Halo: Combat Evolved. The Beginning of an Era

Way back in 2001 when the original Xbox was being launched a studio with plans of world domination were about to release the start of their biggest game series.

Released as a launch title with the Xbox, Halo offered incredibly immersive game play for a game of its time giving gamers a wide amount of variety to choose from when it came to completing levels.

While some levels in the game were reminiscent of tightly knit corridor shooter sections from the DOOM series which satisfied some players, it was its large environments outside these sections which featured amazing vehicle options including tanks, armed jeeps and piloting enemy aircraft to rain hell down on the enemy it gave players a large degree of choice when playing. This doesn't even include the weapon variety and an enemyA.I which made players think on their feet.

The game took away the percent based health and armor system which many games in the past had used and replaced with a recharging shield bar and health icons which depleted when the shield was lost and the player took hits. This system proved preferable by players over its predecessors as it allowed players to regain their protection if lost rather than needing to stumble around a level with 1 percent health looking for a med-kit and cowering in fear of any enemy. This is what gave us an amazing gaming experience, and that's just the single player campaign.

The story focuses on the human resistance against a collection of alien races named "The Covenant", with the game taking place on this large ring shaped structure in space, dubbed "Halo". The story follows the main character, The Master Chief, a SPARTAN super-soldier and who is considered one of humanity's best chances for victory against this threat. Along the way the player discovers many twists and turns in the story and realizing that there are bigger threats than just the Covenant.

Halo offered player a competitive multi-player experience which, for its time, was new and wowed many players. Large maps made players choose their positions carefully and a variety of weapons, vehicles and game modes including capture the flag, making players work in teams to capture the enemy flag and Juggernaut, making one player super strong and forcing the other players to bring them down together kept players entertained for many hours a day.

Amazing game-play complimented the beautiful graphics, a wonderfully composed orchestral soundtrack and the intuitive story all combined into the experience of Halo, the universe of which has been expanded on many times since 2001.
The game was one of the most successful on the Xbox and is one of the best selling games of all time. It has been ported onto the PC and Xbox 360 in both its original form and a remade for its tenth anniversary in 2011 with a new graphic engine but still the same game-play, although this was developed by 343 Industries.

Bungie would eventually follow up the game with Halo 2 which we will be looking at in the next post.