[Ninety-Six]

I know Halo is considered kind of a dirty word around our neck of the woods, but truth be told I've always at least been curious about it. I might not like it, or I may enjoy it, I don't know; I've never played it, never owned an Xbox of any generation, so I don't have an opinion on it. But as someone who is fascinated by the history of the First Person Shooter genre, particularly someone who likes to experience that history, I feel sorta obligated to at least try it. It was a landmark game that changed the genre, for good or for ill, and that's an undeniable fact.

Do I expect to love it? Probably not. Doom and Duke style shooters are my preference and probably always will be. But hey, I still like Half-Life and its ilk a lot. Not to the same degree, but I can still enjoy those games. So why not this style? Hell, I once played the super dirty word Call of Duty (Black Ops 2) and thought it was fun. Not a favorite, but a fun time. That's sorta what I'm expecting from Halo. I'm keeping an open mind, basically.


That all being said, if there's anyone here who's a dedicated fan, I'd like your input on something. I've mentioned in another thread or two that I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and it primarily affects my wrists. Controller gaming, while possible (on good days), is not really ideal. One of the main reasons I mostly play FPS games these days is for the Mouse and Keyboard controls, which allow me to keep my wrists straight while playing. It's much more gentle on my hands that way. Furthermore, when I do use a controller, I prefer the Playstation-style controller layout. I've held an Xbox controller before and it just felt awkward and more painful.

Do I have any really good PC/M+K options for playing Halo? I'm mostly only interested in the original Bungie stuff, as even a non-fan like me has heard how the series went down the toilet after 343 took over. Great example being the Master Chief Collection, which I hear is still a buggy mess even years after its initial launch and subsequent patches. But at the moment. it's also the only way that I know of to play the original trilogy + Bungie's experimental games with a control scheme that is gentle on my hands. If there are other options I'd really love to know.



(I'm absolutely not getting the remake)

[quakis]

I finally got around to checking out and beating the first Halo a few months ago, been curious about it for years and played it through the old Gearbox PC release version. Speaking from a newcomer perspective, my opinion on the first Halo is a mixed bag. I can definitely see the appeal from a console shooter perspective, it'd have stood out and even reminded me of Unreal in a few places. The large environments, aliens with personality, chaotic battles, and (mostly) optional vehicle moments to break it up. What stood out to me was the more frantic and scrappy combat, swapping out weapons as you get low on ammo, grabbing what you can find and making use of it in the moment. This masks the limited carry capacity at points but you'd sometimes wished having kept a specialty weapon on hand.

But Halo wasn't without some flaws that personally bothered me. Repetition during combat and samey level environments, some later sections dragged out far longer than they had any meaning too while very little changes how you're expect to deal with those scenarios. So it becomes a rote process and falls back into a literal corridor shooter, especially on those Covenant ships or the notorious Library level. I played on the normal difficulty and the combat eventually wore thin after about the halfway point because of the constant grenade spam, killing me out of nowhere and sent back to the checkpoint. Not sure if there was something up from a technical point of view, but couldn't for the life of me figure out when those things landed nearby despite being constantly on the move. Besides that issue, combat is otherwise serviceable and your opponents feel like they're putting up a decent fight at least.

Upon beating the game I was left with an "oh, okay" and not much desire to jump straight into Halo 2, though might give it a try eventually. I've been going through the Marathon trilogy prior to Halo which I honestly preferred more. First game had a real nice atmosphere, but Marathon 2 was an absolute joy that built off the potential of the first game. Still have a good chunk of Marathon 3 to finish.

Doubt these sporadic thoughts are what you are looking for, but having done a recent first time playthrough myself seemed like a good opportunity to comment on the first game. I can't speak for the other titles just yet, but it's worth giving the first game a try, especially if you're curious about historical FPS titles assuming you don't spend too much on a copy. If it doesn't appeal even after getting through the first Covenant ship level, then it probably won't stick after that point either.

Edit: Also worth mentioning I played using KB+M and it all played well enough without issues or awkwardness. Can't speak for any later releases like MCC though.