Later that year, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft was beginning work on a video game system and home media player that would revolutionize how people watch movies and play games. It would rival the soon to be launced PS2 and Nintendo Dolphin, and that they would cut their ties with Sega to enter the market. It would build upon the system they developed for the Dreamcast, and would allow users to connect to the internet with full ethernet connectivity, something the Dreamcast didn't.
The Original Xbox design
Bungie was still an independent studio, and Microsoft seeing the work done on the game, and looking at their previous success of Marathon, decided to purchase the company in hopes of producing an amazing FPS that could rival GoldenEye 007, and continue what they thought was a growing trend. At this time, the company had already begun to shift the game from an RTS to a third person shooter themselves, so the conversion of Halo into an FPS was much more well received by the team.
Halo: Combat Evolved soon joined the list of Xbox's Launch titles, and was released with the system on November 15, 2001. Having come across the title in a magazine earlier that year, I was somewhat interested, but it wasn't a game I'd buy a console over.
Then I won it.
As I alluded to in the previous post, I received a Xbox due to a contest being hosted by Taco Bell. When I got it in June, I started trying out some of the games already out on the console (Azurik and Nightcaster being among the worst). By the time I came across Halo, it was November.
I played some of the way through it, but I was really only waiting for another title I'd seen was going to published very soon...Shenmue 2. Halo wasn't all that impressive to leave a great impression on me at the time, however, it stuck around for having pretty good gameplay.
After reading the first three books on the series (see previous post), I decided I should give the game another chance. As I delved into it with new eyes, I was amazed at all I'd missed previously. This was a fun game, and I had missed out prior to it.
I finally purchased Combat Evolved and it's sequel, Halo 2 in November of '04, along with a new Xbox (my previous one being stolen in the interim years) and Fable. The first game was amazing, I loved it, my guy friends loved the multiplayer. Overall, it was just an awesome gameplay experience.
The story is what really drew me in though. As I mentioned with the books, I love the Halo Universe. It's an interesting story about time travel, a theocratic enemy, holy relics, advanced technology, and an interesting character...in the books anyways.
For those who only play Halo for the multiplayer, you're missing out. This a good story about one man trying to fight off an army and a plague with only the help of his AI counterpart, Cortana. You soon find out the holy planetoid this three way battle is on is actually a giant weapon, meant to destroy all life on the planet. Personally, if it was so far away from Earth...I'd have let them fire it and destroy themselves...but that's just me. However, that wouldn't have left the game open to sequels.
It is the best story of the trilogy, however, that is often forgotten, as many disliked it as it had you returning to areas a couple of times throughout the game. Now, while, I'll agree that this is annoying in part, I disagree that it makes the story in any way bad. Revisiting certain points kind of makes sense when they're key areas in the fight, right?
Anyways, the reason most people play it is the gameplay. It was the first game to do console FPS's nigh perfect (aiming still sucks, but everything else, definitely). It had good in game vehicles, a good selection of weapons to use, grenades went where you wanted them for the most part, and combat and movement both felt rather fluid.
Multiplayer was almost perfect, too. Building off the previous examples of Unreal Tournament, Goldeneye 007, and CounterStrike, this game created massive multiplayer arenas in which most anything from in game could be used (the only exception was the Banshee). LAN parties were also easily done with just an ethernet cord and two console set ups, you could play 4v4 in these massive arenas. With a splitter or network, and two additional set ups, the game went up to 16 players at one time, taking it even a step further from the already unheard of 8 on a console.
The first game's score was mediocre in comparison (luckily, later games fixed this). The music was just kind of blah, coming in at odd point and overall, just not being all that great. However, it did lead to some phenomenal music in the two sequels.
Well...this completes Part II. So, let me know what you think about the first game and I'm still looking for more ideas on Part V and check back tomorrow for part III. It will be about Halo 2 and my review of the beginning of the phenomenon.
-Sara
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