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A Short History Lesson:
Long ago, a game came to the PC from an unknown developer
with no track record and a publisher not known for its first
person shooters. This game was being thrust into a world that
was dominated by id Software and its Quake franchise and flooded
with Quake clones. The developer was Valve, the publisher
was Sierra and the game was Half-Life. It would change everything.
Half-Life was purchased by the Quake fans of the world, who
were hungry for more of the same first person action they’d
come to expect. They installed the game, booted it up for
the first time, tweaked the controls to mirror those they
used in Quake, and started a new game. They sat back, expecting
a CG movie to introduce them to the world of Gordon Freeman
and Black Mesa. Instead, they realized that the intro they
were watching was taking place in engine, through their character’s
eyes. What’s more, they could move about freely and
look at what they wanted to look at… during the intro.
It may sound like a small thing now, but it was the first
taste of Half-Life’s unique blend of interaction and
story telling that would place it firmly at the top of the
FPS food chain. A host of games would try to unseat Half-Life
from its throne, including the long awaited Quake 3 and the
far too long awaited Diakatana. They would all fail, some
miserably.
Once again the sparks of greatness began to flicker in an
unlikely place. Bungie, a primarily Apple development team,
began to release a trickle of information about their next
project, a lavishly beautiful FPS taking place on a ring world
called Halo. It would fall off the radar screen for a while,
only to resurface with new screen shots to tease us once again
months later. Rumors began to fly about this mysterious new
game. Some said it would be a multiplayer only game. Others
would suggest it would be a new breed of action oriented,
team based massively multiplayer RPG. Regardless of the rumors,
the game looked better and better every time we saw it, and
the Mac users of the world gloated for they would be the first
to play it.
Release dates were batted back and forth, pushed back, forgotten
about, and eventually Halo became a sort of fabled holy land
that no-one ever really expected to play. Interest began to
fade as people got use to the idea that it would be many years
before they could play this game, but the trickle of movies
and screen shots kept the fires from ever truly going out.
It was in this lull that Microsoft began to take notice of
the game. Suddenly there were rumors that it would be available
on the other impossibly far off dream of the day, the Xbox.
Most people, myself included, were not particularly thrilled
about this. After all, it was also going to be on the PC,
and no console could ever top the PC for playing games. Besides,
you need a mouse and keyboard to play a first person shooter.
Then the unthinkable happened. In a move that shocked the
videogame world and cause more than a few Mac Buddies to fling
themselves from tall buildings, Microsoft purchased Bungie.
Halo would never see the light of day on an Apple, and Mac
Buddies had lost one of the few quality game developers they
had. There was weeping, gnashing of teeth, and howls of riotous
laughter. Wait, laughter? Yes, for the PC players of the world
were now the ones to gloat. We would now be the first to play
Halo, and that was good. I remember that I nearly pissed my
pants I was so happy to hear that the Mac Buddies would be
getting the shaft.
Then, Microsoft dropped the hammer one more time. Faced with
growing concern that their Xbox wouldn’t have any exclusive
big name games, they decreed that Halo would be exclusive
to the Xbox. Now, in a dead shock, it was the PC gamers’
turn to fling themselves from buildings. How could they do
this to us? How could they expect us to play a FPS like Halo
on a control pad? How dare they dumb down such a beautiful
game so it would work on a console? This was going to suck…
hard!
Fortunately, as the Xbox and Halo progressed, our fears began
to be alleviated. The game looked better than it ever had
before. The early previews began to poor in, lavishing praise
upon every aspect of the game… even the controls. We
watched, we waited, and we prayed the Game Gods that we would
not be disappointed. The Xbox launch day crept nearer, and
finally, it was here. Finally, we had the object of our desire.
We popped the Halo DVD into the Xbox for the first time, took
the controls, sat back, and…
The old FPS Lord solemnly removed its crown and passed it
to this new, young upstart. This new game from an unlikely
developer, a publisher not known for its first person shooters,
and exclusive to a console that was being thrust into a world
dominated by Sony and Nintendo took this crown and placed
it upon its head. Halo, one of the biggest underdogs since
Half-Life itself, now reigned supreme over the FPS genre.
The Story:
Halo is by far the most difficult game I have ever tried
to review. It’s not that it’s hard to describe,
it’s just that it’s hard to describe accurately
without writing an entire strategy guide for it in the process.
Actually, I may just have to do that someday. For now though,
let’s start with the story.
The story is one of the best parts of Halo. Like Half-Life
before it, Halo uses scripted events that you experience real-time
to tell most of the story, but also makes good use of in-engine
cut scenes as well. The voice acting is superb, especially
for a video game, and you really start to enjoy playing the
role of the Master Chief. I’m getting a little ahead
of myself here though. Let’s back up to the basic premise
of the story. I’ll give you the short, short version
so I won’t spoil anything for you.
It’s the future. Humans have made contact with an alien
race known as the Covenant, and for some reason they determine
that our existence is a blasphemy against their god and the
Universe. (Gee, I wonder why?) With this determination behind
them, they launch a holy war against Humanity in an attempt
to eradicate us from the Universe. In short, they kick our
ass. We lose, constantly, and every human colonized world
they discover gets blasted with an orbital bombardment till
it’s incapable of sustaining life.
Enter the Spartan Project. That’s you, Sparky. You
play the last surviving member of a genetically and cybernetically
enhanced group of Marines known as the Spartans. Essentially,
you’re a heavily armored and shielded killing machine
with lightning reflexes, a deep grudge against the Covenant,
and all your original humanity still intact. A novel concept,
no? The Spartans were to be the salvation of Humanity, but
while they won the ground battles; the human fleet couldn’t
hold off the Covenant armadas for any length of time. This
resulted in the worlds having to be abandoned to the Covenant,
who, of course, blew them all to hell.
So, eventually it came down to the last colony before you
get to Earth, a world known as Reach. It’s the birthplace
of the Spartan Project, the human’s primary shipyard,
and several other things that make it a must visit for the
Covenant Galactic Tour. They go, they see, we make a last
stand, we die, they win, Reach gets wiped out, one ship and
one Spartan survive and it runs like a bitch away from Earth
in hopes of drawing the Covenant away from the cradle of Humanity.
The ship is The Pillar of Autumn, the Spartan is you (a.k.a.
Master Chief), and where they end up after a blind jump is
Halo.
Halo is a ring world. I don’t feel like explaining
what a ring world is, so let’s just say it’s a
Dyson Sphere, but a ring instead of a sphere that relies on
its spin to simulate gravity. What? Never heard of a Dyson
Sphere? Ha! And you call yourself a geek…
Moving right along… Pillar of Autumn shows up, but
the Covenant outran them and are already there. They attack,
Pillar of Autumn crash lands on Halo, and the fun starts.
Then comes the three-headed monkey… wait… wrong
game.
So, that’s the story. Let’s get down to the gameplay
now shall we?
Weapons:
As most everyone should know by now, Halo is a first person
shooter (FPS) and an FPS is all about the killin’ when
you get right down to it. For weapons, you get to pick from
both human and alien goodness. A pistol, assault rifle, sniper
rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, and fragmentation grenades
round out the human arsenal, while the Covenant toys you can
get your hands on are a plasma pistol, plasma rifle, needler,
and plasma grenades. Right now, you are probably getting visions
of Quake-like carnage where you tote around all these weapons
at all times along with ungodly amounts of ammo, right? After
all, everyone can carry ninety-nine rockets, right? Sorry,
Sparky… that’s not how Halo works. In Halo, you
can only have two weapons at any given time, plus up to four
grenades of each type. While at first this will feel confining
to old-school FPS vets, you’ll quickly come to love
the amount of strategy it forces upon you. In some levels,
you may find a rocket launcher with a grand total of four
rounds to use. If you go wasting them, you’re going
to regret it if you run into a Covenant tank later on. Of
course, you’d also regret it if you left the rocket
launcher lay there. So, if you can’t use it till later
for fear of wasting precious ammo, and you have to take it,
that means you better choose your other weapon very carefully
since it will be your only other one. Of course though you
can always switch to another weapon you find along the way,
or even back track to get an old one again, so it never kills
the fun of the game if you make a bad choice in weapons.
It’s the choosing of the weapons that’s actually
one of the best parts of the game. You start off with two
weapons in each mission that are predetermined by the developers.
If you want something different, simply pick it up off the
battlefield. Want that plasma rifle that an Elite is packing?
Simply kill him and take it. Your Marine buddy was packing
a sniper rifle, now he’s dead and you want the gun?
Take it. It’s simple, intuitive, and amazingly fun.
After all, if you were in a war and ran out of ammo after
mowing down a ton of enemies, would you whip out your knife
and press on or loot their bodies for weapons and ammo? Yeah,
I thought so. Makes perfect sense to me.
The weapons themselves are wonderfully balanced. There really
isn’t any glaringly overpowering weapon because every
weapon has its faults as well as its good points. For example,
you can kill any infantry unit in the game with one well-placed
rocket, but after firing two round you have to reload. In
a large battle, those few seconds can get you killed, and
Halo is full of large battles. Plasma weapons fire quickly
and are great against enemy shields, but they over heat and
have to cool down for a few precious seconds if you don’t
fire short bursts. Even the grenades offer unique differences.
Fragmentation grenades bounce, so you can huck them around
corners at unsuspecting enemy. Plasma grenades on the other
hand will fall straight down when they hit a wall (or tree,
rock, whatever) without bouncing, but will stick to a living
target if it hits one. This is very unpleasant for the target
since plasma grenades are impossible to remove once they’re
stuck to you and they’re fatal ninety-nine percent of
the time.
Vehicles:
One of the things that really makes Halo shine is the liberal
use of a vehicles throughout the game. From the Warthog jeep
to the Covenant’s Banshee fighter, the vehicles are
wonderfully varied and, like the weapons, each has their advantages
and disadvantages. The Warthog, for example, puts no weapons
at your person disposal while you drive it (other than running
enemies over), but you can pick up two fellow marines to man
the gunner and passenger position. From these spots they can
cause a world of hurt to the Covenant as you go roaring past.
Play though in a cooperative game and your friend can take
over the gunner’s spot, adding a whole new dimension
to the level of teamwork involved.
Of course, facing enemy vehicles can be just as fun as it
can be deadly. For example, one time I was shooting at a Banshee
that was giving me a hard time. I ran out of ammo for my assault
rifle and all I had left was my pistol. I said, “Ah
fuck it…” and fired one shot at the Banshee out
of spite as it circled around to finish me off. That one shot
either hit some weak point or the Banshee was nearly destroyed
to begin with, because it blew up in a nice fireball and the
wreckage went spinning over my head and crashed into a river.
That was easily one of the most satisfying moments in the
game for me. Of course, sniping an Elite right off of his
Ghost was pretty sweet too. There is even an opportunity later
in the game to beat an Elite to his Banshee. If you do, and
survive the hail of plasma rifle shots he’ll send up
after you, you can fly the Banshee to another part of the
level and skip a very large part of that level. Again, Halo
is about strategic flexibility, and that’s a good thing.
By far, the most deadly vehicle in the game is also one you
never get to pilot. The Covenant tank. Unless you’re
in a Ghost or Banshee or armed with a rocket launcher, don’t
even try taking this sucker on. At least, that’s what
everyone else would tell you. I took care of one with nothing
but an assault rifle. How you ask? Ever seen Starship Troopers,
the passable movie that butchered an awesome book? Remember
the part were Rico jumped onto the back of the big beetle
thing? Well, if you time it just right, you can jump onto
the Covenant tank. While on it, if you walk up to its weapon
port it will open up like it is going to fire. However, it
won’t. Now just fire some rounds into the heart of the
beast till it starts to spark. Now, jump off carefully or
you’ll get run over. The tank’s weapon is now
disabled… dispatch it at your leisure or ignore it.
It’s up to you. You heard it here first, Sparky.
Level design:
On Halo, the environments range from sprawling, magnificent
outdoor settings, some with wonderful weather effects, to
cramped corridors and everywhere in between. Best of all,
transition from indoor to outdoor parts of a level are marked
only by split second load time that you barely even notice.
There really isn’t a way to adequately describe the
gorgeous, breathtaking vistas that you’ll witness while
playing the game, other than to warn that it is entirely possible
to get ambushed while sight seeing.
In my opinion, I love the level design. It’s logical,
fitting, and exactly what I would expect to see if Halo really
existed. Some people have complained that there is too much
repetition in the architecture of some of the levels, but
I think they fail to realize that if a race were really building
a structure as huge as a ring world, their first priority
wouldn’t be making every room look different. They would
be far more concerned with functionality and ease of prefabrication,
and I think that’s exactly what Bungie was trying to
bring across in Halo. I’m sorry, if you want endless
variety and unpredictability, get off your fat ass and go
outside.
Late in the game, you will end up back tracking through parts
of levels you’d cleared out early in the game. I understand
that a lot of people find this annoying. Well, people, it
fits with what’s happening in the story perfectly, so
shut up. For reasons I won’t give away, you have to
get back to a place you’d been earlier in the game.
The shortest path was through some areas you’d already
been to and you’re pressed for time due to other events
in the story, so of course you take the shortest path. Makes
sense to me. Personally, I found it pretty interesting to
see how different it was to fight through old areas from the
opposite direction. In one memorable part, you now have the
high ground instead of the Covenant. It makes a world of difference!
Save points:
Here’s something that will make most PC gamers cringe.
Halo does not let you save anywhere you want. In fact, you
never save the game yourself. Instead of that, Halo saves
your game for you automatically when you pass specific points
in the level for the first time or when you trigger certain
scripted events such as by killing all the enemies guarding
a position. What this means is that you have to play smart
if you want to win the game. You can’t just jump into
a room, kill one or two bad guys, run to safety, save, and
do it again till you get it right. This time honored tradition
that I call “The Creeping Save” is well known
to PC gamers, and in some games you definitely need it due
to amazingly unfair difficulties. Halo, however, is never
unfair. I’ll get to that later. In the end, the auto
saving method of Halo works like a charm and adds a great
deal of excitement to the game… provided you like a
challenge. Fear not though, all you frail, wimpy little armchair
commandos out there. There are plenty of save points, and
they are generally placed right before a particularly brutal
area. Just take my advice. If you have to retreat from overwhelming
forces, don’t do it in a direction you haven’t
been yet. Nothing’s worse than triggering a save point
when you’re half dead, in a canyon with only one way
in and one way out, and both are blocked by a lot of enemies.
Took some damned fancy moves to get me out of that one…
and that was on Legendary mode to boot!
Graphics:
Everything in the game, from the characters to the frickin’
tree trunks is texture and bump mapped. Some of the interior
wall textures are absolutely amazing since they combine texture
mapping and a very realistic metallic sheen. Under the lovely
textures, bumps, and reflections lurks something even better.
The animation of the various characters, and even vehicles,
is absolutely stunning. You will never look at other first
person shooters the same way again after you see a grenade
send bodies and weapons flying in Halo. Best of all, when
an enemy dies, they lay realistically where they fell.
Every other FPS I can remember ran into a problem when you
killed an enemy near a wall or on stairs. Their body tended
to either clip through the wall or stick straight out from
a ledge as though it was instantly rigid. Not so in Halo,
for here we have some really great physics modeling at work.
In Halo, 3D models have mass and momentum, but not just one
value for the whole model. Each part of a model has its own
defined mass, so when a body goes flying from a grenade blast,
you’ll see it spin end over end, roll, limbs flailing
limply, and when it hits a wall it slumps to floor just as
you’d expect it to.
As I said, vehicles have a great deal of animation about
them too. The best example is definitely the Warthog, which
has fully independent suspension for each wheel. Seeing it
go over logs and rocks really gives you a good sense of just
how precise the physics and animation can be in a game. Even
small features are rendered on the Warthog, such as an antenna
that whips back and forth when you make a sharp turn and a
chain gun that spins and spews out spent shell casings as
it fires. They even rendered the instrument panel, and it
even casts the barely perceptible glow you’d expect
from such a monitor screen.
Sound:
Halo excels in the auditory world just as much as it does
the visual. Voice acting is amazingly good for a video game,
and it’s everywhere. From the banter of your fellow
Marines during a fire fight, to the taunts and panic stricken
cries of your enemies, to cries of pain and rage, it’s
all there. Halo also sports a wonderful selection of environmental
effects, and unless I’m mistaken, the echo in a large
chamber sounds very different than the echo in a narrow corridor.
To top it off, it’s all presented to you in glorious
5:1 surround sound… provided you have the speakers for
it.
For the record, the best use of sound in the game has to
be the frantic screaming of a Covenant that’s just had
a plasma grenade stuck to him. Simply spectacular… I
could listen to that all day.
Difficulty Levels:
Like most good FPS, Halo has multiple difficulty levels that
will suit anyone from Rambo to Grandma. What’s great
about Halo, however, is that you won’t see the entire
ending unless you finish the game on the hardest setting.
Unfair? Well, no, not really. You see, as I said earlier,
Halo is never unfair. Yes, Legendary difficulty if very tough,
but it’s completely winnable. After a few hours playing
on Legendary, you’ll be amazed how much your skills
have improved. An extended ending isn’t the only reason
to play Halo through on Legendary mode though. Much to my
surprise, I found some of the dialog to be significantly changed
from what it was on Normal difficulty. It wasn’t entirely
different but it was a bit grittier and even more enjoyable
than before in my opinion. Do yourself a favor. Beat Halo
on Normal, then beat it on Legendary. Trust me, it’s
worth it.
Multiplayer:
Cooperative mode… Have you recovered from the shock
yet? That’s right, finally someone has realized that
while death matching is fun, playing alongside your buddy
and working together is the most fun you can have in an FPS
with your cloths on (and this is not the forum to discuss
that alternate form of multiplayer). Halo lets you play through
the entire story mode in cooperative, two-player split screen
mode. The only flaw here is that you can’t play co-op
over a LAN, it has to be split screen. That is really minor
and petty though in the face of the fact that co-op is an
option at all, so deal with it. Besides, I’d rather
be sitting next to someone when I play co-op with them anyway.
How else am I suppose to tell them to wait while I scout ahead?
You see, Halo has no chat mode. <gasp!> That’s
right, no chat mode. Is this a problem? Of course not…
it’s a console game for gods’ sake. All you chatty
bitches can go back to Quake 3 on the PC. Halo doesn’t
want you. Damned chatty bitches…
As for death match modes, Halo has a metric butt load and
three-quarters. It’s all here. Everything from survival
to capture the flag to king of the hill to straight death
match and even a take on my personal favorite Quake mod, Q-Ball.
The rules are the same; you have to keep the ball (a skull)
for a certain total amount of time to win. All the while,
you’re slower than everyone else and you can’t
use a weapon other than melee. It’s kind of like being
“it” but with a twist.
On top of those standards are other favorites like a Halo
version of Rocket Arena, an RA-like experience with sniper
rifles instead of rocket launchers, and even a game where
everyone is permanently invisible. Invisible? Yes, but only
mostly. There’s an item in the game called Active Camouflage
that makes you invisible, but slightly distorts the air around
you. Remember the Predator’s cloaking device? It’s
just like that.
There are more multiplayer modes that I haven’t mentioned,
and an option to combine elements of each one to make your
own, so it’s pretty safe to say that everyone will find
something they like here. Hell, with a game this good, what’s
not to love?
-K'Tok
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