You know, I have to start this - what is so great about it?
I've played all three, really quite boring generic FPS... I hate the regenerating shield (if I get shot I want to have to dash for a medi pack damnit!) and the two weapons annoyed me greatly... For starters I could carry more than that... Two pistols in holsters, gun over back and wielding a gun. Duh
The enemies were boring, I don't want to drive any vehicles, er, yeah...

So how come it's meant to be so good? I don't see it at all...

because your taste in shooters is the opposite of everyone else's? Seriously, health packs are ghey, vehicles rule, switching between a ton of weapons on a console game = impossible, and the enemies are awesome.

Health packs are better than regenerating health...
I'm playing a FPS, not a third person driving game. I want to SHOOT people, not get run over...
You can't swap weapons? Ha ha, you fail. I swap between Sniper and Machine gun so easily, sniping people, then when the enemies approach me just swap and mow them down. Fun fun fun

And different tastes? Maybe so, but I rarely find someone else who thinks like me (like, one person, but then we've been mates almost our entire lives )

I said cycling between a lot of weapons on a console is impossible... it would take up every button on the controller. Thirdly, the Halo series is a multiplayer game first and an FPS second. So maybe you just aren't a fan of multiplayer games.

Hell no, I love fragging my mates split screen. I just hate games that use alot of genres - probably explains why I've never finished a GTA game...
Anywaaaay, yeah, if I'm playing a multiplayer FPS, I want it to be a multiplayer FPS, not a subgenre combination freak love child...

Halo is indeed pretty sub-standard...it's too bad most companies are stepping right behind it's model. When you take away the multiplayer aspect, there's just not much there. And a lot of people just aren't big multiplayer folks. Now Valve- Valve knows how to design FPS games...

The people that can't figure Halo out are the same people that enjoy the Wii, IMO. I'm not going to go much farther into detail on that, but it's not hard to figure out. I guess if someone's not into it, there's always Pokemon and Mario Party.

Hmm, you know what, your post fails. What, because I don't like Halo, I can't enjoy other FPS, like Timesplitters, and Red Faction 2 (pretty good considering how old it is)...
And figuring it out? Guns, shooting, pointless vehicles. Yeah, hard to understand

Timesplitters? Seriously? I can definitely understand why you wouldn't like Halo.

Great discussion you're having

Oh, you're right. You're such a Freakishly Awesome Gamer.

Wow, what an insult. Oh, I'm so stung...

It's not an insult to say that you don't like Halo. That's your choice. I actually enjoyed the story and the multiplayer is awesome. It's too bad that they didn't impliment the vehicles more in H3. I think that makes things a lot of fun. I do admit, however that H3 will suck up some time if you want to be good at it. If you only spend 5 minutes of your time making a judgement on it, you're probably just going to get wiped out. Especially if you're playing on Legendary or against people like me.

I just think Halo fails at being fun and excels at being a constant, fine-tuned challenge. If that's the kind of the kind of gameplay you like, then that's fine.

I guess we just have different opinions of what fun is, as far as video games go and that's not a bad thing. I used to hate FPS's in general. I hated Doom and would never have even touched Duke Nukem. When Halo came out, it was a nice change from those games. I wonder if COD4 and others would be as good as they are without some of the elements that Halo brought into the community.

Without regenerating health, online would suck. If you need a health pack and sum1 else took the closest one and every other one was being guarded by an opposing team, would you mind waiting up to 3 minutes for it to respawn? It would seem fair to have regenerating health for both sides, if two players were to go at it at full health, would you be mad that as he was backing up, he backed up into a health pack which gave him the advantage.

I never really liked being able to carry multi weapons, it was too much of a hassle to scroll through them, it breaks the action for almost second.

Anyways, Halo is fun, CoD4 is fun as well, but I'm more of a tactical FPS, Vegas.

Halo's popularity was driven by the console market, nothing else. Originally it was destined for PC only. I remember watching the trailer for it. We were all so disappointed when we learned it would show up on XBOX before the PC. It was quite a disappointment.

I guess that's where we differ, and it depends on what kind of game you enjoy. I miss FPS games that were fun. Portal is a good example of a game that brought that back. Why do FPS games always have to be so damn serious? Duke Nukem is fun to play, plenty violent, but never takes itself too seriously. For the multiplayer folks, I think that's one of the things that makes Team Fortress 2 great as well- it was redesigned completely and abandoned a serious, military theme in favor of the more humorous, toon-like nature multiplayer games often take.

Actually, Halo was originally destined for the Mac, cuz Bungie was a Mac company, but was then bought out by MS.

http://www.bungie.org/matt.interview.html

Well, to continue the celebratory bashing of a deceased equine with a shovel I am a Halo fan and I enjoy the game because its not just another random shooter.

See to me in most cases, FPS games follow a common flaw of repedative gun battles, enemies taking to flanking positions in a straight line and proceed to pour on gunfire and grenades when they don't have to stop and reload, and just continue firing until A) I'm dead or B) I kill them. And slowly but surely when I do take down the numbers, nobody reacts: no cries and retreat, no calls for backup, no reloading.

Halo the enemies behave like enemies should, flanking positions, taking cover, and using some concept of teamwork to overpower me, despite the same technical flaw of not having to stop and reload, but you see my point. In a combat scenario where there is a series of cover in a 90 degree bend in a line, and I set myself at the absolute end. they will try to flank me and not just wait in a fixed position for me to come around the side.

I've seen so many games with enemies pursuing me, flanking etc that weren't Halo. And quite a few of the games you're talking about I'm guessing are much more corridor shooters...