Halo
Rah! It took a while but the infamous Halo has finally arrived on the PC! This game was originally intended to be released on Macs and PCs back in 1999 but then Microsoft (boo!) bought the company that was developing it and changed the format of the game to an X-box only game.
Fortunately for PC gamers everywhere the game has finally been released back onto the PC. As it stands, the game is a direct port from console to PC so you would think that if a tiny little console could run it well your average PC would have no trouble. Not so. Even with a super powerful machine, overflowing with RAM you will find yourself lagging quite a bit in some of the more action intense areas which is a real shame. Another kick in the pants is that the game loses the co-op mode which could have been a lot of fun on the PC playing across the LAN. Ah well. C’est la vie.
Ignoring these losses it is pretty clear that the game is still damn impressive and holds its own against most of the other FPS games on the PC at the moment…especially considering that the game has been out on the X-box for so long. The story line, which I shall go into later, is very well developed and should manage to keep most gamers hooked on. There is also a multiplayer component to the game which, to be honest, I found a little disappointing. Each of the maps will only support 16 players and finding a server online that doesn’t have a super high ping is often quite a chore. I expect that this will change over time though so it probably shouldn’t be too much of a concern. There are also two new weapons that can only be used in the multiplayer version and are not found in the X-box version : the flame-thrower and fuel rod gun! Bonus!
The story line in Halo has a great deal of depth to it and the entire game would probably take you a good while to finish. There is around 12-15 hours of game play to be had on the normal difficulty settings but the varied difficulty settings allow you to come back and play it again and again if you want.
One of the best aspects of Halo is the wide variety of vehicles that you get access to throughout the game. There are jeeps, flying thingies and quads! Woo! Driving around in Halo is a hell of a lot of fun! You can drive through hordes of aliens and laugh as they scatter in an attempt to get out of the way of your wheels! Vroom! Some of the vehicles also have extra spots for people to jump into so that they can fire the turret guns or just hop along for the ride. This would have been awesome if there had been a co-op section of the game but, alas, the only driving companions you will have are your fellow marines who, to be fair, are still more than adequate.
Hmm, I suppose I should tell you about the story now or some parts of this review aren’t going to make much sense to you.
The story is set in the future and Earth is at war with an alien race called ‘The Covenant’. The game begins on board the earth warship, ‘Pillar of Autumn’ which is under attack from enemy forces. The ship’s captain makes the decision to awaken an experimental soldier, yourself, to help with the defence of the ship and to protect the ship’s AI, Cortana. The ship is ultimately lost to the enemy invaders and you, Cortana and several hundred marines manage to escape to a halo shaped planet (hence the name of the game) where they begin an epic battle for survival. The character you play is only referred to by rank as the Master Chief and, as well as being protected by shields, you are encased in a rock hard exosuit which protects you from damage that would kill any normal person. One nifty aspect of the game is that although you are incredibly durable you are not invincible and when you take a beating your shields will vanish. However, unlike other games, your shields will recharge pretty quickly so that you can carry on fighting after you have taken a quick breather. This means that you will never find yourself too low on health to be able to continue to the next stage of the game. You can also only carry 2 weapons and 4 grenades at any one time. This means that you can’t go through the game just blasting away at everything. You are forced to use discretion in your fights and if you can avoid an enemy then it is often best to do so…or this could just be my natural cowardice speaking. Anyway, you are never really at a shortage of weapons; the enemy will drop plenty of grenades and plasma weapons for you to pick up but I have found that the marine weapons are often pretty limited in availability…which is a shame because they are the most fun. One good way to conserve ammo is to use the butt of your gun to smash in the enemy’s face. Rah!
The enemy AI itself is actually quite good. A lot of the enemy have shields and they will often duck for cover and shoot at you from behind walls and rocks instead of coming out into the open. The smaller alien soldiers are cowards! When you run at them with guns blazing they will often turn and flee, screaming to their friends to do the same. The elite troopers are pretty tough and usually take a fair beating to put down. There are other soldiers which hide behind shields and only stick their heads out in order to take a shot at you. Theeeen you have the shock troopers. These guys are big. Really big! I try to avoid them when possible and run them down in my jeep if I get the chance.
All in all I really enjoyed this game. Normally I find that FPS games get a little bit dull and repetitive but with Halo I only experienced this a little. The outdoor sections are huge and are great fun to explore, especially when you have a car to drive around in. The indoor sections are pretty dull and usually feature the same type of corridors leading to big rooms full of enemies. Not exactly the most interesting of battle locales. The GFX in the game are really great to look at but I think you will probably have a hard time running them even on the most high spec of machines. However, at least there are no loading times between areas as seen in the X-box version! Phew!
James Coghlan
