Some of the outdoor levels are so large that vehicles are required just to cut down on your travel time! There are dune-buggy-like trucks, which help cover great amounts of territory quickly there are surface-scooting armed hovercraft, and finally, there are Banshees (my favorite), which are full-blown fighter ships that give you freedom of movement in three dimensions. You can also carry a selection of grenades, which work really well in rooms crowded with aliens.īungie's world also includes vehicles, which play a key role in the story and your success. Each weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses, leading to further thinking about what to carry into the next battle. However, you can only carry two weapons at any time, so you're constantly making weapon changes to match the current or expected battle. There are a wide variety of enemies as well as weapons. The enemies in Halo exhibit relatively good AI maneuvers, including running away when outgunned, and doing some very nice dodging when attacked. So although you're moving from Point A to Point B, it never really feels like you're doing just that. You spend a fair bit of time outdoors in large landscapes, helping hide the fact that your path has been relatively pre-determined. To tell any more than that would be to give away too much of the story!Īlthough Halo is a very linear game, Bungie did a good job of disguising this fact.
You have a series of tasks to accomplish, sort of like missions, which fit together to help you understand the real secrets of Halo. From the landing on, you're on a survival and exploration mission, managed by the AI from the ship, which you're carrying about on a small card. well, not too basic! You're an elite soldier, and your ship has been attacked, leading to your crash landing on Halo, an odd ring-shapeed structure that's vaguely Earth-like in its features. And now, 30-some-odd hours of gameplay later (I finished it this weekend), I can say that the prior publicity was correct - this game is a lot of fun! I wasn't sure how well I'd like it, but it seemed like a pretty safe bet based on prior publicity.
Price: $49.95 suggested retailWhile I really don't spend much of my rare free time playing games, I've always liked Bungie's products (Marathon, anyone?), and so I put Halo on my Christmas list (four years later than it should have been, but that's not the point of this review).