Game Review: Halo-Combat Evolved (Xbox)

In preperation for Halo 3's historic launch tomorrow, I thought that I would review the first two games in the series, starting with number one.

Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)

Overall Score: 10/10
Pros: Epic and awesome story, great voice acting, great gameplay and controls, super amazing multiplayer.
Cons: Thehuman character models really don't hold up that well, but the rest of the environments do so amazingly.

Halo was really the first 'hardcore' game that I played. All other video games that I had played were casual games like Tetris and stuff like that, and I gotta say, even now, years after having played it for the first time, I still love it just as much.
By now, everyone who is going to play it has already played it, and even if they haven't, they know a lot about what goes on, so I'm not going to worry about spoilers here. The story starts off in a very interesting way, giving you very little information about exactly what went on. Sure the manual clued you in a little bit, but definitely not a ton. Then, you go on to play through nine of the greatest video game levels of all time, in the process viewing and experiencing one of the best video game stories of all time. This is interesting to me now, because replaying through Halo and Halo 2, its amazing how simple the story is, especially in Halo 1, and yet the first time you played it, and even now replaying it, you feel like you're in on some big secret. You feel like you know something other people don't know. That kind of feeling is a tribute to how good a game this really is.
On the technical side, the game is pretty solid. The gameplay, which was truly revolutionary, still proves that even years after the initial innovation, it still feels and plays just as good as any of the competition. The graphics are pretty nice, although the actual character models don't exactly look breathtaking, and the enemies are just plain cool. The AI works well, and the game is truly just a blast to play.

Concept: The first FPS on a console that replicates the PC experience perfectly.

Graphics: The environments and weapons look really, really cool, even after several years. The human character models are the main bad part when it comes to graphics, and the enemy models hold up fairly well, especially the Hunter.

Sound: This is one of the first games to really get voice acting right. Other then that, the weapons and enemies and allies all sound great, and the music is practically Oscar-quality. Marty O'Donnell is truly amazing.

Playability: The controls and gameplay are awesome to begin with. Then you add vehicles like the warthog into the mix and it just gets better and better.

Entertainment: Even if you are playing on easy, you get an amazing story, amazing gameplay, and the start of an epic trilogy all wrapped into one.

Replay Value: Super High.