Anybody played reach yet?

Zeouterlimits

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I thought Halo 2 had an absolute stinker of a single player campaign. The flood were in it far too often and whose stupid idea was it to have another Library level? The story was utter rubbish as well. Halo 3 was a return to form but I felt that FPS gaming had moved on so much that it felt horribly dated.

Got to disagree about at least one thing there. Halo 2 had a fantastic narrative and story, arguably the best. The only slight being the ending, but that's a slightly different discussion considering the circumstances behind the development.

GrumPy

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Halo 3 was a return to form but I felt that FPS gaming had moved on so much that it felt horribly dated.

Moved on in what way? Halo defined console fps in a way which hasn't been seen since the N64 days. Every fps made since Halo:Combat Evolved's arrival has borrowed heavily from it. Despite Reach's campaign being too short, it's well put together and plays fantastically. The multiplayer is a nicely balanced mix of old and new and manages to remove some small things (although very annoying) I disliked about the previous games.
Almost brings me back to the days of xbox 1 old school LANS.
Also, turns out my shítty meteor usb dongle internet toally works fine for multiplayer online.

Anyway, Have a pre-order in Gamestop Stephen's Green for the mid-night launch to pick up my retail copy for LIVE goodness, but reckon I could chance hitting local xtra vision before they shut at 10 and chancing my arm.

Retr0gamer

Halo wasn't as influential as people make it out to be. It's control scheme was borrowed from the PS1 verion of Quake 2 and Alien Ressurection and a few other previous console FPS games and the shield was first introduced in Tribes. I'm not sure but it could have been the game that introduced auto aim to console FPS making them more manageable, fair enough there if it's true. At the time it was released it seemed like a massive step forward for console players but for someone with a PC they'd seen it all before even if Halo was a quality game for it's first half and an ok one when the flood arrived.

I don't really see any of the top FPS games borrowing from Halo really they seem to be using the same console FPS setup that was used on dual shock PS1 pads.

And I did feel FPS games had moved on a lot before Halo was released. Multiplayer had turned class based with games like TF2 and mission based like with the Battlefield series and also RPG levelling up mechanics introdced in battlefield 2 and improved on in CoD MW. As for single player Halo 3 was dumb fun but I kind of want more from my FPS games these days and had been spoiled by Bioshock, and the vastly superior CoD 4 that was released around the same time.

I'm not going to criticise Reach, I've not played it and it does look sufficiently different and no bloody flood so I might enjoy it whenever I get around to playing it.

Riesen_Meal

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Halo wasn't as influential as people make it out to be. It's control scheme was borrowed from the PS1 verion of Quake 2 and Alien Ressurection and a few other previous console FPS games and the shield was first introduced in Tribes. I'm not sure but it could have been the game that introduced auto aim to console FPS making them more manageable, fair enough there if it's true. At the time it was released it seemed like a massive step forward for console players but for someone with a PC they'd seen it all before even if Halo was a quality game for it's first half and an ok one when the flood arrived.

I don't really see any of the top FPS games borrowing from Halo really they seem to be using the same console FPS setup that was used on dual shock PS1 pads.

And I did feel FPS games had moved on a lot before Halo was released. Multiplayer had turned class based with games like TF2 and mission based like with the Battlefield series and also RPG levelling up mechanics introdced in battlefield 2 and improved on in CoD MW. As for single player Halo 3 was dumb fun but I kind of want more from my FPS games these days and had been spoiled by Bioshock, and the vastly superior CoD 4 that was released around the same time.

I'm not going to criticise Reach, I've not played it and it does look sufficiently different and no bloody flood so I might enjoy it whenever I get around to playing it.

I dont think ive ever seen you not bash any Halo game on boards, I really dont think that COD4 even compares to Halo, in both campaign or multiplayer, entirely different games, but hey, opinions are like ar$eholes, we all have them....

:P

Retr0gamer

I much preferred the CoD MW campaign and the multiplayer kept me more interested than Halo's although the 4 players online on one 360 in Halo 3 was an excellent addition. The weapon set kind of bores me in Halo. I was used to playing Half-Life deathmatch and Unreal Tournament and found the weapon set much more interesting.

I'm being diplomatic here anyway. Halo 1 was a great console FPS when it came out, Halo 2 was **** (single player,not much experience online) and when Halo 3 came out, well Half-Life 2 was my benchmark at the time and it fell well short.

There's a reason that sites like eurogamer don't give the Halo reviews to PC reviewers like Kieron Gillen. Just look at the review scores for Halo 1 and 2 on the PC.

neilk32

Cod 4 was such a simplified fps game on console compared to Halo 3, its a far less skill based game than Halo

Retr0gamer

Well you could argue that but the levelling up in CoD kept in fresher for longer for me although I think they play too differently to each other. Saying that Halo is closer to the skill based FPS games like Quake but then again I'd argue that PC multiplayer games that went before it in a similar vein to Halo were better and required way more skill, stuff like Quake, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, counterstrike, half-life deathmatch, etc.

neilk32

Obviously Pc games are more skill based than console, Cod 4 introduced a ranking system that just reflected how much you played the game instead of how good you were.

yimrsg

neilk32 wrote: »

Cod 4 was such a simplified fps game on console compared to Halo 3, its a far less skill based game than Halo

I'd say alot of the fps skills are applicable to both, it's very satisfying to kill an opponent who got the drop on you in 3 or 4 burst kills with the BR in halo 3 is very satisfying. Just like killing 4 or 5 opponents in quick succession in MW1/2. If you're good on one fps you'll more than likely be good on others.

There are times in both multiplayer games where I was frustrated being spawn killed and wish you were playing the other.

Story wise, Halo wins hands down. It's a whole universe. Yes parts of the story are complex, even conviluted but it still far and away more ambitious than rehashing WW2 and developing a game about WW3. Also a single developer created halo whereas the activision and treyarch took turns creating a series.

I think both have merits but some people won't appreciate the sci-fi influence of halo and prefer the more gritty real world grounding. They also cross-influenced each other to some extent in my opinion; MW2 got a bit silly and added heart beat sensors and other gadgets in black ops (explosive remote control cars / remote cameras) and Halo odst came out and you were a punny unshielded non-super human fighting on earth.

Retr0gamer

True but it did have unlocks and rewards. It's far from perfect but you'll see it in every MP game from now on, Reach is implementing it iirc, since it taps into that addictive WoW grinding nerve centre.

NeoKubrick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Halo wasn't as influential as people make it out to be. It's control scheme was borrowed from the PS1 verion of Quake 2 and Alien Ressurection and a few other previous console FPS games and the shield was first introduced in Tribes. I'm not sure but it could have been the game that introduced auto aim to console FPS making them more manageable, fair enough there if it's true. At the time it was released it seemed like a massive step forward for console players but for someone with a PC they'd seen it all before even if Halo was a quality game for it's first half and an ok one when the flood arrived.

I don't really see any of the top FPS games borrowing from Halo really they seem to be using the same console FPS setup that was used on dual shock PS1 pads.

And I did feel FPS games had moved on a lot before Halo was released. Multiplayer had turned class based with games like TF2 and mission based like with the Battlefield series and also RPG levelling up mechanics introdced in battlefield 2 and improved on in CoD MW. As for single player Halo 3 was dumb fun but I kind of want more from my FPS games these days and had been spoiled by Bioshock, and the vastly superior CoD 4 that was released around the same time.

I'm not going to criticise Reach, I've not played it and it does look sufficiently different and no bloody flood so I might enjoy it whenever I get around to playing it.

It's a romantic notion to think that any PC game had revolutionized combat how Halo: Combat Evolved revolutionized it, but, unfortunately, it's not true. You are either ignorant or disingenuous, because quite obviously, no PC player had seen it all before.

Influential doesn't mean what game had what feature first; it means what game implemented what feature right and better which subsequently inspired other developers. Otherwise, by that logic, no FPS game other than Wolfenstein 3D could be classed as influential, because it was the first and all other FPSs derive from it.

Halo's control scheme was innovative: separate button for grenades. The shield wasn't first introduced in Tribes. The genre hasn't advanced at all from the ground Halo broke: to your examples, Call of Duty 4 was scripted, largely linear and encouraged boring tactics, and BioShock was a game of all style and no substance which relied upon gimmicks to create interesting battles.

Ostrom

I think Halo is a good game

Retr0gamer

NeoKubrick wrote: »

It's a romantic notion to think that any PC game had revolutionized combat how Halo: Combat Evolved revolutionized it, but, unfortunately, it's not true. You are either ignorant or disingenuous, because quite obviously, no PC player had seen it all before.

I never said any PC FPS had revolutionised combat and neither did Halo either. It's been changing little by little, an evolution if you will. To say Halo revolutionised combat would be ignorant or disingenuous. And PC gamers had seen it all, Halo did nothing new. It did some things well though, the sandbox AI was probably the best example of it at the time. Prehaps the 2 weapon limit in a fantastical shooter was new, can't be sure.

NeoKubrick wrote: »

Influential doesn't mean what game had what feature first; it means what game implemented what feature right and better which subsequently inspired other developers. Otherwise, by that logic, no FPS game other than Wolfenstein 3D could be classed as influential, because it was the first and all other FPSs derive from it.

Perhaps your precious Halo wasn't devinely inspired either and took influence from dual shock FPS games. Sure Quake 3 on the DC had some hybrid control schemes and it doesn't take a genius to know to map wasd and the mouse to the two thumbsticks. In fact I set this up manually myself on the first medal of honour myself. I was so ahead othe curve and didn't patent it.

NeoKubrick wrote: »

Halo's control scheme was innovative: separate button for grenades. The shield wasn't first introduced in Tribes.

Absolute nonsense. I remember Team Fortress Classic had a separate button for grenades, it wasn't the last game to do it and it certainly wasn't the first. Also Starsiege: Tribes did have the recharging shield, it's the earliest I can remember anyway, there might be one before it. That was back in 1998, 3 years before Halo.

NeoKubrick wrote: »

The genre hasn't advanced at all from the ground Halo broke: to your examples, Call of Duty 4 was scripted, largely linear and encouraged boring tactics, and BioShock was a game of all style and no substance which relied upon gimmicks to create interesting battles.

The genre has broken new ground, just not on the consoles. Stalker, Operation Flashpoint, Deus Ex and System Shock 2, amoungst others all advance the genre in new directions and some adding hybrid elements. When you think about it Halo is a more advanced Doom with vehicles.

See you probably wouldn't have been impressed by Halo if you hadn't of been nursing a console noob pad for so long. I'd been PC gaming since 1996 and part of the superior PC gaming master race since then and thought Halo was a good game but undeserving of the reverent zealotism that it's fans defend it with.

jesus_thats_gre

Been playing since Saturday. Really really enjoying the game so far. Playing it on Heroic and it is a lot lot harder than most FPS games I have played.

NeoKubrick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I never said any PC FPS had revolutionised combat and neither did Halo either. It's been changing little by little, an evolution if you will. To say Halo revolutionised combat would be ignorant or disingenuous. And PC gamers had seen it all, Halo did nothing new. It did some things well though, the sandbox AI was probably the best example of it at the time. Prehaps the 2 weapon limit in a fantastical shooter was new, can't be sure.



Perhaps your precious Halo wasn't devinely inspired either and took influence from dual shock FPS games. Sure Quake 3 on the DC had some hybrid control schemes and it doesn't take a genius to know to map wasd and the mouse to the two thumbsticks. In fact I set this up manually myself on the first medal of honour myself. I was so ahead othe curve and didn't patent it.



Absolute nonsense. I remember Team Fortress Classic had a separate button for grenades, it wasn't the last game to do it and it certainly wasn't the first. Also Starsiege: Tribes did have the recharging shield, it's the earliest I can remember anyway, there might be one before it. That was back in 1998, 3 years before Halo.



The genre has broken new ground, just not on the consoles. Stalker, Operation Flashpoint, Deus Ex and System Shock 2, amoungst others all advance the genre in new directions and some adding hybrid elements. When you think about it Halo is a more advanced Doom with vehicles.

See you probably wouldn't have been impressed by Halo if you hadn't of been nursing a console noob pad for so long. I'd been PC gaming since 1996 and part of the superior PC gaming master race since then and thought Halo was a good game but undeserving of the reverent zealotism that it's fans defend it with.

You're claiming that PC players had experienced combat like that of Halo: Combat Evolved. So, cite one or more games with combat comparable to Halo: Combat Evolved before its release. If you cannot, then your claim is empty and you should stop repeating it. Of course, you won't find one game with combat comparable to Halo: Combat Evolved before its release, because it was revolutionary.

No one cares what game had what feature first: it's irrelevant (and Tribes is not the first to use a recharging shield). Your reasoning is comparable to that of someone criticizing a revolutionary design by an architect because he uses steel - what previous architects have one time used; that fact doesn't degrade the quality of the design or upgrade the quality of other designs which use steel. As I've quoted to you before: "Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal", which means great creators make already existing ideas and designs better and become their owners. A game is a sum of its parts, not a collection.

It's oblivious to console fanboys and PC artfags, but good game design is not platform-specific. Of the great games you mentioned, Deus Ex and System Shock 2 were released before Halo and advanced the genre, but neither game in combat. STALKER was emergent gameplay and Operation Flashpoint was simply a perfection of turgid realism shooters. FEAR tried.


I would say that you're a more reverent zealot of the Halo series than I am. You think Halo 3's single-player is a "return to form". I don't even know a hardcore fan would have the balls to say that.

Retr0gamer

You keep saying it's revolutionary but you never say how. I'm not sure how a simplistic shooter like Halo could be classed as revolutionary.It's combat certainly isn't. You've got a selection of weaponry that isn't very good. You've got vehicle combat, no surprises there. You have grenades. And you have enemies with good AI. I think I've just described most FPS games of that era right there. Even if Halo did it better than any game of the time it's still not revolutionary, evolutionary maybe. How did Halo advance the genre really? Primary coloured aliens?

You can keep telling me that Tribes wasn't the first to have a recharging shield. You can even tell me what game was but it doesn't change the fact that the original fact that recharging shields in Halo are not innovative because Halo didn't do it first. Also stop trying to change the subject here the topic was innovation and not about game design. Don't try to use worn out debating tactics here. You tried tosay the shields and grenades were innovative, you were proven wrong, deal with it. I think everyone knows a game is more than a sum of it's parts. Global Defence Force strings to mind.

I never said that good gameplay was platform specific, stop putting words in my mouth, another poor debating tactic right there. As a PC gamer I wasn't as impressed with Halo as someone that had no experience of PC gaming at the time. Halo was a decent shooter with a poor second half. Halo 2 was hopelessly outdated when it did come out as was Halo 3 compared to PC FPS games.

Halo 3 was a return to form over the awful Halo 2 because it mostly got rid of the Flood and went back to the gameplay of Halo 1 before the flood arrived. It's telling that the worst level in the game involved the flood. Anyone that thought the single player in Halo 2 was good with it's mess of flood levels and copying and pasting of level architecture still prevalent is lying to themselves. Halo was an improvement. Less flood, more of the combat that made Halo a good shooter.

Oafley Jones

The talk of pc supremacy and halo amuses me because I remember when all the pc magazines were jizzing in their pants at the prospect of halo this is before it was stolen by the bad xbox.

NeoKubrick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You keep saying it's revolutionary but you never say how. I'm not sure how a simplistic shooter like Halo could be classed as revolutionary. [...]

[...] Also stop trying to change the subject here the topic was innovation and not about game design. Don't try to use worn out debating tactics here. You tried tosay the shields and grenades were innovative, you were proven wrong, deal with it. [...]

I never said that good gameplay was platform specific, stop putting words in my mouth, another poor debating tactic right there. [...]

[...] Anyone that thought the single player in Halo 2 was good with it's mess of flood levels and copying and pasting of level architecture still prevalent is lying to themselves. [...]

I've explained 'how' countless times to you, but you either ignore it or deflect to some random convoluted argument about PC gaming like it were a saving throw. You still haven't answered this:

You're claiming that PC players had experienced combat like that of Halo: Combat Evolved. So, cite one or more games with combat comparable to Halo: Combat Evolved before its release. If you cannot, then your claim is empty and you should stop repeating it.

You didn't prove me wrong. I did not claim that assigning a button to throwing a grenade was first used in Halo. I claimed it was innovative (complementing button) and there is a difference. I did not claim of shields that it was innovative, originally: I said that Tribes was not the first game to introduce it as you claimed. I know of one series that used it before Tribes and I was hoping that you would make the connection. A Mac game by the name of Marathon had shields; it was developed by a little known company called Bungie. The original topic you and Grumpy went off on a tangent was how 'influential' Halo was. You further went off on a tangent about 'originality', which has little relevance to how 'influential' something is. To judge how 'influential' a game is, you look at its design and see how many developers tried to ape it.

I never stated that you claimed good game design was platform specific; I pointed out that it's oblivious to the loyalists of both console and PC that the opposite is true.

Again, let's separate myth from truth. Halo: Combat Evolved had one dedicated Flood level and four partial (5). Halo 2 had two dedicated Flood levels and two partial (4). Halo 3 had three dedicated Flood levels and one partial (4). By counting levels, Halo: Combat Evolved is actually the most Flood-heavy game. However, Halo 3 is virtually the most Flood-heavy game in the series by virtue that it has three levels of pure Flood battles with no break in variety. And, one of the dedicated Flood levels in Halo 2 has an awesome lengthy vehicle section; so, it is actually good.


I'm using no debating tactics, here. I participate in this endless Halo debate, because you're missing out on a great game experience and I try, I really do. I'll PM my article on Halo's mechanics tomorrow, if you're willing to read it.

Jazzy

so, halo 1 was great and innovative. yeah it was a bit... what about the sequels though? absolutely no atmosphere, a lol story, lol characters, no involvement (just felt like playing with toys but without making something), boring enemies (aside from set pieces) and this over the top, over sold attitude made halo 2 & 3 the most over rated games in the past 10 years.
multiplayer was good.. but the weapon balance (esp in 2) was way off. halo 3 was v.good multiplayer though. they fixed quite a lot there

TotallyEpic

Just got back with the Console Bundle. Not sure whether to open it yet or not :P

Retr0gamer

NeoKubrick wrote: »

I've explained 'how' countless times to you, but you either ignore it or deflect to some random convoluted argument about PC gaming like it were a saving throw.

Nope, I just said your argument for it being revolutionary is silly because it does nothing new.

NeoKubrick wrote: »

You didn't prove me wrong. I did not claim that assigning a button to throwing a grenade was first used in Halo. I claimed it was innovative (complementing button) and there is a difference. I did not claim of shields that it was innovative, originally: I said that Tribes was not the first game to introduce it as you claimed. I know of one series that used it before Tribes and I was hoping that you would make the connection. A Mac game by the name of Marathon had shields; it was developed by a little known company called Bungie. The original topic you and Grumpy went off on a tangent was how 'influential' Halo was. You further went off on a tangent about 'originality', which has little relevance to how 'influential' something is. To judge how 'influential' a game is, you look at its design and see how many developers tried to ape it.

I believe Halo was influenced by the games I mentioned. I think it would be much fairer if they got the credit they deserved.

You need to look up that definition of innovative again. As for marathon I've played it and it doesn't have recharging shields like Halo does. You have a shield that you can recharge if you find a recharge station. It works nothing like Halo does and more like how the regeneration chambers would in the original system shock.

NeoKubrick wrote: »

Again, let's separate myth from truth. Halo: Combat Evolved had one dedicated Flood level and four partial (5). Halo 2 had two dedicated Flood levels and two partial (4). Halo 3 had three dedicated Flood levels and one partial (4). By counting levels, Halo: Combat Evolved is actually the most Flood-heavy game. However, Halo 3 is virtually the most Flood-heavy game in the series by virtue that it has three levels of pure Flood battles with no break in variety. And, one of the dedicated Flood levels in Halo 2 has an awesome lengthy vehicle section; so, it is actually good.

There's no such thing as half flood levels for me. If the flood were in a level no matter if there was another faction fighting them then my enjoyment level plummeted fast. Halo 2 I felt had a lot more levels with flood that went on a lot longer than in CE and I enjoyed it less and that vehicle level wasn't great either. It was also alot less enjoyable and snipers particularly on legendary destroyed a lot of the pace. Halo 3's first flood level wasn't bad because it was short. Cortana was unforgivably bad and the final section doesn't count.

NeoKubrick wrote: »

I'm using no debating tactics, here. I participate in this endless Halo debate, because you're missing out on a great game experience and I try, I really do. I'll PM my article on Halo's mechanics tomorrow, if you're willing to read it.

I'll read it but I feel you'll be reading far too much into the mechanics of it.

NunianVonFuch

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Nope, I just said your argument for it being revolutionary is silly because it does nothing new.

This.

Also a bloglink that did the gaming website rounds in 2008 for multiplayer (same as singleplayer anyway, barring the story & AI)
http://kotaku.com/379208/the-evolution-of-the-team-multiplayer-fps

(excerpt as bloglink is dead)

good list, with lots of explanations on it...as you will notice, neither Halo nor COD are on it, because lets face it, none of them did anything actually new.

http://www.edbordenblog.com/2008/04/how-7-games-created-modern-team.html

Doom

Gave us: First networked multiplayer gameplay

Quake

Gave us: Internet play, 3D engine, team play

Tribes

Gave us: Player ****s, vehicles/aircraft, 32 player servers

Battlezone

Gave us: Commander with distinct top-down view and abilities, and faction-unique weapons, vehicles, and buildings

Unreal Tournament

Gave us: New game types, including Assault

Counterstrike

Gave us: Tactical gameplay for the masses

Battlefield

Gave us: 64 players, vehicle gameplay innovations, cohesive in-game command structure, universal stats with unlockable weapons/abilities

Blazer

I liked Halo..loved the first one especially the Banshee parts and hated the flood parts but overall I was really impressed with it.
For the first time on a console I saw a game that matched up to what PC games had been getting all along with the likes of Quake/Battlefield 1942 etc.
I wouldn't say it was revolutionary in terms of overall gaming but on consoles you could definitely say that.
It bought fps to the masses plus you have multiplayer not only with soldiers but also tanks/air vehicles etc.
I liked 2 but missed the Banshee's and 3 was ok..only something was missing from 2 & 3...
I just didn't find that same buzz I got when playing Halo CE the first time.

Brendog

Is this Halo 4?




I read in the paper that this might be the last of the Halo series.

Vyse

Brendog wrote: »

Is this Halo 4?




I read in the paper that this might be the last of the Halo series.

Nope, this is a prequel to Halo 1. It's the last Halo game from Bungie but definitely not the last Halo game.

Brendog

Vyse wrote: »

Nope, this is a prequel to Halo 1. It's the last Halo game from Bungie but definitely not the last Halo game.

Cool, so the franchise will be developed by a different company.

kinda sucks because look of the next game will be different from the rest.
All in all I'm just happy its continuing.

NeoKubrick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Nope, I just said your argument for it being revolutionary is silly because it does nothing new.

Read: you're claiming that PC players had experienced combat like that of Halo: Combat Evolved. So, cite one or more games with combat comparable to Halo: Combat Evolved before its release. If you cannot, then your claim is empty and you should stop repeating it. I posted this twice before, now, and you have twice ignored it.

If Halo: Combat Evolved's combat was nothing new, then you had have already cited one or more examples. The opposite is true: you have cited no games. Therefore, based upon your criteria and your failure to find an older game comparable, Halo: Combat Evolved is revolutionary. And that's by your criteria, not mine.

It's irrelevant to how you felt about which game had more Flood battles, because it's explicit how many levels the Flood were actually in in all the games, and that number did not match your opinion. It's also irrelevant how much time you felt you spent battling the Flood, because time is relative (one hour in a five hour game is comparable to five hours in a fifteen hour game).

And I know that Marathon didn't implement it the same, and Tribes didn't either. If you want to now change the criteria to games that implemented the same as Halo, then Marathon and Tribes don't apply. So, you're negating your own original point.

No one cares what game had what feature first: it's irrelevant (and Tribes is not the first to use a recharging shield). Your reasoning is comparable to that of someone criticizing a revolutionary design by an architect because he uses steel - what previous architects have one time used; that fact doesn't degrade the quality of the design or upgrade the quality of other designs which use steel. As I've quoted to you before: "Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal", which means great creators make already existing ideas and designs better and become their owners. A game is a sum of its parts, not a collection.

NunianVonFuch, could you explain why you're linking and quoting from an article on multiplayer games to support an argument in a discussion on a single-player experience? Should we discuss which game is better, Half Life or Counter-Strike, next?

Blazer

NeoKubrick...I'd say no matter what game he'd quote you'd deny it asap.
I get the feeling you're a Halo fanboi (no offense intended) and am curious as to how you suggest that Halo revolutionized fps gaming across all platforms?

If anything the PC is where gaming revolution happens.
From the first fps to the first multiplayer games, to the huge MMORGs like WoW and the absolutely gigantic Eve Online (the economics and the variation in this game are absolutely mindboggling),
Battlefield 1942 introduced both fps, air and ground combat
Let's not forget Half-Life, Deux EX (still the finest game ever made), Call of Duty, Medal Of Honor etc
Now I play Halo myself and enjoy it but I've yet to see a game on a console that has something to carry it over to the PC...
actually in fact I can think of only one..the cover system in Gears of War which most games now copy...apart from that I can't place anymore.
But I could be mistaken

Retr0gamer

I thought Half-Lifes marine battles played out with a similar dynamic to the Halo battles with the way the AI reacted dynamically with the player, levels just weren't as open. Allied Assault was released around the same time and had some good reactive AI in none scripted segments. Hidden and Dangerous is even closer to Halo depsite being a buggy mess when unpatched, with large levels and dynamic sandbox AI. It's hard to compare FPS games because they all differentiate themselves from each other. Anyway just because a game doesn't play exactly like Halo doesn't mean it's revolutionary, it just means it's different, just like every other FPS game needs to differentiate itself. SMT: Nocturnes press turn system wasn't in any other RPG ever when it was released. Was it an RPG revolution? No, it was just different. Revolutionary would mean it instigated a massive change in FPS games and it didn't. Halo's combat was nothing new. Vehicles weren't new, AI buddies weren't new, one button grenades weren't new, rechargeable shields weren't new, and dynamic sandbox AI wasn't new and different weapons with 'elemental affinity' wasn't new either since different ammo types were in FPS games for years. Halo might have done some of these better but none of it is innovative or revolutionary.

It's not irrelevant how I feel about the flood levels in the Halo games. I had no fun whatsoever playing any of the flood levels in the halo games except the warthog race sections at the end of Halo 1 and 2. For me I foudn I spent more time in dull flood levels in Halo 2 than in the other 2 games although Halo 1 comes very close and these Flood levels are just terrible. The AI is as basic as in Quake and totally at odds with the challenges the Covenant presented. Halo 3 had 2 flood levels, one was acceptable since it was short and the other was as a bit more obnoxious than the other flood levels in the previous Halo games. That's how I felt about them. For me Covenent= fun, Flood = bad early 90's FPS.

Also if you have ever played Starsiege: Tribes you would know that the armour/shield in it works exactly the same as in Halo except with the added complication of it powering your jetpack as well. Effectively you recharge health when not taking damage. Marathons works nothing like that and I've played halfwaythrough Marathon so know about how it works.

imitation

I think its fair to say halo did one very important thing, it showed there was a market for shooters on consoles, as up to that point most console shooters were cack, and they were a minorty market, mainly because they were ports of PC shooters where you needed that fine control a mouse and keyboard game, and of course copious quick saves as they tended to be less forgiving (a tall order with a 512kb memory card). Its either a good and a bad thing, depending on your outlook, PC gamers will feel the games are a bit dumbed down, but on the other hand, producing for the PC market alone can't justify what it costs to produce games these days (notice how quickly crytek did a u turn with this on crysis 2)

The introduction of the analogue controller removed alot of that trouble, but I think halo went a bit further by reducing the accuracy required (just look at the aim reticules, there circles instead of crosshairs or dots). To me thats the most annoying part of the halo series, because between halo 1 and 3 other shooters proved you dont need such inaccuracy on a console. Some people love it I guess, but to me it just feels like your firing a blunderbuss.