In 2001, first person shooting had always been the province of PC gamers. That's not to say that you couldn't play FPS on consoles. Doom had a passable port on the SNES. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were really fun experiences on the N64. There were a handful of solid FPS on the PS1. But if you wanted fast paced, skill rewarding first person shooting action, you were probably playing Quake, Half-Life, or Unreal Tournament instead of their console imitators. Mouse and keyboard has always been the best way to play an FPS. The natural online and cable connected multiplayer capabilities of PCs lent well to facilitating the twitchy and fun multiplayer experiences that now comprises a huge chunk of why people play video games (this and sports games). Plus, no screen watching.
Enter Halo: Combat Evolved. It's not the first console game that had dual stick controls for a console shooter, but it's the first one that people really paid attention to, and the controls are just so superior to the auto-aiming attempts of the previous generation that it's laughable. It had the fast paced motion of a PC shooter. It had a huge, detailed world that rivaled the quality of experiences on PC, likely due to the PC-like quality of the Xbox. You could link up multiple Xbox and play with up to 16 players, mirroring what most multiplayer experiences on PC were like back in the day. You could play PC games online, but you're still dealing with a lot of dial-up connections. A fast-paced genre like FPS doesn't necessarily translate that well with lag, so many people were using LAN parties as their multiplayer experience of choice.
I recently beat the campaign for Halo with my son for the first time. I played through it a bit as a teenager, playing at some kids' house who I was supposed to be babysitting, but really just ate their food, played their Xbox, and watched their Family Guy DVDs. But I never had the chance to finish it. Having a coop campaign is a really nice touch, and it's implemented pretty well here. I have a few quibbles, like the checkpoint system, which can result in some spinny experiences where you get teleported to a friend, and then accidentally trigger the checkpoint again, and in the very similar environments it can be very difficult to remember where you've been and where you're supposed to be going. The campaign also struggles with those similar environments, where it's very difficult to know where to go in your homogeneous surroundings. But the shooting action is always really fun, you have a radar to show you where nearby enemies are (hint: if you get lost, head towards the red dots), and the enemy AI is fantastic. Each variety of unit has their own equipment and tactics, and a real personality. It's so fun to see the grunts screaming and running away from you if they get to be alone against the mighty Master Chief, and the Hunters never fail to be scary when you encounter them. The voice work is tremendous for the creatures, yielding a wide range of screeches and grunts that will immerse you in this campaign even more.
The multiplayer is excellent, if a bit limited. You need real players to play, as there are no AI enemies to insert into matches. In a game with only two players, the action can get pretty dull. This was a game made for LAN parties in an age where that doesn't happen too much anymore. Grading it for its time, though, it's really good. If you really want a richer experience, there's always Halo 2 through 5.
While this game is still fun today, its historical impact is the real reason this game shines. Microsoft lost a tremendous amount of money on their XBox experience, and I feel pretty confident in saying that there would have been no Xbox 360 (an amazing console) without Halo. The console only sold 24 million worldwide during its life, and an incredible 4 million copies of Halo were sold! That's a pretty insane attach rate, particularly as the game wasn't a pack-in title, and the XBox had a pretty big library with plenty of options. More importantly, it paved the way for Halo 2 (which sold even more than the first), the game that defined an entire generation's first online console experience, caused people to be comfortable with paying for online gaming, and was generally just awesome.
With all of this in mind, I'll give Halo: Combat Evolved a 9.5 out of 10. It's a true trailblazer that pales a bit in comparison to its successor, but has aged really well. If you haven't played it, it's a great time! Here's a little teaser for the next game to be reviewed (I've already finished it).
-TRO
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