Halo: Combat Evolved

The Good
Halo has three stand-out features: enemy AI, teammates, and controllable vehicles.

Much has been said about the AI of the Covenant. Indeed, after Half-Life's marines, Halo's Covenant have perhaps the most advanced and interesting behavior patterns I've seen in an FPS. Although after a while they begin repeating themselves, it was a nice feeling at first to deal with organized groups of enemies that actually employed some tactics. Stronger aliens would elegantly side-step, take cover, and generally behave in a smart, believable way. Smaller ones would block your attacks with shields or try to compensate strength with quantity. Perhaps the most memorable enemies are the Grunts, who get easily demoralized, running away at the sight of a defeated Covenant leader.

The marines will actually help you in this game, fighting on your side. It is a somewhat welcome change from the usual "lone hero saves the world" philosophy. Don't get too excited, though: the AI of your teammates is just functional, far from being revolutionary. But at least those allies are not completely useless, they won't throw bombs at you or get killed at the first opportunity.

I absolutely agree with the other reviewer here on MobyGames: praising the character AI in Halo only reveals the general weak state of AI routines in games. Halo did what every first-person shooter should have done. That is not to say that the AI in this game is amazing. After a short time, you'll learn to predict enemy patterns, their AI being less of an obstacle than their high endurance.

The best feature of Halo are the vehicles. That could be the saving grace of the game for those who have the patience to endure the rest of its gameplay. Vehicle segments are the only ones that feel genuinely exciting. While driving the Warthog is just moderately fun, things change when you get hold of cool alien technology. Hovering or flying around while shooting at poor unsuspecting Grunts or destroying the same vehicle controlled by a fearsome Elite warrior is very fun. Vehicle levels are usually large, and the choice of strategies is quite vast. Getting our of a damaged vehicle and quickly occupying another one before an enemy gets there certainly belongs to the most entertaining moments Halo has to offer.

What else? The weapons work reasonably well. There is just enough variety and balance to try out different stuff - though in the end, I found that aliens take a while to kill no matter what you are using. Naturally, rocket launchers and alike shred them to pieces instantly, but the other weapons inflict more or less the same damage. The feeling of using human and alien technology at once is quite rewarding, though. The two-weapon system, which forces you to choose instead of just grabbing whatever is available, is a good idea. I also liked the implementation of grenades: they were easy to find, easy to use, and caused considerable damage that made me choose them over other approaches from time to time. Melee attacks also work well, and were actually more useful than they usually are in this type of games.

The Bad
Halo is, at best, an average FPS with fundamental, unforgivable weaknesses. The level design is among the worst I have ever seen in a FPS. Indoor locations of Halo consist of identically-looking rooms and corridors that were put together without any care or attention to detail. Most of them were designed with such crudeness that I almost couldn't believe they made it into the final product. Outdoor locations are slightly better, but only because they are outdoors. Natural components are more interesting than the plain, yawn-inducing materials they chose for the indoor locations.

The level of detail is disastrously low. Every room is as bland as possible. Those rooms are just rectangles, mathematical constructions without any soul. At one point, you explore an alien battle cruiser. What can you say about it? That it consists of dozens of identically-looking purple corridors. Nothing else! There are hardly any objects in the rooms, and if there are, they repeat themselves verbatim, copy-paste style, ad nauseam. Those rooms serve no purpose and are simply there, dull and tiresome.

Ignoring this as a small flaw would be, in my opinion, equivalent to forgetting what makes first-person shooters enjoyable and immersive in the first place. When I play an FPS, I want to be a part of its world. It doesn't depend on the premise that much. The premise of Halo is not bad: a mysterious planet, alien civilization, two different alien races, place of religious worship, etc. It's the execution that is horrible. Just before Halo, I played Blood II; it hardly has a better premise, but the colorful locations make it actually more entertaining than this miserable collection endless corridors.

Halo destroys a long, respectable tradition of FPS design philosophy. What we loved doing in those great FPSs of the past is no longer there. It is really amazing how "successfully" the game eliminates from its gameplay nearly everything that made shooters involving. Forget interactivity. Forget destructible environments. Forget secret areas. Forget puzzles of any kind. Forget different goals and objectives in every location. Forget humor, forget setpieces, even forget boss battles! It is as if Duke Nukem 3D got forbidden, Half-Life was released on the moon, and No One Lives Forever never saw the light of the day. Even Doom had by far more variety and depth than Halo. I can only imagine that lack of knowledge of FPS history and the game's initially console-only origins greatly contributed to its popularity. Then again, the console-exclusive GoldenEye 007, released four years earlier, beats Halo in every respect.

With the exception of vehicles, which is really the only gameplay element Halo does convincingly, the entire game consists of shooting waves upon waves of enemies. Sure, the AI is good, but how many times do you want to shoot the same mechanically appearing Covenant group? At what point does it become tedious and boring to outsmart yet another Elite and finish off yet another fleeing Grunt? By the time the Flood enters the scene, you are already bored. But the Flood finishes the deal. I wouldn't be hurt by their primitive AI if they had anything else to offer, but the poor bastards aren't even scary.

Everything else in Halo is average. The plot is a rather ordinary science fiction tale that has been done many times before. Cutscenes are competently made, but something is missing in the presentation, something that would give it more personality and appeal. You don't really feel the grandeur of a mysterious alien civilization. Emotions run low in this story, leaving you cold and indifferent. The story greatly lacks detail and therefore can't compete with good sci-fi material. For example, we learn nothing about the different races that constitute the Covenant. The whole idea of the Flood and the ways to stop it is contrived and unconvincing. The dialog is completely unremarkable as well. At its best, it's just "normal"; at its worst, it becomes corny, with occasional awkward, badly done comic relief.

The funniest (well, actually, saddest) part of it all is how Master Chief became the first video game character to make it into Madame Tussaud's museum. Think of your favorite video game characters and now think that Master Chief, of all people, got this honor! I vote to immediately replace him with Lo Wang from Shadow Warrior. At least he is funnier and has more personality.

The Bottom Line
Halo has a solid premise, controllable vehicles, and good enemy AI. But all this means little compared to its glaring flaws. Repetitive gameplay and awful level design kill this game. Halo feels like a fancy AI-testing held in amateurish 3D constructions with no appeal whatsoever, resulting in a shallow and ultimately boring experience.