Halo: Combat Evolved was the defining title of the first Xbox console back in 2001.
Microsoft bet big with their acquisition of Bungie, pinning the hopes of a billion dollar
business on the backs of Master Chief and company.
Of course, the gamble paid off.
Halo was a huge success, immediately making Microsoft a contender in the home console
market.
Halo would go on to be one the best-selling franchises of the decade, toppling industry
titans like Mario.
Halo also sparked a huge change in gaming and the industry as a whole.
It proved the home console could do triple-A first person shooters, and with a controller
rather than mouse and keyboard.
This fundamental shift is still felt to this day, with the FPS genre dominating the home
console market 15 years later, and PC gaming taking a back seat to the Xbox and PlayStation
offerings.
It is with this understanding of Halo's impact and legacy that I revisit the game.
There is little doubt Halo was a huge critical hit back in 2001, but what is it like to play
14 years later?
Is the experience still legendary, or has age finally caught up to the Chief?
Halo's title screen is perhaps the most iconic in all of gaming.
A haunting song plays in the background, with chilling vocals and some masterfully orchestrated
sounds setting the tone for the game.
Despite the simplicity, it somehow sounds larger than life, and is a piece of music
as recognizable as any.
After selecting the campaign mode, and one of four difficulties, we are dropped into
the world of Halo.
We play the main protagonist, Master Chief, as he is awakened to try and defend a space
ship, The Pillar of Autumn, under attack by an alien race known as the Covenant.
The level works as a tutorial of sorts, without being too in-your-face about it.
After meeting with the captain of the ship, Captain Keyes, you hook up with an A.I.
named Cortana, jump aboard a life pod, escape the overrun ship, and crash into a mysterious
ringed planet.
Thus the name of the game, Halo.
Here, the real game begins.
Halo is a massive planet sized structure, and within it are a multitude of different
biomes and weather.
The opening area is a lush mountain landscape, with bright grassy knolls blended with exotic
rock formations.
This leads to one of my favorite aspects of Halo; how the game makes you feel like you
are under attack.
You aren't really the aggressor, rather you are simply trying to survive.
This is enhanced by wave after wave of enemy dropships, dumping off truckloads of Covenant
fighters hell bent on destroying the human race.
After making your way out of the foreign landscape, you discover others have also survived the
crash.
From here, your goal is to rescue Captain Keyes, who is being held hostage on a Covenant
ship.
The next level changes things up completely.
Here, everything is dark, with a moon or planet illuminating the night sky.
Not only is the scenery a lot different, the gameplay drastically shifts.
You are given a sniper rifle, and rewarded for patience and marksmanship.
This leads into another couple things about Halo I really like.
First, the game is relatively slow.
Even at the time, it was a significantly slower than most popular first person shooters.
Next, you can only carry two weapons at a time.
Not only does this add a bit of realism to the game, it also adds a bit of strategy.
It gives something extra to think about.
What secondary item do you want with your sniper rifle?
If you’re stuck with a short range weapon, it changes the way you attack the aliens,
as you have to get up close and personal to down your foes, rather than take a long distance
approach.
The life bar is also unique.
Before your health is drained, a secondary bar representing your shield will deplete.
If you take cover, the shield will regenerate, effectively giving you unlimited health, if
you manage it correctly.
I suspect these elements are how Halo developed its Combat Evolved moniker.
After sniping your way through the map, you are beamed up into a Covenant ship to finally
rescue the captain.
Yet another entirely new set piece is introduced, and the ship has a very other worldly feel
to it.
However, it also introduces one of my few issues with Halo.
At times, the game is incredibly repetitive.
Not only do the 30 to 40 minutes leading up to the rescue of Captain Keyes feel awfully
samey, you then backtrack a good portion of the stage again.
I could have used a quick cutscene to end the journey, and I don’t really need to
go through the same corridors all over again to feel like I’m making progress.
Still, we can take a few moments to admire the beautiful graphics.
At the time, the lighting effects and bump-mapping really blew me away.
While I love the Dreamcast, it cannot make metal surfaces shine quite like they do here.
The architecture also does a wonderful job hiding the limitations of the hardware, using
a lot of a straight lines as part of the design.
I also like the little touches, like how things blur, when using the sniper rifle.
Or how plasma grenades light up corridors.
Again, these are things I just did not experience with the Dreamcast and helped the Xbox feel
like a next-gen upgrade, despite being of the same generation.
After finally escaping the alien ship, we’re brought back to Halo on an island to find
the ring’s map room, in hopes of ultimately finding Halo’s control room.
Again, the diversity in the environments really shows through, with the terrain actually feeling
like a forest.
This level also features some excellent cutscenes, and most in Halo are very well done.
The dialog between Master Chief and Cortana feels very organic, as the two have a genuine
concern for humanity, and an almost playful flirting occurring between the two.
This playfulness makes both characters very likable, and you want to see each succeed,
in the real world as well as the digital world.
After finding the coordinates to the control room, we’re dropped off in an underground
network of unnatural caves, and another new set piece is introduced: snow.
Perhaps more important than the change of scenery, is the constant change in color palette.
In many ways these color changes remind me of classic 2D games from the 90s.
Through here, our hero finally makes it to the control room.
Cortana warns Master Chief he must stop Captain Keyes from locating a weapons stash, as there
is no stash of weapons but something far worse.
It seems Captain Keyes kept himself busy after we rescued him.
Miraculously, rather than backtracking for an hour and a half, we are dropped right into
to a swamp area, which is a relief.
After making our way through the swamp, and some extremely repetitive segments through
an endless amount of similar shaped rooms and corridors, Master Chief finally catches
up with Captain Keyes and his crew.
Only something is awry.
In another clever cutscene, we are treated to some recorded footage from the Captain's
mission.
Here, the first plot twist is revealed.
The crew has accidently released the Flood.
The Flood is another alien race, a mix between parasites and zombies, whose mission is to
wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy.
The entire situation is even more dire now, as Master Chief has to fight off not one,
but two, alien races trying to exterminate humankind.
This section of Halo is my least favorite.
The repetitive sections of the game really start to wear on me, as we have to turn around
and make our way back through the entire structure, and back to the swamp.
It was tedious making our way in, and going all the way back really tested my resolve.
After finally making it to the swamp, we are treated to a third alien race, this time mechanical.
Their leader is Guilty Spark, who informs Master Chief someone has released the Flood
and instructs us to follow him.
We must now retrieve the index, which is a key of sorts used to activate Halo.
It seems Halo is some sort of weapon, and can be used to eradicate the Flood before
they spread to the rest of the galaxy.
Historically, it is at this point I turn off Halo.
The story is just a bit too love-triangle for my tastes and my attention span wonders.
I realize I’m in the minority here, but I just don’t have a taste for long drawn-out
adventures anymore.
But for the sake of this review, I must soldier on.
After a couple boring hours making your way through another set piece that repeats far
too often, and drags on way too long, we arrive at the index.
Guilty Spark then uses his teleportation powers to bring us back to the control room.
It is here, another plot twist is revealed.
Halo cannot in-fact take down the Flood, but rather destroys the Flood’s food source,
so they starve to death.
Of course, activating Halo would mean all life in the galaxy, including humans, would
be killed.
Master Chief and Cortana make a break for it, with the index in toe, in search of another
solution.
This final act of the game returns to the glory of the first.
The environments are again varied, aided in part by a change from day to night, a wide
array of enemies from the Covenant, the Flood, and the Sentinels, and the designers thankfully,
scaling back on repetition.
Our final goal is also simple.
We must destroy three pulse generators located in the snowy areas outside the control room.
These pulse generators are the source of Halo’s immense life killing power.
Cortana believes destroying these will slow down the Sentinel’s quest to eliminate all
life.
Meanwhile, Cortana will search the ring for the crash site of the Pillar of Autumn, the
ship our entire adventure started on.
The plan is to use the ship’s nuclear power to blow up Halo.
Everything great about Halo: Combat Evolved is found in the final act.
The music heard on the title screen is repeated throughout the game, setting the mood for
cutscenes, highlighting tense moments of battles, and queuing in on key story elements.
Different instruments are used in different sections, sounding similar, yet distinct,
and tie the whole game together.
While a great soundtrack, terrific gameplay mechanics, and a unique world all come together
to create a fun, satisfying experience, what puts Halo over the top for me, are the vehicles.
Early on we are introduced to the Warthog, an off-road, quad steering jeep of sorts allowing
you to traverse great distances in a short amount of time.
Your fellow marines can even hop in and operate the gun turret.
While a bit strange to control at first, using a dual analog set-up rather than traditional
controls, it is an absolute blast to roam around the massive outdoor areas running over
enemies and trying to squeeze into areas you aren’t supposed to.
It doesn’t end at the Warthog either, a powerful tank is also playable in the snowy
area, with a satisfying canon making quick work of the alien enemies.
A couple of Covenant vehicles are also available, with the ghost being a nimble cruiser, and
the banshee allowing you to take to the skies.
I cannot stress enough how much fun all of these are, and they help to mitigate the problems
I have with indoor corridor areas being too repetitive.
The final thing cementing Halo as one of my favorite first person shooters is the final
level.
While I don’t find the story as engaging as some, the folks at Bungie nailed the ending.
After arriving at The Pillar of Autumn, you must destabilize the nuclear cores to set
off a nuclear reaction obliterating the ring.
After setting the plan in motion, you must escape the ship before it explodes.
You make your escape in an epic 5 minute Warthog run, mimicking an epic car chase in an action
movie.
Needless to say, it is the perfect way to end the game.
You begin the game where you start, escaping the Pillar of Autumn, and you get to do it
in the game’s defining feature, a vehicle.
So, is the Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved worth playing today?
Absolutely, 100%, yes.
The game succeeds in a way all classic games do, by being a ton of fun to play.
As expected, Halo gets the fundamentals correct.
The controls are smooth, aiming is easy, and the levels are laid out in a way where it
is impossible to get lost or stuck.
But it is the things beyond the fundamentals which make Halo so iconic.
The environments and enemy placement all work in harmony with each other to create fun combat
situations.
Maps are designed in a way where a little bit of exploring will yield a favorable advantage
point.
Yet, there are simply few areas of frustration to be found anywhere, and it makes recommending
the game to non-fans a no-brainer.
Just the idea of a ring-shaped planet is really cool, and gave the designers a way to increase
diversity, as there were basically no limits to what could be done on a fictional world.
Those sick of the same shades of brown and grey should also welcome Halo's wonderful
use of color.
The progressive ideas put forward are still fresh.
The main female lead is strong willed, and smarter than the male lead, without being
sexualized.
The recharging shield allows you to avoid death and keeps the adventure moving forward.
The checkpoint system is generous when you fail.
The little touches, like having a plasma grenade stick to a foe, or your ability to use every
single weapon as a melee item, just never gets old.
And of course, the soundtrack is amazing.
While the game fumbles a bit with some repetition, it more than makes up for it with a wide array
of environments, vehicles, and weaponry.
And I’m not even going to talk about the multiplayer, which kept me and 15 friends
busy for nearly two straight years.
Overall, Halo is an incredible game and I have no problems calling it a classic.
Five, out of five.