November 15th, 2001. A day that would forever change gaming as we know it. It was on this day that Microsoft and Bungie graced us with one of the first real console first person shooters; Halo: Combat Evolved. It was with this game that Microsoft began to shape console gaming as it is today. But where were you when the Xbox was released? Do you remember? When was your first Xbox Experience?
For me, it was shortly after the release of Halo 2. I was over a friends house and he had just gotten the game and wanted to try out four player multiplayer. Now at the time, I hated first person shooters. I insisted Mario and Zelda on Gamecube were much better games. I chose not to play, simply eating my pizza and watching.
Fast forward three years to 2008, the release of Halo 3. My close friends parents had pulled out all the stops and bought him his first Xb0x 360 – the Halo 3 edition – along with a copy of the game. When I saw him playing, I hated it. It looked boring and dumb. Shooting and driving, how stupid. It wasn’t until I played through the first mission Sierra 117 that I fell in love. Playing as the arbiter, jumping off cliffs and dual welding the plasma rifles. To quote my young self at the time, it was “Epic.”
After that I was hooked. I loved that game and every piece of it. When I finnally found out that Banjo-Kazooie was coming to the 360 I had to have one.
And here I am today, 35,000+ gamerscore, a hardcore gamer, and a Halo fanboy to boot.
Where did you first hear about Xbox? What was your first experience?
I seem to remember playing Doom on the N64. That game was absolutely not a console game though, it was a mediocre port. Halo was a console exclusive for s long time, even if it was meant to also be a PC game within a reasonable amount of time.
In fact, I also hated FPS at the time that Halo came out. I’m really only recently discovering them for what they could be. I got an Xbox very late into the career of the console, and I actually got it for Guilty Gear XX and Munch’s Oddysee. I don’t remember why, but I ended up finally picking up Halo 3 and found some some alright people to play through the campaign with. I think that’s the key right there, finding good friends to play with. Any game can be better with friends.
At any rate, I played Halo 3 pretty ravenously for a while and broke down, buying ODST when it came out. ODST I thought has a really nice way of telling the story. It was near the end of ODST that I got bored of the format and switched to other games.
At any rate, Halo isn’t a terrible game. The first one was massively epic and had some really vivid imagery. There is as also something really addictive about the franchise’ format.
GG