Joystick’s bullshit Friday “talk amongst yourselves” post asks : What is the most overrated video game.
this immediately broughtto mind: the entirety of the Halo series.
My friends have pressured me into getting each goddamned halo, and each time I : have no fun. (well, the cast of Firefly pressured me into getting HaloODST). Peer pressure must be a part of it. And I’m still quietly convinced the main reason this game sells is thanks to stoners, and Microsoft itself buying a few million copies to artificially boost sales.
I’ve never seen this mythic “quality bigger backstory” (I’m guessing people who claim this have never read actual scifi stories). I feel it is a case of emperor’s clothes. (note: I never completed halo1 or 2. But, I watched the 3 million hour cutscene montage on the halo3 special edition dvd, which claimed to explain everything that happened in the first two games. I played through halo3 entirely, in co-op, and figure I’ve blown through about about a 1/3 of halo ODST. And I bought and read the first graphic novel collection.). I dig the idea of alien races held together by religious dogma, and I dig that you become their antichrist figure. I just don’t like the execution. if the halos were built to stop the universe ending plague, why does the plague show up in each goddamned game – only to have no effect on you, and be stopped without using the halos? I can see how this was a nice left-field detail in the first game, but it feels lazy and tired in the other 2. (… as I type this I have to admit that it may be implied that the halos were made for the wrong reason, or are misunderstood by the religious nuts. which would be nice. but this is the trap I keep falling into: I see a way for it to become a semi-coherent story, but I don’t get any real support from the games or books.) (and I should not have to read a #^%$@ book to get even the most tenuous grasp of a game’s story/setting/reason-for-being). I keep thinking that maybe the next game, or the next tie in comic or book, will finally make it all clear, and then I can get on board with thinking someone had some storytelling talent all along. but I’m tired of buying more things. Feel I’ve been fooled about 5 times so far, and I’m done taking chances. (or maybe it’s just a shitty morning. I’ll probably buckle and keep on buying. if only to fuel my impotent hate).
At some point in each game I’ve been left hopelessly frustrated by gameplay difficulty curve (it’s retardedly easy until it’s suddenly inexplicably impossible), or baffling level design (wait where do we go? what happened to the cartoonishly obvious path? Guess I’ll stop “fighting like a death machine robot marine” and start “wandering around jumping at walls like a lost moron.”).
And the main characters feel like grunting posers pretending to be badasses, while the main chattle you fight are these goofy waddling jokes with squeaky voices from a monty python sideshow. ugh.
Many claim the multiplayer is where it’s at, but I’ve never gotten over the shitty joystick aiming (compared to PC gaming, where you can be instant and accurate). Not to mention the horrible voices that call out from the seeping gloom of xbox live’s teen racist pothead userbase.
the success of the whole franchise makes me sick.