Something about halo just feels like such modern game, even halo ce. It’s so weird to think this game was contemporary with golden eye or quake. I think it was the polish with the animations, sound, and the physics. You pull out the pistol and do that satisfying pull back and click on it. You throw a grenade and hear it arm and see it thrown. You see your teammates throw grenades. You throw a grenade under a warthog, it flips it and knocks the occupants out. Even just scoping in and out of the sniper was satisfying with the sound it made.

To me it's crazy to think how far ahead of its time in terms of emergent behavior was Battlefield compared to other games, besides battle arenas. Probably it wasn't the first one either, but it's the one that comes to mind.

Picking up a tank or a jeep is one thing, but going for controlling an aircraft carrier or a submarine? Even if the controls were really primitive, it felt amazing!