Everyone remembers their first video game console and for me it was the Nintendo 64. I remember playing the old N64 in the store and later waking up to the Christmas morning where our family friend got my siblings and me our first game console along with Diddy Kong Racing. From there, I experienced the great game series that Nintendo had to offer, the Marios, Zeldas, Karts, and, thanks to the original Super Smash Bros., I got a taste of the other great Nintendo franchises like Metroid and Earthbound. Thus by the time the 6th generations of consoles were coming around, you can bet which console I was reeling to get. So you can also imagine I was a little disappointed when the Christmas of 2001 brought an Xbox into our home, courtesy of my brother’s wishes over mine. However, it also brought Halo: Combat Evolved into our house and I’ve been a fan ever since.
Halo has become synonymous with the image being the game of choice for frat boys who want to take a break from their Maddens and Call of Duty. I was in a restaurant the other day with the R.O.D. crew and when we mentioned to our waitress that we were excited for Halo: Reach to come out she gave an exasperated sigh and an irritated “Halo!” The impression that I think most people have of these games is that they’re just mindless shooters that guys play while yelling expletives at each other over Xbox Live. That’s not what Halo is to me. Well, maybe partly.
The part that I think really describes these games is in the second level when you’ve just landed on Halo and you’re given a Warthog. To set the scene, you’ve just stepped into a beautiful canyon and saved a group of marines holed up in an alien structure from some Covenant ground forces (the aliens.) As the Pelican drop ship descends to evac the marines, you see two more escape pods glide down to some part of the canyon that’s out of view. The only option is to mount up, and try to look for more survivors, which is where the Warthog comes into play. I really feel that this vehicle encapsulates what the Halo games are about. The rest of the level is spent driving around with either your buddy or a friendly AI manning the turret on the warthog, taking out aliens on the go, with the action being broken up with sections of straight up exploration of the mysterious ring world.
“Foe Hammer, we need you to disengage your Warthog. The Master Chief and I are going to see if we can save some soldiers.”
One of the great things about this game is the music by Marty O’Donnell. At times full synth, at times military brass, and at times drums accompanied by a chorus of monks, the Halo soundtrack knows how to fit the mood of what’s happening on screen and lets you associate certain kinds of music with the setting. The third level, in which you infiltrate the Covenant cruiser, The Truth and Reconciliation, has a particularly good mix of songs. Starting off with the track, ‘Under Cover of Night,’ the track is a relatively calming piece that accompanies the action of sneaking around a butte while sniping a path towards the underbelly of the cruiser. Upon, securing the gravity lift that will take you into the ship, a Pelican comes in to deliver some marines to back you up while also arriving with a nice drum line. When you enter the ship, it’s not on full alert and the song ‘Alien Corridors’ plays this up by having a lot of erratic synthesizer noises to contrast the purple alien architecture with the dull grey human ship walls of the Pillar of Autumn seen in the first level. Finally, this level leads to a cut scene where clues to the nature of the Halo ring are discussed. During the discussion, a chorus of monks sings which gives the alien ring, and by extension the story and game itself, a very mythological aura.
The giant shark of a cruiser.
I haven’t actually talked about the gameplay that much but I’ll mention why I like Halo’s first person shooter formula. To start off with, unlike previous first-person-shooters such as Half-Life, Halo only let you carry two weapons at a time. To supplement this, the player, and many of the enemies, has a recharging energy shield and the ability to throw grenades off a designated trigger (revolutionary at the time.) What this does is rather than make each battle a place to select your biggest gun, you’re forced to think a little strategically about weapons combinations and using cover for a respite. Since some of the enemies have that same shield though, you’ll have to be careful about how much you commit yourself.
Another way Halo’s gameplay works is that it likes to reward the player with vehicles to mix up the action a bit. In particular, after an especially difficult area you may get a Scorpion tank to roll over your enemies with making for a rather cathartic experience. Another great thing that makes the Halo campaign enjoyable is that marines that fight with you. Truth be told, they’re entirely useless for anything but cannon fodder except under the following conditions: 1. The game spawns them holding a sniper rifle or 2. They’re riding along on you Scorpion or Warthog and manning the guns. Other than that they only really serve the purpose of amusing dialogue. Another interesting game changer is in the second half when the Flood is introduced and you’re forced to run. Suddenly, the zombie like instinct of the Flood makes it nigh impossible to wait for your shields to recharge before running back into the fray which mixes the game up and establishes that there is a reason that these things are the only thing the Covenant fear. Luckily, you still encounter the Covies and some of the fights between them and the Flood make for some really enjoyable sequences where you can pick off from a distance whichever side is gaining more ground on the other.
I actually like Halo’s story quite a bit for what it is, a tale of mankind being bested in a galactic war and you, as the Master Chief, being the last great super soldier that could turn of the tide of battle. The actual storyline plays out over cut scenes, and in-game narrations and conversations with Cortana, the AI you’re keeping safe. In a game about shootin’ sum A-LEE-UNS there’s a fair bit to like between the themes of religious warfare, co-dependency, chaotic duty-bound AI, sacrifice, genocide and the general mystery behind the Halo installation.
By my estimates this game only has 4 characters that you SHOULD care about. The first is of course is the Master Chief in his powered suit of Mjolnir MK V armor. I like that you never see his face and that he’s so soft spoken, it makes him seem, not so much the self-insertion hero, but the projection of “here is the hero of mankind, though his face may be forgotten, his actions will not.” That said, to counter act how quiet he is, Cortana picks up the slack by spouting exposition and helping to move the plot along by interpreting thing and picking the next course of action for the player to follow. Still, she’s an AI kept on a small chip in the back of your cyborg brain and the interaction between her and the Chief over the course of the game is this symbiotic trust that develops. And then comes easily my favorite character, 343 Guilty Spark. The best way I can describe this guy is he’s the happy curator of zoo full of demons. As the ancient little robot you find, he’s one of the most polite video characters that’s ever tried to kill the player by my reckoning. You know that one guy who just won’t shut up about how much he loves insects or snakes or some other dangerous animal even though the two of you are currently trying to escape from a pit of them? That’s Guilty Spark, and his cartoonish charm and spouting of random facts while you’re trying to not die are what make him great.
"But you already knew that... I mean, how couldn't you?"
Finally, there’s Sgt. Johnson, the black sergeant character. Johnson is Dillon from Predator, he is Sgt. Apone from Aliens and if you don’t get the picture from just those two references, just watch this video of the different inspiration speeches he’ll give depending on what difficulty you play on.
Before they made Johnson a series character, he could die like all the rest of the marines, and spawn like them too. Once I had two Sgt. Johnsons, each with a sniper rifle, riding on the treads of my tank, good job, Halo!
Still, this game does have one serious flaw and that’s that there is a lot of backtracking to do. Certain levels it’s not so bad, like how in the level Keyes, yes you’re going through the Truth and Reconciliation’s halls again, but there’s a whole other ground area as well. The worst case though is in the level that every Halo player should remember, The Library. Imagine that it’s your real life, and you have to get to your fridge for a snack, the problem is there is a 20 foot hole all around the fridge. So you need to fight through your mansion of a house, while being swarmed by hundreds of ravenous gun wielding rats to reach an elevator to take you one floor up. But first you need to wait for the elevator to come down to get you. Then you have to run to the other end of the mansion to do it again. Repeat two more times and then take the final elevator down to the fridge with a total displacement of 20 feet.
All in all, Halo: Combat Evolved is well worth playing for those new or veteran to shooters. You’ll fight in ships, drive through canyons, scale a butte, go for a walk on the beach, drive a tank through snow, trudge through a swamp, and shoot various squid like aliens in the face. For being almost 9 years old, it’s still better than almost everything that Nintendo puts out these days and for that, I’m glad I got that Xbox for Christmas to expand my horizons.
This game gets a 4/5
This game gets a 4/5
Loknar
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