> Halo 1 and 2 are subpar FPS games in the grand scheme, nasty little ripoffs of
> what was done earlier and better in Tribes.
>

Sure they ripped of a lot of games, but they did it well. Like Halcyon said, the vehicle mechanics were really well done. I found it exilerating hopping in a vehicle, while one hops in the passenger seat, and another grabs the gun in the back (woah, that sounded homo-erotic :-/) Sure, nothing revolutionary, but the elements were compiled together in a decent manner, and not a clusterfuck of "cool stuff."

IIRC the FPS genre was very dry at the time this game came out. '98/99 had a shitload of good games, eg: Half-life, Blood 2, Sin, just to name a few. Then started rolling out the "online" games, with little or no single player elements, such as Quake 3, and Unreal Tournement. Jedi Outcast didn't come out until 2002, and that was garbage, not to mention a shitload of WW2 theme'd games.

Halo seemed to bring back that single player element that was missing from games around that time. Are PC FPS creators thinking along those lines as well? Well, it looks like id tried it with doom 3. Sadly, it failed. They really missed the boat on that one. There multiplayer is fucking garbage, and the single player was boring and repetitive. Same damn scenery throughout the game, and the story was damn weak too. Far Cry brought back that Single player expierence that people have been craving for, too.

Half-life 2 comes out in less than a week. Graphics are looking poor in places, but i think the physics engine will be the highlight of the game.