Maybe wrote:Halo is stale. I don't care to read anyone's argument on the subject because I'm simply stating factual information. Halo is successful because it's good at doing one thing. Game companies such as Bethesda (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Rage, etc) concentrate on making innovative products and reaching new heights for industry standards in terms of play style, quality, content, etc. Bungie on the other hand is a one trick pony, and that one trick has been milked with the same product since their initial success with it. Is that bad? Hell no it's not bad. It's great, and it's something every gaming company wants. Halo is a massive franchise, and its made the shooter genre more "adult" friendly. It's accomplished a lot financially, but unfortunately sales aren't innovation.
Is Halo the leader of the shooter genre just because of sales? No. In terms of innovation, quality, fun, etc, Halo is far behind many. Is it good? Yes. Is it successful? Yes. Is it the best? Maybe in some peoples opinion it is. But, is it the leader of the genre? No, because games like: Dead Space, BioShock, GOW, (Brink, and the upcoming RAGE) are all making a leap forward (or at least attempting to innovate the genre), while Halo continues to perform that same old trick...
Halo is the Soda of the shooter genre. It's not the best thing for you, but a lot of people want it regardless.
/out
I pretty much agree with this the only thing that I kind of disagree with is Bethesda, I dunno but it feels like every game is duming down from Morrowind to Oblivion, and believe I played Oblivion before Morrowind and still love the fuck out of it, but it seems like everything was made to be user friendly. Less weapons, skills, quests, armor, guiding everyone with that annoying red dot, though I guess it was nice as it didn't leave the player completely hopeless like Morrowind did, where you had to rely on guides to finish the game.
Fallout 3 feels like a bigger stepback from Oblivion as well, though, I'm eagerly anticipating Elder Scrolls V. 
Oh and didn't Halo originate the regenrating health bars (not sure if that's a good thing) or was that COD?
Master Chief wrote:Why... WHY? Why did you have to divide this 
  
It's obnoxious but it gets the job done and you don't get tripped on what I'm saying and have to wonder which part of your post I'm referring to.
There are some reviews that are actually good but they never go into a decent amount of detail with what I stated. Most reviews/ers are morons or just not knowledgable enough and yes I have read a fuckload of reviews, enough to form my opinion/statement on the matter. I'm pretty sure most of the active HHD members can make better reviews. Me included 
 
...Shut up, by this logic I can write a better review than most other reviewers you're claiming, and I sure as shit can't and neither could you.
Let's bring in more facts (yay!). Halo is way past critically acclaimed actually. There's a reason that when a really, REALLY good FPS comes out they call it the "Halo Killer". 
That title was only give to console FPS, and we all know PC FPS dominate the market, and really reviews? That's what you're going to rely on, no better than showing off album accolades to try and prove a point.
                                   GameRankings:                           Metacritic:
Halo: Combat Evolved =           95.58%                               = 97/100.
Halo 2 =                                  94.56%                               = 95/100.
Halo 3 =                                  93.53%                               = 94/100. 
Halo 3: ODST =                        85.14%                               = 83/100 
Halo: Reach =                          91.59%                               = 91/100.
Basically every game (except ODST which sucks but still managed to get a B) is considered an "A" game. You cannot tell me that this series is just "good" for its generation. No, it's well in its way to being considered an all time classic series with these numbers + popularity... yeah. I hate PC shooters so I really can't agree with you at all but it doesn't matter because we're not discussing PC shooters here (yes, I know I never said so but I really don't wanna get into PC games discussion).  
Really, go check Half Life's reviews, I'm pretty sure it has higher scores than Halo. And no you can't just arbitrarily close off gaming demographic because you know it strengthens my point. Popularity wise and strictly console wise than the only FPS matching Halo's popularity is COD.
I have never ever in my life heard of this game ever EVER (ever....) being more popular than Halo. 
Well than know you know.
Now, that you say that it's the most popular online.... uhmmmm well yeah sure but that's because people don't play Halo online as much as they do on the console.
This doesn't make any sense, what are you saying people don't play Halo online as they do lag parties or split screen? 
Is CS available on a console? 
They made one for the original Xbox but it didn't do too well, compared to it's PC counterpart.
I think it isn't and if it is then on that platform it is not more popular than Halo. That's for sure. If you're telling me that online it's more popular than Halo? I'm not sure but since you brought up facts and I don't know where to get mine, I'll give it to you. But, overall Halo is more popular than CS. 
No it isn't it's more mainstream and that you have people reference it daily than yeah, but Counter Strike annihalates Halo worldwide, and is extremely popular in Asia, the Middle East, Europe. Halo only really beats Counter Strike in popularity in NA and even that's debatable. 
I will say that Counter Strike is a much more niche game and isn't as user friendly as Halo.
Doesn't matter what platform we're talking about, Halo is more popular. Btw, there have been 1 million Halo Reach games played in the last 24 hours which I'm sure is much more than 64k servers full of 8/16/32 people. But, we're comparing different platforms so I guess it's irrelevant but I just wanted to throw in a number to refute that.
That doesn't refute it at all because the source I linked never specified how many games Counter Strike was played the last 24 hours, though I will say 5.194 billion minutes of playtime per month is more impressive than that.
Yes, we're only talking FPS here. tbh, I firmly believe Halo is the Eminem of FPS games. You may bring up that COD has sold more as a series but Halo is only exclusive to Xbox while COD is PS3 and Wii. Yet, the numbers aren't very far apart.
I never said that, unless that was a hypothetical, I was thinking more along the lines of GTA.
 Yeah, I know that. It's still a smart strategy.
Than you shouldn't have said that as that just ended up confusing us more than clarifying.
 One year from SSLP to MMLP (because he was new to the game). Two years from MMLP to TES and TES to Encore. Five years from Encore to Relapse (if we don't count the Re-Up). One year from Relapse to Recovery because it's his comeback and he owes his fans music. That's not the point though. Eminem doesn't release much material in collabs/random songs/mixtapes/weekly series like other rappers do therefore increasing demand for his music like Halo does by having a 3 year gap.
Assuming other rappers release mixtapes to keel fans over is stupid to begin with unless you're referencing Slaughterhouse.