Halo: Combat Evolved
Description official descriptions
Humanity is in the midst of a long war against an alien alliance called the Covenant which has been wiping out colony after colony. Your hero is Master Chief, who is given no name beyond his rank in the game itself. He is stationed on the Pillar of Autumn, a ship which, per protocol makes a jump in a random direction to retreat to avoid revealing the location of Earth. They find themselves at the titular Halo, a planet-sized ring of mysterious origin, and function with the Covenant on their heels. Master Chief must repel the Covenant assault and discover the secrets of Halo with the assistance of the female AI Cortana who lives in his suit and gives missions.
Halo: Combat Evolved is a sci-fi first-person shooter with considerable driving elements. Features include friendly NPCs who fight alongside the Chief, squad-based AI where enemies groups work together to flank you under the direction of a leader unit and can be demoralized by his death. They also use cover, set ambushes, etc.
Only two weapons may be carried at a time: one active and one on backup. There are five human weapons and three Covenant with distinct art styles for the two groups. Human weapons look basically like real guns and fire projectiles. Covenant are sleek and purple and fire energy. For the most part, weapons are not just left around the environment and must be procured from fallen enemies though there are supply points.
Your life is armor and health as in most games of the genre, however, rather than armor being an item that is picked up, it is a force field which quickly recharges itself after several seconds without taking damage, which emphasizes finding cover.
One of the most significant features is vehicles. You can drive a variety of vehicles in both single-player and multiplayer, some of which have additional seats for passengers or gunners which can be used by AI characters. Vehicles also come in distinct human and Covenant varieties with their design philosophies. Human vehicles roll around the ground on wheels and covenant vehicles hover or fly.
Halo also has a significant multiplayer component with basic deathmatch (called slayer here), capture the flag with the unusual addition that the flag takes your weapon spot while you are holding it, so shooting your way in and out of the base on your own is not an option, territories, and some options unique to the game, such as oddball, where you must hold onto a skull for the longest time, race where you score points by getting to checkpoints and juggernaut, where one super-powered player must get points by killing the others and the other players try to kill him to steal his powers. There is also a game editor which allows you to set custom rules for all the basic game types. All the playable weapons and vehicles from the campaign mode are available in the multiplayer maps with the ability for members of the same team to share the game's distinctive Warthog vehicle, which is essentially a small truck with a mounted gun on the back.
Spellings
- γγ€γγΌ - Japanese spelling
- ε ζοΌζζθΏε - Simplified Chinese spelling
- ζεΎδΈζ° - Traditional Chinese spelling
Groups +
- Console Generation Exclusives: Xbox
- Games made into books
- Games made into comics
- Games made into movies
- Games made into TV series
- Halo series
- Launch title: Xbox (North America)
- Middleware: Bink Video
- Setting: Space station / Spaceship
- Technology: amBX
- Xbox Best of Classics releases
- Xbox Best of Platinum Hits releases
- Xbox Classics releases
- Xbox Platinum Hits releases
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Credits (Xbox version)
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 91% (based on 112 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 417 ratings with 26 reviews)
A good (NOT great) game that is overhyped to the extreme
The Good
Halo has a loyal fanbase. The fanbase is so loyal that they are willing to ignore all of the game's shortcomings - and there are a few key ones.
There's plenty to like about Halo, though. For one, the game has some great visuals. Halo is eye-candy, and a real display of Xbox graphical power. Halo made me look at console games a little differently - as though maybe they can compete with PC games in terms of graphical goodness, finally.
Halo also did what Goldeneye 007 miserably failed to - make the first person shooter playable on a console gamepad. The dual-analog control scheme isn't as good as a PC mouse-and-keyboard setup, but it works surprisingly well. The left and right triggers handle the guns and grenades, and the sticks control smooth and responsive movement. Bungie deserves an award for doing what everyone else has not been able to.
Enemy AI is very good. The "smarter" enemies will take cover from gunfire, dodge shots and avoid grenades, and just generally act like they have some concept of self-preservation. However, while this is a step forward, they are still too easily outsmarted. Too often, an enemy will take cover, and remain behind cover until you flank him and let him have it. Still, while a few games (like Unreal's bots) have been able to accomplish similar AI tasks, it's great to see in the framework of a regular single-player game (as opposed to deathmatch bots).
Vehicles (like hovercraft and jeeps) add an extra dimension to the genre. Unlike Red Faction's vehicles (which were very limited and served little purpose), Halo's vehicles are a core part of the fun. The physics engine is pretty remarkable, and vehicles react like one would expect, as the physics are as real-world as possible (at least as real-world as a hovering vehicle can be).
The split-screen multiplayer feature, similar to Goldeneye, has many different modes. Vehicles add a twist to the standard multiplayer gunplay fare.
The Bad
The single player campaign starts strong, and ends strong. Everything in-between, however, is plagued with constant repetition. Many stages feature the SAME room, OVER and OVER again. Many stages feature the SAME room, OVER and OVER again. See how repetition is annoying? Too many Halo levels are similarly annoying. Traverse a room, kill what appears there. Go to the next room, it looks exactly the same, kill the enemies, move onward. You may think I'm exaggerating, but many of these rooms truly are exact clones of previous areas.
The storyline really isn't very strong. This is very disappointing, compared to previous Bungie games like the Marathon series. Some cutscenes between levels moves the story along, but in reality, there just isn't much there.
Split-screen multiplayer, while a nice addition, pales in comparison to even an average online-capable PC shooter. Of course, it may not be fair to compare a console shooter like Halo to such games, but when the fanboys call Halo the "GREATEST GAME EVER", it's prudent to take a step back and see where Halo comes up short (and there are plenty of shortcomings). 4-player split-screen is a good time, but in the end, it's not great - especially since the Xbox supports online play with shooters like Unreal Championship.
The Bottom Line
Halo is a good game. Compared to PC shooters, however, it's just middle-of-the-pack. There's nothing wrong with that, but it quite possibly is the most overrated game of the PS2-Xbox-Cube generation of consoles. Halo's sequel will have plenty of things to improve upon. Halo is worth owning and playing through, but it does not deserve any special merit.
Xbox · by *Legion* (136) · 2003
Really good shooter, really really good.
The Good
The graphics are amazing, sounds are really well done especially the soldier's voices (they speak many languages and swear etc.). The storyline is great, it doesn't make you ask what if? Atmosphere is really cool makes you wanna fight more, weapons are really cool and well balanced. Multiplayer is extremely fun especially with the tanks and other vehicles. The game controls go really well with the Xbox control, better than they would with PS2 controller.The maps are nice looking and things are strategically placed and well done. Vehicles are really fun to drive, the car runs like a racing game car. The main character/s look really cool and are a good concept! And the list goes on... This is a really great game; for a while it was the only reason to choose Xbox over PS2.
The Bad
It's really great, nothing to complain about. It can get slightly boring if you don't have Xbox live because the levels are so large. But that's not the game makers fault. The flood was a pain in the but to fight too, though exciting nonetheless.
The Bottom Line
Really great shooting game. There are some levels I'll never forget. Sniping is really fun. Very cool for multiplayer as well.
Xbox · by Thiago Oliveira (85) · 2003
The Good
Intro cinematics were cool.
The Bad
Demands too much PC resources.However, it performs really bad. Graphics are clumsy and response to controls has a few mSeconds delay. Realism is totally missing here. It looks like a pretty old game. Well, it is coming from XBox after all. It does so little with so much PC resources!
Keep in mind I was using a top of the line PC.
2.0 GHzt CPU, More than enough HD, 1 GB DDR RAM, 128 MB GForce 4 NVidia, etc.
The Bottom Line
If you have played Soldier of Fortune and QuakeIII Arena, don't even try this. You will be way disappointed. It is a real shock for me to find out a Microsoft product so bad, so primitive for this times, so childish. They have a βLONGβ way to go before they get to, at least, be able to compare to QuakeIII Arena or Soldier of FortuneII.
Windows · by Jorge Elosegui (1) · 2003
Trivia
1001 Video Games
The Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Demo
The end of the PC demo features a 49 second infomercial-style video, narrated by Sgt. Johnson, which extolls the virtues of buying the full version. "Buy one! Heck, buy two!"
Development
Halo went through many changes during its development. As originally conceived, it was a real-time tactical game for Windows, something like a sci-fi version of Myth. The focus shifted toward direct control of one of the individual units and it became a third person shooter and work began on a Macintosh version as well. This is how the game was originally announced.
After Microsoft bought Bungie, Halo was shifted to being an Xbox exclusive. Around the same time, it became a first person game, with Bungie saying there wasn't any way to get precise aiming to work in third person. Many of the art assets changed too, with the Master Chief's armor in the game as shipped looking quite different than the original trailer. Eventually, Halo was ported back to its original platforms of Windows and Macintosh bearing no resemblance to how it started.
Ending
Beat the game in Legendary difficulty and you get an additional funny cutscene at the end.
Engineer
Halo has a strange enemy hidden in the game code called the Engineer. You can only access it using a mod chip. It's a pink, blobby thing that just sort of floats around. It's the same creature as seen in one of the earliest videos of the game, the one with the marines going into the huge building.
Gags
- If you look closely at the shotgun shells taken out when Master Chief reloads, you'll see there are hippo heads pictured on them.
- If you highlight the "Edit Gametypes" section in the multiplayer section of this game, you come across an image of Master Chief with text that, to the reader, seems to be schematics for each of his body parts. If you look closely, some of the text aren't schematics, but text: Text on Head/Gun: "UV Protectant Sun Visor for Protection from Elements". Text on Upper Right Leg: "Sometimes I give myself the creeps, sometimes my mind plays tricks on me" (lyrics from the Green Day song "Basket Case"). Text on Lower Right Leg: "Hydraulic Suspension Thigh Pads with cool Kevlar crap". Text on Left Leg: "Directional Locks MJOLNIR cyborg dealer parts". Text on Arm: "Action/Reload see may flexible joint system". Text on Torso: "All your base are belong to us".
Halo: Custom Edition
On May 5th, 2004, Halo: Custom Edition was released for free. It is a multiplayer only, 170MB standalone version of Halo PC which enables gamers to play user created content created with the halo editing kit. It requires the original cd and a valid key to play. Download it here.
Machinima
Halo is used to film the machinima web series Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles, which is currently in its fifteenth season.
Novel
As of July 2017, there are a total of twenty-one Halo tie-in novels. The first three being: Fall of Reach (prequel), The Flood (novelization of the game), and First Strike (successor).
Rating
Halo was originally rated T for Teens.
References: Marathon
- At the center of the Halo logo, you can see the
Marathon logo (Marathon being the FPS series Bungie was previously famous for). The Marathon logo can also be seen in several places throughout the game, including on the hull of the human battleship, on Captain Keye's uniform, and on several of the doors found around Halo. The character design of 343 Guilty Spark, one of the game's pivotal characters, also strongly resembles the Marathon logo. - The cyborg Master Chief wears a suit of Mjolnir battle armor. The hero of the Marathon series was a Mjolnir class cyborg.
- The alien grunts sometimes scream out "They're everywhere!" in combat. The human civilians from Marathon would also scream the same thing during the alien invasion.
- Certain weapons have similar names and appearances in both games, such as the SPNKR rocket launcher.
- Both games have very whimsical chapter names, like "Wait! It Gets Worse!" or "Fourth Floor: Tools, Guns, Keys to Superweapon" in Halo or "Kill Your Television" or "You Think You're Badass? You're Going to Die Badass!" in Marathon.
- Rampancy, or "When AIs go nuts and rebel against humanity", played a major part of Marathon's story. If you kill the command crew in Halo's opening level, Cortana will complain that you've gone Rampant and will sic the Marines on you.
- The hero of the Marathon series spend most of his time taking orders from Durandal, a megalomaniacal A.I. named after a mythological sword who had few qualms about breaking a few eggs (using humans as expendable pawns) to make an omelet (liberating a slave race). The hero of Halo spends most of his time taking orders from Cortana, an A.I. named after a mythical sword who's beginning to show signs her ego is expanding, and who has few qualms about breaking a few eggs (destroying Halo and killing the marines on it) to make an omelet (saving Earth).
- Much of the dialog of the "Grunt" characters is taken from the Human characters in the first Marathon: "Thank God it's you" was spoken by characters called "Exploding Bobs", which were sythetic Humans who would run at the player and explode. The line "They're Everywhere" was spoken by frightened Humans the player would come across.
- The architecture in Halo is very similar to Jjaro architecture - the Jjaro were an equally ancient race in Marathon.
References
Some of the dialogue spoken by the marines, comes directly from the film Aliens.
Sales
- As of 2005, Halo is the best-selling Xbox game of all time. It has sold three and a half million copies.
- On August 31, 2003 has Halo (Xbox) won the Gold-Award from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 (but less then 200,000) units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Timeline
Many people believe that Halo takes place during a one-hundred-and-thiry-nine year gap in the Marathon timeline, in which the creators wrote "This century intentionally left blank. Seriously, nothing really happened."
Voice acting
Much of the dialogue spoken by the Covenant Elites is in fact dialogue by the human Sergeant, reversed, with some pitch alterations.
Windows and Macintosh versions
- Gearbox took over programming of Halo PC and discovered that they can't use much of the existing networking code (for the XBox). They had to rewrite that entire section, delaying the title for PC by several months.
- The PC version (and probably Mac, too) of Halo adds a few bonus features for the multiplayer mode, these include two weapons: a Flamethrower (which was scrapped from the game at the last minute) and a Fuel Rod Gun (the weapon that the Hunters use in the main game) as well as allowing you to use the Banshee and a rocket-launcher version of the Warthog.
Awards
- 4Players
- 2002β Best Xbox Action Game of the Year
- 2002β Best Console Multiplayer Game of the Year
- 2002 β #2 Best Xbox Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
- Computer Gaming World
- March 2004 (Issue #236) β Year's Biggest Letdown
- Electronic Gaming Monthly
- April 2002 - Game of the Year
- GameSpy
- 2001 β Xbox Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
- 2001 β Xbox Action/Adventure Game of the Year
- 2003 β #6 PC Game of the Year
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 12/2008 - One of the "10 Coolest Levels" (for the level "The Silent Cartographer". It combines all fun elements from the first person shooter genre into one level.)
- Interactive Achievement Awards (Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences)
- 2002 - Game of the Year
- 2002 - Console Game of the Year,
- 2002 - Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year
- 2002 - Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering
- PC Powerplay (Germany)
- Issue 03/2005 - #1 Biggest Disappointment
- Issue 12/2006 - #9 Hype Disappointment (was no longer impressive when it was ported two years after the console version)
- Retro Gamer
- October 2004 (Issue #9) β #18 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)
- The Strong National Museum of Play
- 2017 β Introduced into the World Video Game Hall of Fame
- Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD)
- August 31, 2003 - Gold Award
- Walk of Game
- 2005 - Member
Information also contributed by ~~, Ace of Sevens, Alan Chan, BurningStickMan, Kartanym, Kasey Chang, Maw, MegaMegaMan, Ray Soderlund, Sciere, Xoleras, Zack Green and Zovni
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Related Sites +
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Beyond Fragging
An Apple Games article about the Mac version of Halo, with commentary being provided by Project Manager Marc Tardif and MacSoft President Peter Tante (November, 2003). -
Halo PC
Official Site - Bungie -
Halopedia
A wiki covering all Halo games -
Microsoft: Halo Website
Official website for Halo with overview of title. Includes link to Javascript pop-up window with screenshots, movies and more details on the title (only available through above link, no separate URL for pop-up).
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by JPaterson.
Xbox 360 added by Kartanym. Windows added by kawaii. Macintosh added by Kabushi.
Additional contributors: Istari, Kartanym, Unicorn Lynx, Entorphane, karttu, tarmo888, Kabushi, Pseudo_Intellectual, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Zaibatsu, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, yellowshirt, SoMuchChaotix.
Game added November 17, 2001. Last modified March 25, 2024.