10 Video Game Franchises That Never Got Better Than The First Instalment

6. Halo

The Franchise: Explaining the Halo series is something that really only needs to be done to non-Microsoft players. The game that put the original Xbox on the map and will prove to be a big reason many people take the plunge and get an Xbox One, Halo is a game with the right balance of sci-fi story and good old fashioned shooter gameplay. There's a deep mythology expanded upon in books, movies and their like, but the games present just the important elements that make it (almost) comprehensible; invading aliens the Covenant are threatening humanity and are attempting to stop the Flood, an deadly parasitic race, by using the destructive Halo rings. OK, it's pretty complicated, but that doesn't get in the way of the action, which varies from tense encounters with packs of aliens in small corridors to epic battles against giant mechs in vast open vistas. Why The First Was Best: The real money shot of Combat Evolved, the first game in the series, comes very early on. After the ship he's travelling on is ambushed, the series' hero Master Chief crash lands on one the titular rings. The sight of seeing the construction looping round in the sky is a jaw-dropper the series has been trying (unsuccessfully) emulate over the past five games. And that's just one example of how the original game did everything best. The later games (particularly those starring Chief) are all great, but the first feels the most natural; at this point the story isn't complicated for the sake of it. Given a current-gen overhaul in 2011 to mark its ten-year anniversary, graphical complaints about Combat Evolved are less pressing, meaning modern gamers can now experience it for the masterpiece it is.