Busy week indeed, I planned to put up this review on Tuesday, but Halo 5 is coming, I must prepare, also, I haven't reviewed anything Halo other than a few toys, and done a few other posts with references to Halo, but now I'm reviewing Halo, so let's go.
You know it's coming so here we go, in my brief of the game's story I mentioned a planet called Reach, anyone even vaguely familiar with Halo will know what Reach is, but that's something this game did brilliantly, it wasn't just a story, it was a world, a universe, a universe that I could ramble about for hours because I love it and it's awesome, but it's way more fun to see it for yourself. What is here, specifically in the 10 or so hour campaign, is a cool and mysterious story that starts off as just Humanity fighting the Covenant, but quickly becomes more and then later entirely about the ring, it's a fun mystery to solve until it stops being about fun and starts being about saving the galaxy from total destruction. The characters, the 2 you spend most of the game with are Cortana and Master Chief, I say Cortana first because she's awesome, but Chief is a badass, a complete badass, sometimes to a humorous degree, and he's a very man of few words kind of guy, that said the back and forth between him and Cortana is often brilliantly funny, at least in my opinion. Really though there's Keyes, the Pillar's captain, who is just the captain, and then there's Sergeant Johnson, who is the most archetypal archetype badass army sergeant in gaming, he's actually pretty damn funny. Then finally of course there's easily my favourite character in the game, the rambling eyeball himself Guilty Spark, he's brilliant, I'd hang out with him, I'm sure he'd get annoying or he'd try to kill me, but he's just such a cool character, and for literally being a floating ball, that's not bad. It's a shame however that the game really kind of lacks a villain, I mean technically Spark is the villain, but the game does lack an involved and menacing villain. This doesn't hurt the game as much as you'd think, given how cool it's mystery is, but it's worth noting.
For a game that's coming up on 15 years old, it plays really well. The controls do have a somewhat odd feel to them, chief moon jumps about 9 feet in the air, guns don't have recoil, and in addition to his shields, which recharge over time when he's hurt, Chief has health that he needs to replenish with med kits, it's a mechanic that's pretty much gone in modern AAA games, replaced with people getting jam in their eyes when they're shot. The health system may for this reason sound archaic, but it still functions just fine. Combining the jumping and health however, this game does have something archaic, Chief takes falls damage, this may not sound weird, until you realise Chief's a physically augmented super soldier who wears a state of the art suit of armour that literally weighs a ton, so when you jump from ledge that's slightly too high and lose all your shields and a few points of health, especially when there's enemies everywhere, it gets a bit annoying. Halo has a 2 weapon system, you can carry 2 guns and some grenades, but you can have any combination of guns you want, and some of the guns are really cool, from the crazy overpowered pistol, to the sleek but vicious plasma rifle, to the very sharp looking pink death cloud that is the needler. They all look really cool as well, and even the more standard guns like the sniper and rocket launcher look and sound really cool. The game also features several large open areas in which you can let loose with a few vehicles, ranging from pretty standard army jeeps and tanks, which like the guns still look and sound really cool, as well as some weirder and wilder Covenant vehicles, the agile and rapid Ghost and the comparatively cumbersome airborne Banshee, each vehicle drives and shoots differently and they're all fun to use, but give me the Scorpion any day of the week, that thing is fucking mean. But what's the point in guns and vehicles if you have nothing to fight, Halo has you covered, with a host of interesting and cool enemies, from the laughable and pathetic grunts, to the Jackals with their annoying shields and tendency to fire charged plasma bursts with superb accuracy, to the fast and tough elites. There's also a giant Covenant species called Hunters you fight a few times in the game, which are cool, and later on you fight these really nasty zombie like monsters and flying robots that shoot lasers, it's less silly than it sounds. All of these enemies can be taken out the same way, with bullets, but each has it's own pattern or tactic that you have to deal with, offering it's own unique challenge that keeps you your toes.
Unfortunately I do have a few issues with the otherwise fun gameplay, for starters, while the levels all look really cool, a lot of them suffer from the same problem of very poor navigation, friendly warning, you will get lost, at least once in this game, and it will annoy you. Not only are a lot of the levels complete mazes, but there's usually very little visual verity from room to room, so you'll think you're going in circles a few times, my personally bane is 343 Guilty Spark, I've never done that level without getting lost, when the mood and atmosphere wears off, it just gets frustrating. Also, towards the end of the game, rather than actually ramping up the challenge, the devs just decided to throw more and more enemies at you, and give the enemies bigger guns. There's a difference between making the game more challenging and just being unfair, but Halo Combat Evolved does stray over that line, at least in my opinion. However, that melts away in game's finale, which is probably the most awesome and intense vehicle sequence I've played in a game, I still feel the rush every time, even now I've beat the game probably about 3 or 4 times, it's brilliant, and it's a great finale that sends the game off in a great way. Finally, this is the Anniversary edition of this game, so in addition to the 14 year old graphics that admittedly look very dated today, you get a very snazzy new graphics engine that gives the game a new coat of paint while leaving the gameplay intact and untouched. The new cut scenes are nothing to write home about, but the updated in-game graphics look really nice, even now, 4 years later. And even better, at the touch of a button you can switch between the old and updated graphics, which does sound like a gimmick, and it kind of is, but it's cool to see how the game has changed over 10 years on the fly. On the 360 release there was a brief delay with the transition, but on the One the transition is instant, making the changes all the more striking and cool. This function, like I said, doesn't alter the gameplay, but it's a really cool trick nonetheless.
Halo Combat Evolved has aged tremendously, it's still fun to play, has some funky and creative guns and vehicles, likable characters, a simple but fun story with a brilliant finale, and of course it introduces you to the huge and awesome universe of Halo. That said, there are a few design choices that haven't aged well at all, and when you encounter them it will frustrate you. But all in all Halo is a fun game that you won't regret playing if you haven't already, it's definitely worth a try.
No comments:
Post a Comment