Retrospective on the Halo Series

In the last few weeks Halo mania has engulfed the gaming world so much so that it has broke records and also seem to have marked the end of an era between Bungie and Microsoft. Now that the Halo trilogy has concluded it seems that a little look back at the series shows how far the series has come.

The original Halo was an anomaly in the ranks of console shooters, it was one of maybe a handful FPS games that really worked on the console platform. This very notion would set the tempo for the future of console gaming. It created a large expansive world that tied into a nice tight story line and also included a localized multi player. Well it seems that Halo came just at the right time and caught on to mainstream audiences becoming one of the big reasons to own an Xbox. There was very little missing from the original Halo which seemed to put a lot of pressure on Bungie Studios (developer of the Halo series).

With Halo 2 the story continued from the story arc of the original creating a larger story "universe" that also introduced an additional character. However, Halo 2 did a lot more than expand the Halo Universe it pushed the limits of Xbox console with its rendering engine and introduced a feature many fans of the series have been waiting for online multi-player. The online multi-player aspect of Halo 2, seemed to give Halo 2 infinite replay ability. However, Halo 2 didn't inherit all the positive aspects of the original. The level design though graphically impressive seem uninspired and very closed off, this was almost a complete 180 from the wide expansive level designs of the first. The second major flaw of the second installment was the story not so much that the story was bad, just that it didn't really end. The ending for Halo 2 is considered to be one of the most frustrating moments of the franchise. With a story line that needed closure a Halo 3 was inevitable.

Halo 3's launched has over shadowed it predecessors release by putting up sales numbers that are normally synonymous with Hollywood block buster records. The game itself added a flurry of new features that enhance the game play. The newer Xbox 360 has allowed Bungie to enhance their game engine that blows away their previous attempts. The game itself completes the small amount of story left that seems to take a bit away from expectations. However, like the second installment Bungie was able to future enhance the multi-player aspect. Halo 3 seems to have a lot more influences from the first game but seems to fall short in delivering the complete experience. In the end Halo 3 will be well received by fans and its publisher (Microsoft).

However, one can only wonder what could have been. The franchises few deficiencies seems like they should have been avoidable. The faults in the campaign in the second and third installment seem to be related to time. If Halo 2's campaign level design was designed similarly to the third or even the first installment, it would have been a much richer game experience. While the third installment seemed to improve on the level design it seemed to have half a campaign, the story flows very well but is almost excessively short. So much so that is feels like the missing ending from Halo 2. In hindsight Bungie should have made the Halo multi-player portions a spin off as stand alone game. This probably wouldn't have put up the same kind of sales numbers but would have given them a lot more time to work out the kinks with the story line and delay it long enough to take advantage of the newer Xbox 360 hardware. After which a sequel to multi-player spin off could be made to take advantage of the new game engine. It's purely speculation but conceivably the end result would have been a nearly flawless game franchise.