Game Review: Halo — Combat Evolved
I just finished Halo Combat Evolved (2001). Halo Combat Evolved is an important stepping stone in the evolution of interactive entertainment, introducing new gameplay systems, impressive visuals, a masterful soundtrack, and high-fidelity console FPS multiplayer gameplay. Unfortunately, under the modern gaze of 2020, Halo Combat Evolved has aged very poorly. The gameplay is boring and repetitive, the level design is unimaginative, the AI is simplistic, the mechanics are frustrating, and the story is mediocre. Halo Combat Evolved stands as a testament to just how far video gaming has come since its formative years, and a caution to all millennial gamers that revisiting titles from the gilded age of video games will not be an enjoyable experience.
NOTE: I did not play the multiplayer and will not be mentioning it in this review.
Biblical Science Fiction
Halo Combat Evolved is the start of the Master Chief saga, which will go on to produce six more titles in the franchise, including the forthcoming Halo: Infinite. Halo CE jumpstarted Microsoft’s most prized video gaming IP and made the XBOX a worthy contender to the PS2 and Nintendo GameCube. You play as Master Chief, a super soldier thawed from cryogenic sleep and readied for a new chapter in the conflict between the UNSC and Covenant. The story is quite simple. A soldier helps his side defeat another side in a war for power and peace. There is one twist in the middle (spoilers ahead), of the Flood, a parasitic entity that infects its hosts and spreads at a rapid pace, destroying everything in its path. The Covenant have, by their own negligence, released this long-contained plague into the planet Halo and Master Chief (with his companion Cortana) must destroy the planet before it reaches the far ends of the universe. The ‘twist’ lacks impact. It really is not a twist, but an introduction of a new variable into the conflict. Twists usually reveal a mystery that is central to the story. Something unexpected, something that dispenses with assumptions, something that sheds new light on something we thought we understood. It does not feel as if the Flood were central to the conflict between the Covenant and the UNSC, and it does not dispense with any assumptions or shed any new light on how we understood the battle. In fact, there is no mystery, at this point, about the conflict. The Flood are more of a third party introduced to complicate the war. After this ‘twist’, the rest is quite simplistic. Destroy the planet and escape before detonation. X, Y, Z. There are no deeper themes, there is no critical commentary, there are no character studies. It is a relatively straight forward and unremarkable narrative. This should not be excused by the time period in which Halo CE was released. Deus Ex, System Shock 2, and Thief were all released in the late 1990s and early 2000s. They were all superior story telling experiences. Much of the reason the story is so generic is the development hell this game rose from (thats a story for another day). Master Chief is a ‘cool’ character but, at least in this game, he is not very interesting. He has no backstory and does not say much in the game itself. Cortana, an AI with an attitude accompanying the Chief, was a compelling contrast, but does not get enough time in the game either. The rest of the characters are a mix of good humour and cheesy caricatures. Halo’s story is ultimately a lukewarm footnote of this experience.
The Hymns of Halo
Halo Combat Evolved is technically impressive. This is an almost twenty-year-old game, so evaluating its technical features is stretching the scope of critical evaluation. What I can say is Halo CE’s soundtrack is its best and most memorable feature. The composer did a nearly perfect job scoring the missions, filling each moment with grandeur and suspense, and leaving the gamer emotionally moved at certain moments (even if there were no narrative reasons for doing so). The combat sequence scores have the right ‘pump up’ quality to them, and the audio design holds up well on 3D surround sound headphones. The ability to toggle between the remastered and original version is a stellar and standout feature. Seeing just how much work Sabre Interactive put into creating new textures, remodelling assets, updating the resolution, and that silky smooth 60 frames per second are all praiseworthy.
Aging Poorly
Halo Combat Evolved, both in its gameplay and design, reveal just how poorly its systems have aged in the past nineteen years. The gameplay in Halo CE is mind numbingly repetitive. Enter a room, shoot the Covenant or Flood, leave the room, enter an identical room, do it again, and rinse and repeat. No notable enemy variety. No notable combat variety. No intermediate moments to develop the story, have dialogue, or explore the world. Just the same loop ad nauseam. After the first level, I was bored. Very, very bored. Nothing much changes over the next nine missions. The Flood are introduced and, for a brief moment, things feel fresh as they chase you in hordes. But, eventually, this gets stale. There are no real variations. Halo is five missions too long. Five hours too long. Copy and paste levels are taken to their extreme when you realize the last three stages of the campaign are just backtracks of the first three. The Library level, the last of the newly introduced ones, is ten identical rooms of shooting mindlessly at the Flood while you wait for 343 Guilty Spark to open a door. It is not fun. The checkpoints are some of the worst I have ever seen in a video game. Often, I would be respawned 20–30 minutes back, and for no good reason. Dying in Halo CE feels unfair and arbitrary. There are one shot RPG wielding Covenant and Flood who cannot be countered. There are one hit grenades that also cannot be countered. The regenerating shield, a revolutionary concept at the time, is too quick to drain and too slow to recharge. Health packs are available, but usually in short supply and out of sight. Guns all feel similar. The lack of a sprinting ability is a big letdown. ADS is not an issue for me, especially knowing that Halo prides itself on this unique quirk, but it would have been nice to have it (which eventually happens in the later Halo games). The vehicle controls are terrible. The Warthog moves as if it’s on ice. Not even being nineteen years old can forgive Halo CE for just how awful its vehicle controls are. The Banshees and Ghosts are not that much better. Even the tank is a slog. Using vehicles in Halo CE is a sparsely distributed affair. This is very unfortunate, because vehicles gave necessary breathing room between those repetitious gunfights. Enemy AI is serviceable but ultimately underwhelming. Levels are unimaginative. Forerunner installations, that serve as the backdrop to much of the combat, is unbearable at times, making you feel like you’re walking through the most uninteresting, bland industrial factory interspersed with sci-fi mumbo jumbo. The levels that are located in natural areas, a forest, a snowy mountainous range, were much more interesting and visually pleasing. The levels might be open, but there is nothing really to explore, and the paths are very linear. Halo CE gives you the illusion of choice but is very much a “go here, and then there, and do this” type of game. There are no real boss fights. Encounters with unique enemy types are rare. There are no real stealth opportunities. The ones that are there are also an artifice and do not allow you to sidestep certain gunfights. There is no platforming (something later Halo games introduce). There is no puzzle solving. It is simply a shoot x, run to y, have cutscene z, and repeat all over again game. Bland, boring, repetitious, and frustrating.
Conclusion
While it boasts impressive visuals and a jaw dropping soundtrack, Halo CE is a relic of the past that does not hold up in the present. With a mediocre story, simplistic AI, repetitious gameplay loop, archaic systems, and a general lack of variety, Halo CE is better left in the pages of history books, not the screens of 4K, 144 Hz monitors.
SCORE: 5.0/10
