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Back in its day, a great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I came very late to the Halo experience, mostly because I didn't have the capabilities of investing in Xbox live. My TV and Xbox is upstairs, my cable is downstairs, and plugging the Xbox into the cable box downstairs would require me to drill holes in the floor, yadda, yadda.

Well, along came wireless networks. I finally decided to convert my computer, Tivo, and Xbox to wireless, thereby skipping the awkward problem of cables between floors. My wife surprised me the Halo collection one day (I love my wife), and just like that I was playing Halo 2 online. But this review is about the campaign, which I just finished yesterday.

Halo follows the story of Master Chief (Steve Downes), a cyborg awakened for the sole purpose of kicking alien butt. He is ordered around by Captain Jacob Keyes (Pete Stacker) and the sassy artificial intelligence hologram, Cortana (Jen Taylor). We never get to see what Master Chief looks like, because he always wears a helmet. This makes him alternately customizable (that could be YOU under that helmet!) and strangely impersonal.

Master Chief is part of an ongoing war against the aliens known as The Covenant. Who exactly they've made a covenant with is uncertain. These aliens range from squat comical Grunts to the dog-like Jackals, from the predatory Elites to the behemoth Hunters. The Covenant ambushes Master Chief's ship, the Pillar of Autumn, and it ultimately crash lands on the ancient ring world known as Halo. But that ring is there for more than decoration, and both the Covenant and the human forces are in for a nasty surprise.

Halo has it all, from a veritable geekgasm of detailed human weapons torn right from the Aliens Space Marine playbook, to ground and air vehicles that can inflict even more destruction. Marines shout orders and follow Master Chief's lead, just like Starship Troopers. To paraphrase Hell Comes to Frogtown, everyone is there to kick alien posterior and chew bubblegum...and they're all out of bubblegum.

Halo is drenched with testosterone, a product so perfectly targeted to adolescent boys that I actually created Master Chief as a comic book (that I published, incidentally) long before the Xbox even existed. That's right, Brenkin Kree wore a featureless helmet, carried a rocket launcher on his shoulder, and had a wristwatch computer named Babe who bossed him around. Just like Master Chief, he was bred specifically for war.

Did Halo rip me off? As much as my ego would like to think otherwise, I sincerely doubt it. Halo is merely the distilled perfection of every boy's dream; the biggest badass in town, thrust into an Aliens flick and armed with all the military might of the future.

In retrospect, Halo is surprisingly mundane. Mostly, Cortana comes up with new missions and tells Master Chief what to do. There's very few twists, but plenty of old standbys: kill this target, rescue this person, flip a switch and kill lots of aliens while doing it. The vehicle missions tweak this paradigm a bit, but not by much. Mostly, I survived by having Master Chief smash his vehicle into the bad guys, jump out, and run for his life while spraying the countryside with hellfire. Shake well and repeat.

The character scripts are well done, but good scripts are now standard fare for most first-person shooters. We expect the marines to act intelligently, the bad guys to act even more intelligently, and the drones to act like morons. As my wife is fond of pointing out, the Grunts are funny and stupid-looking so it makes it okay to kill them.

The voice acting is passable. Taylor's voice acting in particular is uneven; she ranges from sedately reading her lines to infusing them with far too much enthusiasm, sometimes in the same breath. Since she's critical to the plot, this is a major flaw in the game. Because her commentary is only loosely tied to what's actually going on in the game, I often had difficulty understanding what she wanted me to do. Sorry, Cortana, did you say "that's an awfully big pit, don't fall in it" or "that's an awfully big pit, JUMP in it"? This led to several frustrating moments where I didn't know what the hell was going on and just ran around until either Cortana flat out told me or I figured it out myself.

There's a few things that make Halo different. For one, Master Chief has a personal shield that regenerates quickly over time. This means that, barring a series of sudden attacks, Master Chief will always survive (this is a difficult adjustment for someone new to the multi-player...there's no slow sniping, it's either one-shot one-kill or nothing). Master Chief can apparently leap tall buildings in a single bound, but the jumping mechanism isn't particularly precise...which can be deadly in the wrong situation. Finally, the same mechanics that give air vehicles a weightless feeling also applies to ground vehicles, making them maneuver more like gliding hovercraft than actually 3.25 ton road hogs.

Compared to today's standards, Halo's merely a good game. But back when it first debuted, it was a great game. I enjoyed experiencing a bit of gaming history. We'll see how Halo 2's campaign stacks up.

Quite good.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: August 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

As I'm sure you've read, HALO combines great controls, graphics, gameplay, story and FUN to make it game of the year.

Even as I'm writing this, it is still VERY high on the Top 10 XBOX games list, even with the release of such games as MGS2:S, KoTOR, etc. etc.

If you have a XBOX and you DON'T have HALO, you're missing out.

Halo's a bit overrated, but good nonetheless.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: March 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Don't get me wrong here. I love Halo as much as the next guy. It's very intense and does so many things right. However, it just doesn't strike me as being as slick as it could be. The frame rate is a little buggy here and there, the graphics aren't fantastic. The gameplay is where the game really shines, and it is great. The multiplayer in particular is amazing. Clearly this was made by many talented minds. However, the single player is good but not totally great. It mainly consists of one shooting section after the next, and it works very well, but I can't help but think that more variety along the lines of Perfect Dark would have helped. All in all, Halo is a very, very good game, though. Could use more polish in many places, but it's still good.

Halo & a 56 year old. Review & a few hints for Heroic mode.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: March 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I liked the original Syphon Filter and its sequel. Three was a dissapointment. MGS2 had some really good parts, but the overly long video clips and convoluted story line made it frustrating and tedious. I also prefer the greater immersion of true first person shooters.
Halo is the best console first person shooter period.
I'm 56 and it took me well over a week the first time to get through Halo in normal mode. It has incredibly expansive and detailed scenery, terrain and architecture and the first person shooter physics and manual interface is the best of any game.
I just managed to complete Halo in Heroic mode in about 4 days and it was a real experience. You really feel like youve fought an entire war and while not exactly winning, you are truly the last man standing.
Some of the sequences are incredibly difficult, and don't get stuck starting from a checkpoint with the wrong or empty weapons. There are things you can get away with in Normal mode that simply won't work in Heroic.
A few real caveats are: When your following the monitor to the index, always kill all the flood before proceeding at each checkpoint. You won't get there otherwise. A lot of reviewers like the shotgun for killing flood. I pack a full plasma pistol and plasma rifle. Ammunition lasts longer and you don't run out at those emabarrasing moments (oops died again). You just need to be on target and fire rapid bursts. The stupid marine rifle recoils horribly, is relatively ineffective against the aliens and even less effective against the flood. The pistol zoomed is fun against the aliens. The sniper rifle is a lot of fun. Some times you really need the rocket launcher for tanks and the flying alien craft. At one point when you are trying to blow up the generators, you will come out on a snow bridge with a couple aliens and two of the alien flying craft. In heroic mode, if youve got rockets fine, if not, run to the left out the door and slide down the ice wall then run past the tank to the ravine at the bottom of the pyramid buttress. Rocket launcher awaits. This will take MANY tries. No doubt you will try to cross the ice bridge. And if you do you will know why I didn't reccomend that.
Find NeoSeekers website online for a fine walkthrough. I used it only for the hint about killing all the flood on the way to the index. I have tried Legendary and gotten part way into the second level, but it is too much like continual suicide for me. I would like to know if anyone over 40 has completed in Legendary. I can tell you that every possible strategy and reflexes better than mine are absolutely necessary at this level.
My guess is that you need to spend much time restarting entire levels just so you end up at checkpoints with the right weapons and sufficient kills. Too many too tough aliens, not enough ammunition.

Great fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 01, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Dang, this game is good. It looks good, better than nearly any console game I've seen. It sounds good, having nice effects and a good soundtrack. It feels good, with nice controls and the X-Box's amazing controller. It just is good. The story is engrossing and the gameplay is great. I haven't had this much prolonged fun with a single non-rpg console game in a long time. Why didn't I give it 5 stars? Because I'm not a huge fan of first-person shooters in general. And that's the only reason.

As far as I can tell, there's only a couple very minor problems with the game. You can't use a keyboard and mouse, which isn't much of a problem because of the good controller setup. Also, the game doesn't support X-Box's soundtracking feature. It would be great to blast a bunch of Covenant forces with Metallica roaring through my stereo as part of the game.

If you have an X-Box and you don't completely hate first-person shooters, you should get this game. If you have an X-Box and you like FPS, you absolutely must get this game. If you don't have an X-Box and like the genre, you should definitely consider picking the console and game up. :)

You can kiss 007 and PD goodbye, because here comes Halo

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is better then any 007 game and PD. The graphics and gameplay are one of a kind. The expanse levels and fabulous multiplayer make this game a must have for any Xbox. The storyline and nonstop action make you never want to stop playing. Right from the start it pulls you in to the beatifully designed levels and memorible gameplay, that only can be found in the world of Halo.

HANDS DOWN ONE OF THE BEST GAMES EVER MADE

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The title says it all folks. If your looking for the ONE GAME TO BUY for XBOX this is it.

The Best Game Ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: October 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is outstanding. It will give you hours of fun either playing the campaign mode or multiplayer with your friends. This game never gets old!

Great Game....I am impressed!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: October 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

There is one thing that I didn't like. I didn't like the fact i took so long to purchase this game. I wish I bought it sooner!
This is by far the best Xbox game that I ever played. The more I
play this game, the better it gets. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS GAME!!!! I can't wait for HALO2!!!

HALO is the best x-box game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: October 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

You have to be totally burned out not to like Halo. It is the best game I have ever played!! Bar none!! You can't knock any aspect of it! Its all I want to play! Period!!

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