Halo: putting Anger Management Counselor's Children through college

frostytheplebe

Seventh Part of the Seal
What is it about Halo and its sequals that causes so much anger in people? I used to play the game with a large group, by the end one controller had been tossed across the room, at least 85 fists have been thrown, and words of anger were in no short supply.

This same thing happened other nights:

A Halo tournament had to be broken up at my college because of all the swearing and arguing.

The police had been called to break up a fight in a nearby dorm that was aparently caused by someone smacking another kid for talking too much smack during a halo game... DAMN!

Not to mention the several games where I wound up being pummeled for no other reason the either people didn't like being run over the by ghost, me being a "rocket whore" or going around meleeing everyone in the head.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is up with this game?
 
It's go nothing to do with the game. The people in question would be getting in fights and doing their stupid stuff no matter what they were doing. It's just a popular franchise that those people happen to play.
 
It must have *something* to do with the game... the worlds most terrible people didn't all suddenly decide to adopt Halo as their game at JerkCon 2001 and then stick with it all these years. It's condusive to that audience in exactly the same way that a lot of Carcasonne attracts hyper-intense board game geeks and Tom Clancy games attract serious calculating gamers and Shadowrun attracts absolutely no one.

It's not some horrible accident, either - the Halo robot is on all our Mountain Dews and billboards and CICs specifically to remind twenty bazillion frat boys and Dan from Dan's Wing Commander Movie Siteses that it's time to go around swearing like sailors again.

It's in the basic design of the game, too... from being easy to pick up and play to having fun primary colors on stuff to having an easy sci-fi story with the edges rounded off. As lame as it may make the online experience for regular people, Microsoft wants (and thrives on) that massive jerk audience.

As Paladin says, that's not necessarily a criticism - if they'd done the same thing for Arena, we be assured Wing Commanders 6 through 12 already. Look at Uno, which is in basically the same boat as Halo - great game, but simplified and sold(/given away) in a manner designed to attract as many jackasses as possble.
 
I agree, it's not the game. But the fact that you can play it on Live and act like a jerk with no repercussions.

Penny Arcade has much truth here - http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

Online gaming is like that. I'm sure you take people who jerked off when playing online the past 7 years and watch them play with others, those conditioned behaviors break out. Add in alcohol, boom.

It's also a reason why a number of people (including me) don't particularly like online gameplay. Sure, we'll play against friends or small groups (like pulled from here), rather than the general public.
 
I agree, it's not the game. But the fact that you can play it on Live and act like a jerk with no repercussions.

I have to say that it does have something to do w/ the game. I have felt "halo rage" myself. I get shot in the head or something, and if I'm playing a group of people in the same room, and its the right circumstance, i get this inexplicable urge to hit that person with my fist.

That type of rage hasn't happened in WC... ok it doesn't unless I'm shot down while flying an Epee.

It doesn't even happen in games that actually do piss me off:

Shaq Fu, Zero Wing, Micky Mania :p, or even the computer version of Star Trek Legacy
 
I have yet to get into a "Halo rage" where I've actually hit someone. Sure, there may be times when I'll cuss up a storm, but I turn off my mic before I do, and then turn it back on when I'm in a better mood.
 
I hold a belief that every situation in life can be answered with a penny arcade comic

Penny Arcade is evidence that not everyone has a sense of humor or an understanding of what makes something funny.

As for Halo - I can't comment on how the people are playing the game, since I've only beaten the original in single player and messed around with the Halo 3 Beta. I can, however, comment on the type of people that try to talk to me about Halo and they're generally people I never, ever want to see ever again. Their "come to Jesus" mentality is like watching droves of zombies repeating the same catchphrase endlessly, so that it no longer has meaning to anyone but themselves.

This isn't to say that Halo fans are the only ones who do this. I've run across the type many, many times when it comes to online gaming. Counterstrike, Battlefield and Unreal Tournament has been ruined by similar people. However, Halo fans are the Boston Red Sox fans of the gaming world; they tend to be obnoxious, loud and take any fun away from the game the moment they make an appearance. There is nothing good about them or anything they do.
 
Clearly Microsoft is planting subliminal messages in the game that flash the words "PUNCH HIM!" to fast for your eyes to see but just slow enough for your mind to process when you get killed in Halo.

They should be applauded - maybe all the Halo-playing idiots in the world will kill each other, and the rest of us will be that much safer. Think about that for a minute - instead of being inside killing each other at Halo, all those people could be out on the streets doing it to you!

This is the best part of this thread, and will never stop making me laugh:
It's condusive to that audience in exactly the same way that a lot of Carcasonne attracts hyper-intense board game geeks and Tom Clancy games attract serious calculating gamers and Shadowrun attracts absolutely no one.
 
I think a lot of it has to do with the way the gameplay is set up for online multiplayer. I haven't played Halo 3 yet but I was playing Halo 2 a few weeks ago on Xbox Live in a random room with people I didn't know. After a few moments of playing and getting killed once, I waited for my character to respawn so I could go at it again. As soon as I respawned I'm dead, hit by a sniper somewhere on the map. So I wait and respawn again, and again I'm dead as soon as I appear, this happens four or five times in a row before I can move. I don't even have a chance to look around or try to get out of the line of fire. To make the situation worse, I have someone telling me how they "owned" me or saying some other obsenity because they can pick me off with the sniper rifle when I spawn.

To me it is this situation and these kinds of jerks who ruin first person shooters like halo. I don't mind if you sneak up on me somewhere on the map, or otherwise kill me before I kill you. Or if you pick me off while I'm trying to advance on your position or base. But the people who snipe right at the spawn points over and over again, not even giving the other players a chance to move and then telling them that they suck is the definition of a jerkoff in the online world. There are certain people who take joy in taking advantage of the game to be an ass to other players like this.

In comparison, I never had this problem in Wing Commander Arena even when playing with 15 other players. Even when i respawned near somebody, it was not right in the gunsights of the player who just killed me, and I had the ability to start maneuvering and try to get out of the opponent's line of fire.
 
To me it is this situation and these kinds of jerks who ruin first person shooters like halo.

Its not just Halo and its not just FPS though. A lot of people know exactly how to play Warcraft and Civilization to the point where its nothing more than "lather, rinse, repeat". They know what to do, how to do it and quickly. This is why I generally only play with people I know anymore - I don't like having to play against people who have any game down to a science.
 
I think a lot of it has to do with the way the gameplay is set up for online multiplayer. I haven't played Halo 3 yet but I was playing Halo 2 a few weeks ago on Xbox Live in a random room with people I didn't know. After a few moments of playing and getting killed once, I waited for my character to respawn so I could go at it again. As soon as I respawned I'm dead, hit by a sniper somewhere on the map. So I wait and respawn again, and again I'm dead as soon as I appear, this happens four or five times in a row before I can move. I don't even have a chance to look around or try to get out of the line of fire. To make the situation worse, I have someone telling me how they "owned" me or saying some other obsenity because they can pick me off with the sniper rifle when I spawn.

To me it is this situation and these kinds of jerks who ruin first person shooters like halo. I don't mind if you sneak up on me somewhere on the map, or otherwise kill me before I kill you. Or if you pick me off while I'm trying to advance on your position or base. But the people who snipe right at the spawn points over and over again, not even giving the other players a chance to move and then telling them that they suck is the definition of a jerkoff in the online world. There are certain people who take joy in taking advantage of the game to be an ass to other players like this.

In comparison, I never had this problem in Wing Commander Arena even when playing with 15 other players. Even when i respawned near somebody, it was not right in the gunsights of the player who just killed me, and I had the ability to start maneuvering and try to get out of the opponent's line of fire.

That kind of shit can only happen on a badly designed game. That would never happen on Team Fortress 2, for instance, because the spawn rooms cannot be entered by the opposing team. And stationary snipers wouldn't last long, anyway.

That tale above, my friends, is called "Awful Game Design and Balancing". Halo is the Madden of Shooters, it attracts a hell lot of jocks and other people who would never ever play any other game (besides Madden). Of course, not all Halo players are jerks, but the jerk population in Halo is pretty damn big. Kinda like what happens with CounterStrike. There are people who play NOTHING but CS, and there are lots of assholes playing it. I mean, I played World of Warcraft for months, and had a great time, met lots of nice people. Not all online games are so filled with jerks, and even if there are assholes in all online games, some games have a far bigger share of them.
 
Its not just Halo and its not just FPS though. A lot of people know exactly how to play Warcraft and Civilization to the point where its nothing more than "lather, rinse, repeat". They know what to do, how to do it and quickly. This is why I generally only play with people I know anymore - I don't like having to play against people who have any game down to a science.

Yeah, that's also pretty bad. I don't even bother trying playing Starcraft or Warcraft 3 online... But the ASSHOLE factor is even worse.
 
That tale above, my friends, is called "Awful Game Design and Balancing". Halo is the Madden of Shooters, it attracts a hell lot of jocks and other people who would never ever play any other game (besides Madden).

I don't think it's fair to the Madden fanbase to liken them to Halo dicks. Halo is carefully designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator... Madden is an incredibly complex game designed to appeal to an entirely *different* audience.

The incestous 'gamer' community doesn't rant about oh-no-a-sports-game because sports gamers are terrible people, they do so because they're *different* people who are separate and unaffected by Halos and Baldurs Gates and whatever else shapes the less profitable part of the gaming industry. Madden players span all age ranges and backgrounds, with the common factor being that they all love the most popular sport in the United States rather than that they all love video games.
 
**The following RANT is in no way targeted at players who are mature enough not to fight over a GAME**

Reading this I dont know whether to laugh at alot of the comments or feel pity that there are people with such a low maturity level. People fighting over Halo or any other video game is just rediculous. I have played games with the full 16 players in Iraq an everyone has always remained civil. Hell, the few down days we have are normally filled with us getting as many people together to play and entertain ourselves. And yeah, we have guys in our unit that come over, play a few hours, and regularly score 50 kills before anyone else breaks 10. Are we trying to beat them down in real life? No. Does it suck getting completely owned for hours at a time by someone who knows the game like the back of their hand? Yeah. I guess my simple point is if a bunch of guys who regularly take fire from Real Guns with Real Bullets can remain civil while playing a 'violent' video game then its just a laughable level of immaturity being exhibited by people who FIGHT over the same game. We smack talk just as much as the next guy, probably worse than alot of the online guys, and we have guys who are overworked, overstressed, and naturally hostile towards others(real bullets have a tendency to do that to you). We have never had to call doc over because Heath lost his temper when Collins killed him 75 times in one game. Or when Myers puts it on his custom "Juggernaught gets unlimited Rockets and 300% shields" game...

On a side note, when playing a shooter, people dont care about your feelings, they care about winning. Yeah, it sucks to lose. Yeah, your gonna get your feelings hurt when you get someone spawn camping and murdering you as soon as you apear on the map. Just try to remember at the end of the day it is a GAME. If your not enjoying playing it, dont go crying about how bad and evil the people dominating the games are, just play something else that you enjoy.

To conclude, powergamers are a pain in the ass, but they'll be around no matter what game you play. It's not worth beating someone down in real life because you lose a game. Try setting up games with like-minded individuals, who will play with a little sportsmanship. Or, try growing up a little bit.
 
Really, I think your being harsh toward the Halo fans. Personally I love the games. They are not the best games ever but they are good. It does seem to attract more then the usual gamer too. I personally have have really angry with it. When I play online with people I don't get as angry. When I play with friends I might get angry but in a more friendly way I guess. The people that would actually hit someone and mean it are people that have issues. I have played that game to death(all the halo's multiplayers) And I have got mad but no more then I do at any other game. Its just that Halo is really popular so you get more of those type of people that do go overboard. Plus if you don't like server, you can all ways just get off.

P.S. I really f'n hate spawn campers.
 
Really, I think your being harsh toward the Halo fans.

I think you don't know enough Halo fans ;)

But keep in mind - there is a difference between someone who plays Halo and a Halo fan. However, I've only very rarely run across someone who plays the game without turning into a rabid fanboy of the lowest kind.
 
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