A Game You Thought You Wouldn't Like, But Ended Up Loving

There have been several games over the years where the only reason I own them is because they came with the console when I bought it, or when my parents bought them for me. The original Halo game is one of those games. When I first got an Xbox it was a few years after release, it came with Halo, Midtown Madness 3, and Simpsons Hit and Run. I wasn't expecting to like Halo, in fact it sat to one side for about a week before I actually played it.

Halo 1 through 3 remain my favourite titles from the franchise, I didn't care much for the direction the franchise took beyond development by Bungie when 343 Industries took over. FPS games never appealed to me as a kid, the thought of picking one up never occurred to me. Halo drew me in more so for the sci-fi and fantasy elements to the game. My favourite TV show at the time was Stargate SG-1 and Halo ended up being the closest thing to a game with a similar theme that I could play.

I ended up loving the extended media more than the game itself, I read the novelizations of the game and learned all I could about the lore of the universe the developers had created. To date I still don't play FPS games, the mechanics themselves aren't all that interesting, and the level of precision needed from the player to be competent in the games is higher than my visual impairment affords me, this was one reason why I never ventured into the multiplayer aspects of the games or the co-op campaigns.

Nevertheless the first three games ended up being something of an obsession, the second instalment I remember was given to me as a Christmas present by a friend from University as he knew I had an Xbox 360 at the time and hadn't played the second game yet, I returned the favour buying him a box set of Srubs, a TV show he was a fan of at the time.

When Halo 3 was eventually released I got a limited edition copy of the game, the collector's edition that came in a metal case with artwork and some extras.

Halo changed my perception of gaming in many ways because it was a game from a genre that I had written off because I thought I would hate it but had never actually played, I know the old cliche of never judging a book by its cover rings true here but that doesn't usually apply to games considering you first impression of them is through gameplay rather than cover-art and synopses. I became more open minded when it came to picking games in subsequent years, arguably Portal is another series I would have completely written off if I had judged it by its genre alone, but equally I ended up loving the series after playing it.

Today I tend to rely on content creators on YouTube uploading playthroughs of games as a means of discovering new games I might be interested in. When you find a channel that covers games you like to play it can be a treasure trove of discovery when you see the games they have played, if your taste is similar you often end up seeing titles and wondering why they would be interested in them and then watch their gameplay and see why. There's a pretty decent chunk of my Steam library at this point that is made up of titles I only bought because I saw someone else play them and thought that they looked fun.