Combat just evolved into gaming greatness

Author's Rating:

Pros: Graphics,Sound,Multiplayer,Single Player,the game is just great

Cons: a few more vehicle multiplayer levels wouldnt have gone amiss

The Bottom Line: 
Everyone should own Halo, even if they dont like FPS games. Its just too perfect not to.

Author's Review
While I am fully aware that the last thing the world needs is another Halo review, especially one that isn’t anything dramatically different from the other ones out there in content, I feel like writing about what has become one of my favourite games in a relatively short amount of time when compared to the others that make up that list.

In case you don’t know, Halo is a First-Person-Shooter, or FPS, in the vein of games like Doom and Quake, this means that you see the game through the eyes of the character you are playing as, with only the weapon you have equipped visible. Where Halo stood out from other such titles was that it allowed players to commandeer a variety of vehicles , including a Tank and a Jeep as well as Alien transport, and cruise about levels in them. When in control of these, the view changes so you can see the whole of the vehicle on the screen.

The game’s story is set far into the future, where Earth has colonised several planets, and these colony forces are at war with a race of Aliens known as the Covenant. As the covenant are attacking an important part of the Colony’s fleet, the Pillar of Autumn, the Master Chief, the king hard as nails space marine, is awoken from cryogenic sleep to help take a greatly important computer ‘construct’ off the ship and away from Covenant forces, the only problem is that the pillar just had to take a blind leap through space, and lands on a strange ring shaped world surrounding a planet. As the master chief bailed out before landing, he has to go back and find his captain, all the while fending off the covenant and protecting the construct, as well as facing up to a whole new kind of threat to the human race…

The graphics in the game are quite simply brilliant. The massively detailed landscapes, the individual soldiers, the muzzle flash, the dirt that shoots up behind the wheels of the jeep. The game is quite simply awesome to look at. Even a few years on, this is still one of the best looking Xbox, and general video, games.

The sound is also something to be saluted. The voice recording is all really good, and the music atmospheric enough to help draw you into the game. The alien enemies also talk, which means occasionally you can hear them before you see them. There isn’t much more to say on the sound other than: no complaints.

The game controls in an interesting way, well interesting on release, its now become the norm for FPS. The Left thumbstick controls which way your character moves, while the right stick controls which way he looks. The R trigger shoots your selected weapon, the L trigger throws grenades, A is jump, X is an action button, used to both reload and get in/out of vehicles, Y is change weapon, B is a melee attack, white activates your torch (in 1p mode only) and black changes your grenade type.
While this may take a little while to adjust to, when you do it will control near perfectly.

The place the game shines above all else though, is the way it plays. The last FPS I really got into was Doom 2, but Halo had me engulfed until the day I completed it. Then I started to play it on Legendary, one of the most insanely difficult difficulty options in gaming history. Im still on the first level of Leg, but I love it.

Even if you beat the game on every difficulty, providing you have friends and 4 controllers, there is a whole other 40 notes worth of game to be enjoyed in the multiplayer.
My friends and I have never been all that big on multiplayer FPS, but Halo has changed that. Whenever an Xbox is being played by us at multiplayer rounds, there is a very high chance that a copy of Halo will be nearby. The game allows you to use the Tank, the Jeep and the smaller alien craft that is the ghost in 2 of the multiplayer levels. I only wish there were more vehicle levels, more vehicles or even just the larger Alien Banshee ship for use, because these would make what is already one of the greatest multiplayer games ever even better.
The fact that system linking Xboxes would allow up to 16 players is something to drool over.

The game may have a few faults in it, but the fact is, that the number of good things just outweighs them so much that they become hard to notice. The story is good. The gameplay is good. It looks good. It sounds good. The multiplayer is fantastic. Its hard to find many bad things to say about this game.
Maybe a few more vehicles and weapons would have been nice, but the fact of the matter is, that it is still highly possible, if not almost impossible not to, have a great time with what has been given.

Personally, I think everyone should give Halo a shot. Its one of the most complete games ever made, and all of you with an Xbox should have at least entertained the thought of buying it. If you like FPS games, then you should already own it, because it is probably the best FPS in a long time, and has made them more popular than ever.

Halo should be owned by everyone. Because blowing up your friend with a tank as he is about to snipe your other friend who is driving a jeep trying to avoid your other friend’ rockets is priceless.