Halo: CE was an accidental masterpiece and has the best core gameplay in my opinion. Accidental in that the multiplayer was implemented at the last minute, yet somehow managed to capture the essence of Quake-style arena shooters and bring them to a console.

It has a very balanced weapon sandbox and the best maps from a design perspective - Prisoner, Chill Out, Damnation, Hang em High. Halo 2 undoubtedly has some classics as well - Lockout, Midship, Sanctuary.

I'm not even sure Bungie were aware of what a balanced multiplayer game they had on their hands, except for dudes like John Howard who went on to make Shadowrun.

I feel that:

Halo 1 has the best story mode and the best 2v2 multiplayer experience by far, nothing evenly comes remotely close to Halo 1 2v2.

Halo 2 has the best 4v4 multiplayer experience. Great single player, but still not the best.

IMO the rest of the Halo campaigns tie for a solid third (they're all kinda the same to me), but Halo's multiplayer has gotten worse and worse over time on the 360. I enjoyed Big Team Battle in everything except for Reach. Halo Wars deserves a shoutout from me because Halo Wars' multiplayer is an amazing experience, in fact it's the only Halo game on the 360 that I play regularly. I still hop on Halo PC, and I should play Halo 2 XBC from time to time but I don't =/

So yes, I voted for Halo 1 because I feel that it had the best campaign and Halo 1 2v2 surpasses all other Halo multiplayer experiences in both fun and depth, although Halo 2 isn't very far behind.

3 probably has the best campaign, 2 absolutely has the best multiplayer.

So the answer is 2.

@hitzel: hey man, long time no see. I always enjoy reading your posts.

The one with ALL UNITS

I picked Reach, really surprised to see it so far behind CE. As an overall package it was easily the game I spent most time with, and to me significantly better than any of the others.

For the Single player game I think either Halo 1 or Halo 3 are the best. For multiplayer I thought Halo 4 was the best actually. Too bad the community died. Hopefully it will become popular in the Master Chief Collection.

Probably an unpopular opinion but I think 3 is the best. Only time I ever cared about my online skill rank in a shooter. Really solid multiplayer maps all around and a really fun campaign. Must have played through it 3 times co-op and once by myself.

Oh and for funsies Reach is the worst by far. All of the changes to multiplayer were pretty bad minus the increased mobility. Dear god Armor Lock was awful. Also the map design was super lazy in a lot of cases.

The original Halo by far. It had the only campaign that didnt feel like a disjointed mess and actually ended with some momentum. And even though I enjoyed Halo 2's frantic style of multiplayer I preferred playing Combat Evolved in 4v4 system link. Mainly because the reduced player count and smaller maps promoted teamwork which felt a lot more satisfying, it also helped that I knew everyone on my team so there was no chance of being betrayed in CTF so some dick can score a fucking flag. x(

Anyway, you cant really go wrong, they're all good games. Cant say i'm sad that ODST & Reach were left out of TMCC though.

Halo 2. It was the perfect imperfection

Out of the core halo games I pick combat evolved. But don't make me pick between ODST and Reach. I just can't! Both were so good, but god damn the music in ODST was really good... Also firefly

Reach and CE are my favorites because the Master Chief as a badass is insufferable.

The level design was also spectacular. Wide open areas with so many different ways to tackle situations. Whenever I think of Halo, those are the levels that I think of.

I found 2 to be a fine game, 3 to be a bad one, and 4 to be unplayable due to dumb as brick AI (definitely not something I expect out of a Halo game on Heroic).

3 is probably the best pound for pound (silly term, I know) pure Halo, before they started messing with loadouts and so on and so forth. THAT IS WHAT MY HEART SAYS.

I'm of the opinion there has never been a good Halo game but 3 is the least bad from what I've played (single+some multi).

I say 2 because of the Multiplayer but it has by far the worst single player of them all.

All in all Halo Reach is my favourite campaign as of now and Halo 2 had my favourite multiplayer. Though I do love each and every game for its own unique reasons.

Dont get how anyone says 3 is better then 2, at least from a multiplayer standpoint. The hit detection was bad, the netcode sucked and it had a couple standout maps but many mediocore to bad ones unlike 2 which had far more gems in terms of maps. Overall Ill say 2 is the best because im into multiplayer but from a single player perspective id go with Combat Evolved since the whole thing was full of mystery and intrigue. People can argue that it has The Library, but Cortana from Halo 3 is the worst Halo level of all time.

campaigns I'd go with Reach and ODST. I loved how different they both felt and even though they might've had their "dead" levels (a Cortana, Library style level), the different vibes made me prefer it more.

MP well I haven't played Halo 2 online but I'd say 3.

For me there are 4 that are really memorable:

Halo 2's multiplayer made it so memorable, still have fond memories of it.
Halo CE's campaign did a great job of building a world with a million questions and interesting setting. Plus that flood reveal.
Halo 3 had a great campaign, memorable fights and a killer ending.
Halo Reach had the best campaign, to me, as far as story telling and it built up interesting characters in such a short amount of time.

Ugh, I honestly don't know. I remember playing Reach and really enjoying it, but I only played it once and never got to play any more after that due to my 360 red-ringing the very next day after beating it and it being just out of the warranty period to be able to send it in and get a new one. I didn't even get to touch its multiplayer....

Each game had their own strengths. I'd probably go with 1 having the best campaign (3 is super close behind it) due to being able to remember it the most. And I think 3 had the best multiplayer game modes, in terms of being able to create so many different custom and unique gametypes with the introduction of the Forge, but I think 2 had the best default multiplayer gameplay.

ODST was definitely different, but I enjoyed it. I liked that they added back the Halo 1 health, in that you had a "shield" but you still needed to pick up medkits to survive because you weren't a super OP Spartan.

I played through 4 via co-op on my buddy's Xbox and it was the first one I didn't really like that much. It felt like a Halo game that was trying to be a Call of Duty game. The story fell all over the place, and the classic orchestral chanting monks theme not being in the game at all left a bad taste in my mouth.

There should be a "I can't choose because *insert reason*" choice. For me, I like them all about the same. I'd probably say Halo CE's my least favorite, but it's still a great game.

Halo: CE single player and Reach multiplayer. Reach was the last of the Bungie games and it perfected a multiplayer that improved in each game.

I played MP

Halo CE: once through that program that let you play online by faking a LAN

Halo 2: around 5 matches

Halo 3: around 50 matches

Reach: hundreds of matches.

torn.

Halo CE had dat pistol, maybe the best MP maps

Halo 2 had the BR/button combos/more good maps

Halo 3 had the best stuff around the game- theater, forge, etc.

Reach And ODST proved that the weakest link in the Halo series is the Master Chief. Reach for me - best gameplay/story mix.

Combat Evolved, everything about it was revolutionary for it's time (for consoles), despite some very repetitive level design, like Assault on the Control Room for example.

I feel like anyone who says ODST needs to go back and play it again. The hub world is all anyone remembers.

Halo: CE on PC was my first Halo, and it was my assured favorite until Reach came out. Playing Reach felt like playing Halo: CE again.

I guess I'll say CE because I've replayed it a couple of dozen times and I've played Reach only twice.

I picked Halo: Combat Evolved for your poll. But honestly, there's really no way to say which is the definitive best as each one has it's own merits.

I think Halo: Combat Evolved has the best campaign. It's lengthy, it tells a self contained story, and had some great moments that rank among my favorite in gaming.

Halo 2 had that great classic multiplayer that was pretty much perfect and it set the standard in its day.

Halo 3 had the best co-op I think. While I prefer the story in Halo 1, the wrap up in Halo 3 was great and all the added weaponry and equipment made for the absolute best co-op. Campaign Scoring and the Theater and Forge were great additions that added a whole new level to the ways we could have fun in a Halo game as well.

ODST has the best version of Firefight. The campaign was also very fun and I liked the characters.

Reach... well Reach was a game that many people seem to not have enjoyed the multiplayer. But I loved it. By the time Halo 3 came around, I was kinda getting tired of just the same old FFA, team deathmatch and Big Team Battle modes, and Reach had some great chaotic multiplayer that made it stand out for me. I would never say it's the best multiplayer, but I did really appreciate it. And I loved that Six was customizable. It was MY Spartan through the campaign, the co-op, the multiplayer, and the Firefight mode. That gave it an edge for me. Plus assassinations were awesome and the DMR was a game changer.

Halo 4... well Halo 4 kinda sucked for me. The campaign was weak. And while it was ambitious, the Spartan Ops was a poor substitute for Firefight. Also the multiplayer was fun but a bit too CoD for it's own good, and I hated the Prometheans. But I had fun playing the story co-op anyway, so I'm not calling it a total loss.

Bottom line: They are all great in their own way. Even Halo Wars has it's charms (though obviously it would have been better as a PC release).

Good post. I disagree on a few points, but your reasoning is sound throughout. Count me among those who prefer Halo:CE. Best campaign and best multiplayer in my book by a large margin. It just feels right. There's just something so gloriously tactile about Halo:CE's controls that was lost in Halo 2 and beyond. I didn't wholly dislike Halo 2's multiplayer; it was just different. Like you said, it was "faster, tighter, and more dynamic", but that didn't make it better, IMO. It was the beginning of the twitch shooters, and yes, dudebros hopped up on redbull fucking LOVED that shit. I mean, that kind of gameplay obviously has its place, as CoD has found plenty of success taking that "faster" formula and applying it in increasing doses with every iteration to where I now find it pretty much unplayable, but to me, you just can't beat OG Halo multiplayer. It's just solid as hell, and that CE pistol was the ultimate equalizer.

I have only played a bit of Halo 3 and 4 (never played ODST and Reach), largely because I really got turned off by Halo 2 multiplayer late in its cycle once the dudebros had figured out every exploit. I think I might be more used to it now, having played a bunch of CoD since. I'll likely be more capable with the battle rifle/carbine than I used to be, but every 12-year-old kid with nothing but free time will probably fall in love with those guns and master them even more than the dudebros did to make the game just as unplayable as it was late in its original cycle. I figure that Halo 2's multiplayer will be filled with nothing but savages in short order. That MP wasn't very well-balanced to begin with, and your average FPS player these days seems far more willing to utilize every exploit possible than gamers were back in Halo 2's heyday.

You'll find me on CE. If I ever get bored with that, I'll give Halo 2, 3, and 4 another go.