(974 customer reviews)The story revolves around the conflict between humans and an alien race known as the Covenant. The aliens have discovered a powerful artifact--on the ring-shaped planet called Halo--that will shift the balance of power, and it's up to the player to stop them. In addition to several first-person-shooter levels, the game offers numerous opportunities to engage in vehicular combat. Both the enemy and allied artificial intelligence are extremely impressive. Enemies will use the terrain and layout to put you in tight spots. Allies will know when to cover and aid you. For instance, if you hop into a jeep, an ally will know to jump in and man the turret on the back of it.
The graphics are exquisitely detailed, but only move at 30 frames per second rather than 60. The sound effects and voice acting are superb. The level design is among the best ever; most of the game is engaging and challenging without being frustrating. There's also high replay value thanks to the built-in single-player, cooperative, and deathmatch modes.
Much like the outstanding GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64, Halo raises the bar for console first-person shooters. All console action games will be measured against Halo for years to come. --Raymond M. Padilla
Pros:
Can't F-k with Halo, baby!2007-12-14Excellent Game2006-10-30
Some people here really do talk garbage2005-11-12Where Halo scores highly is in its use of a very limited palette of gameplay elements (small number of weapons and enemies) to create quite an absorbing, if repetitive, experience, and in its very cinematic presentation and large-scale feel. Of course, it rips off a slew of genre favourites such as Aliens, Starship Troopers, Ringworld, The Thing etc. Oh, and Half-Life, obviously. In fact, the really remarkable thing is that people don't seem to have noticed that Halo isn't actually anywhere near as good a game as Half-Life, despite being several years more recent. All that time available to try to top the previous FPS king, and they didn't manage it. Halo is Half-Life without the puzzles. It's only (ha ha) half the game Half-Life was. HL required you to solve some quite absorbing puzzles while fighting off various enemies. Halo requires only the latter part; it requires very little mental work that involves the cerebral cortex rather than the reptillian brain.
For all that, it's good fun, and the different AI levels make for qualitatively different experiences. But make no mistake, this is most certainly *not* the best game ever made.
It -is- pretty good.2004-07-20You play as Master Chief, a top soldier whose job is to stop the Covenant from eliminating the human race with a "weapon"- Halo. Latear on, you find a new enemy- the Flood, who is also fighting the Covenant. For a FPS, the managed to put a few good story elements in. Halo's true use is revealed, and it turned out to be something new and not just there to eliminate x species. You don't have to be a pure FPS fan to enjoy the game. In fact, the only other FPS I've played are GoldenEye and XIII. Sad, I know.
Gameplay was a blast. I had tons of fun doing just about everything. Taking down some of the bigger Covenant with a simple sniper shot, saving ammo by bashing enemies over the head with any weapon, throwing a plasma grenade into a large group, and much more. But some of the best parts are when you fight as a group with fellow marines. Sure they get blown away from a few shots of a Needler, but it was still cool the way they backed eachother up and complained if you killed an enemy they targeted. And getting a gunman while going all out in the Warthog is sweet. Though getting a few crew members when in the Scorpion tank is even better. Especially with its unlimited missiles.
The graphics are pretty good. Outstanding for a launch game, but now you can see that a lot of models are pretty blocky and could've been better animated. It's obvious when you see some of the marines get up from the seats in the ship to deploy. And the level designs are extraordinary. The music, sound effects and voices are all top quality, and I'm tempted to get the soundtrack. Controls are simple to get used to, and it's easier if you have the Controller-S if only because you can change grenade types faster. There's pretty good replay too. Not near Panzer Dragoon Orta's standards, but good. Beating the game on Legendary difficulty gives you an extra little bit in the ending. It isn't that hard of a difficulty setting, as it just increases the damage you take. But I've heard of people giving up after the second level when playing like that. It just makes for challenge though, and god forbid we play a hard game.
Halo's main cons are that it runs at 30 fps instead of 60, and it's too short. The 30 fps thing doesn't really get noticable unless you're in the middle of a horde of enemies and explosions, so it doesn't get that bothersome. And people that spend a lot of time playing games will be able to breeze through this in 2-3 days. Also, I would've had a better selection of weapons. Here's what you get- a pistol, assault rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, two kinds of grenades, and then you can pick up a few enemy weapons. While the AI is very impressive (it still surprises me once in a while), there are times when it's questionable. An enemy with a rocket launcher shouldn't walk up and shoot you point-blank with it. That happened to me numerous times and got annoying.
I'm not too big on multiplayer games, but Halo has a huge following, and for good reason. Setting up any number of players in death matches doesn't get old. And unlike a number of other multiplayer FPS I can think of, you can actually use vehicles in them. Jumping a hill on the Warthog, only to land on two other people that were shooting eachother is priceless.
It's safe to say that Halo does deserve most of the hype it gets, so I'm sure you'll enjoy Halo. Now I get why people are looking forward for the sequel so much. Everyone that keeps posting reviews going on about how this is "the Xbox's worst" is pretty much wrong. You could do a heck of a lot worse than Halo. Like Bruce Lee...or Malice.
Too easy............2004-07-19
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