Favorite Halo?

I've been on the Halo grind again lol. What's everyone's favorite Halo game and why?

I'll go first. Mine is definitely Reach. I love the storyline, playing with an actual team, the weapon and character designs, and the customizability!

REACH

also Reach, Halo 3 is an EXTREMELY close second though, rip my goat....

I've been playing through the series for the first time, so far I've played through CE to ODST. I think Halo 2 has been my favorite so far. 

gotta be reach for me. loved the characterization, customization, and the way the story got me to FEEL something. i mean, master chief's story does too but save for some attempt at characterization in 4 it took roughly until infinite for them to acknowledge that he's human. when it comes down to multiplayer though, its between 2 or 3 for me. SWAT on 3 is always a good time except for when its not

My man🔥

Apav wrote:
I think Halo 2 has been my favorite so far. 

Agree with you on 2. It's simple enough to pick up and play, but difficult to master.

3 is a close second for me, with a tossup between CE and Reach for 3rd place.

Reach is still a fun game but tried a little to hard to emulate CoD with the different "loadouts" you could choose from, and CE really shows its age if you try to play it today.

Anything after Reach is mediocre at best IMO, granted I don't have too much time on anything post-Bungie.

Honestly, anything that's not 343

ODST.

Two reasons: Mainly because I'm a Resident Evil guy over anything else, and that game is oddly the closest Halo ever came to it: back-tracking non-linear maps with locked gates, limited health pickups/ammo (well, compared to the others, it's still an FPS), avoidance of enemies over prioritized combat (to an extent), lone Rookie character in a memorable location, environmental storytelling, finding the audio logs (files), yada-yada, Asphalt and Ablution is just the RE1 Save Room theme.

But yes, second to that is probably Reach -- now, it should in theory be Halo 2 -- on the one hand because I think 2 is the best mainline Halo game in terms of campaign story/gameplay (with Combat Evolved in very close second... Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know a lot of people prefer 3, and I have a lot of nostalgia for 3's co-op and multiplayer... but honestly? The campaign was kind of a letdown for me) -- and on the other because Reach retcons elements of The Fall of Reach (peak) so hard that they spent the next five years figuring out asinine ways to reconfigure everything so that the two could both be equally canon again. But can I be honest for a second? I don't care, and I'm glad they did because Reach just has the sauce and deserves it's due.

Now, granted, I probably have most nostalgia for Reach than any of the others: that was the game that I had pre-ordered the incredible Legendary Edition of (and got an exclusive Best Buy shirt with Emile on it that I wore everywhere). I remember sitting in the lobby on the morning of 9/14/2010 -- having been allowed to stay home from school for it. Watching the multiplayer servers go online and the number of online players climb from dozens to thousands in seconds. Feeling like the ultimate badass for having the 'flaming recon' helmet and effect (even though easily dozens of other players had it), getting to experience all the armor effects (which I actually enjoyed as a gameplay gimmick, including limiting sprint to it).

Reach oozed the aura with it's slick menu design and ominous opening music (MCC could never), nothing else compares to playing through that campaign for the first time and being absolutely blown away by the music, the scenic vistas, being drenched in the atmosphere and the story decisions (I mean, yeah, sure, Andor/Rogue One did it better -- but Reach came first). Reach also has Buck in New Alexandria, and if there's a rule here: ODST always wins, you can't make me hate ODST.

I'm not nearly as elitist and rabid about it as the others I see online discussing the topic, but Halo for me is/will always be 1-3, ODST, Reach, Fall of Reach/First Strike/The Flood, Ghosts of Onyx/Contact Harvest/Cole Protocol, the live-action trailers for 3/ODST, the terminal lore from CE:A, and the H2A cutscenes... and Red vs. Blue, particularly from Out of Mind to Season 10. I genuinely don't need anything else from the franchise (except for ODST and Reach ported to PlayStation 5 ASAP).

this question always tears me up, i know i love 1-3 a lot but picking an all time favorite is so hard... they all have different things i love about them

i suppose if i really had to choose i'd go with ce. i always adored its style and wished the future games kept that sci fi anime inspired style rather than realism. the atmospheres, sound design, and everything is incredible. i'd honestly give anything to experience playing ce like it was my first time again.

halo 2 is a close second, graphics wise i kinda used to dislike it but it grew on me (also the promotional material is fucking badass). knowing that halo 2 was supposed to have stencil shading (like doom 3 and quake 4) makes a lot of sense, i think it would've looked amazing that way and i really adore that style. i also really like the gameplay and the fact you get to play the arbiter and see more into what the covenant is like.

halo 3 is really good visually. i think it has a good balance of stylized and realism before the games leaned further into realism. halo 3's visuals started to grow on me after watching red vs blue, i think it's suited best for machinima out of any other game.

I love Reach for the same reasons, customization is amazing, and the ending always hits hard