Lead to Halo on PC: Halo Combat Evolved Review

With Halo: The Master Chief Collection nearing it's first test run on PC, I decided to take a look back at every Halo game as it was originally released... because I own all of them and can do that. First up is Halo Combat Evoilved on the original Xbox. Now this wasn't my first Halo, it was Halo 2, I got the Platinum Hits of Halo 1 for Easter 2005 when I was 8 because I had very lenient parents when it came to content. It was loaded with a Halo 2 teaser and Behind the Scenes disc and that's not important is it? No, what's important is does the original Halo hold up in 2019? Because I like beating a horse to the ground as I said the same thing about Jak and Daxter last week and that is also from 2001.

I love Halo's story, it's a great tale both in terms of books and the games themselves, but we're not here to talk about the books. We're here to talk about Halo CE, which follows the crew of the United Nations Space Command starship Pillar of Autumn fleeing the fortress world of Reach as it burns to the ground thanks to an alien armada called the Covenant and in the process stumble upon a massive ring world later called Halo. But the covenant are already there and shoot the Autumn down, stranding it in the midst oof an alien horde. However, the Autumns crew have a secret weapon, the Master Chief, last of the the SPARTAN-II super soldiers (until they find at least 10 more in the books). Teamed with the Autumn's spunky female AI Cortana it's up to the Master Chief to figure out Halo's secrets and stop the Covenant from acquiring them to destroy humanity.

Gameplay follows ten levels as you either run n gun, snipe from above, sneak around or, Halo 1's big feature, drive a fucking car through everything. Environments are nice and varied as yo go from tight corridors inside a starship to grassy open plains where you get the option to hoof it or drive a car with a giant chain gun. The best levels in the game though usually have both of these in spades, Missions take you from wide open ares to tight corridors and that's Halo 1's big advantage as it makes the world feel large and varied. The game is never truly boring and that's what I love about it, you can go from sneaking through corridors and assassinating grunts one moment to driving a tank through snowy tundra 2 minutes later it's fantastic.

What also helps with variety is enemy AI, you have Elites, Jackals, and Grunts to take on and they actually do have a lot variety. Grunts are numerous but easy to kill, Jackals have shields and will keep away forcing you to get creative in how you fire, and Elites will pop out to face you more often but can also tank your shots. Though there are many ways to take on the Covenant, there is one that sort of rail roads you, Hunters. Bigger, meatier and with rocket launchers, they will murder you... unless you kill them in one hit with your precision weapon.

And that's the one flaw, the weapons, namely variety. A lot of the weapons are either hand guns or automatics and sadly they aren't so good. The standard Assault Rifle spits bullets but does little damage and is inaccurate enough to be painful. The human pistol is powerful enough to be God's handcannon but I miss way too much. The plasma rifle and plasma pistol are just one the same page. There's only three special weapons in the game meanwhile, the Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, and Rocket Launcher. They're good at what they do, the shotgun later becomes your new rifle, the Rocket Launcher nukes large crowds in tough situations, and the Sniper kills in one hit most of the time.

What redeems the combat is both control and vehicular combat. It is amazing how you can swap from on foot to vehicle in a snap, namely because the dual stick control scheme translates well to both with left stick allowing movement while right stick looks around. Plus the vehicles are plain fun, from an alien motorcycle with guns on it(Ghost), a jeep with a massive gun(Warthog), a tank(Scorpion), and a flier (the Banshee), the four vehicles of Halo are used very well for the sandbox and add a lot of variety. Though the Warthog is probably my favorite, encouraging a bit of teamwork and in the hand of a perfectly synced group it's a monster. 

What also helps Halo CE is that the plot is serious but there's sort of a wink from the game. Like, the setup is serious, but everyone else is having fun. It's not so light hearted as to mess with the tone but it never feels oppressive like games that would follow it such as Gears of War or later Call of Duty games. Marines always have a quip or two, the Chief and Cortana have a good rapport with her spunk and his almost inhuman reactions (which actually have a darker context in the books), and even the games mid mission titles are having fun with things like "Shut up and get behind me... sir." or WARNING: Hitchhikers may be escaped convicts." Halo knows how to have fun with it's content and doesn't stick a pole up it's ass... until the second half.

At the second half the Chief discovers that the people who built Halo built it to contain and destroy a long dead alien parasite called the Flood that the Covenant accidentally woke up and caused it to start eating everyone and making them into space zombies. The Chief then meets with the station caretaker, 343 Guilty Spark, who is an insane stickler for protocol and protocol dictates that Halo be flipped on in order to stop the Flood. Then after the worst mission in the game Cortana shows back up after having been left behind in Halo's control room and reveals that to kill the Flood you had to kill all life in the galaxy. So the Chief and Cortana blow it up instead and kill all the Flood and Covenant on the ring while escaping in a starfighter, ending Halo 1.

Yeah the tone goes from "fun adventure against killer aliens" to "semi-horror game with unstoppable alien parasite" like there's two separate stories here and while it doesn't ruin the game, it definitely changes the tone. And sadly the second half of Halo 1 is also where it goes from great to just sort of okay. The first Flood mission, 343 Guilty Spark, is great admittidley, the game baits the player into a cavernous building with the Flood and forces you to fight your way out as horrors and abominations spring up at every step and even the building fucks with the you. But then you meet Guilty Spark at the end who takes you to the next level where you do the same shit again, except Spark is annoying, it's even longer, minor tedium has become total tedium, and there's not masterful build up like in the previous level. The Library is the worst level in the game for a reason and coming off the previous mission where you did the same thing only better is part of that.

Then you reach the next level, Two Betrayals, and realize that it's literally a previous mission, Assault on the Control Room, but set at night and backwards. It is just as tedious and lame as the Library, though there is a plus in that the Library made you miss the Covenant and Two Betrayals brings them back so there's a bit of elation at seeing them again. The final two levels are okay, Keyes and the Maw are remixes of Truth and Reconciliation and Pillar of Autumn, it's kinda lame but the actual level layouts are changed enough to make it tolerable. Though I will always defend the final escape scene of the Maw, because it's badass as you drive through an exploding obstacle course in what makes for an explosive finale.

But that's Halo 1's campaign, I spent a lot of time talking about it but didn't even mention the real reason you play Halo, multiplayer. Up to 16 players can connect their Xbox's and play over splitscreen lan. Now I've never done this but I have done splitscreen when I was a kid with my brother and father. It's a fun and hectic game but it's really bare when compared to later Halo's which makes sense seeing as it was the first one. But it comes with the side effect that you only really revisit Halo 1's multiplayer if you feel nostalgic for it. The weapon pool is really limited, there's only one really good weapon, and everything worth doing is done better in later games. Though the maps are a lot more zany than later games, so that's one plus in it's favor. I think it's worth revisiting, but don't plan on an extended stay, especially in the Halo MCC port of Halo 1 PC multiplayer. Co-op mode is a bop tho, not much to say but it's fun to do the game with a buddy.

Halo 1, in the end, has aged both well and poorly. It excels in the first half but there's a clear dip in quality in the second half with repeated concepts and blatant level re-usage. And compared to later games, Halo 1's multiplayer merely stands as a goalpost for later games to compare their content too. Good for a revisit, but requires a bit of courage to get to the end.