Halo: Combat Evolved

One of the most popular Games for the Xbox system, Halo: Combat Evolved changed the course of the Xbox's popularity forever.

Starting as a First Person, Alien 'pwning' game that only Gaming nerds would enjoy, Halo has Evolved into the most popular game on the market. With the release of Halo 3, people are itching to play Combat Evolved and Halo 2 just to get the story right.

Online Play are only the bonuses of Halo. The mega multiplayer action at home is enough to leave someone completely satisfied with their gaming experience. But why is it so great?

The Story is a bit Cliched, but what it looses in a bit of un-originality, it makes up in mind-boggling battles and objectives that you could swear are impossible to complete.

In Halo, the year is 2552. Earth is still around, but the planet is overpopulated and citizens are forced to colonize on other planets. Faster then light travel helps humans to colonize on planets in other Solar Systems and the whole project is backed by Earths now Unified Government and the United Nations Space Command. One of the most important items in the project is the planet Reach, a Naval Yard that builds Ships for Colonies and UNSC. Conveniently close to Earth, it is also a base for Scientific and Military Research.

32 years ago, contact with the outer colony named 'Harvest' was lost and a Battle Group was sent to investigate. The group was almost completely destroyed. Only one badly damaged ship returned to Reach. The crew inside the ship told stories of an Alien warship that effortlessly destroyed all the crew's forces.

This Alien group revealed themselves as the Convenant, thus Religious Elders of the Covenant cast a holy war against Humans, labeling them as the Anti-Gods.

On Reach, they then created Cyborg Super-Warriors to fight against the Convenant and their troupes - All armed with Plasma Rifles and grenades. These Cyborgs are classed as Spartans. Obviously named after the most powerful Roman fighters.

In Halo, you play as our Protagonist Spartan 117. This Spartan is nothing special compared to the others, but he still comes out on top in the fights and missions he is sent on. Armed with the Knowledge of a holographic Female AI named Cortana and an MA5B Assault Rifle, Spartan 117 is ready to bust some Alien Skulls.

The Gameplay is massively spectacular. Although it only runs on 62 bits a frame, the colors are bold and the animation is brilliant - The Covenant in particular. Each of the Covenant Ranks have different strengths and weaknesses, all of which depend on the weapons they hold, the terrain and the time of day.

The Vehicles range from easy to control to complex. That goes for the weapons that they equipped with as well. The Banshee (a Covenant Flying Vehicle) is easy to control, powerful and is highly capable of evading attacks, although it is slow. The M12 LRV is a four-wheel drive, all Terrain Man-made craft with an extremely powerful Machine gun in the back of it. Each of the many vehicles in Halo: Combat Evolved are essential to the completion of an objective or mission.

The weapons are the most creative yet. The weapons range from being small and dual holdable (you are able to use one in each hand) to big and stationary (Mounted guns). But one of the most creative things about them are what your able to do with them. The needler (a big, Dual holdable weapon) is one of my personal favorites. It is nicely coloured and it is capable of rapid fire, making it powerful and convenient.

The Characters are well thought up and there's no doubt many people put a lot of effort into deciding the roles of the minor characters in the plot, as well as the protagonists and antagonists. Every Grunt, Elite and Jackal in the game -as well as the Military staff on the Pillar Of Autumn, the ship the 'resistance' is on.

As IGN.com quoted in 2002 ,"Microsoft Created the Xbox so we could have games like Halo". I'd believe it. If it weren't for Combat Evolved, Xbox would still be another console still trying to work its' way into the big leagues with Nintendo and Sony's Major pieces of hard wear.