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Which is the better game - Halo: Combat Evolved or Metroid Prime?
- Thread starter The Gorby Congressmanz
- Start date
Azelover
Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
To you. I happen to think that the Wii was pretty damn awesome.The PS3 was trash and forgotten, and the Wii was trash and a joke, if you prefer like that.
Who cared of the PS3 at the 360 era ?
The Wii was just a Nintendo trap/bait that worked too well unfortunately.
Why don't you just let it be.. We all have different opinions, you're not gonna change mine and I won't change yours.
To be quite honest, and I'm not trying to diss anyone, but I have severe doubts you were around at the time of the 360.
skit_data
Member
He actually has changed my mind a bit, I feel slightly less inclined to buy the Master Chief collection thanks to him. A job well done.
KungFucius
King Snowflake
I think you meant a steak cake to a pastry cake.
Dream-Knife
Banned
Halo CE easily. I remember as a kid I rented Matroid Prime and thought it was boring. I gave it a second chance a few years ago and ended up enjoying it, but the campaign in Halo CE is much better, and of course then there is multiplayer. Metroid Prime 2's multiplayer wasn't even close.
Very surprised to see so many people prefer Metroid Prime. The game was good, but not amazing.
Very surprised to see so many people prefer Metroid Prime. The game was good, but not amazing.
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Arkam
Member
How? I see a lot of people saying this... but that's not how I remember it. I remember it being the second big CONSOLE multiplayer FPS (first being Goldeneye) and laughing at the console only players being impressed. (ones who clearly didnt have a Sega DreamCast)
Remember Halo cam AFTER, these FPS MP titans Quake 2/3, Unreal Tournament, Tribes, Counter-Strike, Team-Fortress and so many others
And came after such awesome FPS campaigns as Half-Life, System Shock 2, Rainbow Six and Duke Nukem.
So what did the series do that was new? Regen health maybe? But I feel there were games with that before, but nothing comes to mind.
Sonic The Fighters
Member
You don't know me or my life at all.
But as a system : 360 > PS3 > Wii.
The Wii had some good games (not a lot either) but the hardware even if cute was terrible.
Eric187
Banned
Tough choice but voted Metroid Prime. Both are legendary games and I’d say Halo just had such a huge influence on the genre overall but playing the campaign solo wasn’t that enjoyable IMO. The levels are long and interiors are repetitive especially the latter half of the game. But playing through the campaign in co-op was a blast. Metroid Prime on the other hand is a master class of level design, and is awe inspiring to play through from start to finish. The more I think about it it really is hard to pick one over the other. Both had incredible music, enemy design, weapons, art style, everything. But I love single player Metroidvania type games more and that to me is the difference. If I had to play through one of them again I’d choose Metroid because I sure as hell don’t feel like fighting through waves and waves of the flood again.
Balducci30
Member
I disagree with the idea that Halo wasn’t influential - it seems impossible to me if you were around at that time you were unaware of halos influence or games that attempted to copy it after it came out - it was all over the place - almost all FPS games after were influenced in some way - especially on console. I’m legitimately struggling to understand how you aren’t aware of its effect at least culturally for video games, CS, Unreal, Quake, battlefield - these were not the same as halo
Balducci30
Member
This could be true I actually don’t think I’ve ever played a halo campaign solo - but every time I’ve played co op it has been some of the best gaming times I’ve ever had
Astral Dog
Member
without Metroid there wouldn't be women main characters on videogames today 
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Reality Czar
Banned
I'm playing Halo for the first time ever because of these threads. I bought the MCC and figured I might as well play through the SP campaigns of this series and see what the fuss is all about!
The first game is starting off very strong. At first I was enjoying it and thinking "This is a lot like DOOM 2016 art design wise" and accidentally I hit the Tab key and switched back to the original graphics and I left it there because yes please these are good enough and even look fine at 4k. I'm super glad that they included the option to instantly switch back to original graphics. I left it there and continued playing. The geometry and art design in the original is way less busy, far easier on the eyes, the level design clearer, the enemies far easier to make out from the background. The original is quite nice especially once you get to the planet, which has a very otherworldly feel to it, with the colors and the skybox and ring and all that. These are fun places to shoot aliens in.
Both games are really going for very different vibes to them. Halo's is arena shooting, firing and then popping behind cover to reload and then firing again across various combat maps. Metroid Prime is more about exploring a holistically interconnected world. Some combat, but mostly exploration. This is even reflected in the game worlds themselves. Halo, even in the spaceship corridors, is far less of a claustrophobic game than Metroid. There are few large exterior areas in MP, and this is where Halo seems to excel.
Ultimately it comes down to taste. Both of these games are very good.
The first game is starting off very strong. At first I was enjoying it and thinking "This is a lot like DOOM 2016 art design wise" and accidentally I hit the Tab key and switched back to the original graphics and I left it there because yes please these are good enough and even look fine at 4k. I'm super glad that they included the option to instantly switch back to original graphics. I left it there and continued playing. The geometry and art design in the original is way less busy, far easier on the eyes, the level design clearer, the enemies far easier to make out from the background. The original is quite nice especially once you get to the planet, which has a very otherworldly feel to it, with the colors and the skybox and ring and all that. These are fun places to shoot aliens in.
Both games are really going for very different vibes to them. Halo's is arena shooting, firing and then popping behind cover to reload and then firing again across various combat maps. Metroid Prime is more about exploring a holistically interconnected world. Some combat, but mostly exploration. This is even reflected in the game worlds themselves. Halo, even in the spaceship corridors, is far less of a claustrophobic game than Metroid. There are few large exterior areas in MP, and this is where Halo seems to excel.
Ultimately it comes down to taste. Both of these games are very good.
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Havoc2049
Member
Halo is a better game IMO, the campaign, music, story and set pieces just fell more grand and epic. It also depends on what genres you enjoy as well. Metroid Prime has more platformer elements, while Halo is a strait up FPS, with a heavy dose of vehicle combat as well, which was fairly unique to the genre at the time. Then if you include multi-player and co-op, Halo comes out on top even more.
As far as impact on the industry, gaming culture and gaming communities, the Halo series destroys the Metroid Prime series. Halo fans made their own tunneling software for the PC so they could play multi-player online. Halo Lan parties and tournaments became a massive part of the Xbox community. Many Lan gaming centers added Xbox consoles to meet the demand. The first National Halo Tournament in 2002 was massive, with the finals being televised on G4 TV. Halo was there at the forefront of machinema. Then you have all the Halo novels, graphic novels, soundtracks, movies, figures, toys, etc.
Then if you go by the hype surrounding their sequels, it's easy to see that gamers preferred Halo CE over Metroid Prime.
Halo 2 Launch hype:
Metroid Prime 2 Echoes Launch hype:
No videos found.
From Wikipedia:
Echoes sold 470,000 copies in North America in December 2004.[62] It was the ninth best-selling game in its debut month in Japan with 16,105 copies sold, ranking it behind Yu Yu Hakusho Forever and Hanjuku Hero 4: 7-Jin no Hanjuku Hero.[63] By August 2009, 800,000 copies had sold worldwide.
As far as impact on the industry, gaming culture and gaming communities, the Halo series destroys the Metroid Prime series. Halo fans made their own tunneling software for the PC so they could play multi-player online. Halo Lan parties and tournaments became a massive part of the Xbox community. Many Lan gaming centers added Xbox consoles to meet the demand. The first National Halo Tournament in 2002 was massive, with the finals being televised on G4 TV. Halo was there at the forefront of machinema. Then you have all the Halo novels, graphic novels, soundtracks, movies, figures, toys, etc.
Then if you go by the hype surrounding their sequels, it's easy to see that gamers preferred Halo CE over Metroid Prime.
Halo 2 Launch hype:
Metroid Prime 2 Echoes Launch hype:
No videos found.
From Wikipedia:
Echoes sold 470,000 copies in North America in December 2004.[62] It was the ninth best-selling game in its debut month in Japan with 16,105 copies sold, ranking it behind Yu Yu Hakusho Forever and Hanjuku Hero 4: 7-Jin no Hanjuku Hero.[63] By August 2009, 800,000 copies had sold worldwide.
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Counter Strike is far, far more influential than Halo. Both at the time and since. CS is the absolute gold standard for a multiplayer FPS and has been relevant for the entirety of Halos existence while Halo has been middling in mediocrity for over a decade now.
Halo did a few things adapting FPS to consoles but that’s about it.
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skit_data
Member
Dude, your treading on very deep water now.
Balducci30
Member
How so - does anyone actually remember how gigantic halo was for the industry. Quake and Unreal Tournament were arena shooters - there was nothing as accessible and popular as halo was at the time FPS wise
Balducci30
Member
Majorly minimizing the impact it had on gaming. CS was a lot more niche than halo was and always will be - halo turned console FPS into a legitimate thing - it straight up changed the entire landscape of the genre. To deny it is preposterous. Halo 1 and 2, the rest no - then Call of Duty became the thing building on a lot of groundwork halo provided. The last super successful FPS on console was what goldeneye beforehand? You can barely play that game now just due to the control scheme.
EDIT: Just for a tangible list this is what is still felt today in almost every FPS as a result of halo: “Shooters are still feeling the influence of some of the best and freshest ideas of Halo. The ability to carry only two weapons and think strategically about which you pick up? Halo. Recharging shields that force you to find a shady spot and consider your tactical options mid-fight? Halo. Grenades on a trigger button, ready at all times? Halo. The standard in console FPS control schemes? Halo again.”
I always found it ridiculous how many PC gamers got super elitist about the game when it came out - but there wasn’t an FPS that did all the things halo did as well as halo did in one package - just in terms of pure gameplay. It’s like playing half life the first time and not understanding how mind blowing it was at the time to have these scripted events that are now totally common place. Just as now there are many games that do what Halo did. The difference between the two series is that Half Life has continued to innovate with each entry where halo has not.
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skit_data
Member
It was gigantic mostly for the console industry. It was big on PC as well, but there were other games that came before it that in turn had influenced Halo CE, namely Quake, Unreal and Half-Life. Valve rebuilt the Quake engine for Goldsource and the Unreal Engine iteratitions went on to become the go-to creative tools for many years and are in Unreal Engines case probably as big as ever.
Also, Steam? Yeah, I seriously doubt it would have taken off in the way it did if it wasn’t for CS 1.6 requiring it you to play. Unreal and CS are still to this day very much present and changing the industry in an unprecedented way. Time will tell if Halo will make a large scale comeback, but for now it looks like its peak influence was the early-mid 2000s.
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Balducci30
Member
i put a list of what it still influences in FPS games to this day in the post. Making consoles a viable place to play FPS games cannot be dismissed as that has changed the genre as a whole.
namekuseijin
Banned
Super Metroid of course.
MP is so-so. And often gets in weird polls like this along with mindless shooters...
MP is so-so. And often gets in weird polls like this along with mindless shooters...
ShinraMiddleMananger
Banned
Insurmountable hype and expectations are a hell of a drug
Iced Arcade
Member
That's a super weird comparison... Let's do Forza vs Mario Kart next.
2 of my favorite games of all time, only voted Halo because it's still frequently played. Absolutely not a knock on Metroid though
2 of my favorite games of all time, only voted Halo because it's still frequently played. Absolutely not a knock on Metroid though
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I mean, with that "on par" descriptor you're basically leaving it up to your preference which may always be Halo, but even if not that badly, Halo was, when it released, obviously the latest to do it and use the then latest technology to do it so you're selling short that loads of games did it before, in their own time and tech, from Terminator: Future Shock, to Battlezone (1998, see the recent Redux, funny you mention RTS as this is basically incorporating RTS elements, pre-Dreamcast!), to Codename Eagle, to Tribes 2, to Battlezone II (also Reduxed) and all kinds of other games where vehicles had an integral part whether in single or multiplayer and were a lot more developed than going back to something like say, Shadow Warrior's or GoldenEye 007's brief tank gimmicks, or games that had a variety of vehicles but no character FPS part, so inevitably they'd keep doing it and Halo then followed the trend but did it at just the right time with then next gen and online consoles to become their blockbuster. Operation Flashpoint was just before Halo too (but clearly wasn't trying to be the next blockbuster but for milsim freaks to say the least, as the series continues to be as ARMA).
Edit: in case it's not clear the first game above isn't the Redux remaster. Just saying. And for Tribes 2, it's super hard to find any good quality match footage without screaming, music or mods that will show the FPS and vehicle aspects and how they worked online, being such an old game.
Found some decent Tribes 2 videos after all and I don't think they look far more outdated than Halo's multiplayer or anything. Maps more barren, sure, but that was also for their trademark Tribes jet powered hill "skiing" gameplay and it also had a max 128 (!) players so they had to be vast etc. And it was of course building on 1998's Starsiege: Tribes which had many of these elements already and was also 128 players max. But it does look like the tech was far more outdated in those two years or whatever, tech was moving fast back then. I think you'd have liked a Tribes 2 on Xbox.
Counter Strike had two weapons "only" first as did other (for the time, compared to sci-fantasy stuff) realistic games like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon (they also employed a ton of gadgets and what not though). Thank god few have copied Halo's hunt for a new weapon after a single clip crap though. All kinds of games had and have different limits to suit their playstyle though. There were tons of class based games before Halo as well and they too didn't have all weapons at once, only the class you chose, which could be a handful. Like Team Fortress or Enemy Territory. Or Tribes.
PS: Technically my preference would be Halo as well. I'm not big on RTS OR multiplayer and it offers a "normal" FPS campaign I'd be more inclined to play (but again with current choices I haven't, I just don't find it that fun, even if by genre and style it should appeal to me). Maybe you share some of these preferences and that's why you were drawing a total blank outside Half-Life. Maybe now you can see that things were heading that way one way or another whether Halo had become a thing or not. Not that every game has to have all the vehicles and all the modes and everything, COD still sells without being so focused on vehicle play unlike Battlefield (which succeeded Codename Eagle) for example. So any number of games that didn't do vehicles weren't necessarily less modern/good, it just wasn't their goal as it continues to not be a goal for many greats since Halo.
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Halo had a 5 year period of influence. By 2007 when 3 came out the console games had already moved to mimicking CoD.
Yeah, it had heavy influence on control scheme being adapted to console but that’s basically where it begins and ends.
CS is still one of the most popular FPS out today, arguably responsible for the initial success of Steam, it’s gameplay is timeless whereas Halos doesn’t stand the test of time at all.
Honestly not even in the same league. CS will likely still be played in some form a decade or two from now whereas there’s a solid chance that Halo might not even be a thing.
Balducci30
Member
I listed out the things that are still commonplace today due to halo. And no the influence of the series doesn’t begin and end with the Halo franchise that’s the entire point - basically all modern FPS shooters took some element from halo whether that’s 2 weapons, the controls, regenerating health or shoulder grenade button. The gameplay is still fun but there are more shooters out today that did what Halo does better precisely because they iterated on that foundation. I get you may not like the game but we’re talking about impact here and if you’re trying to make the argument it had little impact then I don’t know what to say - it is factually considered one of the most influential games ever
Balducci30
Member
I know tribes - it was probably the closest to Halo in terms of the vehicles and open stuff. But I still don’t see it as sort of a marker to a shift in the industry like halo. The reason I said half life is because that created a huge shift in the way FPS games were presented and nearly all of them afterwards started incorporating elements from it (including halo). I guess you could make the argument that if it wasn’t halo it would be something else but considering that it was halo and people were actively trying to make halo killers for years I do think there is something yo be said for what it tapped into. Similar to Star Wars in many ways
Jigsaah
Gold Member
I mean if you put steak next to cake and told me to decide which one I would eat...I'm going Steak 100% of the time.
nkarafo
Member
Have you ever played a Metroid game before?
93xfan
Banned
Halo 4 was garbage though.
Really tough choice, btw. Went with Halo in the end. Would you consider it’s multiplayer and LAN parties, it’s tough to beat
93xfan
Banned
-Dedicated buttons for melee and grenades
-melee not being a last resort, but an effective move in a FPS
-the way the auto aim works for a console FPS
-The shield recharging that changed how developers saw health in future FPS.
-the two weapon maximum
-The trail left a sniper rifle shot to show the location of the shooter
There are many ways Halo changed gaming. Metroid Prime is incredible too, but your post just seems ignorant
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Calverz
Member
Yes goldeneye was the first undoubtedly but halo was the next big game changer. All those games you mentioned were PC shooters. Halo changed the console shooting scene. And the impact was so large, that elements of the hame started to enter the pc shooter space too.
Half life 2 introduced the buggy vehicle and unreal tournament 2004 introduced vehicles too. Inspired by halos warthogs and tanks.
As for the dreamcast, i had one. Loved it. But there were no genre defining shooters on it. Sure Quake 3 online was amazing at the time but that was more or less a pc port.
Even today you can feel the effects of halo in the shooter space. Whereas unreal and quake are dead.
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Dedicated buttons for melee were a thing since freaking Duke Nukem 3D, grenades since Team Fortress Classic, come on. And you're calling another ignorant? They aren't things every game has to adopt just as even TF2 doesn't have the grenades because its design didn't warrant that even post-Halo. Everything else has been addressed in the thread already as being in numerous games prior as well, perhaps save for the sniper trail stuff, hard to search for something so menial (edit: yep, Tribes & 2 had something similar too, as did Quake III for its sniper-purpose railgun, though trails for all kinds of other weapons were a staple in FPS even before it) that far from many games have adopted as they all balance things like spotting very differently for their own gameplay, same as the two weapon limit, just because Rainbow Six and Counter-Strike had it didn't mean every next game followed suit, even post Halo many games don't, or vehicles, loads of games did it, COD still carries on largely without them or at least with them as little more than level/brief gimmicks that have been done since Shadow Warrior which isn't exactly the same. Regenerating health has been in a million other games, from shooters to RPGs. And it's not even regenerating health in Halo, it's the shield, Halo 2 adopted regenerating health around the time COD did too. Having to narrow anything down as "but it did it on console" (though many of my examples had console versions years prior) or any other particular platform shows how they aren't really new. Metroid Prime isn't the first Metroid-like FPS either, that would be Powerslave or something far older, but neither other games nor Halo adopted that design simply because it wasn't their goal and doesn't have to be and thus Metroid Prime happened way later as something largely more unique than the average FPS just like Powerslave was different to the average corridor shooter a la Doom or even 3D FPS like Quake. From just saying what they prefer over a stupid poll folks claim Halo is god's first son.
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chorizosausage#3774
Member
metroid, I like both. but metroid is more memorable.
Paltheos
Member
Metroid Prime, I think, but I only played Halo recently and was incredibly bored by it. Big, wide levels with little in the environments that stand out that make them interesting to traverse and made all the worse by the godawful slow movement speed. I also remember enemies being too spongy but I was playing only on hard so maybe I was doing it wrong. I dropped it a few hours in.
In Metroid Prime I still remember the layouts of so many rooms. By comparison everything was just the right size and getting around is so much easier (and fun) in this game. Plus amazing music in almost every level, some fun boss encounters, collectibles that encouraged me to explore every nook even more... it's really kinda apples and oranges, but Metroid stands out so much better in my mind.
In Metroid Prime I still remember the layouts of so many rooms. By comparison everything was just the right size and getting around is so much easier (and fun) in this game. Plus amazing music in almost every level, some fun boss encounters, collectibles that encouraged me to explore every nook even more... it's really kinda apples and oranges, but Metroid stands out so much better in my mind.
mcjmetroid
Member
This poll is really blowing people up haha.
Keep hearing the words "influential"
Ya fantastic but what do you think is the better game who cares what other people think.
Metroid Prime shits over Halo and in my opinion.. Metroid primes sequels.
Keep hearing the words "influential"
Ya fantastic but what do you think is the better game who cares what other people think.
Metroid Prime shits over Halo and in my opinion.. Metroid primes sequels.
massivekettle
Member
I used to have both the OG Xbox and the GameCube and have played both games many times over. Both offer a sensational gaming experience in different ways, which is why they are hard to compare. For me, though, Halo edged it simply due to the better replay value (thanks to Co-Op and Multiplayer).
This kind of posts brings absolutely nothing to the discussion.
This kind of posts brings absolutely nothing to the discussion.
DevilMayFlyForAWhiteGuy
Member
I’ve never liked the 2nd half of Halo CE. I know they were on time constraints to launch for Xbox so they had to reuse a lot of assets, but that’s the main thing that hasn’t aged well.
Metroid Prime however is my favorite game of all time. Metroid Fusion on the GBA got me in to gaming, which made me want to play Prime. The fully realized world packed with all that detail mixed with the perfectly paced Metroid gameplay blew my mind when I was a kid.
Halo was fun to play with friends, but Prime felt like I was on an actual different planet. Plus the game still holds up well today. The only complaint I usually hear about it is the Artifact hunt being boring, but on replays of it you can get them as soon as you want (with the right item/ability).
Halo was the popular game all the kids talked about at lunch, but Prime was the true MVP of that gen stuck on the least popular console.
Metroid Prime however is my favorite game of all time. Metroid Fusion on the GBA got me in to gaming, which made me want to play Prime. The fully realized world packed with all that detail mixed with the perfectly paced Metroid gameplay blew my mind when I was a kid.
Halo was fun to play with friends, but Prime felt like I was on an actual different planet. Plus the game still holds up well today. The only complaint I usually hear about it is the Artifact hunt being boring, but on replays of it you can get them as soon as you want (with the right item/ability).
Halo was the popular game all the kids talked about at lunch, but Prime was the true MVP of that gen stuck on the least popular console.
Arkam
Member
Ok I’ll give you “on consoles”. I remember so many people (console only players) being super impressed with Halo. Also Halo didn’t introduce vehicles. Tribes had them, redline had them as did other 90s shooters.
In my observation, Halo was like Modern Warefare. Didn’t really do anything all that new. But delivered a tight package that pulled in the more casual audience. I mean it was all I could do when someone told me how “amazing” Search and Destroy mode was. It was All I could due to to stop myself from explaining it was CS-lite.
Calverz
Member
Yea thats fair enough points you make. I mean everyone all has different viewpoints on the topic so its interesting to hear others perspective on this. I dont think its really fair to compare the two from the off anyway. One is a straight up fps, the other is more like a platformer with an 1st person viewpoint. Sure there is gunplay, but solving puzzles and traversal are equally important. If not more.
I love both games for sure.
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