Halo 2

[Quark]

Fantastic game. ... It was wonderfully written, had great voice acting, and was perhaps the most imaginative and epic story telling since PS:T.

Wait, what? Can you seriously have just compared Halo 2's story with the greatest story ever in a game? Halo 2 has the best story I've seen in an FPS, yes. But I never touched the Half Life series, and gave up quickly on other 'hybrid' style FPSs. Getting 'Best Story' in the FPS category is like winning a Division III football game. You get 5 minute sound bytes in between the levels that are filler in between fights. Good filler, yes, but you can't possibly tell me that a game where 5% of the time is spent listening to story, none of it interactive at all, compares to anything non-FPS.

Perhaps my only complaint is the way the game ends. Without spoiling anything, the game basically ends without truly resolving the main conflict of the story. It was like walking into the Fellowship of the Ring without anyone telling you there were two more movies after it, or seeing Matrix Reloaded thinking it would end the Matrix saga. I litterally put down the controller, laid back waiting to enjoy the between-level cinematics (on a side note, most levels have at 2-3 extremely well-done mid-level cinematic cut scenes and the ingame chatter flows well and adds quite a bit to the game), and was treated to the credits instead. It was abrupt and unexpected, to say the least.

Agreed. To me it screams on thing: "We're running out of time, finish it here, finish it here, SHIP SHIP SHIP!"

I'm not trying to subtract to what was a great FPS -> any FPS that I find enjoyable had to be great. It's just that I need to get into more multiplayer to see how that goes out, but I get the feeling I've already gotten the most of my fun out of the game (co-op with roommate). It lasted a whole 15 hours, maybe.