One of the best first-person shooters of all-time!
When you say the word "Bungie", you usually think about the Halo series, one of the most well-known franchises in existance, And now, with my first review here on GiantBomb, I am going back to the game that started it all.
Halo: Combat Evolved starts off on the UNSC Halycon-class cruiser Pillar of Autumn which had weeks ago narrowly escaped demise at the hands of the alien theocracy known as the Covenant Empire after making a blind jump to get away from the planet Reach. However, right from the get-go in the very first cutscene, you learn the Covenant have already beat you to your unknown jump destination, a ringworld known as Halo.
It is then that you take up the boots of Master Chief Petty Officer John SPARTAN-117, one of the last in a line of commandos trained primarily to fight rebels and Insurrectionists, not an extraterrestrial threat. Still, you are a beacon of hope among the crew of the Autumn, and you can feel that in the gameplay too. You can take a beating but only for a short time, can punch an alien to death with the butt of your rifle with only minimal damage, and run and jump great distances.
After crashing on the ringworld, you'll traverse many environments. From a barren wasteland to a dense swamp and even inside a Covenant CCS-class cruiser, you'll explore them all and suck in the beauty of this place. However, after you come across these locations, there will be blood spilt. And I literally mean it. Unlike the other games in the franchise, gore is right up front and is usually everywhere after a battle or after coming across an area that the Flood attacked. However it's still beautiful.
Your primary weapons in the game are the assault rifle and the pistol. The assault rifle is anything but your average assault rifle. It is extremely powerful, almost like a mini-turret that you carry around with you. As well, it gives off this kind of death rattle as I call it when you fire it, so it is satisfying to kill an Elite with it. The pistol, on the other hand, is like your mid-ranged weapon. It has a scope and is probably the most powerful pistol in the existance of videogaming. Heck, this thing can destroy a Banshee, which is the Covenant equivelant to a recon plane. It's that powerful.
One thing that the game established for the franchise is the color. Everyone knows Halo as a bright and beautiful place, and that is no different in the first one. Everything isn't grey and brown like most games of today and even the enemies are colorful Heck I think they are the most colorful things in the game. The reason they are so colorful is so that rank in most Covenant races is designated by rank. For example, the difference between a Minor Grunt and a Major Grunt is that a Minor Grunt is orange while a Major Grunt is red.
Speaking of enemies, these guys come in many varieties. As said before, there are teh Grunts wh oare the most common Covenant race and our basicallt cannon fodder. The Jackals rank alittle bit higher than Grunts since there have shields on their wrists that protect most of their avian-like bodies. And also: they can overcharge plasma pistols which can deplete your shields. Hunters are the tank class if you look at it in an RPG-style way. Hunters are based off an enemy from Bungie's older FPS franchise Marathon, and look like them except that they have an arm-mounted fuel rod assault cannon. However, one shot of a pistol in the front or back exposed area on the Hunter and it is one shot, one kill.
Then, there comes the Elite. These guys are your equals in everyway, including tactility, and that is something that Halo still retains over many shooters: the enemies don't simply run after you, they outsmart you. The Elite is the smartest enemy AI I have encountered in any game. They are cunning and tenacious both in-universe and in-game. They will outflank, outman you, and even outmanuever you, they are that smart. As well, Elites stay in cover for extended periods of time unless you try to flush him out of his cover.
Though I have mentioned mostly enemies, you have allies, both major, minor, and originally minor but now major. The first on this list is of course Cortana, your AI partner-in-crime and, as some people call her, your love interest. She guides you along this ringworld and helps you understand it much more clearly than you might have thought you knew about it. Then there is Jacob Keyes, captain of the Autumn. He is your commanding officer and a centeral character during the first half of the game. In our category of minor but hten major is Staff Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson, the human comic relief and the character you'll connect to the most in the later games.
However, unlike the later games, when you have marines, keep them alive. They are helpful in everyway possible, except maybe driving. However, they will help you fush out you smart enemies and help you push your way towards your objective. Unfortunately, they do not appear after the sixth level, 343 Guilty Spark, which is also the name of a Forerunner AI in the game who is initially an ally, but betrays you when you learn Halo's true function.
Battles are outright brutal. You'll hear battle chatter from both sides aswell as gunfire from all sides. This is one of those games where set-piece battles are not needed as the AIs ability to free think strategy-wise becomes very intense in combat situations, expecially on harder difficulties and the later missions. One interesting thing to note is that once you kill an Elite in combat, the Grunts and Jackals lose moral and only a few of the Grunts will stand up and fight you head on. Thta is until you let them say hello to either Mister Bullet or the butt of your assault rifle.
What do you do after you've completely completed the campaign? Easy, play it with a friend. Co-op is fully enabled throughout the campaign and the extra help is very, well, helpful on harder difficulties and later chapters. Heck, it's still an achievement justt to beat Legendary with a friend.
There is aswell a competitive multiplayer mode. Coming with around a dozen maps, there are several gametypes. Slayer and Team Slayer is your standard deathmatch and team deathmatch. There is as well objective-based games such as CTF, in which two teams compete for a flag and must return it to their base with the score limit to win. Then there is Oddball, in which there is a skull on the map and whoever holds it the longest wins. It can be played either via splitscreen or system link and either way it is fun and addictive.
However, I do have one complaint: the later missions in the campaign are just areas from the first half of the game. Heck, the mission Two Betrayls is just the mission Assault on the Control Room backwards and set during the night.
However, this is very minor as even these levels are still jam-packed with intensity that all FPS fans enjoy.
Overall, Halo: Combat Evolved is a great game that has been recognized as one of the best first-person action games of all time. It goes up in the story-driven first person games along with Half-Life and Half-Life 2 and BioShock and is still a fun multiplayer experience so I suggest that if you haven't bought it it, buy it now either for the original X-Box (which is the version I am reviewing), PC, or XBOX Live Arcade via the XBOX Originals area.
