Co-Op Classics: Halo: Combat Evolved

Editorial

Marc "DjinniMan" Allie Saturday 26th of September 2009 12:43 AM

A new iteration of one of the top co-op franchises on any system was released this week. We're talking, of course, of Halo 3 ODST. The game that started it all was Halo: Combat Evolved for the original Xbox. Previous-gen consoles are fair game for this column, so let's take a look at the game that spawned what many consider to be the defining FPS series.

Throughout gaming history, certain game characters have become iconic. Nintendo has Mario and Link, Sega has Sonic. But as far as the last decade goes, there's one new character that stands out from the rest: Master Chief. Heavily armored from head to toe, highly trained in the use of any weapon, and gifted with an incredible lucky streak, Master Chief is a compelling protagonist. The armored Spartan hero has become the face of the Xbox. In contrast to Mario and Sonic, Master Chief is more appealing to the adult gamer, which is appropriate given the shifting role of gaming today. Video games are no longer just kids' toys, but are a focal point of home entertainment, and Master Chief is representative of this change.

But what is so special about Master Chief? What did Halo: Combat Evolved do that other games didn't? Why has the series become so popular, rising to the top of sales charts and earning critical acclaim? It's difficult to find one particular reason; it's not just one thing that makes Halo great, but the combination of many separate elements. Though Halo: Combat Evolved was the first game in the series, the magic Halo formula is there, and was very satisfying, even from the beginning.

Probably the biggest innovation Halo: Combat Evolved brought to the table was the storyline. The setting isn't particularly new, but it is nicely detailed and full of lore. The player is dropped quickly into the heat of the action, and the war against the Covenant is quite epic. The Covenant make excellent antagonists, with uniquely styled weapons, vehicles, and ships. The Flood are perhaps less impressive, but the memorable AI, 343 Guilty Spark, more than makes up for it. Adding to the epic feel, the stakes are extremely high in Halo: Combat Evolved. You are fighting not only to save a world, but all sentient life in the universe. Such in-depth, compelling stories were unusual for FPS games of the time, and the series has a strong storyline to this today.

Finely tuned gameplay elements in Halo: Combat Evolved added to its popularity. Players have access to a great selection of well balanced weapons. The shield mechanic takes away many of the frustrations of FPS play and flattens out the learning curve. Enjoyable third person vehicle segments spice up the action quite nicely, keeping the game from becoming stale. The game was impressive graphically, as well. Character and vehicle designs in particular were excellent. Additionally, the music of Halo was quite different from most other games, and the soundtrack is often mentioned as one of the best in video games.

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Tags: xbox 360 halo co-op classics

Halo 1 Available for Half Price on Xbox Live Marketplace

I bet you didn't know the original Halo had a subtitle of "Combat Evolved" did you? Well now you can lea(Read More)

Reader Comments

ong_elvin at 12:48 AM on 9.26.2009

It's important to note that Halo did nothing new. Shields and vehicles existed long ago, for example, but it's more the way Halo integrated them all together into a single seamless experience.

DjinniMan at 12:55 AM on 9.26.2009

That's true, and perhaps I should have made it clearer. The gameplay wasn't particularly innovative, just very, very polished and well thought out.

Anonymous at 04:43 AM on 9.26.2009

Really great article, it was fun having a little nostaglia trip. But you could do more if you wanted, I wouldn't complain. Halo is the game that I used to get my non gaming friends to play games with me. It was my first midnight launch attended, my first lan party. And a source of multiple inside jokes. This was a slightly sterilized version of your opinion of the game I felt. Talk about it as much as you want. As far as production and game review (not co-op review which is really excellent to do years later b/c you can talk about the co-op sessions over a long period of time) what made it stand out to me besides not having any faults, was the sound effects from grunts and elites and how alive they felt.

cave at 05:01 AM on 9.26.2009

Dammit this is the second time I have written this, the comments section loves logging me out when I hit "ADD COMMENT" after typing.

Neways, I agree with everything you said and liked the article. As far as a game review goes there were no faults in HALO. Everything it tried it either did amazingly well or very competently. I especially loved how the enemies seemed alive. The grunts would run away unless an Elite was with them, and their comments were hilarious, I might be remembering some Halo 2 in here. But that's not what I wanna talk about this long after it's release.

It was one of the only games I could convince my non-gaming friends to play with me. It was the first game I ever set a LAN-party up for. Multiple beers and smoking substances were shared playing this game with other people. I lost my security deposit on the apartment b/c I was to engaged in sniping to ash my cigarette and it burned a whole in the carpet. I have multiple inside jokes with my friends b/c of this single game. When we get together and get nostalgic we always bring this game up. I purchased Xbox Live on the morning of Halo 2's release. I got it at a Blockbuster midnight launch (the first one I ever attended) and they were out of Live cards. I got one from Wal-mart on the way home, and then after getting home I went back and paid like $80 for a 100 ft ethernet cable!!! All because I loved the first one and knew the 2nd would be worth all the trouble and expense.

The great thing about doing a co-op review this late after something has come out is that you have more time to have all these great co-op experiences, talk about those. I don't care how long it is, and I don't think anyone else will either. I liked the article but felt it lacked the personality that could have also been talked about.

Shardik at 05:26 AM on 9.26.2009

yeah, I hear so many hating on the halo series, but there is just so much fun in the games you can't complain. Like in Halo 3, the first level you fight a scarab, I was playing with 2 others on a tv set up next to me, and had a rocket launcher aimed perfectly into the engine core. I fired and mere feet from entering, my friend came flying over on a mongoose, jumped off, and hit the side of the rocket and rode off into oblivion. We still load up that video for the laughter once in awhile.

xxW4R EAGL3xx at 12:10 PM on 9.26.2009

Oh, the memories. Halo got my bike stolen lol. I left it outside, and forgot to take it in after playing Halo co-op. It sucked, but I have a better bike now.

bapenguin at 12:43 PM on 9.26.2009

We played so much Halo in college. The weekend the Xbox came out my roomate and I played through the campaign in basically one sitting - talking 10 hours or so in co-op. It was so much damn fun.

Udderman at 03:22 PM on 9.26.2009

hey guys just joined today but i've been reading your articles for the longest time but im surprised that you guys have not done The Lost Vikings. That game was totally coop and a SNES/Genesis Gem

ShadokatRegn at 10:22 PM on 9.26.2009

The first is always the best. Love this, too! It brought me back to my happy Halo days.

smurphster at 06:00 PM on 9.27.2009

ah halo... so many memories. college wouldn't have been the same without it. thanks to our campus's weird network, we could hook up xboxes to our internet connection, and while they wouldn't be on the internet (only 1 mac address was allowed), they still were part of the local network so we could play anyone on the floor w/o any hassle. it was fantastic. i could probably write a novel about all the greatness that has come from halo.

Brainp0wa at 08:49 AM on 9.28.2009

I didn't get to play it until it hit the PC because at the time I was one of those "PC good, console baaaaaaad, RAWR!" but I did get with the program later.

On the PC it was one of my favorite titles and it planted the seed that if a console port could be this good then maybe the consoles weren't all that bad after all.

Sabre at 01:03 PM on 9.28.2009

This article skimmed over so much and even got some things very wrong imo. Thumbs down from me. Do better.

DjinniMan at 01:30 PM on 9.28.2009

Of course it's skimmed over, it's not my intent to go too deep in Co-Op Classics. The point is to recognize important games in co-op history, not to list every single thing about the game.

I'd love feedback as to what I "got wrong" in the article.

smurphster at 02:15 PM on 9.28.2009

you're wrong, IMO. take that

i'm sure he could have written a full essay on this topic but i don't think anyone would have had the patience to read it. these pieces are usually pretty light on details and more of a tribute piece than a review. i don't think there's anything wrong with it. it was a good lazy day read.

txshurricane at 05:30 PM on 9.28.2009

If this comment had come from anyone else, I'd have wondered if they were joking.

Sabre at 07:37 AM on 9.29.2009

I will admit I didn't provide enough constrution in my critisim. I also relise I am more of a halo nerd then most.

My main issue comes from listing the story as the main reason for it's success. That's not the case. Halo didn't become a story driven powerhouse until 2. What was left out-

-The control/auto aiming system
-The game from the old screen shot that was posted (started out as a RTS, changed to a third person squad game, then became the game we know now. Dont include the screen if you aren't going to mention it)
-It was the only good game on XBox
-The only shooting game on consoles in years that wasn't trying to rip off goldeneye.
-The unpredictable AI of the enemies
-Live action film was dropped after it entered development hell, so the maker decided to make District 9 instead

On a related note, if you ever do a Gears of War article in the future, be sure to mention kill switch. It's the game that invented the MODERN cover system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh0Q57J9EH4
Some people claim it was metal gear/winback/time crisis ect, but that the old style cover system.

DjinniMan at 09:20 AM on 9.29.2009

You're right! I totally should have included the fact that it was the only good game on the Xbox, and the only FPS in years to not rip off Goldeneye. Because that would be objective journalism.

Willtur at 10:08 AM on 9.29.2009

I had plenty of fun on the xbox, last game that blew me away was Jade Empire which I finish about 2 years ago, Lately I have re-played Ghost Recon 2 and The Baldurs Gate series through as of 6 months to a year. They had Dead 2 Rights as well as many other gems like DefJam:Fight for New York. I could go on but xbox had a nice library. The bad to good ratio is tons better than wii as well as some others that I wont say due to the whole console gangs.

Biohzrd451 at 12:49 PM on 9.29.2009

It was not the only good game on the xbox I seem to recall Psychonauts being quite awesome IMO.

txshurricane at 01:33 PM on 9.29.2009

One of my all-time favorite games is Freedom Fighters, which I played on the Xbox. I liked it better than Halo.

Good call on kill.switch. Unfortunately, the rest of your post is pretty much...well...stupid.

Sabre at 02:37 PM on 9.29.2009

I love freedom fighters too. I don't think Freedom Fighters and Psyconaughts were out when Halo was released.

pheriannath at 10:38 PM on 10.1.2009

My personal favorite Xbox game was Panzer Dragoon Orta, but I'm a crazy person.

MisterDeeth at 07:15 PM on 10.4.2009

The first Halo has been, and will always be the best of the series.

Sabre at 04:14 PM on 10.5.2009

??? How?

xxW4R EAGL3xx at 08:36 PM on 10.12.2009

Everyone has their own opinion. Some find the first is always the best. Not me though, I think Transformers 2 is WAY better than the first.

jdarnold at 10:39 AM on 10.14.2009

I bought an XBox just so my co-op buddy & I could play Halo. While we enjoyed it, we both found it seriously overrated. The biggest co-op fault, by far, was the fact there is no save game in the co-op, an unforgivable sin in our book. We like to play games on the hardest, most unforgiving settings, and some of the levels were just too long to get thru in a single sitting. One time, I even left the XBox running just so we could get back to it the next evening! It's always blown me away that no one ever mentions the lack of co-op save game. It even was ridiculously hard to get the game started on the right level!

Besides that, the best thing it had going for it was a highly professional, very well thought out gaming experience. No glitches and very few times did we wish it "worked this other way". We felt the story line was also seriously overrated, as we had little or no idea what the heck was really going on. Just not that big on story lines getting told in cutscenes. But plasma grenades were fun and the levels were pretty solid.

Halo 2 was even more overrated, if that was possible. Extremely short with an even more convoluted storyline.

Still, Halo 3 is the main reason I want to add an XBox 360 to my console list.

Sabre at 02:42 PM on 10.14.2009

I don't see how you were confused by Halo 1s story. Man shoots aliens in face in space pretty much sums it up. The aliens believe it is an icon, but it's really an old death ray.

blakepro at 03:23 PM on 10.14.2009

I'm currently playing through Halo 1 on my xbox 360 for the first time on co-op with a buddy. I think its fun, but I think I have been spoiled by recent games. It seems to save fine in co-op so I'm assuming they fixed that with the 360 programming for the game.

Over all, its fun, I'm enjoying it, but I'm looking forward to beating it, Halo2, and then getting on to the more modern Halo3 and ODST. Not to mention Gears 1 and 2 both of which I own but havent played yet.

I dont know if you will ever do any Classics articles on non co-op games, but if you do, I think you should consider Beyond Good and Evil. My wife would sit on the couch with me and we played the game together even though only one of us was controlling the character. Loved that game...

Total Comments: 28

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