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Game Information: |
Developer: Gearbox Software |
Publisher(s): Bungie and Microsoft Games
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Genre: First Person Shooter |
Release Date: September 30, 2003 |
Overall Game Rating: 37.5 / 40 |
Storyline: 9.5 / 10 |
Gameplay: 9.5 / 10 |
Graphics: 9 / 10 |
Audio: 9.5 / 10 |
HALO: Combat Evolved is a first person shooter. Originally for the XBOX, this game was made extremely famous on that console. It was a must for the game to be ported over to the PC because such a great game needed to be. (And HALO was originally scheduled to be released for PC, but Microsoft decided to move it over to the XBOX as one of their first games out for the new console. So it was only a matter of time before they made it available to the only true gaming machine: THE PC!).
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What happens in the beginning movie sequence is the ship: Pillar of Autumn comes out of hyperspace and is immediately attacked by Covenant forces. From their dialogue, the ship was running away from a battle, but the Covenant (having faster ships) caught up to her (The Pillar of Autumn). The Pillar is boarded by the Covenant and some serious damage is done to the ship, forcing the people to evacuate the ship with the Captain staying on board and going down with the ship. Meanwhile, you, the Master Chief, a genetically enhanced soldier with some high tech armor, are thawed from a cryo unit. You then fight your way through the ship to the Captain who tells you that he will go down with the ship. After the ship's AI, Cortana, protests that he should abandon ship also, he refuses and gives Cortana to you (the Master Chief) to keep safe and escape. So you do that and fight your way some more through the ship finally to an escape pod.
In this area is HALO a huge structure in space that is shaped like a, guess what?, Halo! It's quite a mysterious thing, but the escape pod crash lands on it. The brakes fail and everyone in the pod dies except you (of course!). Now you go on missions to rescue people where you hear rumors that HALO is a huge weapon with vast powers and if they should under the Convenant's hands, the human race would be eradicated. And you go on a mission to find the control center. Except HALO is something worse than a super weapon. A deeper evil is found and you must fight it...
All in all, a fairly good storyline, with many plot twists and moments of suspense. But, killing aliens isn't so original and that's why I gave it a 9.5. Still, this is a great driving storyline!
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Great weapons! Awesome gameplay! You can only hold two weapons at once and 8 grenades (4 fragmentation grenades and 4 plasma grenades (otherwise known as sticky grenades since they stick to people quite fun in multiplayer to watch the other person flail around till they are blown up!)
The system of holding only two weapons is quite real. I mean think about it, in real life can you hold 10 weapons at a time?!?! a pistol, an assault rifle, a rocket launcher, a chainsaw, a shotgun, and a super super gun? now how real is that?
Well, HALO is very real. Only two guns at once, which prompts some serious strategy making. Should you have a sniper rifle and assault rifle? Or should it be a rocket launcher and pistol?
The shooting is extremely smooth as well as the jumping a crouching. Once you're in some intense battles everything is EXTREMELY fast paced (one of my favorite things in a game).
However, sometimes it gets extremely frustrating to be going up against 15+ aliens at once. Reload times seem like an eternity. But that's what makes HALO extremely challenging in the later levels. As for multiplayer, I think HALO says enough for itself. But for those of you who have never played, I have two words about multiplayer:
IT OWNZ
I almost forgot: controls.
Now that keyboard and mouse can be used. It makes the game so much better. On an XBOX controller the sniping was kind of frustrating, but now that the precision of the mouse is intergrated ooooooooh those people drop like flies Keyboard and mouse are the only way to play FPS's!
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Graphics are absolutely beautiful. Everything is redered absolutely great. Since this is a port of the XBOX version, everything had to be recreated. And beautifully done it was! But! the graphics could've been so much better with screens from Half Life 2 coming out and Doom 3, HALO seems fairly low quality, but hey! It's still superb! Physics are soooooo funny in this game. Bodies flail as they fly through the air. And the vehicles! Oh the vehicles! These are bounced around by rockets and grenades and can be punched. So fun! The weapon models are pretty darn good. Shiny pistols. Awesome rockets flying at ya! Just absolutely chock ful of eye candy. Bullet holes, blood, and charring! The only thing i would've loved is object destruction. I wished i could've blown through a wall or blasted some rocks. But that is to be expected in HALO 2. Just hafta wait a little longer.
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Now seeing that the XBOX had 5.1 surround sound capability, the PC port for it had to have it also! And so great it is with the EAX enhanced audio effects. I have an Audigy card, so i got to experience this game in the 5.1 surround sound it was meant to be played in! It was sooooooo cool. You could hear teammates shoot from behind you and hear the bullets hit in front of you. At certain creepy parts, the sounds echoed on the walls. It was sooooo cool. All the sounds have been perfectly ported. All of the gun sounds and explosions sound exactly as they do on the XBOX. The people scream as the fly through the air. Yell when they're hit. Man its awesome!
All in all, HALO is a must get for the PC. So awesome! All of the elements of this game make it great. I don't know why it's so good, but there are somethings that just can't be explained!
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