The Story – “bent on Humankind’s extermination, a powerful fellowship of alien races known as the Covenant is wiping out Earth’s fledgling interstellar empire. You and the other surviving defenders of a devastated colony-world make a desperate attempt to lure the alien fleet away from Earth. Shot down and marooned on the ancient ring-world Halo, you begin a guerrilla-war against the Covenant. Fight for humanity against an alien onslaught as you race to uncover the mysteries of Halo”.
The Main Screen – You are presented with a non-crowded and beautifully animated title screen. The eerie and haunting music has you frantically trying to get into the action as soon as possible. At this point it is possible to choose to start a campaign, multiplayer, settings or demos.
Campaign – firstly you create a new player profile (if you haven’t already done so); you will be asked to name it and all saved games will be allocated to this individual profile. What this means it that different people can save their own progress in the game, along with there own configuration for the controls. Once you start the campaign, your character becomes engrossed in the most sophisticated plot I have ever experienced in a first
person shooter (FPS). You start obviously with the first of 10 missions, the other missions become unlocked as you progress through. This feature means that you have to opportunity to go back and complete previous missions on different hardness’s and that once unlocked, you can play a favourite mission at any time without effecting your most current position within the game. Although 10 missions don’t seem very long, be assured that each mission will require you to achieve any number of objectives. Some missions do require some backtracking but never to the point of being repetitive.
Multiplayer – take this option to tackle your friends in head-to-head combat or gives you the option to play the above mentioned campaigns cooperatively with another person. This can be through a system link between another Xbox (second television required) and the split-screen option. Up to 4 players on a single screen and up to 16 players through the system link can play. Bungie have included a large selection of multiplayer games types:
Capture the flag (capture the enemy flag and return it to your base) King of the Hill (capture and hold key locations on a map) Slayer (head to head battles against other players) Oddballs (find and hold the ball for as long as possible) Race (tag all the objectives with a vehicle to win the race)
What makes this selection even better is the ability to fully customise each of these game types to suit. You choose what weapons and vehicles will be made available and what the kill/time limit will be. The combination of game types is almost endless.
Settings – this is an opportunity to edit individual profiles (fully customisable button configurations) and change multiplayer game types.
Demos – this is a feature with most Xbox games, you can play several interactive demos and watch illustrations of other Xbox titles available.
Weapons – the range of weapons is not large but this does not really matter. Each weapon is different; having different ammunition and fire rates and inflicts different damage ratios. Human weapons are the sniper rifle, shotgun, pistol, rocket launcher and assault rifle. Covenant (the aliens) weapons are the plasma rifle, plasma pistol and needler. You can use both Human and Covenant weapons, at some point ammunition will be scarce and you will have to use what ever weapons you can find. One thing of noticeable mention is the Covenant’s plasma grenade that you can throw and will stick to people. It is absolutely hilarious watching an alien running around with a grenade stuck on his head before being blown sky high. Be warned, when an alien has a grenade stuck on him he will run towards you and also these grenades can stick to you!
Vehicles – I won’t spoil this for you but yes you do get to drive various vehicles all armed with destructive weapons and even better, marines will also jump into vehicles and travel with you to help you out, seeing is believing.
Artificial Intelligence – the intelligence of the aliens if very sophisticated. Aliens will hide behind rocks, hunt in packs, run away scared, jump into vehicles and come after you, and will even try to circle behind you using the available cover to attack your back. The marines are also very cleverly animated and have various characteristics. They will pair up with you, use the vehicles, pick up weapons from the floor and even chat amongst each other like a platoon would do.
Graphics – this has had me at the thesaurus trying to find alternatives to the word brilliant. Although the resolution is not as high as some pc FPS it is still very complex while remaining at a 60 frame rate to avoid any slow down in performance, even in the huge open areas. The textures are very highly detailed with built in effects such as shiny reflective surfaces and shimmering water. I feel that this title has pushed the Xbox and it really shows in this stylishly polished game. The graphics stand up very well to titles such as Quake 3 and Unreal on the pc and should definitely not be passed off as “just another FPS”.
Sound – the music does not play all the time, it will start-up at selective stages in a mission depending on the situation you are about to encounter. It will play dramatic almost classical music in battles then quiet, eerie pieces of music down creepy corridors. The music is very sharp and appropriate but will sometimes play for too long and can be a little repetitive. Sometimes the music is too loud to hear the actor’s voices that tell the story and guide you, they have not included the option alter individual sound levels. Don’t let this put you off, in my opinion the game play and quality of graphics will put this all to the back of your mind.
The Buttons – at first the buttons seem a little difficult, especially to someone who has had little practice with a control pad. It maximises every button on the control pad although this is fully editable to whatever suits you. Don’t be disappointed if you struggle at first you will get the hang of it.
Overall – this is must for any Xbox owner, many games of this type have failed on consoles but this has shown the pc world what a FPS should be all about. With 4 different difficulties and a huge multiplayer selection the game will not easily be mastered.
i have this game and you are 100% rite its a very good game and is everthing youve said
bowdeni 28.04.2005 18:15
Nice If your interested in Xbox, then may I recommend my website about the Xbox2, www.xbox360-forums.com Ian
TheReaper 08.03.2003 19:24
I can completely agree with you. I can only complain about two things:
1. I don't yet own an X-box so I am limited in the amount I can play this fantastic game.
2. VERY occasionally, the game can be a bit too linear, but this is only an extremely minor point.
Good Review, good game. TR
More often than not, when a game is in development for over three years it does not live ... more
up to the hype. Bungie'sHalois the exception. Not only does the game live up to the hype--it greatly exceeds it. This sci-fi first-person shooter is a nearly perfe...
Postage & Packaging: £1.99 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
More often than not, when a game is in development for over three years it does not live ... more
up to the hype. Bungie'sHalois the exception. Not only does the game live up to the hype--it greatly exceeds it. This sci-fi first-person shooter is a nearly perfe...
Postage & Packaging: £1.94 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Solid FPS, clean graphics, original utilisation of weapons system, unique veichles and solid characters in storyline Disadvantages: level design could have used more development, some graphic framerate glitches
Advantages: Graphics,Sound,Multiplayer,Single Player,the game is just great Disadvantages: a few more vehicle multiplayer levels wouldnt have gone a miss
Advantages: Great fun, easy to pick up, great ideas, fantastic movement and characters Disadvantages: No bots in multi player mode, need more multiplayer maps
Advantages: Solid FPS, clean graphics, original utilisation of weapons system, unique veichles and solid characters in storyline Disadvantages: level design could have used more development, some graphic framerate glitches
exceptional by (3%):
very helpful by (94%):
helpful by (3%):
