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| The Inheritance of Halo |
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A friend of mine owns a construction company, and late last week, one of his painters died, leaving no will and no family. My friend suddenly was the owner of the late painter's possessions (which were few enough) and was looking to get rid of them. One of these was an XBox, with a handful of games (as some of you may recall, I sold the four XBox 360's I previously owned). My friend didn't want it, so I gave him thirty bucks and took home the XBox, a handful of controllers, a Tiger Woods golf game, Splinter Cell, and Halo: Combat Evolved.
I've never played on an XBox before really, and never even touched one of its games, so it was with a distinct feeling of trepidation that I took the beast downstairs and plugged it into "The Room".
Before I go further, I need to describe The Room. The Room is in my basement, windowless, and is solely dedicated to my gaming. By the door is the projector box, and in the front of the room is the white wall that I use for a screen. The rest of the room is a dark blue with ambient lighting. In terms of sound, The Room has a total of 14 speakers and two subwoofers, and are all perfectly positioned to give the best possible surround sound. The system I'm using has front, front left and right, back left and right, front center, and rear center channels for audio output, and seeing as how The Room is pitch black when there aren't any lights on or anything, this is probably the most immersive gaming environment you can find.
Now, safely ensconced in The Room, I plug the XBox into my switcher alongside the Cube and PS2 and fire up Halo. I've always heard good things about this game, and I hope that I won't be disappointed. Halo begins.
From the very first level, I fell in love with this great first person shooter. The controls are very fluid and the weaponry is perfect (although I think that Covenant weapons are woefully underpowered). I'm playing the game on Normal (the descriptions of Hard and Legendary scared me) and while its not a terribly difficult setting, its still challenging enough to keep me on my toes. This is doubly true as the AI of the Covenant is some of the best I've seen in a game. In normal games, the aliens will turn and start blasting away with almost zero reaction time, no matter what stealth precautions you take. Not so with Halo; if you sneak up behind a Covenant squadron and start laying waste with your submachine gun, they'll behave like real aliens (or people) would. They are SURPRISED! Did you hear that game developers everywhere? The enemy was surprised what I did, and they panicked accordingly. The first squadron I ambushed consisted entirely of these squat little gnome-like creatures and the moment I opened fire they all started screaming and scrambling for cover, scared to death. In fact, I was shocked because I only managed to kill three or four before the rest were safely out of sight. Simply amazing. Even more amazing is that they don't run very far. Once they turn a corner or two they'll turn around and crouch down and wait for you to come by, and take you unawares. Ambush, and then be ambushed.
The only bone I can find to pick with this first level is the layout and design of the ship. While it is nicely detailed and very expansive, it is also perfectly symmetrical, meaning that every hallway looks almost exactly the same as the previous one. Its not a major issue, but after I've been laying waste for five minutes, I have no clue which door I came through, and its frustrating to try and interpret your next destination by way of what direction the bodies are all facing. You'll see this problem throughout the whole game, although in some levels there are nice yellow arrows to point you in the right direction.
After a few days, I've beaten several levels of Halo, and overall I'm pleasantly pleased with the game so far; the war between Humanity and the Covenant is a good storyline, and the several sabotage missions you're involved in give me an odd sort of satisfaction, like I'm actually doing something to help win the war (a mark of good game, if you're that immersed).
However, there's just one little thing nagging at me, and that's the rating on this game. I'm looking at the box and it says "Rated M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Violence, and Language". I'm thinking, why? This isn't that violent of a game, and most of the blood I see is blue. There's been a little language, yeah, and its primarily shooting and killing aliens, but nothing I've seen so far warrants and M rating............... And then I play 343 Guilty Spark.
The level 343 Guilty Spark did something that no game has done since I first played Resident Evil 2 on Playstation: it scared me. Granted, most of you who've played this game probably felt no such thing, but I made the "mistake" of playing this level in The Room, and as I said, its extremely immersive, and the first half of 343 Guilty Spark is highly ominous, with sinister background music and very ominous signs of what you're about to find. The hallway drenched in Covenant blood and bodies (most of which are torn into some very nasty pieces).... The whole time I'm sitting in The Room, and I'm thinking, "What the heck did THAT!? Human Marines surely didn't, as I've never seen anything but outright cowardice among them unless I (as Master Chief) am there. And so I encountered the Flood.
From the moment that the Flood first enters the scene the game warrants its Mature rating. The Flood are sickening, distorted, twisted creatures that make disgusting noises and screams that send chills down your spine, and I was only too happy to oblige with the objective to escape the compound I had entered in search of Captain Keyes. Sorry Cap'n, you're on your own this time.
When the Flood appear, you quickly discover that your old fighting tactics have been rendered virtually useless. Playing duck, cover, lean, and shoot with the Covenant works well in most instances, but only because the Covenant fight the same way. They have a little thing called "survival instincts" built into their AI. The Flood have no such thing, and are singularly disinterested in annoying characteristics such as living. However, despite their seemingly transparent desire to live, the Flood are by no means unintelligent. For example, at one point in 343 Guilty Spark I was the second floor shooting down horde of Flood that were on the first floor trying to leap up and get me. I stopped to enjoy this part for a little bit, because there were probably a dozen of the rotten creatures down below, and I had plenty of ammo. Well, about a minute after I started my shooting fest, one of the things leapt up behind me and began advancing toward me. Master Chief being Master Chief, I quickly whipped around and pumped him full of lead. It died, but unwittingly I had stepped out onto a pane of glass, and seconds later three Flood had shattered it, bringing me tumbling down to the first floor, where they quickly swarmed me. Whether this was part of their AI or not, the effect was good.
The introduction of the Flood brings a significantly grisly twist to the game, not only because they are much more accomplished fighters than the Covenant, but because they also fight the Covenant in turn. The Flood are no partisans in the war between Humans and Covenant, and the ring-world of Halo quickly descends into a three-way war between the Covenant, the Flood, and myself (supposedly the marines are still fighting, but I rarely see any, and its my guess that they've all been eaten by the Flood at this point). While progressing through the later levels, I frequently come across pitched battles between the Covenant and Flood forces. While the Covenant have by no means forgotten me, they appear much more preoccupied with staying out of reach of Flood (who, incidentally, have discovered the use of projectile weapons, and I'll never forget my shock when I watched a Flood pick up a discarded shotgun and blast a Covenant grunt away with it). You usually arrive at the tail end of battles, and more often then not it ends with a mass of Flood leaping across no-man's land headfirst into Covenant lines and tearing them apart, usually while I am still sneaking behind crates and rubble to avoid the fray altogether.
The last few levels of Halo are among the best I've played in any game, with a climactic tension I usually feel among games like The Legend of Zelda. There is a sense of urgency about the whole affair, and by the time I was driving the Warthog away from the Pillar of Autumn, trying to escape, I was about ready to fall off the edge of my seat, terrified that I wouldn't make it in time and be killed in the blast. Immersive, just like I said before.
So, after a three day love affair, my time with Halo comes to a close. I've rarely been so impressed with a game, which excels in almost every detail. If you haven't played this game before (I doubt many hard-core gamers haven't), I strongly suggest you pick it up and give it go. You won't be dissapointed.
P.S. On a disjointed closing note, I also strongly suggest that you pick up the shotgun whenever the game gives you the opportunity to do so. Do it.... or otherwise become flotsam for the Flood.
Posted on March 10, 2006 at 12:33 pm
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