9 Launch Games That Singlehandedly Made Their Consoles Worth Buying

1. Halo: Combat Evolved - Xbox

Halo Combat Evolved
Microsoft

It's back-breakingly tough to gauge the impact Bungie's shooter has had on games since its humble beginnings in 2001. Master Chief and the supporting UNSC/Covenant/Flood (that last one not so much) cast solidified not just Microsoft's first foray into the console market, but a series of subtle conventions for console shooters that continue to be adopted today by others crediting Halo as inspiration.

At the turn of the Millennium, FPS', let alone those that enabled multiplayer, were few and far between. Rare's GoldenEye 007, up to that point, had been the gold standard for which all subsequent examples in the genre were measured against.

That Halo made Bond's only good game outing look archaic by comparison just goes to show how forward-thinking Bungie had been with its new IP and Microsoft will forever owe Bungie a debt for its services to the Xbox brand because of it.

It's not the perfect video game, but Halo was, is and will forever remain one of the most important in Bungie, Microsoft and Xbox's history.

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Contributor
Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.