Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Overrated"

When a game is so enormously popular as Halo is, it comes with enormous expectations as well.
I tried to tone those expectations down a little before I played it for the first time and just be open to the gaming experience - but I soon found that I was getting a bit bored and even a little impatient, like I was waiting for something to happen.

... and when I was done playing the game, I was still waiting.

Very few people point out how monotonous Halo is, and that really baffles me, because I have rarely come across any game that offers so little variation. I don't know what's worse: that there seems to be about four different types enemies to battle, or that every other room looks almost exactly the same. Some may point out that there has to be a continuity in the level design, since most of the action goes on in one and the same installation. That's fair enough, but being able to justify WHY the levels look repetitious and boring does not automatically remove that effect.

The playability is still high, although the game offers little in gaining new and creative weaponry (shotguns? In space? Really?), and it IS fun zipping around in the various tanks and flying machines you can find, although half of them seem to have been designed to be as annoying as possible to control. When the action is good, it's VERY good.
But there is hardly anything in here that makes me go "ooh" or "aah", and there's no real challenges to be had, besides having to suffer through cut-scenes that look like they've been directed by a twelve-year-old.

A friend of mine claimed that Halo is "a first-person shooter for people who haven't played first-person shooters before", and that's the key to its popularity.
I happen to agree.
And me - I just have too many other of its kind to compare it to... and when I think of it, expectations that are way too high.

6.5/10