Halo Combat Evolved Retrospective

Originally published April 23rd, 2023

When I was younger my experiences with shooters were limited. Outside of attempting and failing to clear the first stage of 'Shogo Mobile Armor Division' most of my games were of the platformer or fighting variety. The first shooter that really caught my attention, that made me want to buy a console just to play it was Halo.

During the early aughts I was knee deep into gaming news between a subscription to GamePro and infrequent access to G4Techtv, all singing the praises of Halo 2. It was talked about so much that I felt like I was missing out, that I had to play it for myself. I'd constantly read articles and go to the ilovebees arg site. Unfortunately I lacked an Xbox at the time, I had written off the console before then as none of it's early titles really appealed to me. There was no way my parents were gonna fork over money for a third console (we already had a PS2 and Gamecube) but I managed to get one put in layaway. However there was one caveat. You see I wanted Halo 2, but my mom noticed it had "language" in the ESRB rating on the back. Halo 1 however did not have a pottymouth so that's what I ended up with. After a few months of allowances and probably my parents just paying the rest anyway, I got my Xbox.

Halo CE's title screen is the definition of iconic. A panning shot of the titular ring and the theme plays, I can't help but let it play for a bit before starting a new playthrough. The story does a good job of letting you know what's going on without over explaining lore details. I love how the games opening level goes out of it's way not to show you any of the covenant before one jumpscares you after opening a door.

I can't say much about the core gameplay aside from shoot gun feel good. It's as simple as that, Bungie nailed the control and feel. There are few pleasures that rival feeling the controller vibrate in your hands as you unload an assault rifle clip into an Elite. The weapons give you a good selection of options on dealing with enemies. For example the Jackals have a sheild that can deflect bullets. You can either overload their sheild with a charged plasma pistol, lob a grenade at them or just run up and beat them.

The stages start off varied and unique, with my absolute favorite being "the silent cartographer". Unfortunately around the halfway point you can tell the devs were crunched for time. You start seeing the same environments from previous levels popping up and run through the same copy pasted room again and again. Combat also becomes less varied when the flood are introduced. The parasitic enemy mainly consists of infected who charge towards you and little spores that try to jump you. The game basically locks you into using the shotgun to 1 hit kill the big guys and the assault rifle to pop the spores.

The final stage sees you racing in a warthog against the clock to evacuate before your ship destroys the ring. I still remember the first time I playing, I was extremely tense and struggling hard against the vehicle controls. I was kinda dumb as a kid and didn't usually beat games so I felt really proud of myself as I watched Halo go boom, even if I was playing on easy. Despite the flaws in the later portions of the game, I was hooked. I was officially a Halo megafan, constantly replaying the campaign and playing multiplayer with my friend and cousin. And ofcourse it only made me want to experience Halo 2 even more. The e3 trailers were included in newer printings of CE and I'd watch them constantly.

Eventually I'd finally get to play it but that's a story for another time. Tl;dr Halo's fucking good.