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HALOBY AARON BOULDING When you get past all of the chatter about the potential of Halo looking better on a PC, and all of the yip-yap about Halo being "just another" first person shooter, and all of the lip-flapping about Halo not being able to compete with the very best games on PS2 or GameCube and you actually sit down and play the game on your Xbox...you're in for one hell of a game.
The only thing people need to be concerned about when it comes to Halo is how soon they're going to get it and where they're going to find the time to play. With a story good enough for a full length novel, audio and visual elements as detailed as any you've ever seen and excellent pacing, Halo is the reason for Xbox and vice versa. Bungie has brought to the Xbox the game that will prove hundreds of thousands of naysayers wrong (about the system and thegame) and bring sweet relief and joy to those who've been biting their nails and pacing in circles waiting for Microsoft's machine to arrive. Hype is one thing; reality is another; Halo on Xbox is one of the best things to happen in videogames. Features:
Halo takes place in the far future where mankind is locked into a brutal war against a race of aliens known as the Covenant. These dudes are seriously evil. They wipe out entire planets at a time, and they are so fast at doing so that we poor humans are unable to get much information on them before they nuke us into oblivion. The horde of aliens is getting closer and closer to Earth with the clock quickly ticking down before they completely annihilate our race. Finally the line is drawn. In a massive battle near a human planet, only one ship survives: Pillar of Autumn. The commander of the ship decides to lure the Covenant as far away from Earth as possible so she programs the ship's AI to jump to some random location in the opposite direction of the home system. Eventually the ship arrives at a distant area or space where they find both a gas giant called Threshold and its small moon known as Basis. This wouldn't be so strange except for the fact that they find a giant ring construct floating between the two objects, which is about 10,000 miles in diameter. Unfortunately for the small ship, the entire Covenant battle fleet had followed them and arrived in the system shortly before. When you boot up the game, you're knee deep in the middle of the Autumn being evacuated. That giant ring construct is Halo and the secret that it holds is the part of the story that will be up to you to discover. Gameplay Before we get into the nuts and bolts of how Halo plays, I'd like to share a few of the quotes blurted out in and around the IGN offices and other places as passers-by were enraptured by a glimpse of Bungie's first person superstar. "Are those guys fighting with you?" "Drive the Jeep! I wanna see the Jeep!" "Damn, this feels like a movie!" "I thought the fun part happened already." "How come the enemies speak English?" You will fire roughly 4 million rounds at all sorts of alien creatures and vehicles by the time you reach the end of Halo. It's definitely a first person shooter with the emphasis on shoot. But it's how you're motivated to deal all of that damage that makes the experience so enjoyable. And I'm not referring to the backstory of the game either. The artificial intelligence of the enemies is sophisticated enough and increases in difficulty at such a nice steady pace to that you are literally getting better the more you play |
HALO 2BY STEVE BUTTS Well, after three years of waiting (not to mention several last-minute delays) Microsoft has finally managed to deliver up a PC version of Halo 2. Beyond just being a port of a very popular Xbox game, the new PC version of Halo 2 also happens to be one of the launch titles for Microsoft's new Vista platform and its new Games for Windows Live! features. For gamers who missed Halo 2 when it came around on the Xbox, the experience of playing the PC version will be rewarding but more than a little dated. For gamers who already blasted their way through the Master Chief's second adventure, Halo 2 for the PC is a very tough sell.
The game really doesn't offer many surprises to those who already played it on the console. There's no new content and very few graphical improvements. But if the last time you saw Master Chief was as he was driving down that ridiculously long hall in the first Halo, then you're in for a treat. There's a new dual wield system for the weapons now, new opportunities to steal enemy vehicles, more interesting and varied locations and even a few other surprises in store. Better still, the pacing has improved and there are no incredibly long backtracking sections. We were skeptical that the keyboard controls could approach the ease of use of the original gamepad configuration. Happily, the developers have done a very good job of laying out the keyboard controls in a way that makes sense. It's still a little tricky moving and looking while also executing a melee attack but, overall, the mouse and keyboard controls are intuitive and in some ways actually preferable to the gamepad. The dual wield system is a wonderful addition to the game. Being able to pick up and use two one-handed weapons at once allows for much more mayhem in each level. Picking up, switching, firing, and reloading dual weapons is just as easy as it can be which leaves the player free to consider just how best to use the weapons he or she has equipped. This system is nicely balanced by restricting the player only to one-handed weapons (a carbine and a shotgun would just be too much) and keeping them from being able to toss grenades. Whatever the limitations are, being able to charge into battle armed with two weapons is hugely exciting. Many of the weapons have been tweaked a bit. The original game's main rifle has been basically split in two. The new SMG gives you that same volume of fire while the new assault rifle focuses on high damage hits. Having two such varied yet equally effective weapons gives players a great sense of choice as they progress through the game. The new alien weapons are, in some cases, even more effective. The carbine and energy sword are two particular favorites but there are others that, used appropriately, are just as effective. We're also big fans of the new vehicle hijacking system. In the previous game all you could do when facing a reckless alien driver was to blow up whatever vehicle they happened to be in. Now if you get close enough you can actually jump onto their craft and toss them out on their heads. You can even plant grenades on some of the larger vehicles before hoping off yourself. This new trick is a real blast, particularly when you can then use the same vehicle to run over its previous driver. A new physics system and an new incremental damage model makes vehicle combat even more exciting. The AI in Halo 2 exhibits real behavior, both on the friendly and enemy sides. Sure, you'll still have folks driving Warthogs repeatedly into huge walls, but for the most part, the folks in Halo 2 act in a way that's believable and tactically challenging. Enemies seem not to want to get shot so they'll make effective use of the abundant cover. Fire off a shot as you enter a room full of unsuspecting enemies and they'll all immediately run for cover. Well, the weak ones at least. The really tough guys will turn and start shooting the crap out of you. Enemies also seem to know when it's advantageous to attack in groups, to circle around your flank or to charge straight ahead and hope for the best. As in most games, the real challenge is found online. Designed, like Shadowrun, to take full advantage of the new Games for Windows Live service, Halo 2 has a lot to offer in the multiplayer arena. The maps and player limits have been kept down at the levels they were at when the game was released. Gamers looking for Battlefield style matches won't find them here. What they will find are intelligently designed maps that offers lots of tactical excitement for small numbers of players. The wide variety of game types and abundance of maps will ensure that the experience stays fresh for some time to come. |
HALO 3BY SIMON CAULDRY Right, let's throw this out there right away. Halo 3's single player campaign is disappointing. There. Phew! Said it. For three good reasons I'll elaborate on in a minute. But before you frame letters to your MP, allow me to quickly qualify this and begin with a confession. I'm a card-carrying, bought-the-action-figure, tried-it-on-legendary, wasted-away-half-my-life-in-online-multiplay Halo saddo. Not read-a-Halo-novel mental, give me some credit, but you get the picture.
A couple of Halo 2 multiplay map favourites make a welcome return. That doesn't mean I can't step out of my fanboy funk for a few hours and review a game objectively, that's how crusts are earnt round these parts, but on completing the single player mission, I quietly set down my controller, and found I was left slightly cold. And without sounding too childish, that's Halo's fault, not mine. The game's so big and unwieldly, the hype so planet-dwarfingly massive, the expectation so high, that I think any sane gamer's reaction when it doesn't turn out to be pound-for-pound the best game ever, is a tiny vacuum of empty in the pit of the stomach. And that's the problem with judging Halo. By any other PC or console standard this is exemplary gaming. By Halo's ridiculous, unattainably heavenly standards, it falls short. Don't panic, though. It gets gushy later. Reason for single player disappointment one: It's too short. You'll gleefully stab that nipple-like X on your controller, select "normal" difficulty and play through to the homage-y final level and sombre final credits in around six hours if you're Halo proficient. And I'm not going to get into the whole game length debate, but by anyone's standards, this is too damn short. Crackdown? Eight to ten hours of nicely weighted and fun play. Bioshock? Around ten hours of story-led shooting. Halo? Almost half that. Boo&#Array; Reasons for single player disappointment two: Graphically, it's underwhelming. Again, don't get me wrong, it's polished to today's required high def sheen, but Bungie has been a first party Microsoft developer for seven years now and is its Blue Ribband games constructor, so it's not unreasonable to expect this to be the eye candy graphical standard of the console. And Bioshock looks better. As does Heavenly Sword. God bless The Cell. Forge means you can slap any item down anywhere in any level. Reasons for single player disappointment three: The story is an unfathomable mess. Anyone have any clue whatsoever as to what occurred in Halo 2? Nope, us neither. Well Bungie carry on in that vein, with vital expositional dialogue covered over by explosions and music, alliances struck and undone with no real explanation and I'm sure I missed a couple of standout, blockbuster moments because I happened to be looking in the other direction. I know that cut-scenes are seen as slightly smelly gaming throwbacks nowadays, but if you want to push on a story, don't allow the player to wander off while your cranking up your exposition. Oh, and make sure you switch the subtitles on to make sure you take everything in. Get through these disappointments, though, and you'll certainly crack through the single player with a smile on your face. It is pleasingly Halo 3.0, with the requisite smattering of new guns, new vehicles and new enemies. Much of the fighting is on a truly epic scale - there's an awesome boss battle (that for some reason the chaps at Bungie were refusing to acknowledge was a boss battle, Lord no) against a Covenant Scarab which hosts more AI-led individuals on screen - Covenant and Human - than the entire first level of the first Halo game. The 360 can crunch the kind of numbers to allow this to happen, and Bungie has absolutely exploited these resources to paint up some cracking set pieces on the Halo canvas. Microsoft politely asked us not to give away any plot spoilers, and we won't. If you want that, there are other corners of the interpipe, but I won't give too much away if I just say in passing you'll meet a few old friends and a few old enemies, too. |
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