Halo: Combat Evolved

"Halo IS the perfect blend of story and carnage."

Halo was the reason i got Xbox. This is easily the best FPS available for consoles. It's not really anything new, but don't let that dissapoint you because in a sense, it does what's done so many times almost flawlessly. Halo IS the perfect blend of story and carnage.

The story was very impressive. No, it wasn't anything new, but it had some very nice plot twists and was woven perfectly with the gameplay. The story is basically this. You are the Master Chief, a highly elite marine decked out in a highly advanced combat suit that also has a shield generator. You are in a cryogenic sleep aboard the Pillar of Autumn, an elite battle cruiser inhabited by Earth's marines. You are woken from your sleep because the Covenent have boarded the ship, and are trying to destroy it from the inside out. The Covenent are a race of aliens that would like nothing more than to see the flesh burned and scourged off every human alive. Once you are awoken, you are briefed on the situation, and the basics of the game are explained. Then you are ordered to the bridge, and the room you are currently in gets ransacked by the Covenent. You must fight your way to the bridge. Eventually, the ship is disabled by them, and is forced to land. The only place in the area is this ancient ring world, known as Halo. However, the Captain of the ship has no clue of the immense danger that lies ahead on this eery world...

The Graphics in Halo are amazing and some of the best graphics ever seen on a gaming console. First of all, there's zero popup and the environments are massive, so what that means is you always see the entire environment around you. Everything is amazingly detailed. If you shoot a rocket at the wall you will see the scorched and charred area where the rocket hit on the wall. Probably the best visuals come when you wage an intense war with tons of Marines at your side against tons of Covenent Forces. There is so much going on, so much ammunition being fired, so many particles zooming every which way, so much motion, and so much noise, all of this without ANY slowdown whatsoever. /Applaud Bungie. Some of the lighting effects are also very very nice. You can, at will, switch on and off a flashlight attached to your weapon to see in dark areas. The effect is superb. I cannot think of one graphical flaw.

The sound is also very very nicely done. The music kicks in during an intense battle and really gets your heart going. In the menu screen, the eerie music gives you an insight of the danger awaiting you on Halo. During battle you hear the normal sounds of gunfire, explosions, Covenents begging for mercy... Yup, the Covenent Grunts (the weakest form of the Covenent) will literally turn and run screaming comical things like ''They're everywhere!!'' when there's only just you wreaking havoc on their numbers. Really, the Grunts are very comical and you'll get a kick out of them.

As for the actual gameplay, this is where the game truly shines. It seems the Xbox controller was designed perfectly to match Halo's control scheme. The left thumbstick is for strafing left and right and advancing forward and moving back. The right thumbstick is for turning left and right and looking up and down. The right trigger allows you to fire your weapon, and the left trigger will lob a grenade. You can also duck by pressing in on the left thumbstick, and you can zoom with appropriate weapons by pressing in on the right thumbstick. My only complaint about the control is this. You can also use a melee attack with any weapon where you strike with whatever gun you're using. If you hit an enemy from behind with a melee attack, you will instantly kill them. This is very handy, however, this function uses the B button, and trying to turn to face the fleeing enemy and then hit the B button at the right time with your right thumb is a challenge. It works best when you sneak up behind an enemy and have time to line yourself up and then strike. Halo's plot progresses through missions with usually just one main objective. This may sound dull, but it's done rather nicely because you are never taken to a mission briefing screen, and you never just randomly appear somewhere. You always see what's happening. This is rather hard to explain in words, so bear with me. When you complete the objective, you witness a cutscene in which you are either picked up by a dropship, or run to another segment, or are teleported. You always see where you're going and you never ''leave the game'' to go to a mission screen except when the game is loading of course. During combat, you will usually have a pack of Marines at your side helping you progress. They aren't as technically advanced as you, so they don't have shields and they die rather easily. You should try to protect them as best you can because they help you out immensly. If you find a vehicle in your adventure, they will even take the gunner seats of the vehicle while you drive, which brings me into the next part, vehicles. There are many different types of vehicles to control in Halo ranging from Earthen tanks and buggies, to Covenent fly machines and land speeders. Controlling a vehicle can be a bit cumbersome, depending on what you're driving. There are also different seats in some vehicles. For instance, in the Buggie, you can not only drive it, but you can get out and go around to the back and sit in the gunner seat, or you can sit in the passenger seat and attack with your weapon. Aside from all this, there's some other and interesting modes. First of all, Halo has some of the best and most elaborate multiplayer features of any game i've ever seen. You can even play through the game in CoOp mode. This is really fun because one player can drive the vehicle while the other can use the gun on it, instead of having the non-player controlled Marines do it. Also, there are more tactics when there are 2 players in the main game versus the Covenent. For instance, one player can be a sniper and carry a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher, while the other player carries an assault rifle and shotgun. Other forms of multiplayer include about 15 different ''games'' such as slayer, which is a typical deathmatch, king of the hill, stalker, one player is invisible, and oddball, you need to hold onto a skull for 2 minutes without being killed. Some of them are a lot of fun, and some of the multiplayer arenas are awesome. Did i even mention you can do all of this online? Yup, you can play multiplayer online with up to 16 people.

As far as replayability goes, the gameplay is just so damn fun even after i beat it i still am going back and replaying it on harder difficulties. I have only beat the game on normal, and nothing was unlocked once i beat it. However, there are 2 harder difficulties, Heroic, and Legendary. I have heard that beating the game on Legendary reaps some kind of reward, but the description of Legendary says ''suicide'', which is very true. The multiplayer never dies, and offers infinite replayability.

Overall, this is a truly well done game, and one of the best games i've played in a long time. This is a MUST BUY for any fan of FPS, and even if you're not a fan of FPS and you own an Xbox, get this game, trust me. It may just make a fan out of you. I haven't beat FFX or MGS2 yet, but so far Halo gets my vote as GAME OF THE YEAR.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/02, Updated 01/01/02