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| Halo PC review | |
| developer | Bungie |
| publisher | Microsoft |
| author | Marcin |
| date | Oct. 15, 2003 |
| graphics |   |
| sound | |
| gameplay | |
| value | |
| reviewer's toast | |
| overall | |
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Chromehounds
NA Review by Marcin
Oblivion-The First 3 Hours
PC Quicktake by walTer
Comic Quick Takes January 25, 2006
Feature by Mike
I heard a lot of talk about Halo when it came out. I saw a few screenshots, and didn't think much more of it until the rave reviews started pouring in. Then I looked at a few more screenshots (and especially the Warthog flipping video), and thought that it might be a nice game - were it for a PC, where mouse and keyboard make first person shooters accurate and instinctive, where FPS games naturally belong (yep, I'm biased, and it's well known Halo was supposed to be for the PC until Microsoft stepped in...). Fast forward two years.
Enter Halo PC
I'll quickly summarize the story for the two people who still don't know what Halo is. You are a SPARTAN, a genetically engineered and surgically altered fighting machine, created by Earth to combat the Covenant - a religious race whose creed tells them humanity must be wiped out. Unfortunately you're also the last of the SPARTANS, so better make the best of it. More bad news: the Covenant are after you and about to destroy your ship! You, a good number of survivors and the ship's AI make it to Halo, an orbiting ring-like construct 5,000 miles across, complete with atmosphere and habitable living conditions. What it is, why you got here, and how you'll get out is what you'll be finding out throughout the game.
Covenant, you kill so good!
It didn't take very long for me to like this game. From the very beginning where the well-created (although a little dated graphically) cutscene introduces you to your world, to when your training is interrupted by an alien attack, to finally the stellar AI - it wasn't hard to see the effort that went into it. While the interior ship graphics and some models during cutscenes were plain, squareish and unadorned, the enemies moved all too fluidly and the genius behind Halo's AI became apparent. These guys could dodge, hide behind cover (and not just sometimes, or when weakened, but constantly ducking in and out), use personal shields and take potshots at you, run away and regroup when threatened, and flush you out with grenades; there were even multiple instances of them taking alternate routes to come up behind me. The intelligent AI is complemented by some excellent weaponry, each piece of ordinance having its own distinct feel and purpose - some more accurate, some more effective against one enemy than another. It is fortunate that you get an idea of these tactics on the ship, when they don't shoot as often - once on Halo, your training session is over.
The (admittedly somewhat dated) graphics and all the subsystems of the game come into play when you crash on the relic. Not only is Halo a huge world with seemingly infinite boundaries (a clever trick, but a well-done trick is oft-times better than the real thing), it's an interestingly designed world, and quite good looking. Rolling hills, streams, waterfalls, seaside cliffs - all on a miniaturised scale (as Halo is a miniature world), and a Covenant kill squad behind every feature. Thanks to the continuously clever AI, the wide open spaces are just as threatening as the enclosed ones, and the occasional towering constructs only add to the feeling of "What exactly is going on here?" and "Where can I hide?"
Grand Design
Halo accomplishes its mission by not neglecting the question of scale. Large spaces do feel large, huge looming chasms do loom appropriately, cliffs tower on all sides, the curve of Halo extends far, far away. Defending a beacon tower, you can sense how open you are to a sniper's bullet and that there is too much to cover by one man - fortunately you have some buddies backing you up, executing complex maneuvers by themselves (although they die far, far easier than you will). Covering these distances takes time, and fortunately Halo provides very well modeled, and highly driveable vehicles (thanks to the wonder of WASD + Mouselook + a fun physics engine) for your driving fun and pleasure - the Warthog assault jeep in particular is a source of much merriment, as it is indestructible (although you aren't).
I mentioned subsystems, and this is one of them. The subtle day/night cycle, the not-quite-ragdoll but a very excellent physics engine that powers the vehicles and explosions (objects will be flung by grenades, oh yes - including corpses), the smooth zoom in-out from vehicle to FPS-mode, the comparatively low amount of cutscenes, replaced instead by on-the-fly updates, such as dropships flying in, dropping of troops, and taking off in a flurry of potshots at you - all of this adds up to a powerfully immersive experience, overshadowing nearly every other game in this genre for quite some time (I think I can honestly say nothing has been as good as creating the atmosphere since Halo was originally released on the XBox). Roaring through wide open spaces in a jeep, with a grunt madly firing the rear-mounted chaingun has not been duplicated yet, and is tremendous fun.
And then it all went sour
Now for the bad news; Halo suffers from a few old school game concepts that jar the gameplay badly. The main offenders, in no particular order: the room-corridor-room syndrome, badly present in almost all interior levels, where a corridor laden with medpaks and empty of threat is followed by a room full of enemies; the pointless extension of a game by making the player replay almost all of it on the way back, with magically reseeded and tougher enemies; the surprise twist that completely changes the game into something else. These three factors combine to make Halo into a merely average game out of sheer frustration. The awesome intro and solid gameplay (with only hints of boredom as you are forced to do the room-corridor-room thing) turns into keyboard-flinging rage as you end up doing the same thing over and over and over again. And again. Finally, the game itself isn't very long.
There's some more bad news - Halo doesn't seem to be optimized for the PC very well. To obtain a decent framerate I had to lower my resolution to 800x600 - fortunately the bright colors and simplistic level design (you know, that fantabulous geometry and interesting lighting that games have nowadays? - Halo doesn't have that) didn't suffer much from that move. One good thing that came from the PC port was the ability for unlimited saves (although you can still save your position only from the last checkpoint - but now you can do it as many times as you like).
But at least you can kill zombies with a friend, right?
Wrong. The much vaunted Coop mode from the XBox version is not present here; instead you make do with your now-standard assortment of Deathmatches, CTFs and Assaults. Sadly, the fact that this is a PC release means that there are tons of deathmatch games (like BattleField 1942, complete with vehicles and classes) out there that one can play, so Halo loses out on the monopoly there. Even so, the slower walking speed, ability to carry only two weapons at any one time, excellent vehicle integration and large open spaces make for a significant variation, and it's worth checking out.
I had more fun with Jedi Academy, and its "vehicles" sucked
Halo has a lot of small touches that tremendously add to the immersion factor and make the gameplay stellar. The way the barrel of the currently held weapon swivels slightly in the direction you're turning; the way killed enemies don't just conveniently drop their weapon right beside them when shot, but instead either maintain a death grip on it, squeezing off a few shots on the way down, or spastically fling it away, making you look for it; the way the crashlanded pods' cargo is strewn across the nearby landscape, not stacked neatly in piles; the way your Warthog gunner yells WAHOO as you get mad air over jumps (and in fact all the marine chit chat) - all of these make the game seem more real and play well - except the above mentioned parts.
While there are a few instances of fun play near the end of the campaign - a huge battle or two and flying the Banshee - it is overshadowed by the complete disappearance of clever AI (the latter enemies have DOOM-level intelligence, which is to say none) and the frustration of going over ground already gained, but this time without support from the marines. There is something to be said for delivering a constant gameplay experience, and Halo fails that. In the end, I give the first half a shiny 5 toasts, and the last half a soggy single toast. We end up at an overall "good game, with some hideously disappointing bits" rating, and that is perhaps where Halo fits best.