Halo, disapointment of the century? or revelutionary vision of the future of gaming? A bit of both I reckon....
Halo's gameplay is quite fun to start with, the fact that grenades are accessible at the touch of a button is vert pleasing to a first person veteran like myself. The first level of the game gives you some basic training before launching you into a franticly paced escape from the ship. The gameplay by this point is really fun, as you duck and weave behind pillars, throwing grenades and then emerging from cover to sweep the floor of whatever remains of your foe. Its exhilerating.
But, as soon as your escape pod touches down on the "Halo" planet, the cracks begin to show. The large, beautifull environments of the Halo planet are more or less ruined by Master Cheifs incredibly slow running, its like an episode of baywatch, without Pamela Anderson. When you finnaly reach another area, the covenent are quick to surround you, but this is when the AI breaks down, covenant stop acting as a team, they disregard cover, they run around like headless chickens, making the appropriate noises too.
The games selection of weapons is varied and pleasing, with several types of grenade, rifle, pistol and several more specialized weapons, such as the needler, which fires shards of glass which home in on your enemy, and explde after they have embedded themselves into your foe. Although im not a huge fan of the rest of the game, the needler has become one of my favorite weapons of all time.
The vehicles available in Halo are quite fun to drive, but can be very annoying if you try to use them in a combat situation, they are overeactive and maneuver like a drunken snake. Despite this, they look good, and are not entirely useless as they do speed up your travel across land.
While the distant environments look absolutely fantastic, the environments you are forced to fight in are very repetative and boring to fight in. With the exception of the first level, combat throughout the game seems like more of a chore than something to be enjoyed. It can be hard work at times too, with little cover, the only thing that doesnt make these poorly designed areas impossible to do, is the fact that the AI is so...well...to put it bluntly...stupid.
The characters and storyin Halo are highly unoriginal, if you look, you can see heavy influences from games such as Turok, Half-Life and Doom. Although being influenced by other games is not a crime, outright stealing ought to be. You only have to look at master cheif's gettup to realise he is "The Doom Guy" with his helmet on. The covenant and the flood, if slightly more inventive, are reminiscent of Half Life and Turok, which, is not a good thing, because Halo's story is so weak, i would rather play those older games.
Halo's story, from what you can gather by playing on easy (which is where most people will start, as the harder difficultys are not beginner freindly at all) you have to stop a "Flood" from being awakened, and, well, ya know, its evil and has to be stopped..... deep stuff there. If you play through the game on a higher difficulty, you get more information on the story, which, while more satisfying, is no more interesting than the basic storyline, and has elements "borrowed" from, you guessed it, Turok and Half-Life. This would be less of a problem if the game had any replayability, but the added story elements are about it.
The sound effects and music in Halo, are mindblowingly good, the music is some of the best i have experienced since the days of Final Fantasy 7. It fits the situations and events to a T and is highly enjoyable to listen to.
Despite all of the above, Halo's multiplayer is where it's at. Sitting around with a few mates, blowing each other up, throwing grenades while ducking and weaving in and out of rocks, only to be surprised by someone flying over in a ghost to take both of you out. Its fun in its most basic form.
The multiplayer maps are very well designed, well thought out, every little detailed has obviously been carefully planned out, the weapon placement, spawn point, all of it, perfect. The only thing that lets down this area of the game is master cheifs slow walking, as a result of this, the action is not as fast paced as it could be. But, i suppose that is to be expected as, one of my biggest gripes about Halo, is the controller. A first person shooter belongs with a keyboard and mouse, with a keyboard and mouse the action can be much faster, much more intense as reaction are much faster.
Moving your veiw around with an anolougue stick can be very cumbersome and slow at times. But, this is not a huge issue when your knee deep in plasma grenades, returning the favor to your freind.
Overall, Halo has an enjoyable single player experience that is easy to play, but hard to master, albeit one that takes itself too seriously, and an incredible multiplayer, with good music, nice weapons, and brilliant visuals.
However, its boring, unevenful storyline and repeated use of the same surroundings, together with the AI make this game a bit of a letdown, but definatly not a game to ignore, like it or not, Halo looks to be the future of gaming for consoles.