LogFAQs > #949657376

#65 Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, 2001)

I never owned any of the Xbox consoles. But when the first Xbox came out, several of my friends got one, and we played Halo to the exclusion of most other games. Whether it was the cooperative campaign or deathmatch (splitscreen or via LAN), I must have put well over a thousand hours into this game. And despite not owning it, I managed to get in enough solo time to play through the campaign a few times by myself.

Halo was revolutionary. The second stick on the controller was so important for making shooters on console work, and Halo would be worth memorializing just for making that control scheme the standard. But it also brought an open-ended gameplay that was not really seen at the time, along with recharging shields, weapon management, vehicles, and other innovations that were closely imitated for years.



For me though, this game was mostly about multiplayer. I know that LAN parties were a thing on PC for years prior, but none of my friends played PC games, so this was my first experience with loading up TVs and consoles and taking them to someone's house for a weekend of 4 vs 4 or 8 vs 8 team deathmatch. Games would be intense and even the times where it was just 2 vs 2 over LAN, it was such an improvement over the standard splitscreen deathmatch experience that it became absolutely impossible for me to go back.



So Halo changed my relationship with and expectations for video games forever, really. Such a huge release and for a year or two it was the biggest game I played socially with my friends. It may be #65 on my list, but it's certainly one of the very top games when it comes to impact on my life.

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At least your mother tipped well