Halo: Combat Evolved

"Halo is in a League of its Own"

Halo was shown off at E3 originally on the PC. Bungie made a very smart decision by bringing Halo on to the Xbox before the PC. It is a good thing they did. Now they have blessed Xbox owners all over the world. Halo is just a plain out awesome game and anyone who has a chance to play it should. It is one of the best games that have ever made if not the best. Halo is just a dream to play. The Story is absolutely incredible. The graphics are some of the best graphics ever. The audio also very impressive. But the gameplay is above and beyond any other game to date(except for the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time).

STORY:10
First-Person Shooters usually aren't games that are based around a story. That is why we have Role-Playing games...until now. Halo's story is what drives this game. If Halo's story was really bad and boring, the game would have fallen flat on its face. Anyways, the story of Halo goes like this. There is an ongoing war between two races. One of those races is the humans. The other is an alien race that is called the Covenant. The game starts off with the a human space ship called the Pillar of Autumn being pursued by the Covenant. The Covenant attempt to hijack the Pillar of Autumn. That is when the main character, the Master Chief, is awoken from some cryogenic sleep to help stop the Covenant. When the Master chief talks to the captain of the ship he receives a new mission. He learns that the Covenant are trying to use this ringworld called Halo as a weapon against the humans. So it is up to the Master Chief to take Pillar of Autumn's ship Artificial Intelligence, Cotrtana, with him on his mission in order to stop the Covenant from using Halo to wipe out the human race. That is only the story in a nutshell. There are a few plot twists as well. Halo is the one of the best story-driven games ever made. The story is better than most Role-Playing games. But my point is that the story in Halo is really compelling and it is definitely one of the best stories in a video game yet.

GRAPHICS:10
The graphics in Halo are brilliant. Video games just don't get much prettier than this. Even though the frame rate drops a good bit at times, the graphics are still amazing. Everything looks so good. The environments are huge and gorgeous. The water effects are just dazzling. Waterfalls look amazing. The trees look just as good. In most games a tree is just some brown stick with no texture detail and a bunch of little leaves on it. In Halo something like that is never seen. The trees look great. You can actually see every single little bit of bark that is on the tree. The leaves on the trees also have a tremendous amount of detail put in to them. The Grass looks amazing. In some games grass is just some green floor under you. But in Halo you can literally see every last blade of grass that is in the ground. The lighting is also amazing. The game also lets you turn on a flashlight if it is too dark and very realistic looking shadows will be cast. Character models are, in my opinion, the best in any game so far. The attention to detail is amazing. The characters all don't look alike either. So every time you play the game there will be different guys in the game. The same goes for the aliens. On one level the first guy you encounter might have some red armor with a little oxygen mask on or something. Then when you play the level over you might see an alien with orange armor instead. There are also a bunch of cool effects too. Bodies won't vanish after they die. They will stay on the ground throughout the entire level. Also, when a body is on the ground you can punch it and blood will go everywhere. The blood will actually stain the ground. The fire is also amazing. The explosions are the best explosions that I have ever seen in a video game. One other great effect is when a grenade detonates in the dirt or sand. When the grenade detonates in dirt or sand the dirt or sand will actually go flying up in the air and the dirt or sand will actually block your vision for a little bit. Despite that the frame rate takes a huge nose dive the graphics in this game are just amazing. Now wouldn't be great if all video games would look as good as Halo does?

SOUND:10
I wouldn't expect a First-Person Shooter to have good music or voice acting. Just like I wouldn't expect a First-Person Shooter to have a good Story either. But Halo, once again, surprises me. The music in Halo is the best music I have ever heard in a video game. The music really adds to the experience of playing Halo. All of the music sounds great. I usually like heavy metal music, but this is orchestral music for crying out loud. That really says something in my opinion. The music is very compelling. The voice acting and script is just as good as the music if not better. The voice acting sounds very authentic. There is never one moment that the voice actors don't convince you that they aren't acting. The script is also great. Halo has a very serious tone to the game. Once in a while there are some funny comments to help take some of the serious tone away. The aliens say the funniest stuff. There are these grenades that will stick to things and if you stick one to any alien they will say some hilarious things like ''NOT AGAIN!'' and ''**** YOU!'' those only some of the things they will say. The humans also will crack a few good ones. Hearing the threats that the two races give each other are also funny to listen to. Overall, the audio is just amazing. The music is compelling, The voice acting is very convincing, and the script is really funny and very serious at appropriate times. What more could you ask for. Now why can't all games have music and voice acting that compels you to play.

GAMEPLAY:10
Halo is better than Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark, and Half-Life combined. I know that a lot of people would object to that, but I think that is a very true statement. Halo is the best Xbox game and it is better than practically any other game ever made. There are many reasons I think this way. I am no talking about graphics or sound. I am talking about gameplay. Halo's difficulty is perfect. It slowly gets more challenging each level. It doesn't go from very easy to break your controller hard right away. There are also four difficulty levels. They are Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary. Normally in games you just take damage easier has the difficulty changes. In Halo the artificial intelligence gets better. Speaking of artificial intelligence, the game's A.I is the best ever. I am being serious. Unlike in Red Faction 2 when enemies stand right in front of you and just shoot, enemies will roll to avoid being shot. They will take cover behind rocks and things like that. they will also haul @$$ when a grenade is thrown. When a leader of an alien group dies, the rest of the group will attempt to flee. Or if you stick one of those grenades that stick on an alien they will sometimes attempt to go suicide bomber on you.Each enemy also has their own unique style of fighting. Elite soldiers are smart. They use their brain when in a battle. Grunts which are 2nd rate soldiers, are cowards and are trigger happy. Jackles are stealthy and are scouts. Hunters are pretty stupid, but they are very strong and can take a lot of damage. The humans are also very smart. They do all of the things that the aliens do, but they all work together. There is also friendly fire (snickering to self) and you know what that means. When you do kill enough of your allies they will actually turn on you. That is really cool, but I know lots of sick and twisted people, like me, aren't too thrilled that they fire back. It is a nice touch though. Each level is very unique and it never feels repetitive. There are also four vehicles and which adds even more diversity to the game. There are around 7 weapons and each are good against certain enemies. You can also only carry two weapons at one time which means you have to think which weapon might be the most useful at the time. The pace of the levels are perfect. They aren't too short, but they aren't too long either. The game has awesome multiplayer too. Multiplayer is really addictive. You can customize the game almost any way you want. There is also cooperative play which is really cool. When playing cooperative one person could drive a vehicle and a buddy could be in the back turret of a vehicle. The game really makes you feel like you are part of this war going on. There are just so many good things to say about Halo. Bungie really does know how to make great games. They made it so addicting. I don't know why, but whenever someone is playing Halo you just have to play too.

CONTROL:10
Halo's controls are perfect. There really is no other game that controls this good. Halo innovates in so many ways. Everything feels right about the controls. Something really cool Bungie put in was a sort of auto aim, but it really isn't auto aim. Sometimes the targeting reticle will follow an enemy to help you get a better shot. The targeting reticle doesn't go right on the enemy and follows it until it dies. It just gives you a push in the right direction. The right trigger is used to shoot. The left trigger is used to throw grenades. The A button is the jump button. The B button is to melee attack an enemy. The X button is used to pick up a weapon/reload. The Y button is used to change weapons. The Black button switches types of grenades. The white button turns on/off your flashlight. The left analog stick moves/crouch. The right analog stick aims/scope. You also have tons of advanced options like inverted aim or normal. You can also adjust your aiming sensitivity. Halo's controls just feel great on the Xbox controller. The game wouldn't be good on the Playstation 2 controller. With those huge analog sticks that whip around really quick it would be really hard to get a precise shot. The Gamecube controller really wouldn't work. For one there aren't enough buttons to play the game on that controller and the button placement would be a little awkward. Every First-Person Shooter from now on should have controls similar to Halo's. I don't think I will ever play another shooter with controls like this.

OVERALL:10
Halo is as close to perfect as you can get. The graphics are some of the best in any video game. The game's environments are just gorgeous. The attention to detail is just staggering. When you can see every blade of grass or every little particle of dirt that means your game looks good. All of the character models look good too. The orchestral music is great. I would have never guessed that I would like the music in this game. The voice acting is convincing and the script is extremely well written. The script will make you crack up. The controls are awesome. No, they are perfect. They innovate so much. The gameplay is second to none. This game is so polished. You will play the game over and over. It is addicting. The multiplayer is even more addicting then the single player especially if you are playing cooperative. This game is definitely worth buying an Xbox for. Halo is in a league all of its own. Now we just have to wait for Halo 2.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/01/03