Halo: Combat Evolved

"Best Console FPS ever? Hell yes."

Halo: Combat Evolved
Reviewed on: Xbox
Available on: PC
Rating: 10/10

Every system has its AAA game when it launches, and Halo was that game for the Xbox. When Microsoft’s first home console was released, it didn’t have much going for it except this one little game that kept the system afloat, and that game was Halo.

Halo is a First Person Shooter developed by Microsoft 2nd party, Bungie. As you may know, Bungie is somewhat experienced making FPS games, since they’ve made several for the Mac. Halo originally started out as a Mac exclusive title, but Microsoft purchased the company, and over many years, it finally arrived in the form of a launch title for Microsoft’s Xbox.

Surprisingly, Halo has quite a good story to it, which is one of its unique points. Most First Person Shooters have somewhat lame stories, and are mostly played for action (which isn’t a bad thing). In Halo, you play as Master Chief, a genetically engineered soldier who must defend the human race from a powerful fellowship of alien races, known as The Covenant. The Covenant are religious extremists who have deemed the human race evil, and in need of extermination. They are not aware of Earth’s location, and it’s Master Chief’s job to make sure it stays that way. In a desperate attempt to lure them away from Earth, your ship is shot down on a ring like world known as Halo. Master Chief and the surviving soldiers now must wage a guerrilla war on the Covenant, and solve the secrets of Halo in order to protect the human race. The story goes deeper, and there are quite a few plot twists. It might look like a generic sci-fi story on the outside, but once you start playing the game, the plot becomes much richer. It’s not RPG caliber or anything, but most people (including myself) don’t want something quite that complicated when they’re playing a FPS. It’s perfect for the genre. It’s a nice plot to get you thinking, but not overly confusing.

The graphics in Halo are absolutely stellar. When the game came out, it blew everyone away. Even today, it is still a benchmark in graphics for console games. Textures, character models, animation, lighting, draw distance, and everything else is just superb. Have you ever played a game that looked really good, but it felt like something was missing? Maybe a detail here or there, or maybe it looked like a frame or two of animation was missing, keeping it just short of perfect. Halo has everything you’ve been looking for. It runs smooth like butter, and there is nothing missing. It’s graphical bliss. The bump mapped environments look excellent, whether you’re indoors examining Covenant writing on the walls, or outside looking down at some ice through the scope on your gun. In one level, I was using a chain gun on the back of a jeep, just shooting around. I aimed at the ice on the ground, and to my amazement, it actually left tiny bullet holes in the ground! Halo is jam packed with little details like that. Everything is so incredibly detailed. It’s nothing short of amazing. The characters are all very, very good looking. You can see the armour on Master Chief’s body shine, and if you look hard enough, you can actually see the teeth inside of a Covenant’s mouth! The animation is perfect. Every character moves very realistically in the game. Covenant units will run, throw grenades, dive, roll, and walk just like a real person would. Master Chief is no exception either. Bodies will collapse appropriately to where you shot them, or fly if you hit them with a rocket and crumple up on the ground. It’s so real; you’ll think you’re in the game. The game runs at 30 frames per second, and I’ve never noticed a single case of slow down while playing this game. There can be 20 enemies on the screen without any slow down at all. This is very important for some of the big battles in Halo, and believe me, there are a fair share of those. The draw distance is yet another stunning part of the graphics. Some of the levels are massive outdoor environments, yet the draw distance is virtually non-existent. You can see as far as the land stretches. It’s really breath taking.

Sure graphics and all are nice, but what really makes Halo a near perfect game is the gameplay. This sets it apart from all of the other shooters out there, and makes it stand out in the pack. Master Chief has a standard health gauge, and a rechargeable shield. The shield is a really great innovation that allows for very long levels. The shield can take the same amount of damage as the regular health gauge, but it recharges on it’s own every so often. Once it’s depleted, you can hide somewhere and wait about a minute for it to replenish itself. This might sound like it makes the game easy, but that isn’t the case at all. You will take lots of damage, and you’ll die a good amount of times. It adds some depth and strategy to the gameplay. You’ll have to think about whether you can handle enemies with just your shield, or where you can run to recharge it. The control scheme is also very innovative, and it creates the best possible FPS experience short of a keyboard and mouse. You have a two joystick set up, with the left stick for strafing, and the right for turning. The left trigger is for grenades, the right trigger for firing your weapon, the X button reloads, Y changes your weapon, A is to jump, and B is for close combat. Having a grenade button is very useful. Since Halo is more of a combat simulator than a FPS game with puzzles, you will be using grenades a lot. It sure beats scrolling through weapons to use them. An interesting thing about Halo is that you can only hold two guns at a time. A lot of people might not like this, but it adds so much strategy, that I could never do without it in this kind of game. You’ll be in tons of situations where you must decide which guns will benefit you the most, and which will be most effective against the types of enemies you are against.

There is a wide range of enemies in the Covenant fleet including Grunts (small, weak soldiers), Elites (slightly larger than humans, very intelligent, and have a rechargeable shield of their own), Jackals (shield carrying, semi weak soldiers. In between the Elites and Grunts in size), and Hunters (huge, slow moving units covered in armour and carry a huge gun). There are some other enemies, but if I told you about them, it would give away part of the story. AI in this game is probably the best I’ve ever seen. Enemies will organize themselves into an efficient killing machine, and track you down. They will dodge shots, hide behind structures, and lurk in shadows to take you down when you least suspect it. They are also very clever in their use of the environment. Several times on legendary difficulty, I entered a room with two Elites. I charged them, and before you can kill one, a third leaps out from the shadows, and smashes you over the head for a one hit kill. After you’re dead, they’ll even stand and laugh over your corpse. This is just one example out of thousands of similar situations. The enemies in this game are very intelligent, and not to be taken lightly. You will need to think out every single detail when you are about to go into battle, or you’ll die. Vehicles also add a ton to the gameplay. Yes, there are vehicles. It’s an interstellar war! What did you expect? During the game, there are four different ones you can pilot. On the human side, there is the Warthog, an all terrain jeep with a mini gun on the back, and the Scorpion tank. All of the human vehicles can carry extra troops as well. There isn’t anything quite like loading up a tank with seven people and unloading on a platoon of Covenant troops. For vehicles, the Covenant has the Ghost, which is a small yet quick hovering land vehicle with powerful guns on the front, and a flying vehicle called the Banshee, which also has guns, attached to it as well as huge plasma missiles. The Covenant also has an artillery tank, but you aren’t able to take control of it. Multiplayer and co-op is yet another amazing addition to the game. You can play through the entire story mode with a friend using co-op mode. This is loads of fun and should be standard in all FPS games. The multiplayer offers almost infinite replay value. There aren’t any bots available to play with, so it’ll just be you and your friends. There isn’t anything wrong with that though since you can link Xboxs together for a total of 16 players in some levels. The only complaint I have with the gameplay is the level design in some of the later levels. It gets really repetitive and a lot of the environment looks exactly the same. It looks like Bungie rushed to get the game out at launch, so they used a cookie cutter design for the later levels. It’s just a minor annoyance though.

The music is yet another part of the game that excels in quality. The music is fully orchestrated, and it kicks in at all the right times. It will get your adrenaline pumping, and it isn’t constantly playing, so it matches the mood. The sound effects are of an amazing quality. The grunts of the Marines, and the screams of the Covenant all sound very real. You’ll often be left to find the Covenant simply by using the noises they make. It’ll help you find out where they are at if you’re in a small corridor. Overall, it adds very much to the strategy and the overall mood of the game. The music helps the player get more into the game and will help you imagine that you’re actually in space battling an evil alien race. It does everything it should do, and more.

If you have an Xbox, get this game. It alone is worth buying the console for. It’s the best FPS experience I’ve ever had on a console. While PC will probably always be the FPS king (and rightfully so!), this is one game that will allow console gamers to hold their heads high. It can rival the latest PC shooters in fun factor, and will be a classic game for many years to come.

Pros

+ Innovative gameplay
+ Good Story
+ Superb Graphics
+ Great Music
+ Excellent AI
+ Loads of Replay
+ Co-op mode is great with friends

Cons

- Cookie cutter level design in some later levels
- Could use a few more vehicles



Graphics- 10/10
Gameplay- 10/10
Music/Sound- 10/10
Excitement – 10/10
Replayability – 9.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/18/04