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I'm surprised at the largely positive reaction this topic stirred up. "j00, Xbox & HALO 5ux0r!" letters were remarkably few.

Other than that, I'm pretty much without anything to say that you particularly wanna hear. So, here goes.

You could say Halo is a cheap, fleeting thrill, yeah, but then again, you could say the same for Ico.

So I suppose it's all a matter of what floats your boat - dragging a luminous young girl with stunning AI around by the hand or hopping into a vehicle while a heavily armed marine with stunning AI mans the gun turrets, etc..

... & more cheap thrills

Erin, What's this? A topic about a game not within the realm of the site's coverage? Me thinks you're going to have to enlighten us as to how well this thing goes over. Time to do my part, I guess. Ok, so I haven't really played Halo outside of a demo kiosk. I admit it. But I'm a gamer, and thus am justified in forming an opinion with little to no factual evidence--and lo', I do wish to own Halo. It's mere existance has flirted with me in all the appropriate ways, flashing a smile, dancing its sensual dance of doom that gets me all hot and bothered. Bungie has created what amounts to Gates' electronic, reticent prostitude, stumbling onto the streets, forced to lure the innocent into willingly giving money to her evil tyrant pimp. Halo is less of a game, and more of a curiously constructed "thing", built to poke and prod me until my defenses break, and I give in to my moribund desire to own the Box of Evil. Halo is the candy we're taught not to accept from strangers; the writhing worm on the end of a fish hook; the cheese to Microsoft's mousetrap. I think. Whatever. It is the bait, and I am the sucker pacing back and forth, racking my brain over the price of temptation. After all, do I really want the errie prostitude analogy to be correct? I could end up spending a lot of money for one quick bout of satisfaction. Bah, with the help of her twin (Jet Set Future), the decision will be made considerably easier anyway. Wait a second, this letter didn't have much to do with Halo, did it? -Justin Freeman

I... that is ... ' the hell?

Hey, any game that can force you into full metaphor mode after only a few brief interludes at Wal-Mart has gotta be all right.

I wouldn't buy an Xbox for Halo alone, but if seeing as how it's been received as something of a second coming among FPSs, if you're a fan of the genre you'd probably be right in picking one up, because I have my doubts about Halo ever making it back to PC anytime soon.

2 + 2 = 380ish

E- I've never been much of a FPS fan. I have to admit though, I liked Half-Life, loved Golden Eye and Perfect Dark, and I do enjoy some deathmatching in Tribes 2 with my roommates every now and then. (though that hasn't happened for several months) And now, I've played several hours of co-op Halo at a recent party. It was wildly fun. Graphics, gameplay, sound, all wonderful, held back only by the controller which needs no mention. And once again, I've found one of the rare FPS's that I enjoy. But then, I think: Halo-$60, XBox-$300, tax-$20ish. That all adds up to $380ish. I'm not interested in anything else exclusive to the XBox...That's one expensive game. Finally, I think: If I ever do decide that I want that game, I could just wait for it to come out on PC. 'Cause it will. -Vince XII - Not a hater, just a math major.

For the time being, yes, unless you can't live without the latest FPS, Halo is hardly reason to fork over the cash for another console that currently has so few worthwhile titles.

But I suppose if you'd had your heart set on braving an Oddworld game with that impossible controller, it makes for a nice icing on the cake.

Get over it - go out with somebody else

Halo is such an addictive game that once I put it in the Xbox, I played for 8 hours straight! Very immersive from beginning to end, with a wicked twist in the middle. Graphics are gorgeous, sounds are freakin' amazing, and the gameplay is the best I've ever played in an FPS. Driving the jeep in cooperative play w/ a friend can not be topped! You will actually find yourself thinking about how to take on the enemy after getting smacked down a few times...(that is if your playing above the normal difficulty!) I only had one complaint (repetitive levels) but that complaint isn't enough for me to give the game a bad review. This is probably the "Game of the Year" for most people who play it through 'til the end...(that is unless you have a complete bias towards Microsoft and/or the Xbox....which in my opinion people need to GET OVER IT!) Truely the next step in FPS games. Way to go Bungie! ------------------------- Eric K. Salzman

I think there's a theme to this letter, but it's been so subtly underscored I can't quite grasp what it might be....

The rich man's Halo

Halo: The poor man's Deus Ex. No, Deus Ex is cheaper too...so make that the "Quake fan's" Deus Ex. Richard "KZ" Knight kuzap@home.com Erin, I'd first like to comment on all the Xbox nay-sayers in terms of system quality...I had the system about a week before launch, and I've played it quite a bit since and had no problems. I work at a software store and haven't heard one complaint...though our store system DID break, hehe... On to Halo. I don't know if you could say it's worth buying a Xbox for, but it's damned good. Being a FPS aficionado, I'm hard to impress when it comes to those types of games...but Halo certainly did. The best part is multiplayer with a bunch of friends, but single player is fresh enough to warrant a purchase. However, I think Deus Ex for PS2 will be a better game; having played the game on PC I can tell you it's the best FPS ever made, and I'm hoping the PS2 transition is just as good...so Halo fans, look to Deus Ex for a deeper experience! =P --Rob

Deus Ex is a definite argument against buying an Xbox just for Halo. If you've got a PC, you're hardly starving for decent FPSs; if you own a PS2, you may be about to get your fix.

Hunting in packs

Erin, I myself am a total lover of FPS on a PC. They just don't translate to consoles very well IMO. Before we even get to the control aspect I want to address the proximity of the screen. I don't know how close many people sit to their TVs, but I can't sit close enough to a TV to really feel like I'm in the game. However with my PC (or rather the rad ones they have at the Cyber Cafe not far from my house) I can feel fully immersed. Also split screen sucks for racing games, it sucks big time for Tony Hawk 3 (But multiplayer is very rad on TH3, can't wait for the broadband adapters to come out so I can play multiplayer in full screen) and until now console FPS had to be played in split screen (which I know fried frame rates in the N64 South Park FPS). I don't know if Halo is taking advantage of the X-Box's online capabilities or not, but I sure hope so, cause when people get sick of single player, online multiplay will be the only thing to keep it alive. Finally the controls. With a mouse and keyboard I can get total, comfortable 360 degree rotation with the flick of a wrist, something that has yet to be duplicated on a console controller. This makes aiming a bitch for one thing, and doesn't really immerse you at all, since you have to think about your point of view. All of this wrapped up has made console FPSs totally unfun for me. I am still trying to figure out how Goldeneye and Perfect Dark got so popular since again IMHO they sucked (I guess that goes back to the whole different experience for different people thing huh?) So in ending the X-Box has to cough up some better titles to get me to shell my hard earned cash out to the Evil Empire. --The Thryll Killer, who will still be buying Doom for his GBA, cause well, its Doom...

I'll attest to the general suckiness of split screen. I vividly remember driving into countless walls in Rock 'N Racing for the SNES because its top-down, isometric track view constantly deceived player 2 into thinking the player 1 screen above was a continuation of their stretch of track, and then blam! your hood was buried into a partition or a landmine due to your own limited range of vision.

Nonetheless, split screen beats playing online in one very important respect: human contact. blasting people across the phone lines just isn't the same as piling together in your living room swearing and throwing pizza at one another as you gun each other down. To my knowledge, few PC games have offered that kind of social interaction, whereas games like Goldeneye deliver.

Bringing peace, love, and Golden Sun to the frontlines of the console war

Erin - Alright, the check's in the mail. As for Halo, I despise FPS games. However, I found enjoyment out of Rainbow 6, mostly because the book is so damn good, and Duke Nukem was good for a laugh, so maybe the genre has some hope. I actually want to play Halo. The game looks good graphicly, and I havn't heard a single put down for the game yet. And I've asked a few Sony fanboys. To me, a game like Halo is a great rental. I'd get a kick out of it for the weekend, but probably wouldn't find any lasting value...and if I did...well, I'd actually go out and buy it. I can see why people knock the FPS genre so much, but if you just sit down and play one now and again, you can get quite the buttload of fun out of it. Of course, this is all theoretical, like Fei being Elly and all. Because I do not own an X Box, nor do I plan on it. Though admitedly, a few weeks ago, my anti-X Box feeling had more substance than the "I'm broke" that it's been worn down to. Ehh, screw this console war thing. It doesn't matter which system you have because no system ever has been left completely gameless. Except the Jaguar, but since that never existed, we don't have to count it. Peace, Ray Stryker, the fifth chosen protector of Algo

I like to think of FPS titles as "vegging-out" games. Like the occasional NBC sitcom is a welcome break from the cerebral challenges of TLC, the mindless destruction and slaughter offered by the likes of Halo is a nice break from slogging through DWVII's 1000 pages of NPC drivel.

First among the third

Erin, We won't be seeing any Xboxes here in Europe until next Spring. Or any Gamecubes, for that matter. From the previews/reviews and footage I've seen, Halo looks like an outstanding game; but then I said this in some letter to Drew a while back. The idea of being able to man vehicles in an fps is brilliant, and hopefully it'll be imitated and improved on in future shooters :D Anyway, I want to talk about Sega, because there isn't all that much I can say about Halo until I eventually get a chance to play it. In a recent interview with ign, Charles Bellfield, a Sega of America high-up, said that we should expect a good few surprises from Sega - they're now taking the Nintendo stance of not revealing most of their games until shortly before the titles are released, for fear of being imitated by EA and/or others. They also expect to be the number one third party developer/publisher within a year or two. Now, I think that they have a very, very good chance of doing it, and would certainly expect to see them in at least the top 2 spot within a couple of years, but more likely number 1. RPGs, beat-em-ups, sports titles, arcade games, puzzle games, platformers, games aimed more at kids, and simply-off-the-wall-incomparable-to-anything-games; they make high-quality examples in all of these (sometimes overlapping) genres. I definitely expect them to do is dominate the handheld 3rd-party market. Streets of Rage, Shinobi, Golden Axe - all quality franchises that could be simply converted or made freshly on the GBA, as is being done with Sonic. What I was just wondering is if anyone sees any reasons why Sega wouldn't be the number one 3rd party games creator within 2 years, because I genuinely can't think of any - and yet I've got a feeling I'm not factoring in certain things. Possibly superior marketing power by EA, though I'm not convinced that'll be enough - but then maybe I'm just naive. Paulo, hoping that Sonic on GBA features some classic 16-bit-days lo-fi tunes instead of nasty J-Rock.

Hmmm.... SEGA....

Closing Comments:

Sega's always been a formidable software developer, but now that the company is without the limitations of exclusively supporting their own hardware, they've set their sights and efforts toward being #1 in the third party market. Quirky initial offerings like Super Monkey Ball have gone over well, and indicate they may be on the right track.

What do you think? Is Sega destined to rule the third party roost? What kind of effect do you think this software powerhouse's multi-platform support is going to have on the their work, and on the industry in general?

-Erin Mehlos: "Birds do TOO have vertebrae, imbecile!"