Hey guys I found this on the Interwebz and thought i would share it with you guys.

Here are 5 ways Halo has helped change the current state of gaming.

Regenerating Shields
Until Halo came along, most games relied on health packs to manage your health; suffer damage in battle and you had to go use an actual item to restore your vitality. Master Chief had a different trick up his sleeve in the form of a regenerating shield to keep him safe from bodily harm. It allowed for bold strategic maneuvers like rushing into the fold for a few critical seconds; gamers could gamble a little, safe in the knowledge that they could compensate for their suicidal ways by ducking back to safety and letting their shields come back online. The shield also proved to be the difference between surviving an intense firefight and dying a bloody death; and seriously, who wants to juggle through an inventory for a band-aid or go hunt around for a health pack in the middle of a battle? Halo didnt completely abandon health packs - you could still pick them up to repair any damage done when your shields dissipated - but the shield allowed us all to keep our focus where it belongs: on dishing out the pain, rather than trying to micromanage it.

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Console FPS Controls
Many will argue that the N64 classic Goldeneye was the first console FPS to nail down a solid control scheme that rivaled the PCs keyboard and mouse, and theyd be right. But the N64s controller was far too unique for its own good and has since gone the way of the dodo; it also lacked a critical feature that has become commonplace in todays gaming landscape: dual analog sticks. While the original Microsoft controller was an unwieldy hunk of plastic, it, along with the original Halo, helped set the language of console FPS gaming in stone. It established control conventions that are still in use today. Things like using the left stick for movement; the right stick for manipulating your viewpoint; the right trigger for firing your weapon; and the A button for jump became the norm thanks in large part to Halo. The controls were further refined in Halo 2, but by then, other developers had adopted the scheme and the rest is history.

Online Console Multiplayer
While Activisions Modern Warfare franchise is the current king of the console multiplayer hill, Master Chief held that throne long before Call of Duty left the trenches of World War II. The Halo franchise helped establish the Xbox Live service as the dominant force in online console gaming, attracting a ton of gamers to the pay-to-play service. Halos leaderboards and devoted community also served as a model for other publishers looking to suck gamers in long after theyd wrapped up the single-player campaign.

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Machinima
Using games as an impromptu storytelling medium is nothing new, as gamers had been creating machinima for ages before Halo came out, but thanks to a band of creative gamers who called themselves Rooster Teeth, the art of machinima was pushed further into the mainstream spotlight. With a little creative editing and subtle manipulation of the controller, the team was able to concoct Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, a humorous tale about two warring factions of Spartans. The series proved to be so immensely popular, it allowed the creators to form their own company, and it helped further legitimize the budding medium.



Melee
Halo didnt invent the FPS melee attack (Doom Guy was socking fools before Master Chief was even born) but it refined it into a deadly art form all its own. Butting aliens with our guns in close-quarters combat was satisfying, and the ease with which this action was performed made it all the better: a single click and your enemys brain went squish like a piece of Jell-O pressed between a fat mans fingers. Things got really interesting with the introduction of the wieldable energy sword in Halo 2. This powerful weapon bred an entire legion of online players who dedicated themselves to mastering melee combat. Many other FPS games would go on to follow Halos example, turning close-quarters combat into a legitimate tactic. So the next time you get shanked by a guy in Modern Warfare 2, you know who to blame.

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Bonus Teabagging
Teabagging has become a part of our gaming culture, and you can thank Halo for its existence. For those who don't know, teabagging is the act of humiliating an opponent after killing him (sensitive readers should refrain from searching out the term on Google, as it's derived from an act involving the male genitals) and it was a devious and ingenious way of salting an opponent's wound. While other games allowed you to taunt opponents, teabagging is so awesome and so humiliating because it wasn't something the developers built into the game: it was the community that discovered it and put it to good use, which is why it became so memorable.