Halo. The absolute pinnacle franchise. It brought the world of first person shooters to the console. Sure other attempts have been made but credit is due to the fact Bungie did it extremely well. Sure, it borrowed a lot from many other shooting games prior to its inception but this isn’t about who copied what, this is about why Halo would have fared better on a Sony platform.
Lets have a look at Sony exclusives. For the past 3 gaming generations, the Japanese gaming giant has been building and crafting beautiful worlds, engaging characters and intricate storylines. To be more specific, if we used the Metal Gear Solid franchise as an example of what could happen if Halo was either made by Hideo Kojima, or by being placed on a Sony platform, the game itself would have been under more scrutiny and thus allowed more development time to, maybe give Master chief a set of words so he can finally string a few sentences together. Maybe loan him a dictionary and thesaurus to?
With any lead, there must be some form of attachment involved to be sucked into the story. It’s like a movie, without feeling anything for the lead character or characters, it’s just nothing special. The MGS universe is so deeply written, with so many back stories and character developments brought to life over the years, it’s an interesting thought to imagine Halo, not being Halo but something special had it graced the Playstation brand.
Master Chief, Spartan warrior, hero to the peoples’ republic of ‘I don’t say much’. I mean that’s basically it really. He’s not much for chatter. Those days were left behind back in the early 90’s action films where all a hero like Van Damme had to do was grunt or his slow motion groin-punch yell. No, Master Chief should have stayed in school, and if he did, would have become a far more engaging character like Solid Snake. While snake is gruff, his dialogue is far and wide, his experience and expertise within his field is unmatched because of how well the character is portrayed. Spartans are, well just tough bastards aren’t they?
So, moving on. Now Bungie has indeed created a deep and engaging universe…to a point. But it for the most part doesn’t seem organic enough. Most military styled games of any description usually depict lots of differences between each soldier on a team. But not Spartans. Why do they look the same? Maybe they like guess work as to who’s downed after a blazing gun fight. Sure you can customise somewhat your armour, but unlike most shooting games, where you don’t have different characters to choose from. Also they’re not all dressed head to toe in some slightly altered super suit which when injected with cartoon awesome sauce makes you bounce around aimlessly like a hot air balloon let loose of its strings.
What Bungie need to do is have a good ole chat to Sony’s first party developers and find out how to script an emotional cutscene. That would be a big start. But see here lies the ultimate problem with Halo. This is why the first game, Halo: Combat Evolved is still touted as being the best of them all. And it’s simple really…
Halo has evolved alright, into a Gummi Bear shooting gallery. That’s all the fans talk about, and it seems that’s all Bungie seem to cater for, the fans. And unless you’re 12 years old, bouncing around like a blithering idiot claiming that it’s a tactical shooter is well down right lunacy. Even the great PC games such as Tribes or Unreal Tournament 2004 did combat better be it person or vehicle.
NO, if Halo had been given the chance to be on a Sony platform, its direction, its epicness would be far greater. Dialogue would have been far more engaging which is something Playstation fans have come to expect especially through the incredible MGS series. Graphics especially of this generation would have given Halo a darker, more realistic feel to its world, instead of everything looking clean and tidy. Even the dirt looks polished in Halo Reach. And of course, its hero, Master Chief. A name I still struggle with, it’s like calling someone Super Dude or King Awesome. It sounds far too self important, too pompous and too arrogant.
Halo, given the chance, instead of appealing to a plethora of children who love to relive the glory days of being on a jumping castle, would have been a far greater experience if Sony were given the chance to great Bungie’s universe under their experienced tutelage.
At least now Bungie can code for a system where they can finally let go and give gamers the true experience and not a Saturday morning cartoon game.
Written By Ben Kage
THIS IS A NONSENSE ARTICLE, why would they change or do anything different, this game holds the record for the biggest launch of a platform exclusive…obviously MW2 holds the multiplatform title. but this game sells more then any other 1st party game out on either of the HD consoles. uncharted2, metal gear, god of war… bottom line you cant critisize or say sony would of done better, when they have no huge sellers like that. when LBP hit a million people were talking big, even crappy alan wake is close to that. whatever microsoft does with its first party games it workds because they sell. and whats good or bad is just a opinion, men lie, woman lie, but sales figures dont.
Actually It would have evolved better on the xbox like it originally was. When the xbox came out with it, Halo 2 was basically the only online shooter on the xbox, and no matter what game came out no one wanted to stop playing… Much like the CoD’s of today. The online multiplayer was what made Halo so successful, while many fans felt that 2 was a let down, a lot of what made it so successful was the online aspect of it. While sony also had online on the ps2 it was not as vast as XBL.
As far as the story which seemed to be a pivotal point… The people who enjoy this genera hard core, are not too interested in long blown out stories of complex details. A lot of people forget that not every game is about the story, Master Chief however is more of a throwback of a more “classic” American hero. Throughout movie history in the states, you will see countless “1 liner” heroes from HIGHLY successful series. Halo was a game that was more MP than SP, this will probably never change, which would have perhaps caused the game to be less successful as a whole, since throughout high school I could find a halo gamer like nothing, where as most never heard of say Killzone which got most of its hype in 2.
Master Chief isn’t his name, its his rank in the Navy. Master Chief Petty Officer. They just call him that for short, because everyone cant call him by his actual name, John-117
This is the most ridiculous article ever, how would the game be any better on the playstation? it would have had the same plot regardless plus. I highly doubt they’d call up Kojimo (or whatever MGS guy is) and he’d go “Oh well since you’re developing on playstation.. let me tell you what story and plot you should do.. i’ll write you a dialog before bed tonight to while I’m at it.. hope you take away from some of my sales of my games as well while you’re at it.
-Well if Halo was released on PS, the gfx would have been weaker
-would there have been the ability to hook up additional Playstations where it became really popular with it’s upto 16 player LAN support (Factor in was the network adapter even launched when Halo came out)
-The online experience would have sucked and playing with dialup users.
Also i’m sure Halo 3 alone has sold more exclusives than MAG (or whatever it’s called, God of War 3, and Killzone 2 combined practically.
I’m sorry, this is the mmost ignorant article ever. Comparing two vastly different games like MGS and Halo is apples and oranges really. Just because the author is an MGS fan, means that ALL games should be made like it? Some kind of author you are. You’re a joke. It is easily one of the most famous franchises, not only among gamers but non-gamers as well. I’m sure if you show a group of people a picture of master chief and a picture of Solid Snake, more people would recognise master chief. I came here expecting a well thought out and impartial article, instead I found some psfanboy’s jizz dream about how great MGS was and how he only wishes that all games were the same and on his holy grail of a console. I would like to see some sales stastistics between halo 3 and MGS 4. You’re saying that if halo 3 was made the same as MGS 4, then it should sell accordingly. Grow up and get a real job.
This is so stupid, my God.
So basically Halo sucks Because its not MGS…
You may be retarded!
Halo is Bungie. Bungie would have made the same game regardless of what system it was made for.
Not to mention that if they had to rely on PSN instead of Live, they may never have focused on developing the best co-op experience in a shooter.
Jesus….
Go to your room.
This article is a bit silly – there are _huge_ differences between Metal Gear and Halo. One being that MGS2 appeared on the Xbox, for a start, and twin snakes on the Gamecube ;). Further, there are plenty of Sony first-party games with questionable stories and dialogue (KZ2, which I loved to death, was hardly “War and Peace”). Further, there’s also plenty of room for quality, arcade-style shooters in the world. Timesplitters 3 wasn’t a huge evolution from Timesplitters 1 (online notwithstanding), but it was still a brilliant game, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way :). Oh, and Timesplitters was a great console FPS, and predated Halo by over a year ;).
On the by, @themag, Gran Turismo is the best-selling non-Mario exclusive franchise on console, although Halo’s the best-selling exclusive FPS ;).
@Admiralvic, the use of the term ‘hardcore’ is a bugbear of mine – there’s nothing ‘hardcore’ about preferring an arcade-style shooter over story. Hardcore is an over-used term in gaming that’s almost lost all meaning. If it has any meaning at all, then it would be for gameplay depth, which means ‘hardcore’ would refer to complex, hard-to-master gameplay mechanics, such as flight-sims (NOT flight action), complex tactical shooters (ArmA II, Operation Flashpoint, SOCOM), Driving sims (Forza, GT), and complex strategy games (Galactic Civilizations, Paradox’s rather detailed but also excellent work). But Halo is _not_ hardcore other than as much as the people that play it would like to think they are ;).
As a Sony Playstation fan and PS3 owner I can only say, WTF? For Bungie and Microsoft to have crafted such a successful franchise . . . Hell, arguably the most successful franchise spanning the last 2 generations, I really don’t understand the point of this article. I played Halo 3 for about 35 minutes and even I get that superfluous characterization would add nothing to the game’s appeal. The story may take a back seat to the gameplay, but the success of the formula speaks for itself.
Furthermore, people are tired of talkers and whiners. Brooding protaginists with the world on their shoulders are a pain in the ass. Who gives a sh*t. Sometimes players want a hero who can STFU and get the job done. I’ve always considered the franchise to be a bit overrated, but I spite of my opinion, it flourishes. And that’s awesome, because it’s only my opinion. Every story shouldn’t be the same, every hero shouldn’t have the same swagger, and every blockbuster shouldn’t be on the same console.
This guy is just butt hurt that he can’t play Halo Reach. The fact of the matter is that Bungie made Halo the way they wanted to. The only thing Microsoft did was add “Combat Evolved” to the title.
Funny… No one these days has the common sense to get what the author is saying. Halo 3 is not good in terms of story line and campaign length. Just imagine if they had no dead line, didn’t work for Microsoft, and had a superior console(PS3) that they could work with? Games have proven that games originally made on PS3 and ported to 360 turn out better then what it would have been the other way around. Halo 3 would have been technically superior to what it is now and it would probably have more features and content.
Halo: Combat Evolved was being developed for the PS2 before Bungie was purchased by MS.
http://ps2.ign.com/objects/014/014552.html
This is a horrible article. You are trying to turn Halo into Metal Gear. And Halo would never have been as big on Playstation because it would have never made it to this point. It would have been just another title in the PS2 lineup, where on XBox it was the flagship title. It evolved further with Halo 2 and Live. It would have never grown as big because PS2 used the add on modem business model. Online with PS2 did not take off like Live and thats why the current PSN still trails the Xbox Live. If you want an idea of how the franchise would have grown, just look at Killzone and Socom. Both are successful franchises with many great games, and great ones coming. But together those two franchises are not as successful as the Halo franchise. And thats what would have happened to Halo on Playstation.
wtf2 – Is right……… we dont really care about FPS games as much a the xbox crowd (ex-PC gamers; duh!!!) Halo would never be as big on the PS cuz we dont care, we’ve already played Unreal tournament. But I do agree the games would have been better on PS2 and PS3 simply due to it being a better console, and Sony generally dont let exclusive games be so shite!