I'm not going into a discussion about this again. See
the previous thread for the same discussion, since I doubt we will be able to advance it any further.
I will though write this once again. Games are not about having fun. They are not about arcade shooting like Halo in many ways is. You need to add immaterial, abstract elements to games in order to make them great. Halo fails in this department. Halo does not have different layers of subtleties. Halo doesn't even contribute with "fun" gameplay. I just bought the id Super Pack off Steam and since I've never played the Doom 3 expansion Resurrection of Evil, I'm playing it now. The story is a cliché, but surprisingly the gameplay isn't even fun. I bought Prey some time ago and the story was a complete mess but once again the gameplay was all but fun. I don't think I've ever played such a poor game. And Halo is just that. A popular FPS that isn't even fun. But as I started out with saying, whether or not a game is fun doesn't make it great. It doesn't make it worth talking about it beyond the time invested in playing it.
You really need to make the distinction between entertainment and art. It is fun playing Mine Sweeper and I would probably rate it 4/5 for the fun, but it makes no sense to compare it to Bloodlines (for example). It is not the degree of fun that determines the quality of a game. Mine Sweeper isn't an experience that have an impact on me or brings forth deeper thought, so fun alone doesn't constitute a great game.
But yes, I enjoy my fair share of multiplayer FPS mindlessness, but I don't consider those games as memorable and great video games. I actually play a lot of CoD 2 multiplayer, but it will never be a great game. It will always just be entertainment to me.
All I'm saying is that I don't mind if you like Halo. I don't mind if you tell your friends it is a game they should try and something very stimulating. I would recommend my friends to play CoD 2 multiplayer too, because it is good past time entertainment. But I do mind when it is considered as one of the best games ever made. I do mind when it is seen in the same context as games with a deeper layer and when it even is considered better than those games. The video gaming culture and especially the rating system needs to be revised to accommodate that games designed to be fun should not be viewed in the same category as games designed with abstract themes as the main element. Keep the two things apart and you may praise Halo all you want (Though I would still protest because Halo is not fun
).
I do not expect that you agree with me, but that is okay too. I'm not interested in spending time debating this again, even though this post turned out longer than originally intended.