Halo: Combat Evolved

"A Game That is Massively Overrated... But is Still Damn Good."

As I write this review, it is 3:25 PM, on September 25th 2007. Today is the release of Halo 3 so I have decided to write a review for Halo, hope ya dig it.

First off, Halo when it came out was the reason to buy an Xbox when it came out. This game literally sold Xboxes and quickly became known as the best game of the Xbox launch, and one of the best shooters of all time. This game also made Bungie the household name that they are today. But that is not all without criticism. The way I see it there are 3 different factions here, the people who think Halo is the best game of all time, the people who hate it with a vitriolic passion, and the people who simply think it's a good game. I am the third one, so lets see what this game is about [like anyone doesn't know]

Story: 9

The first time I played Halo, I thought that it would have just been a standard FPS story where you were killing anything that gets in your way, but I was wrong. The story for Halo is deeper than it looks. You start off as Master Chief [a cyborg soldier for the UNSC] in stasis as the Covenant [the evil aliens in this game] tries to invade the ship. You have to escape with Cortana [to UNSC's AI] and you land on the Ring known as Halo.

You soon discover that something is hidden on the planet, but soon it is unleashed by the Covenant. Parasites known as "The Flood" that infect living beings are found, and I'll let you discover the rest for yourself.

Let me just say this for the end of this section, some people don't really like the Story of Halo but it is quite good, although it really slowed down around the middle. But you really should check out the Books, they really advance the story.

Gameplay: 7

Before I start this section let me say this, much like with BioShock I really enjoyed this game, but there were some flaws in the Gameplay that kept me from fully enjoying the game.

Like a standard FPS you are given some guns, as a nice twist to the normal way of playing you can only carry two weapons at one time [Perfect Dark or Doom and all the stuff you could have in there] which does make you think about what you will carry. But because of the horrible balancing on some guns [Shotgun is to powerful] you will only carry certain weapons at times and only drop them when you need to. You also have Grenades, the normal Frag Grenades, and the Covenant sticky Plasma Grenades [ever tried to throw one of those on an Elite or a Banshee and just watch the fun, I have.], which are both useful at times. You can throw the Plasma's onto an enemy and they might run into a group of enemies and blow them up [or run at you], and you can bounce Frag's off of objects and into some group of enemies.

The AI is also very good. Your Marine ally's are smart enough to fight back, but not dumb enough to slow you down too much. The Covenant also fight well, especially the Elites, who will charge at you and bash you with their gun, or cloak and stab you with an energy sword, or wing Grenades at you, and so on. All of the AI's are smart enough to use cover, and run around when they need to which is nice because I was used to Goldeneye AI that stood there and let you plug them with a bullet to the brain.

One thing that I should mention is that in the levels there are "Checkpoints" where the game saves, you will be revived there if you die, and you can quit the game and continue from that spot. Luckily it does not ruin the gameplay, it just puts you back how you were when you saved the game, and nothing is changed. This was implemented very well and it does make some levels easier where you can just keep reviving until you kill everything instead of having to start over, very helpful on Legendary mode.

Now onto the major flaws for me, while some Levels were great, around the middle it began getting really repetitive. At that time the story seemed to slow down to me while you were running around killing the Flood and blowing stuff up while in the beginning it felt much more epic like a war game. Also, several of the levels looked like mere copies of the old levels after the Flood was unleashed. It felt like they got lazy at the end of the game and that disappointed me. Next, the vehicles, while some were fun [the Ghosts] a couple of them controlled really bad. The Warthog was the biggest example for me, it just skidded around too much and it got really frustrating to control some of the vehicles.

Now, while those things may not seem like much to you, it did bother me. But all that really matters is that there is a lot of good in Halo's gameplay.

Challenge: 7

The AI in Halo is good, and some of the levels will make you think hard enough to give you a challenge. But other than that there is nothing really hard to do unless you have the patience to keep playing to beat all four modes of the game. But the hardest part of Halo is keeping your sanity on some of the levels, which look exactly the same [looking at you Library!]

Controls: 8

The Xbox gamepad is very well made for FPS games, and you were able to do a lot. You had some extras like the lights on your guns that you could control. And you were able to easily control Master Chief. Although I do have two complaints, jumping feels awkward sometimes, and like I said above some of the Vehicles control really bad.

Graphics: 9

The first time I played Halo, I was amazed by it. Bungie really knew how to make the Xbox's hardware sing and you could see it in some of the little things they put in there. You could see the blood spurt out of the people you shot [also, a lot of things had different colored blood]; you could see bullet holes in the walls [and the spent bullets lying on the ground], the Aliens looked creepy enough [except for the Grunts... which were just funny to look at], and the Marines looked like Marines.

The levels also have great design, the first one [a ship] did not do much for me, but when I landed on the Ring which was some kind of Jungle where I was looked gorgeous and it looked like the developers spent a lot of time making great looking levels for the game.

One more thing that I liked, the ice [and some other things] will get affected up when you drive a Warthog or something else over them. On the ice you can see the tire tracks in the Ice breaking it up, or you can fly a Banshee into it and see the impact point. That was impressive for 2001.

Sound: 10

Halo sounds amazing. Throughout the game there is some excellent voice work that gives personality to the characters, and the aliens your killing [the Flood sounds really creepy, Grunts sound wimpy, the Hunters sound like a Bull when they rush at you, etc...].

But the effects are the best part, the guns sound great as you fire them, you can hear the sound of Warthog tires grinding up the dirt or the ice that you are traversing. And the Music really sets up the mood for the level you are in. The score sounds really epic, and helps you get the feel for everything.

I'll just close this thing up simply, look at the 10 I gave the sound, that's no lie it really did sound that good when I played.

Atmosphere: 9

Everything here is set up really well, the sound can draw you in and the voices sometimes make you feel like you're part of a team invading an alien planet. And when you're alone you really do feel alone [besides Cortana giving you orders]. But the above problem I had with the levels applies here, sometimes I felt lost in the levels, and I got confused by how some of them looked so similar. It really detracts from the feeling sometimes when you are going through another similar room [like in the level's "Guilty Spark" and "The Library"] and you start wondering, "when the hell am I going to get there!". Other than that Halo does a good job at keeping you immersed.

Multiplayer: 6

This is a low score, but I do have a good reason. While some games did a lot for Multiplayer [like Perfect Dark], Halo did not seem to do very much. Although it was going to be on Xbox Live, that wasn't finished in time, so it wasn't implemented. There are some good levels like Blood Gulch, but all Halo feels like is playing Split Screen Goldeneye games. Although you can play with 16 players, that does require too much work to be worth doing in my mind.

Replayability: 7

You can keep going to beat the four difficulty modes [that is tough], and you can play Multiplayer with 16 people but otherwise there isn't much to do after you finish the game.

Pros:

The game to buy for Xbox, great graphics and sound, good story, great AI.

Cons:

Overhyped, some of the fan boys are crazy, lackluster multiplayer, repetitive levels after the middle, some weapons are unbalanced.

Should you get it:

Even though Halo is overrated, if you own the old Xbox [or a 360], you should pick this game up because it is totally worth it.

Overall:

Halo, although an overrated and repetitive [at times] game is still very fun and is one of the best FPS games I have played.

8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/07, Updated 10/08/07

Game Release: Halo: Combat Evolved (US, 11/14/01)