Critics Club IV: Game of the Year 2001 - The Final

[Neon Ignition]

Why do you think that? Halo was genuinely great. It also started a franchise and really boosted the profile of the OG Xbox. I remember sitting down to play Halo one evening around 2100. I got up for a pee and noticed it was dark outside so went to close the blinds. It was after 0200! I don't think any other game has drawn me in like that.

It just sucked me out of the joy that it was effectively four decent levels and that's it. So much of the experience is a rerun of sections after that or bad (Library) or janky (final Warthog run). I never got caught up in the love that the original got, I feel the sequels ended up delivering on what the original was praised for but never did. Just from 2001 I would consider other efforts like MGS2 or GTA3 to be in a completely different class of delivery and experience, let alone the idea of Halo 1 being considered one of the greatest games ever. I'm used to that not being the common view though


Final Winners

Bordersdown Game of the Year 2001

Winner - Halo: Combat Evolved
Runner Up - Rez
Runner Up - Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

[Hirst]

I thought Halo was quite pretty but also a fairly bland experience. Surprised GTA3 didn’t make the cut!

[QualityChimp]

I thought Halo was quite pretty but also a fairly bland experience. Surprised GTA3 didn’t make the cut!

GTA III and Max Payne for me.

[dataDave]

Halo single-player was 80% bland for me, too. I hardly remember any of that though, it deserves GotY for making console LAN parties a thing. No other game has done that before nor since (mostly due to mainstream internet usage kicking in shortly after that, which was a shame).

Has anyone here ever had mass local multiplayer with their Switch consoles? A Splatoon or Mario Kart evening would be absolutely mental fun.

[CMcK]

I used to have the guys round with 3 TVs and Xboxes and a lot of ethernet cable for multiplayer action. Great fun. Still nothing better than all being together rather than voices on a headset.

[dataDave]

I used to have the guys round with 3 TVs and Xboxes and a lot of ethernet cable for multiplayer action. Great fun. Still nothing better than all being together rather than voices on a headset.

Indeed. Local multiplayer is a lost art. It’s easier than ever with the Switch. TV and ethernet cables entirely optional.

There have got to be pockets of gamers doing this.

[Colin]

I'd never had a PC for gaming, so when Halo came out I thought it was absolutely awesome, and to be honest so did everyone I knew in gaming at the time, it blew me away when I imported the OG Behemoth XB. It's still the only one of the whole series I would say I genuinely loved. Just on a more positive note for the game!

[teddymeow]

The biggest thing I remember about Halo: I was working as a supervisor in my local Electronics Boutique and my manager was utterly, completely, absolutely blown away by the grass!!

As in, yeah, the gunplay is good, the sound is nice, the music is fitting but LOOK AT THE ****ING GRASS ON THE FLOOR!!!!!

[Asura]

Halo single-player was 80% bland for me, too.

For the people saying this, did you play it on reasonable difficulties, or easy/normal? Because at the regular difficulties, Halo was a bit pedestrian. The game absolutely comes alive in Legendary.

The environment design is repetitious, visually - like there are a fair few sections where you go through very similar looking rooms (actually the same room dressed a bit differently), but the encounter design at high difficulties makes the gradual ramp in difficulty fantastic.

But Halo's worth celebrating for two reasons.

Firstly, the two-weapon system, and how that interacted with both the enemy design (energy weapons are more effective against shielded enemies) and level design (the game can be relied upon to always make sure you have what you need), alongside how it worked a bit like the weapon fallibility in Zelda BotW - it forced the player to constantly switch up weapons to try and use the whole arsenal. People mistakenly said things like "but I want all the weapons and to switch between them like in Doom" but that just results in most people using their favourite weapon, all the time, and complaining when their favourite weapon isn't the best in a given situation, resulting in a desire to make all the weapons samey from a balance perspective. The game has a very effective melee (integrated better than any other FPS up to that time) to ensure a player can be functional even with no ammo.

Secondly, the recharging shields. Not for the reasons most people think. They're absolute genius in single-player, because the Halo level designers can assume every player walks into every firefight with approximately full health. This ends what we had back on the PC, where on Jedi Knight you might hit QuickSave, then find you had go into an encounter with 2/100 health. The designer in JK can't really balance an encounter because there's an absolute lottery of player conditions going in; what weapons they have, how much health they have, etc. - but in Halo, a designer can know that a player will have full shields and likely have one of a small pool of weapons, and build the encounter towards that.

There are tons more things. Honestly, it's weird just how many things Halo absolutely nailed right-out-of-the-gate.