When Halo debuted on the X-Box, gamers everywhere went nuts for it. Here was a first-person shooter ("FPS") designed for a console that truly lived up to the blast-'em-up fun of the PC's classic FPS games.

As Halo makes its debut on the PC, perhaps its biggest flaw is that it shows its console roots (the worst of which is the "checkpoint" method of saving your games). You'd think Halo's console-based origin means that the single player adventure is the most fun, but the truth is that Halo is absolutely made for multiplayer.

The Story

You are "The Master Chief", an elite soldier with some unique gear. You're wearing a battle-suit that contains its own shield. The shield will absorb damage to a certain point, then you start taking damage. If you can find a place to lay low, the shield will recharge itself after a short space of time. Your suit does more than this to help you out: the Heads-Up Display ("HUD") will flash a warning at you when your shield is low or you need to reload your weapon. It also displays how many rounds, clips, and grenades you have available. As if this weren't enough, you can jump unusually long distances. Sound cushy? You're gonna need every inch of that advantage, soldier.

You've been awakened because your ship has come under attack by an enemy race called "The Covenant". The two forces have come to scrap over a strange "Alien artifact" that is the setting of our game: The Halo. Just like Larry Niven's Ringworld, the Halo is a planet-sized ring that contains its own ecosystem and atmosphere. The Halo is believed to be some sort of weapon, and neither side wants it to fall into the other's hands. Also helping you is the ship's AI: when your ship was boarded she was downloaded into your suit to prevent her from falling into enemy hands. She will tell you what you need to know and give you advice when you stray from the mission.

Gameplay

As you play the game, you start your missions with some basic equipment: two weapons, some ammo, and a few grenades. Primary fire will shoot the weapon and secondary fire will throw a grenade. You can also do a hand-to-hand attack that is very effective in close quarters: most opponents are completely shattered by the force of your blow. Long-time FPS players will recognize this as standard fare.

All the missions in the single-player game are part of an ongoing story, and each of them ties together into the next chapter. Most end with a cliffhanger. The only irritating part is that some stories change your equipment: you'll collect a Needler and maximum ammo, walk into the end-of-chapter cinematic, and suddenly you're carrying a pulse rifle with about 30% of its maximum ammunition.

The missions you play take different forms, and objectives can change mid-mission when something happens. It's all scripted, of course, but it doesn't really feel as linear as, say, Max Payne, where you step through the story in Max's shoes.

Single Player

The Single Player game gets off to a great start. Like Half-Life, you're unarmed, unsure what you're supposed to be doing, and suddenly thrown into the action when things hit the proverbial fan. They get you used to the suit by "running diagnostics", asking you to do this or that, etc. Unlike Half-Life, the action and suspense start to go downhill instead of up. Escaping from your boarded ship feels like you're in the opening of Star Wars. As you team up with your fellow Marines, Halo takes on some of the Aliens feel, as you repel the boarders, escape with the AI, and hit a dropship. Planetside, you're treated to some absolutely gorgeous scenery that even rendered beautifully on my meager 32MB graphics card.

Unfortunately, you're gradually whisked indoors. They've cleverly designed the game so you battle your way into a central point, then fight your way back again, meaning they only needed to build roughly half the maps needed for a full game, then make you walk through them twice. The problem is that the indoor seqences are dull. They're dimly lit, mostly drab grays and blues, and they seem to go on forever. There are some nice breaks in the tight-hallway monotony, but even these only show gray overcast skies and dim lighting - you never come close to the breathtaking beauty of the first couple of missions.

A really good single player game will increase the difficulty of playing by presenting new challenges; for example, in Half-Life you have to deal with monsters you can't defeat by yourself, and you don't always have to defeat them to move on. At one point you even have to figure out how to call in an airstrike using a huge GPS rig.

In Halo, the challenges go more like this: step forward, a wave of monsters attacks. Step back while blowing them away. Step forward again, more monsters. Repeat about 4 or 5 times for every small advance you make. The further you go, the less your fellow Marines join you, and you almost don't mind because they seem to get dumber and participate less. By the last time I encountered allies they were in the way more often than helpful, wasting my ammo as I indavertently wasted them. Hey, not much you can do when a guy walks around you and sticks his head in your rocket launcher.

Sound like a lot of flaws? Believe it or not, some really sweet features make up for it. First, vehicles. Not only do you have a variety, but you can choose how to handle them. For example, there's a "Warthog" (a jeep) that you can drive, ride shotgun and other Marines will hop in, or you can take the standing gun and shoot to your heart's content. Your comrades really get into it, shouting, "Nice one!" if you nail a shot, or pumping their fists and whooping if you off-road it a bit. There's a tank you can run and they'll all hop on with you and provide cover fire. There are skimmer vehicles that belong to your enemy; you can blow the pilot away, flip the grounded vehicle, and take off. And speaking of take off, you can fly, too! In fact, some parts of the game require you to.

The vehicles let you be creative; I grabbed one of the flyers and simply strafed over a bunch of Covenant forces at a middle altitude. Blasting ground troops left and right, I then hung in the air just out of their range and rained missiles down on them.

Another good feature of gameplay is that you can only carry two weapons. That sounds annoying, but in the end it makes playing the game more rewarding. You have to think on your feet. I spent some time backtracking and would leave a full weapon on the ground to come back for later, but it also meant I'd make decisions like, "A Needler will do the trick here, but I won't need the rocket launcher 'til later." You can also find goodies: an "overshield" that doubles your suit's protection and a camouflage token that makes you invisible to your enemies.

Your enemies are challenging. One particular kind, "The Horde", shuffle like zombies, have nasty mutated body types, and skittering small hordes that are like a cross between facehuggers and the Headcrabs from Half-Life. The other are "The Covenant". Some of them are amusingly like Star Wars aliens: they're short, they speak in high-pitched squeaky voices, and they howl in terror when they see you coming. Others of the Covenant are downright deadly - some camouflage themselves a la Predator and can kill you with one blow from their glowing bladed weapon (no, really, it's not a lightsaber, we swear! Don't sue us), others have shields that allow them to fire at you from behind cover.

The nice thing about it is that Halo's AI behaves pretty well - Covenant aren't stupid, and although the Horde are mindless, if one of them gets their hands on a rocket launcher or a Needler they can wreak absolute havoc. Instead of both sides always chasing you, if they run into each other they'll battle it out. There are times I've simply hidden until the smoke clears and taken out survivors and other times when I've chosen sides and used the distraction to take out the stonger enemy.

Multi-Player

Multiplayer is the most fun. The maps are more entertaining when you don't feel like you're being fed down a cattle chute to the next chapter. You're not there to flip switches and reach a door - you just get to blast each other to kingdom come with the stuff that's lying around. You've got sniper rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, and alien energy weapons. Some of these offer scopes so you can take your opponent out pretty cleanly from a distance. And the Needler's projectiles will track an opponent you if you got to lock on before firing, at times even following them around corners and behind cover.

The only disadvantage to the way Halo plays is that you have this powerful suit...and it makes you a little sluggish. You can jump high and far, but sometimes running and jumping feel like you're moving in low-gravity slo-mo. I get impatient sometimes with the way I feel restricted. Reloading also feels slow, but I actually like this feature - the time it takes you to stuff shells in a shotgun or change a clip feels about right compared to some of the "never-emptying-clip" FPS games I've played.

Patches and Updates

I didn't have a problem at all with the game - it installed and played flawlessly. Just the same, I patched it and encountered no problems after applying the latest patch. I haven't needed Microsoft Games' tech support for Halo, so I can't really comment on how well they support it.

Overall, Halo makes a great game for the PC. There are frustrating moments. I've sometimes cleared a level, stepped up to the checkpoint, and the one invisible guy I missed kills me and I have to start all over. And there are times I feel I'm swimming through Jell-O while ballet-trained alien quarterbacks are fragging me to hamburger. But the multiplayer game and the way vehicles, weapons, and AI work make this a must-own game for anyone who remembers how much fun Quake and Half-Life were when they first came out. Since we've got to wait even more for Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, Halo makes a great game to fill the void, and I can't wait to see Halo 2.

System Specs

I played Halo on a:

Dell Inspiron 8200
2.0GHz Pentium IV @ 400MHz FSB
1,024 MB (1 GB) RAM
32MB nVidia GeForce Go 440MX video card
(Crystal Audio sound emulation - no sound hardware)
Windows XP Pro
1024 X 768 X 32-bit resolution


Recommended: Yes

Version Played: Released
Operating System: Windows
CPU: Other
CPU Speed (MHz): over 600
RAM (MB): More than 256
Best Played With/Intended For: Multiplayer
Graphics Card Family: nVidia geForce 256

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