Halo: Combat Evolved

The Good
The engine is a solidly built one, easy to pick up and get going and always offering more to adapt to. While the story is pretty much the stuff of late night direct to tv movies, the enemies are well-designed and fun to blow up, especially the later ones. Graphics are pretty good, with some decent environmental effects and very little fill-in. The game was made for multiplayer, and if it was released later during the online push it'd probably have more longevity, though with the release of Halo 2 this is kind of moot.

The Bad
Larry Niven, creator of the Ringworld novels, should have sued until the design staff was completely naked. The titular Halo is obviously porked from his novels and is underused as a plot point. Well. I suppose that's harsh since there really is no plot beyond variations of what we've seen in the movie Lifeforce and the game Space Hulk. It's an odd bird that games are relying more heavily on narratives and still skimping on any kind of story, but that's another discussion completely. As is, the main purpose the Halo has is to arch across the sky like the great Thong of the Universe.

I think my main problem with the game is ethical, read: Microsoft. Originally a Mac and PC game, this was another casualty of Microsoft's epic set of buyouts in an attempt to get exclusives for it's XBox console in the heat of the console war. Computer gamers were ripped a new one and XBox fanboys had a new rallying cry, giving the upper hand to the last company that needed one. Bungie changed it's tune from being a Mac enthusiast company to the usual party line of wanting to be on the cutting edge and allying itself with the right people. Make what you will of that.

The biggest complaint with the game is the artificial stretching out of the levels. Yeah, sure, the game features some long levels, but if you broke it down to the key architectural components some of the levels would be about 50 feet long. The two main offenders are the inside of the alien ship (and how) and the library. If you can keep track of which direction most of the enemy are coming from, cool. If not, both directions are gonna look the same and it may take a minute or two to sort it out. Not cool. With a lack of scripting to keep encounters fresh, the only thing that'll see you through to the end of the single-player campaign is the very fast and fluid gameplay. Really, it stands out post-Half-Life, but one very nice facet of a gem doesn't forgive the weaknesses everywhere else.

The Bottom Line
Are you chanting the XBox war cry? You already have this game on your shelf, then. Everybody else should give it a whirl, have a bit of fun with it, repeat until bored.

The Good
Halo is a fun fps with some really cool weapons like the shotgun and needler which are cool to use against all sort of enemies. Grenades are really useful and necessary in this game. Halo has some really beautiful graphics for the time and gives a you a really special feeling for example when you are running at open areas in snowy landscapes of two betrayals levels. The game offers good challenge for everyone on higher difficulties and has a descent variation of enemies. The game is not too short and will take for regular players up to 10 hours to finish. The vehicles in the game gives an extra taste and are fun to use.

The Bad
The problem with many weapons are that they can fire so little ammo before forcing you to reload, which is really annoying when you are surrounded by enemies. Grunts as enemies feels bad, even if it's a game it feels sad to shoot these afraid creatures who really do not want to battle and the game could have some more enemies, the variation is not big because zombie monsters use the same weapons as covenants.

Halo has lazy level design at some parts, for example the library level, which is clearly the worst in the game just uses the same textures over and over and that gives me an feeling that they just had to fill in something to make the game longer.

The Bottom Line
Halo is a good game, but after all a bit overrated. Still I recommend everyone who is friend of old fps to play it, because it really has some interesting elements and nice design.

The Good
- Ability to change difficulty mid-game. I couldn't get past a certain point in the final level, and I changed the difficulty setting right there.

• The game runs on a whole variety of graphic cards and drivers. I had a computer that was pure crap, and it could run Halo. I used to believe in love, but these days, I tend to believe in Microsoft's ability to make games that run smoothly on Windows instead.

• Great Gamepad support. My Gamepad from the days of "Monster Truck Madness 2" works perfectly here. Any Gamepad with two triggers, two shoulder buttons, and dual-analog layout should work.

• Every weapon is memorable. As you play, you'll become familiar with each weapon's strengths and weaknesses. Since you are only allowed to carry two guns with you, you are constantly choosing the best weapons to pick up, based on the task at hand.

• Flying a Banshee.

• Driving a Jeep.

• Driving a Jeep across the river.

• Flipping a Jeep.

• You can flip a Banshee too.

• Watching Master Chief get inside a vehicle, switching to 3rd-person view.

• Watching Master Chief get out of a vehicle, switching back to 1st-person view.

• Not letting your teammates down. The sniper rifle can zoom in 10x so it's kinda hard to miss. So you won't let your teammates down.

• Sticking a plasma grenade to a powerful enemy.

• Shooting a rocket launcher at a vehicle far away, and seeing it explode.

• The pistol. Yeah the pistol. My roommate once said that "the pistol is actually a sniper rifle". You can zoom in like crazy and shoot stuff up with that pistol. That's a fine pistol. That's a pistol to write home about.

• Watching, and hearing, your shield recharge.

• Watching an enemy's shield being attacked (by you).

• Picking up a med kit when your health is red (low). The screen will kind of light up a little, it's like being touched by an angel.

• Turning on a flashlight in a dark corridor. The flashlight is so sweet, I don't wanna leave the dark areas.

• Watching Master Chief reload his guns. I never get tired of that.

• Listening to the subtle sound effect when you pick up a plasma grenade.

• Walking around and noticing something on the ground that kinda looks like a plasma grenade, walking there, and confirming that it is indeed a plasma grenade.

• Concise and powerful text notifications. These are shown in the top left corner (same position as another Microsoft classic, Age of Empires 2). You pick up grenades, text shows up. You pick up ammo, text shows up. You walk near a weapon, text shows up. The most amazing one is that whenever you reach a checkpoint, it says "Checkpoint... Done." It's an amazing feeling to see this after a long and challenging fight.

• The environment is comprised of mountains, grass fields, trees, rivers, smooth-edged buildings, and the beautiful night sky. I was never an outdoor person. Wild is the wind, who cares. Halo showed me the beauty of the wilderness. Ever since playing Halo, I became OBSESSED with the great outdoors. I would spend everyday walking through forests and plains (didn't have to work at the time), looking for places that resemble the Halo levels. And I found a LOT of these places. I found places that looked almost exactly like the environment in Halo. Halo showed me that, when you're walking, something special happens. You see different things around you. As I was moving ahead, I saw brief glimpses of beauty. I saw this in the game. I saw this in real life.

To say that Halo turned me into an athletic person is an understatement. Halo changed the way I look at the world. Halo taught me how to walk. Before Halo, my life was sort of in a top-down view, I don't know. After Halo, my life is a life in first-person. The way it should be.

The Bad
Everything bad about this game has been wiped out with a single plasma grenade. You carry four grenades, so, yeah. YEAH.

People sometimes say "it's so beautiful, it hurts". I think I know what this means now. Now that I do have to work, all day long, often into the night, I will probably never relive the outdoor life that Halo inspired me to live. But hey, it's the memory that matters, right?

The Bottom Line
Using a Gamepad is much more fun than using a mouse. It's designed for the console controller, and the PC port didn't change that design.

Ignore the "easy" difficulty, the "hard" difficulty and the "legendary" difficulty. Those aren't fun. The Normal difficulty is where it's at.

It gets kind of scary too, so you may not wanna play it if you live alone. Enemies sneak up behind you and suddenly appear inside of buildings.