One of the best: Halo
"WART WART". Know what this dialog is from? If you don't, you need to see help immediately. Not only because it's from one of the most well designed and well rounded games ever, but because the name of the game is in the title of this review. Yes, it is the one and only (well, not really since there's a Halo 2...but yeah...) HALO! Many regard this game as the best FPS ever, and with a great plot, stunning visuals, awesome multiplayer, and tons of replayabilaty, this game is one of, if not the title, at the top of my favorite games list.
Ok, let's start out with the storyline. As mentioned before, Halo has one of the best storylines in a game that I've ever seen outside of an RPG. I thought it was amazing that a FPS could have a plot like this. I digress. The game starts off on sort of a cliffhanger. The player basically has no clue to what happened before he or she starts playing. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Infact, there was a book written to explain what happened pre-Halo (The Fall of Reach by Eric Nyland). The player starts off on the Pillar of Autumn, where the Master Cheif (the main character, durr) is awoken from his slumber to find out that the Covenant (bad guy aliens!) are attacking. As it turns out, the Pillar is beat up by the Covenant so bad that the ship has to crash-land on the closest plant/object. This place would be "Halo". The Master Chief escapes the Pillar before it crashes and also lands on Halo. The Covenant keep calling Halo the "ultimate weapon", and the Marines can't let them get their hands on it. From there, the Master Cheif manuvers through the Covenant to try to discover the secrets of Halo. When he finally discovers the secret of Halo, it's all but too late. *SPOILER WARNING* The Covenant got to Halo's secret...but it was a dark, nasty little secret left by the Forerunners (the makers of Halo). Halo was built to contain the Flood, and when the Flood were let loose, all the Halo's in the galaxy (yes, there's more then one according to the book) would destroy everything that's alive so they Flood wouldn't have anything to feed off of. I forgot to mention the Flood are a parasitic animal, they infect another lifeform to feed off of and live in. They kill their prey, then turn them into "combat forms". Basically, the things you'll shoot at in the game. From there Master Cheif trys to get rid of both the Flood and the Covenent through many means, but only one plan works out in the end. *SPOILER OVER!* I hope you can see how detailed the plot of this game is from my vague description. This science fiction game didn't have many holes in the plot, like Halo 2.
The graphics in this game were amazing when the game was released, and they look pretty darn good even though it's becoming a game of the past now. From all the time i've played it, I haven't noticed any graphically slip-ups other then a body of a human/covenent/flood becoming malformed after it dies (they just look funny sometimes). That's the only thing I noticed, and it's more entertaining to looked at messed up characters after they die anyways. The graphics still hold up nice when you play the game on multiplayer. It doesn't matter if you're playing on LAN, or just one console, it looks pretty good.
The sound in this game is almost as good as an FPS can be. All of the characters have great voice-overs and dialog, while the vehicles and guns have great sounds as well. The only thing may be that some of the sounds may sound repetative from time to time...but you get that in FPS's.
Control. Wow, I think this game revolutionized the way we play FPS's now. I learned to grasp Halo's controls fairly quickly, but several of my friends thought that it was so hard to control the game, although, I think it was just harder for them to transition from either PS2 or their old N64. By the way, I played a N64 not too long ago for fun, and I couldn't understand how I ever played Goldeneye or Perfect Dark with those controls. Basically, the best controls i've seen in a game for a loooong time. The basics of the controls are, the right trigger is to fire your weapon, the left to throw those 'nades. The "A" button is the notorious jump button, the "B" is the melee button (it's always fun to smack people in the back and kill 'em), the "Y" button to switch weapons, and "X" to reload". The directional pad isn't really used, and the white button is for the flashlight/night vision with the sniper, while the black button isn't really used. The two analog pads are used in a great way. One is used for movement, left to right, forward and backwards, while the other is used for aiming your gun. To me, this is the ultimate setup (sorry, I love this game) and took me no time to learn, while others thought the controls were hard as heck, and took them a while to grasp the basics.
Halo has tons of replayability. I mean, you can first beat the game on easy, then on legendary, then beat it once more. It's just that much fun. Plus, the multiplayer makes you keep on comin' back over and over agian. Before Halo 2 came out this was the game my friends and I played all the time. One time we even had a four hour capture the flag match...seriously. Anyways, this game has tons of replayability.
Overall, this game is very solid,with great multiplayer,storyline, etc. If you have a Xbox, you MUST get this game. And if you've only played Halo 2, feel ashamed, but redeem yourself and get this game. If you don't have a xbox, then get the PC version. It's cheap, and worth your money, fo' sho.
