Description A sci-fi shooter that takes place on a mysterious alien ring-world, Halo: Combat Evolved will have you battling through amazing indoor and outdoor environments, in vehicles, and on foot with the largest arsenal of futuristic weapons, vehicles, and combat roles of any shooter ever. The PC adaptation is based on the game's original concept, where your objective is to uncover Halo's horrible secret, and destroy mankind's nemesis - the Covenant.
Summary: I'm not going to mindlessly praise this game, so please don't skip over because of the high rating I gave it. I'm not some mindless fanboy here to tell you this is the greatest game ever, it isn't. This will be an honest consideration of the game as a whole.
First, the game has a good story. They went to some trouble to make it interesting and keep up the surprises. There is good transition and you meet the right mix of characters for a given situation. There isn't really a moment where you find yourself saying "How did these guy's just show up here?" There was only one or two missions I asked myself "Why am I doing this, it makes no sense."
You get some good helper AI's which seem to use weapons and pick up new ones like you would rather than just using their starting weapons or using the same one forever. It's pretty realistic.
The friendly AI has to be one of my biggest praises for this game. In general, they are actually useful in battles! This is a far cry from many games where your "helpers" just get in the way or shoot you in the back. As a nice touch, these AI even apologize in the rare instance they hit a friendly unit (like yourself) by mistake. They are even effective when they hop onboard a vehicle with you. A disapointment is you can't give AI units commands; it'd be nice to have more choice of who to replace with whom when one of the guys gets injured and a healthy one is available.
Another thing I found astonishing is this is probably the first game I've played where you go to where a battle supposedly took place and there are weapons, bodies, etc. laying around like there was actually a battle. You get more of a fell that a conflict occured there rather than just a random body here and there.
The enemy AI is realistic too. The little guys will hang around the bigger ones for support and tend to get startled and run screaming if caught alone. On the other hand, the Covenant sometimes has a habit of just sitting in their area and waiting for you chaising you down would be more realistic behavior, but maybe they figured it'd make it too hard on the player.
I don't want to spoil anything, but if you like games where you can see two groups fighting and use the distaraction to tip the tide and then waste the winner this is the game for you. You get a few chances to do that. Reminds me of the Max Payne II mob wars.
To sum it up, the characters act realistically for the most part, there is pretty good voice acting, the graphics look sufficient and run fine, the friendly AI is helpful and not annoying like most games, the levels are somtimes repetative but the outside ones are varied and imaginative, there aren't any really cheesey bits, and the vehicles rock. All this adds up to an enjoyable experience that is worth the $30 pricetag on it.
Summary: Okay, first. I've been a Halo fan since the day when it was announced by Bungie. That was until 1999 when Bungie was gobbled by Microsoft to make the game into an Xbox. I resisted of buying the Xbox and after years and years of no call for Halo PC, the xbox sales have decline, and now Halo PC is out but under the Microsoft banner. Sound far fitch? No doubt a money milking effect to trick the PC gamers until playing an outdated game like Halo, but is the wait worth it? Just read on.
Summary: Okay, come on guys, lets be real about this game. It's a port from a console system, plain and simple. So nothing about Halo will impress an experienced pc gamer. I saw the problems in this game coming a mile away and actually didn't buy it. I borrowed it from a friend for the weekend and uninstalled it after that. Yup, I was right; Halo was great on X-Box and pure garbage on pc.
I mean really, with games like Unreal 2, Farcry, and the soon to be released Doom 3 pushing our pc systems to their limit, do we really need a silly little console port with childish graphics and blocky, disnyland aliens?
More games are ported from pc to platform than the other way around, and for good reason. There is no home entertainment system out there that can match the graphics, sound, and general performance of even a mid-range pc.
I feel sorry for you if fell for the hype and actually purchased Halo, only to find that it's graphics were blocky, the gameplay was lame and it was full of bugs. But admit it, you should have known.
Summary: I felt this was a great game. It was the best game i have played since Half Life! I just finished Call of Duty - which i liked but felt it was too short. Halo (like Half Life) is an epic game that is a real value. Brief Pros and Cons
Pros - gameplay
- variety of weapons & vehicles
- little restriction on movement
- variety of environments
- good story line
- long epic game
- very creative
Cons - Some system bugs with the portal.
- Cannot turn up graphics settings
- Some repetition in indoor enviro.
- Very beginning starts out slow
Summary: Very rarely do I buy a game these days based on hype. But I figured that Halo was a safe bet. I mean practically the whole world said it was good. So I blindly went out and slammed down 44 bucks for this major disaster. I cant even discribe my shock when I started playing. It made me feel like I was back in the mid 90's playing as a kid again. That would have been good if I were playing and old classic but I was supposed to be playing Halo, this amazing new game with all these neat new things and awesome graphics. Instead all I got was alot of good stuff from other good games ruined in this game.
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