{"id":1641,"date":"2009-09-12T05:47:54","date_gmt":"2009-09-12T05:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielprimed.com\/?p=1641"},"modified":"2009-09-14T05:09:45","modified_gmt":"2009-09-14T05:09:45","slug":"halo-%e2%80%93-building-the-new-standard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielprimed.com\/2009\/09\/halo-%e2%80%93-building-the-new-standard\/","title":{"rendered":"Halo \u2013 Building the New Standard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"halo-master-cheif\"<\/p>\n

I squirm to consider that I’m a man who holds grudges, but the truth is I do, and do so considerably badly. When it comes to games, I’ve been unjustly bagging<\/a> the Halo<\/em> series for years now. Truth is, I never have (and I still don’t) like Microsoft’s presence in the games industry and by association I’ve always begrudged their flagship franchise Halo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I think I’ve grown a little wiser over time which has allowed my fledging hate to simmer down to a mild bias. Although I still have that bias, as a player, my tastes genuinely do not match with the older male demographic and semi-PC flavour of gaming which Microsoft’s consoles feed so well. It’s not a dislike, but it’s not a preference either, which is round about where Halo<\/em> and Halo 2<\/em> step in.<\/p>\n

Halo<\/em> and Halo 2<\/em> are fantastic titles and mostly worthy of the great sales and critical acclaim. At the same time, this PC pairing (yes, I cheated, bwhaha) are most definitely not to everyone’s taste, nor are they entirely well designed in places. I’ll leave the latter for another post though, and for now concentrate on why, despite some detestation from minorities, Halo<\/em> is significant not just as a game but as a cultural fixture of this industry.<\/p>\n

Categorically I can slice this two ways \u2013 and I don’t want to confuse either, so I’m going to split them up into two posts. The first being Halo<\/em> as the new standard of (console) first person shooting, the second being Halo<\/em> as a design, as an iteration of science fiction. The former is obviously far more important than the latter, so let’s begin then with that.<\/p>\n

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The New Standard<\/h3>\n

There are several prominent design choices and mechanics which set Halo<\/em> apart from prior first person shooter games, collectively culminating in a distinctively new-gen breed of the first person play experience. (God that sounds so PR-driven >_<). These new experiences were larger and more diverse, sophisticated yet streamlined, requiring a series of different tactics and consideration sets for players to wrap their heads around. Let’s look at how Halo<\/em>, as a design, reinvented the FPS genre.<\/p>\n