This review was written in the months leading up to Halo 2. We've posted it here unedited.
It almost seems like a cliché to be writing up a review of Halo in 2004, two months from the release of Halo 2. I'd guess that 97.2% of the readers of this article don't need any introduction to Halo, but I'm going to help out that 2.8%. You play as Master Chief, a soldier in an armored suit, and essentially the space cruiser you and other marines were on was forced to crash land on Halo. You don't know what this giant ring is, does, or contains, but you really don't have any choice. On Halo, you encounter the Covenant, an alien race with whom the humans have been battling with for quite some time.
Flashing back a few years, after the Covenant have wiped out many of the Outer Colonies. The last battlecruiser in the area, the Pillar of Autumn, tries to make a daring escape by making a blind jump through space. Unfortunately, there the Covenant have established themselves as well, and the Pillar has to make a crash landing on Halo, an enormous, mysterious ring floating in space. And that's where the game begins.
V I S U A L S
For its time, Halo was absolutely amazing. Let me lay that out there right now. No one could deny it, not even faithful Cubers. Now, 3 years later, it's not quite as amazing, but it's pretty nonetheless. The whole world just feels big. Unlike Metroid Prime for GameCube, much of the game takes place outside in a world where it's often snowing. You can see for quite a distance, instead of the usual field with forests surrounding it.
The models and objects all look stellar. Guns especially look very smooth and polished, and the little details like the ammo on the back of the Assault Rifle make it all more believable. The vehicles for the most part are very good with a delicious amount of detail, especially the Warthogs and human vehicles. All the plasma shots and bursts look very pretty, and the environments as a whole look handsome.
Where the game seems to suffer most, however, is the textures in Halo. Some do look good and detailed, but others... don't. Cliffs and walls look jagged and pointy and unrealistic. These textures occasionally look blotchy and recall the memories of N64 (although that would be N64 better than its best -- it never got that good, but you get my point). The Covenant vehicles also don't look quite as hot as the human vehicles. They are well designed but the texture on them is very pixelated. Go up to a Ghost and see what I mean.
Don't get me wrong. Please. I know Halo was the most beautiful game most gamers had ever seen back in 2001. But writing this review in 2004, I can criticize all the little details because I've seen what the Xbox can do at its very best.
G A M E P L A Y
I have to say, there is hardly one thing that is wrong with the gameplay in Halo. This may be one of the most enjoyable games of all time. It probably is. As you've read, the story is great. And a great story can provide excellent gameplay, which Halo does.
This is not your average blast-the-sh!t-out-of-everything shooter. There is some strategy involved (and I know the kids who always play on Easy are saying, "What? There's no strategy at all in Halo!" But they don't know what they're talking about). As you move up the ranks from Easy to Normal to Hard to Legendary, obviously the game gets more challenging. But that doesn't mean you just have to shoot each bad guy twice as much as on Easy. That means you must conserve ammo, keep your life stats up, and be as efficient as possible.
And making plans about how to best combat the Covenant is incredibly fun. Do I go left around this rock, or over the little hill? Should I take the Ghost or the Warthog? Either way, you're playing the game and you're having fun. There's so much attention to detail, so many little ingredients that give you the sense of being in the environment of Halo. What immerses you the most is all your fellow soldiers that you can help and vice versa to get you farther. They talk, move, shoot, and are for the most part pretty smart. Of course, there is the occasional guy crouched in a ball while Covenant are shooting at him, but they generally know what they're doing. You can have some of your friends jump on a Warthog or tank you're driving as well, from which they shoot at the enemy. It's one reason this game pulls you in more than Metroid Prime.
Another reason this game is great is that there are no puzzles to solve, basically. Other than finding your way around, there's nothing to ponder over or get stuck on. Many platformers and some shooters try to squeeze a little more play experience out of a game by adding needless puzzles (but, then again, some puzzles can be excellent in a game), and that further adds to the immersion experience while playing.
All the game's mechanics seem to be in order. Gravity and all that. Guns shoot as they should, Banshees fly as you'd expect, and there are no rediculous glitches that let you leap 40 feet in the air (at least that I've encountered). A very solid game in terms of the coding and whatnot (as seen by a player).
C O N T R O L
Halo uses my favorite control scheme: The left stick is [move forward and back] and [strafe] while the right stick is look up, down, left, and right (and anywhere in between). Having strafe at your fingertips (unlike Metroid Prime, where you have to push L to strafe,) is incredibly useful in your battles against Covenant and the Flood. Obviously, it makes sense that the fire-weapon button would be the right trigger, so that's all in place. The left trigger being throw grenade makes surprisingly good sense, and so does clicking the right stick for zoom in (on guns that are able to).
What I really don't like, however, is that when you push crouch, you don't stay crouched. Having the control be clicking the left stick makes sense, but it would have been much better if you stayed crouch once you pushed it once, as happens in Rainbow Six 3. It's hard to physically push the controller forward when crouched, and thus it's hard to move forward at all (in the game) when crouched. Also, the grenade-switch button being the black button would not be my first choice: although there are no other buttons it could be, it doesn't seem to make intuitive sense at first (especially because it requires so much more effort and movement than switching weapons).
A U D I O
Audio is another big strong point of Halo. The sound effects are absolutely superb -- we haven't heard the effects before and that's refreshing. The shooting sounds and flying sounds and all the sounds are excellent, but some are repeated numerous times. The #1 example: the sound vehicles make when crashing into walls isthe same every time, which gets tiring, especially when you're having a Warthog War with some friends.
What's even more impressive than the effects is the music in Halo. It's big. That's the best way to describe it. It immensely adds to the effect of a wide open environment. Not only is the music big, it's high quality. This is not your average, synthesized electronica found in most games. This is well-composed, well-performed, real music that fits the environment it's being played in.
L I F E S P A N
If you had all the free time in the world, it would be spent playing Halo, especially with Xbox Connect (a way to trick your Xbox into thinking you're playing a System Link game), where you can play with others online. While it's not quite Xbox Live, it's fun as hell, so go try it out (of course, you'll need a broadband internet connection). Even the one-player game is highly replayable as you move from the Easy to Normal all the way to Legendary (by way of Hard) difficulty levels. Each time it's different, and your strategy has to change (and become more advanced) as you move into the harder difficulties.
W R A P - U P
Halo is a great game, and it's an absolute must for anyone who has an Xbox. These days it goes for about $30 and you can probably find it cheaper preplayed. Even today, it's looking mighty healthy, provides hours and hours of one-player & multiplayer gameplay. Even when Halo 2 comes out, this game will surely not get dusty.
S C O R E S
Visuals: 10
Gameplay: 10
Control: 9.5
Audio: 10
Lifespan: 10
Overall: 9.9
