difference between low level bandits and high level Mongols other than their health bar and damage output. I might have to check out the handful of fantasy FPS games to see if they have similar enemy variety.