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Single Player:
5 Times on Easy
5 Times on Normal
1 Time on Heroic
1 Time on Legendary
Co-Op:
1 Time on Normal
1 Time on Legendary
My completion stats are above and that's not mentioning the Multi-Player mayhem I have had with friends and family, but what kept me coming back for more? Overall I have clocked around 300 hours playing Halo yet after playing 'Timespliters 2' for 10 minutes I couldn't wait to put the pad down and walk away. Bridging the gap between superb graphics and superb gameplay is a very rare thing in the gaming industry, yet a small company known as Bungie and a very small company known as Microsoft managed to do something which you don't see every day or for that matter, every year!
I still feel hungry to go back and take out a hoard of Covenant grunts or wipe out an entourage of the Flood! Is it the Surround Sound? The graphics or the gameplay? Or is just the sheer thrill factor I get from blasting my way through the Library mission whilst my ears dance to some of the most ambient and creative music ever programmed into a video-game.
The Xbox is hailed as a system without 'The appeal' that the Playstation 2 console has yet however many times you play GTA3 the same things happen over and over, but strangely enough every time I play Halo I see something new or I play the game in a completely different way.
By far the biggest challenge I have gotten out of my Xbox system or any other for that matter was playing through the main game on legendary difficulty. Some enemies regenerate their power, they attack in groups and the intelligence displayed from the covenant as you try to get the 'Master Chief' out of the action is something of a whole new level. Earlier on this year I completed the game on legendary difficulty whilst playing through with brother, but nothing could compare me for the single player action! 'Halo' isn't short game so don't get that impression from my completion stats, in fact it has taken me 3 months to complete the game on Legendary whilst juggling between 'coursework' for my GCSE's and trying to fight may way through to rescue 'Captain Keys' from the Brigg.
The question on the minds of those who don't own an Xbox, YES it is worth getting an Xbox just to play this game! With that one over I will get back to discussing what else lies between the depths of Earth, The Moon and Halo!
For those who are lucky enough to own a Home Cinema system will probably agree with me in saying that Halo contains the best Sound Effects and Music yet seen on any console. The music rotates around the room in full 360 degree delight as bullets travel from speaker to speaker as you fight your way through each mission. As ships fly over you the Subwoofer grows like an angry dog and the floor shakes like a naked man in the snow (Don't look any further into that ;)! Reloading your weapon in giant structures creates an echo feeling around the room where as out-doors it sounds flat as if the sound waves are struggling to find anything to refract off. At stages in the game I felt as though I was on Halo and that 'Cortana' was only a few feet away from me, to understand what I am saying would require you to play the game in Dolby Digital 5.1!
Anticipating Halo 2 isn't going to be that easy as near the release of that there will be 3 other first person shooters released for the Xbox going by the names:
Perfect Dark 2
Doom 3
Quake 4
Microsoft and Bungie have promised that Halo 2 will be twice as good as the first Halo; the question on my mind is how can they manage that? Better graphics, better sounds and better gameplay, yet I would be very happy with more of the same.
Some say that Halo is just an addition to the First Person Shooter family, I think otherwise, I believe that Halo has revolutionised the First Person shooter genre in more ways than one and in ways that you have to experience to understand. I had my doubts early on as to whether it was better than Deus EX, Half Life or Unreal but 300 gameplay hours on from that I can safely say that Halo is my favourite first person shooter of all time and in my opinion the greatest. As we speak Master-Chief is orbiting earth in the ship he escaped from Halo with (he is in the Bungie programming office anyway), but where will his journey take him?
After watching the Halo 2 trailer around 20 times I have been looking at which planet or structure lies beneath him as he throws himself out of the ship?! Is it earth? Will he land on the ship passing by underneath him only to find that a new breed of alien has taken over it and he is just going to have to travel wherever it takes him? Will he miss the ship and land in the middle of the war going on below? All these questions are going through my mind as I try to figure out what Halo 2 is going to feature and what the game is going to be about.
I think that on behalf of all Xbox owners I can safely say that Halo 2 is going to be bigger than the release of the first Halo as we now know what to expect in terms of style, controls and usage of the Xbox hardware. Halo didn't push the Xbox system to the point of crashing, but from what I have seen and read of Halo 2 so far it looks like it is going to take these foundations and create a game which will surpass all others in its genre and become possibly the greatest game ever made.
One question you can ask yourselves in the mean time is, "Have you been 'Halo'ed?" If you haven't then isn't it time you were?!
Halo UK 'March 14th 2002'!
Thankyou for Reading
~Alastair~
The online play on PC is fantastic, so it should go one better on xboxLive with the voice comunicator.
> I am on the Battle of Hoth but I am struggling to rap the rope around
> the AT-AT's! I know how to rap it around their legs but nothing
> happens when I fly off?! I think you have to press something as well,
> I am going to try accelrating away instead. 2nd Mission was quite good
> but not as good as the 1st or the Battle of Hoth!
Not the Battle Of Hoth, the Battle Of Endor :). Two different missions. As for tying the rope, just keep circling tightly, until it cuts off automatically.
> Also Metroid Prime, hopefully will match Halo.
Metroid Prime and Halo are totally different genres of games, Halo is a FPS (The best available) and Metroid Prime is a FPAA - First Person Action Adventure.
I just cannot wait for Metroid, I should have my Gamecube by then.
> Apon re-reading what I said originally, even I have no idea what i'm
> on about. :P
Heh heh :D.
> I think I was trying to say I prefere the way Halo feels and plays.
> I'll purswade my friends to try TS2 multiplayer again, but I dobt
> we'll like it more than Halo-if at all.
Ah well, it's I'll down to opinion I guess. Try a virus match on the hangar or circus levels. You don't even need guns, though they help.
> Thats all well and good Mav but most of them are Multi-Format I was
> meaning exclusives.
Well Timesplitters 2 and Nightfire are multi-formats. I wasn't defending or promoting the GameCube anyway, just giving you a list you could compare with. Purely informative :).
> I have just got my GameCube today along with Rouge Leader 2 and so far I
> love it. However until Prime is released the GameCube won't see a great
> FPS exclusive (I will see what Die Hard is like when I rent it
> tomorrow). That reminds me, I must Pre-Order Prime ASAP as March will be
> around before I know it :)
If you're pleased with Rogue Leader now, just wait until you get onto some of the later levels that feature some of the best graphics, sound and atmosphere I've ever come across. The Battle Of Endor really is great fun, though.
Halo has better 1 player, however, it IS overrated, and i got bored with it after 45 mins, this was in co-op.
> 'The X Factor'? Seriously, what the hell are you talking about?
Apon re-reading what I said originally, even I have no idea what i'm on about. :P
I think I was trying to say I prefere the way Halo feels and plays. I'll purswade my friends to try TS2 multiplayer again, but I dobt we'll like it more than Halo-if at all.