It's not as good as the original reviews suggest but it's one of the better xbox games nevertheless Real score=91
The story follows the struggle faced by the UNSC of earth against the Roman-esque Covenant species. Infact the covenant are more than one species. They're made up of several. These are the Grunts, small mole like creatures who offer little resistance and are actually wimps. The Elites who are the main soldiers of the covenant. They have plasma shields and offer some firepower that you'll have to watch out for. Some even have Energy Swords which can kill you in one hit. The Jackals who are the snipers of the covenant. They have shields and plasma pistols however they do like to shoot from long range hence the sniper reference. Finally we come to the Hunters. These are the heavys of the covenant, armed with fuel rod cannons they can blow you to pieces in a second and are very hard to take down. Run in all gun-hoe at them and there's no way you'll come out alive.
Your character is Master Chief the last of the Spartans. The spartans a re a genetically engineered section of the UNSC with more strength and brains than the average Marine. Helping you throughout the game is Cortana a female AI housed in your helmet. Sometimes she'll come out though and appear as a computer image. She's very useful so be sure to listen to what she says. The other major UNSC character is Sergeant Johnson. He's a character that you'll grow to love with his witty remarks and leadership skills. The other UNSC men are the marines and they're armed with assault rifles usually which is easily the best gun in the game in my opinion. Not in terms of firepower though, it's jun really fun to use.
Halo takes place on a ring shaped space station type thing called Halo which is actually more like a planet then a space station but it is man made. It offers a variety of terrain and the game mixes up the gameplay very well. Most of the time you'll be on foot but sometimes you'll be driving a warthog or a scorpion and sometimes you'll be flying a covenant banshee. The Banshee is the covenant aircraft whilst the warthog and scorpion are the UNSC's jeep and tank respectively. The warthog can also have a passenger and a gunner to man the machine gun. Marines will drive if you don't want to. The same goes for the scorpion tank. In the scorpion the driver also controls the guns but there are four spaces on the sidepods for passengers.
Multiplayer co-op is available for the entire single player campaign and it is even more fun in co-op. It's fun by yourself but a second player just adds that extra something. The game can be played on four difficulty settings, easy, normal, heroic and legendary. This is good because a challenge to all gamers no matter what they're skill level and helps lesser skilled gamers to get to grips with it. Halo is most definitely FPS and does very well at this. The story is one of the best FPS story modes you'll find on the xbox.
Graphically the game was probably the best launch tile but it's been surpassed now. I like the art style but the graphics are nothing compared to what you can get on xbox. The voice acting is great even from Master chief himself. It's always fun to listen to what the Covenant Elites or Grunts are saying because it can be very funny sometimes.
The final thing I feel I should mention is the splitscreen multiplayer. Xbox live wasn't up and running at launch which is why it's missing from Halo. It would have been nice but it's rectified for the later games and it's not so much a problem more of a wish really. Up to four players can play on one of the many maps and all of the weapons and vehicles from story mode are available which is a great bonus. It's fun enough to stick a Plasma grenade to an enemy in the story and watch them run around in terror but it's even better to stick one to a mate in splitscreen, sometimes they won't even notice. Splitscreen does grow boring quite quickly though especially if there's only two of you.
Overall Halo is a great FPS and everything it does it does well. There's nothing that's bad about it as such it just isn't as good as some later FPS's. In fairness though it has aged well and is still fun to play now. It's still better than Halo 2 and if you plumped for it you certainly wouldn't be dissapointed by any stretch of the imagination.
Score= 91%