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What was the more influential game in 2001? Halo: Combat Evolved or Grand Theft Auto III?

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Also people keep forgetting PC had GTA style games going back to the non-pc computers like the Amiga and only recently before GTA III or around the same time with various adventure games and rpgs. It was really consoles that was impacted heavily by GTA, so when people dismiss Halo as primarily an influence for consoles that applies to GTAIII. Consoles were very weak, they had only started exploring open level design in linear games like Spyro and overhead open 3D action games, the Dreamcast port of Omikron was likely the closest a console got to being GTAIII before GTA III.
Legit question. Like what games? Driver?
 

Mokus

Member
Grand Theft Auto 3! By far. The open world games already existed before, but GTA 3 took it to the next level big time.

About Halo, I played the demo on PC and my impression was of an average game. On PC there were plenty of FPS games that were just better. Never touched the series since.

Mario and Nintendo saved the video game industry nothing bigger than that
The north american video game industry. The rest of the world was never affected by the crash, including Japan.
 
Grand Theft Auto 3! By far. The open world games already existed before, but GTA 3 took it to the next level big time.

About Halo, I played the demo on PC and my impression was of an average game. On PC there were plenty of FPS games that were just better. Never touched the series since. (1)


The north american video game industry. The rest of the world was never affected by the crash, including Japan. (2)
  1. Yeah, I could see how coming from PC in 2001 Halo wouldn't exactly blow your doors off. On the console side of things we really just had stuff like Goldeneye which controlled like absolute ass (and honestly I think people only enjoy it out of nostalgia which is fine) so Halo was a big step up. Then with Halo 2 you had XBL which basically started online gaming for consoles.
  2. I think a lot of fellow Americans have a very narrow view of things so I'm not surprised that people only know the American side of things with Atari and the like. Plus you have things like documentaries which focus on the crash but fail to ever mention it being isolated to NA.
 
  1. Yeah, I could see how coming from PC in 2001 Halo wouldn't exactly blow your doors off. On the console side of things we really just had stuff like Goldeneye which controlled like absolute ass (and honestly I think people only enjoy it out of nostalgia which is fine) so Halo was a big step up. Then with Halo 2 you had XBL which basically started online gaming for consoles.
  2. I think a lot of fellow Americans have a very narrow view of things so I'm not surprised that people only know the American side of things with Atari and the like. Plus you have things like documentaries which focus on the crash but fail to ever mention it being isolated to NA.

I disagree only liking GoldenEye out of nostalgia. I don't really remember the controls being super bad

Maybe a bit of lag?

The framerate was the worst thing. It was 18fps at best
 
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MrS

Banned
GTA 3 and it's not even close. GTA 3 and Dark Souls are the most influential games of the last 25 years.
 

Ezquimacore

Banned
Halo was more influential and halo 2 made gaming "mainstream" for a moment. But overall both were influential as fuck. Although we all know metroid prime was a better game.
 
I disagree only liking GoldenEye out of nostalgia. I don't really remember the controls being super bad

Maybe a bit of lag?

The framerate was the worst thing. It was 18fps at best
Just curious, but when was the last time you played it? I don't think everybody likes it out of nostalgia but it's definitely a big part of it (and tons of other games). Framerate is a big part of controls though. People can say what they will about shooters at 30fps but Bungie did about as good of a job as anybody ever has and their games felt great.
 

rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
This isn't even debatable. It's gta 3. If halo was released on pc it would be a good game crushed by unreal tournament. But being a console exclusive that also nailed the twin stick controls propelled it to legendary status which it would never have gotten on pc.
It was. CE and 2. Not many people gave a fuck about them except for the AI. But Freaking aim assist on mouse+kb! 🤮
 
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It was. CE and 2. Not many people gave a fuck about them except for the AI. But Freaking aim assist on mouse+kb! 🤮
They were released later. I mean at launch back in 2001. If it went head to head against unreal tournament and quake 3 arena, Halo wouldn't have survived. Hell nobody even knows what the myth games are.
 
Just curious, but when was the last time you played it? I don't think everybody likes it out of nostalgia but it's definitely a big part of it (and tons of other games). Framerate is a big part of controls though. People can say what they will about shooters at 30fps but Bungie did about as good of a job as anybody ever has and their games felt great.

Probably not since 2000
 
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rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
They were released later. I mean at launch back in 2001. If it went head to head against unreal tournament and quake 3 arena, Halo wouldn't have survived. Hell nobody even knows what the myth games are.
Just like GTAIII but GTA was a boom on pc. Halo CE even has online on pc but still, meh...
 
Quake 3 and Unreal were 2 to 3 year old games by the time Halo CE came out, and Halo CE took attention to all recent PC shooters at the time including the few that were also on consoles, also smacked Timespliters and Redfaction as well.
 

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
GTA 3 mission structure and open world formula is literally still being used today in modern games.


Every single open world game has copied its mission structure since then...

Amazing and pathetic at the same time.
 

TheMan

Member
Good question. I'd say Halo perfected the genre (on CONSOLE) whereas GTA blew open the open-world concept. Open world wasn't entirely new when GTA came out, but it's influence has been staggering. Just like, so many open world games can thank GTA for their existence it kind of boggles the mind
 

bitbydeath

Member
No, GoldenEye did in 1997

I still remember the first day playing that around launch with my brother and Dad. Wow

And Perfect Dark just took it to another level. Absolute peak RARE from 1997-2000

GoldenEye, Banjo Kazooie, DK, Perfect Dark

4 of my most cherished gaming memories
goldeneye did in 95 actually, which is why i would vote gta 3 was more influential
True, it was Goldeneye. Had forgotten about that one.
 

skit_data

Member
I disagree only liking GoldenEye out of nostalgia. I don't really remember the controls being super bad

Maybe a bit of lag?

The framerate was the worst thing. It was 18fps at best
Strafing with the left/right C-buttons, looking up/down with up/down C-buttons. Free aim by holding R and using the analog stick, which made you become immobile. Yeah, it was pretty much impossible to play without the quite liberal aim assist that was always on.

And of course the other things you mentioned.

Still, great game. 10/10 for what it was.
 
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yurinka

Member
I think GTA III. It started the open world madness and the IP grew a ton becoming the monster it is now.

Halo was just another FPS. A good one, but another one.
 
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rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Quake 3 and Unreal were 2 to 3 year old games by the time Halo CE came out, and Halo CE took attention to all recent PC shooters at the time including the few that were also on consoles, also smacked Timespliters and Redfaction as well.
No. There was even the juggernaut Counter Strike happening. Halo CE took attention only from Xbox players in their bubble.
 
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skit_data

Member
No. The was even the juggernaut Counter Strike happening. Halo CE took attention only from Xbox players in their bubble.
I remember playing pretty much only Counter-Strike at the time and subsequent years when CS 1.6 released.

I played Halo on PC, found it kinda cool but very overrated (the library almost made me stop play the campaign). Never got into the multiplayer much altough i played it from time to time.
 
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Closer

Member
Yeah, the thing with Halo is it brought FPS on consoles into the mainstream and made it what it is today.

That being said it isn't an easy question. I think Halo did for FPS what GTA III did for open world games. They both changed the genres into what they are today and are equally important IMO.

Yup. 100% agree.
 

Varteras

Gold Member
While GTA 3 was huge, we do not have open world games today because of it. It didnt shape the landscape as much as people want to believe. We had and enourmous amount of open world games since the 80s, but it was mostly a Pc exclusive affair, since consoles didnt have the memory and hardware for it. We had Elder Scrools since the early 90s, GTA was open world before 3, although top down, Mafia 1 was developed simultaneously with GTA 3 with similar format. STALKER, Far Cry 2. Far Cry 2 and ubisoft have had a bigger influence on the open world genre than GTA id say.

GTA 3 had some copy cats in those times, True Crime Streets of whatever, Drive 3, Saints Row. But thats about it. Open world games existed long before and the industry was always going for it, the freedom and openess that MMO's alone provided until then. GTA is selling like crazy and is well known, but its not that influential when all is said and done, i think. Too many were doing the same thing at the same time and were following the same concepts
Oh believe me I'm well aware that open world games were around before it. But I feel that GTAIII made open world games much more common. Like what Halo did for FPS games on consoles and in general. I don't think the industry NEEDED Rockstar to make open world the future of gaming. That would have happened eventually as you pointed out. But Rockstar made it popular in a way no other company had before it. GTA's influence, as others pointed out, goes beyond a genre. It is a cultural phenomenon and one even non-gamers are aware of. GTAIII was the true launch point for that and the franchise has continued to set the bar for excellence. Do I think it's the most influential game of all time? No. I don't. Do I think it's far more so than Halo? Yes, I do. And really that was the question. Which had more influence.
 

NickFire

Member
This is a good one. But as much respect as I have for Halo: CE, I don't think anything tops GTA in terms of influence, impact, etc.
 
Halo is totally a more respected franchise today than GTA.

Who care of GTA games now ? It's just some stupid and shitty games for kids even more disgusting than Fortnite lol.

But Halo 3 on MCC in the other hand, it seems H3 matchmaking can't never die, it still so good and so much fun, never get old...

That's how i feel about it.
 
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waquzy

Member
Halo is totally a more respected franchise today than GTA.

Who care of GTA games now ? It's just some stupid and shitty games for kids even more disgusting than Fortnite lol.

But Halo 3 on MCC in the other hand, it seems H3 matchmaking can't never die, it still so good and so much fun, never get old...

That's how i feel about it.
GTA franchise is probably the most influential of all time! Grand Theft Auto is culture. Halo is just another FPS.
 
To this day I have never played a Halo game. It's weird. I've played Wolf3D, DOOM, DOOMII, Duke3D, Strife, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, Quake III, Arena, Unreal Tournament, etc. I played Goldeneye a ton with so many friends. I figure if Halo was so great I would have run into someone playing it at some point IRL.

There really is no question who is more influential. GTA has been the focus of multiple controversies across the years, giving it the edge in political/media attention. No Jack Thompson types caring about the generic space marine in Halo. It is irrelevant. Robbing hookers, hot coffee mods, that kind of stuff gets the media excited.

Additionally, the third game revolutionized the Open World 3rd Person genre. It basically invented Open World 3D games. Yes there were 3rd person games before it, but afterwards, the idea of a simulated world was in a whole new paradigm. This is not something any Halo entry has done for it's genre.

I'm sorry, Halo is just a FPS. I get it, Xbox only has one franchise so they have to hype the hell out of it. But no.
 
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Eric187

Banned
GTA. Just the fact that the Halo infinite is going open world tells me enough to know which game has been more influential. Rockstar will never have to evolve or change the GTA formula for it to stay relevant. A new GTA will always be the biggest release that year and even juggernauts like Call of Duty move up release dates because of this. And while Halo did in fact modernism the first person shooter on consoles others have come along and improved upon its formula. No one has even come significantly close to topping a new GTA. Hell GTA5 came out in 2013 and it still blows away any other open world game with an urban setting by a country mile.
 

Yoboman

Member
Damn tough, but going with GTA.

In addition to those two we also had smash melee, MGS2, Devil May Cry, Advance wars, Baldurs Gate II. Makes modern AAA look like complete fucking dogshit doesn't it
2001 is unmatched for quantity of amazing games
 

Wiktor

Member
GTA3 overall. Halo really kickstarted FPSes on consoles,. There were good games of this type before on Jaguar, N64 or PSX, but this still wasn't a huge on consoles. Halo was the thing that opened up the floodgates and essentially made the genre multiplatform. But I would still give it to GTA3. Becasuse it's template is still being used to this day. Meanwhile Halo's gameplay influences got mostly abandoned. Once people got good with controlling FPSes on pad the genre on consoles started to follow the PC FPSes templates. Modern console FPSes are very different from Halo.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
I was a Sony fan at the time and I kinda "hated" Xbox and Halo, didn't understand the point - Until I played it and realized it was a remarkable story-driven FPS package that in many ways would advance the genre in the industry. The AI and The Silent Cartographer blew my mind.

GTA3 is the more iconic historical cultural driver though.

TLDR; It's not binary.
 
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sympathytaste

Neo Member
I'd argue that the first Devil May Cry, which came out in the same year as both games and alongside GTA 3 was part of that legendary PS2 2001 holiday lineup, was a more influential game than Halo CE and proved that 3D action games can be as good as their 2D counterparts. DMC 1 also became a major influence on action games forward, with God of War, Ninja Gaiden, Bayonetta and Dark Souls to name a few releasing after DMC 1 blazed the trail.

But to answer the question, like many have echoed here, it is GTA 3 by a landslide. If there ever was a museum preserving games of historical value, GTA 3 has to be in it. No game dropped a bomb on a niche genre and made it become a staple of modern gaming. It may not have aged well like its successors but for 2001 standards, it is still amazing and you can see how R* intended the game(and maybe the series) to be gaming versions of Goodfellas/Sopranos.
 
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