Video Game Review: Halo

Two months and five days. It has been a long time. I'm seriously gonna try to make posts more often. Enough apologies, on to the post.I think I should first start out by saying that I am not a fan of Halo. I think the first game was the best and that any improvements, or "improvements," made in its sequels do not make them better than the original. I feel that Halo was a good game. That's it. Not great, certainly not a killer app, just good. I realize how bold a claim that is so I will do my best to defend it.

Firstly I would like to point out what I like about Halo. I realize it is completely inconsequentialbut I like the cover. The composition is cool and it's all shiny. For the game itself, I think the art department did a great job. Master Chief looks cool, so do all the covenant forces, in particular the elites. I like how the rocket launcher can fire two rounds before reloading. That makes it quite devastating if you're accurate and forgiving if you're not. I also like the pistol. It's nice to know that .50 Cal handguns will be cool even in the future. For the time, the graphics were very impressive. The voice acting was very professional, and the musical score was great.

On to what was bad. The overall experience of shooting bad guys was not very enjoyable. As much as I liked the design of the covenant, most of the ones you fight are so short that you spend most of the time bending over to hit them. This might sound like hardly an issue but it sullies the experience and was unnecessary. There is no reason why the majority of the enemies could not be the same size as you. The elites, who are the same size, have a shield which makes fighting them tedious unless you have a covenant weapon. Master Chief is only allowed to carry two weapons at a time which makes sense and adds a sense of realism to Halo as well as strategy. In the end I did not care for this aspect because it meant I had to carry the weapons that were overall the best for the situation as opposed to the one I enjoyed using. I was under the impression that that was the whole point of the game, to enjoy it. I didn't like the covenant's weapons but found myself carrying them because they killed aliens faster. Once you encounter the Flood the number of weapons you get to choose to carry drops down to one because the other slot has to be occupied by the shotgun if you wish to survive. Oh, the Flood. They were the least enjoyable enemy to face. They are like zombies but without all the good stuff. They are fast, they carry weapons (sometimes rocket launchers), and if they swing at you there is no dodging it. The absolute worst part about the Flood is that sometimes they go down, but they don't die. They just pop right back up, usually behind you.

It was quite rare at the time of Halo's release for a player to be able to control vehicles in a first person shooter. The inclusion of this feature was not worth it because the vehicles are horrible. The reason for this is the controls. Halo opted for controling the vehicles via the two analog sticks. This, I assume, was because the player would already have their fingers in positon for this, making it an easy transition from on foot to driving. The result is less than acceptable. In the Grand Theft Auto series (games I have my complaints about yet still consider them great games, perhaps even killer apps) one controls acceleration with a button and steering with a control stick. This frees the other control stick to be used for controlling the players view. It works perfectly. This is not the case with Halo. If you want to see what's on your left, you either have to stop and look or head straight for it. Also the physics are genuinely terrible. I have a special gripe to pick with everyone's favorite 4X4, the warthog. For an all-terrain vehicle it has next to no traction. It's like its wheels were made out of plastic.

We're almost done. These next complaints are concerning comments on the game's case. I have the version with the game of the year badge on it (quite the undeserved award). The case features plenty of praise by various video game reviewers. "One of the best shooters ever!" says Videogames.com. I'm not huge in the FPS genre but I think Battlefield 1942, Unreal Tournament, and Doom 2 were better by a lot. I even had more fun playing Red Faction 2 than Halo. "This is the most important launch game for any console, ever." says Edge magazine. Really? Ever? I don't think any launch game will equal Super Mario World for the SNES. I can do one even better. I'm gonna name a game that not only have I never played it and know it's better, it was also an Xbox launch title. Tony Hawk 2X. The great game for the previous generation with updated graphics, added levels , and custom sound tracks. You might ask, "why are you so against the Halo series?" My reason is very simple. Peopl seem to love this game for no particualr reason. The games are truly not that great. That was long.