Halo: Combat Evolved
Genre: Action | FPS | Very mild horror
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆
Introduction
This was one of the first FPS games i was introduced to when i was a kid and, the fact i still play/ed it over 20 years after it's release, should hint at how great this game is despite it's kinks and things to polish
Story
Ok so the story of Halo is pretty huge, convoluted and later on, features some plot holes or some unresolved things or discrepancies, so i'll summarize a bit stupidly the story of THIS Halo, especially since i am not a person that is very passionate about the lore of games; take this paragraph with a grain of salt, or an entire rock of it, if you will.
Alright, you play as Master Chief, a big guy in a green suit of space armor and you just woke up from a freeze chamber thingy that preserved you so far, you are on board of a gigantic space ship, the Pillar of Autumn but UH OH a bunch of aliens are on your cheeks; turns out, not so far from you there's a weapon of mass destruction, known as "Halo" and of course the aliens wanna take control of it to pretty much do whatever they want with it.
Alright, gotta stop the aliens from taking control of this WMD otherwise it's GG for the human race and pretty much everything else.
Basic gameplay mechanics
The game is a linear mission-to-mission game, where you complete a level, get to the next one, complete it and so on and so forth, like your average 2000's FPS game.
Gameplay
The gameplay is not too deep, you are given two weapons at the beginning of each mission (no, you cannot keep weapons from a previous level and take them to the next one) and you can pick up the weapons dropped by the enemies or those left on the ground, placed by the level itself.
You are limited to 2 weapon slots and 2 grenade slots, but this does not really interfere with the game, as you will probably be using one or two of the same guns because of how better they are compared to literally every other gun.
On each save slot you are allowed to have a difficulty set: easy, normal, heroic and legendary; basically your "easy, normal, hard, super hard" type of difficulty set.
I gotta say, the difficulties are pretty well balanced; "easy" is like, for that one uncle who has never touched a game before, or your little brother that oh so bothers you to get a turn at the game; "normal" is, well, normal, things die fast but they are slightly more aggressive; "heroic" is where things are a bit challenging, but still easy enough to not be stuck in a loop of "restart the level and die every 27 seconds", enemies are tough but they still go down easily if you target the right spots; as for "legendary", well, it is pretty hard, enemies are much tougher than "easy" but not so much tougher than "heroic", however, they are stupidly aggressive and you might get melted if you leave cover at the wrong moment.
Graphics
Well, the graphics are... 2001's graphics so of course they are not "good" or realistic compared to today's standards.
HOWEVER, while they are no match for today's graphics, they still hold up pretty well, especially when compared to graphics from other 2000's games.
There is a certain charm in just walking around an alien planet with a stupidly overly stretched grass texture placed onto it with rivers looking like they are made out of clear hobby glue instead of water.
Sound Design
The sound design for this game is actually really good: the assault rifle for example, sounds like an actual big gun that a big guy would use, really thumpy and bassy, makes you feel like you are shooting chunks of steel instead of bullets.
The enemies sound good, and so does the environment around them.
As for the music: it's good too, and it does not follow you persistently until you finish a fight or level, instead, sometimes it's there and sometimes it just cuts to silence, leaving you alone with the sound of the planet you are on.
Enemies
Differently from my Ghostwire: Tokyo review, i will not be placing spoilers on the enemy types, as they hold no mystery to them whatsoever, and also do not serve any particular purpose to the game which has no real bosses.
There's the "Grunt" which is basically the common cannon fodder enemy, you'll be seeing a lot of them of different colors and equipped with different weapons, some of which can end your run instantly.
The "Jackal" instead is your average "im staying away from the fight while also annoying the player with ranged weapons" type of enemy, he's got a shield which deflects normal weapon's bullets, but they can be easily be taken care of by just shooting the gap in their shields and then placing a headshot on them.
The "Elite" on the other hand, is not really cannon fodder, but it's close to that; basically the "i have more HP than the rest and deal more damage than them because i am more aggressive and bulkier" type of enemy; you will be seeing a lot of them but a lot less than the previous two; they are basically the guys guinding the previous two, so you will almost always see at least one or two per cluster of enemies.
Then there's the "Hunters" which are basically the "if you mess up once and get hit, you will either die or be left with 2HP" type of enemy; they are bulky, slow and they got a weak spot on their back, as well as CANNONS THAT WILL 100% END YOUR RUN IF YOU GET HIT DIRECTLY; they will force you to sue a bit of your brain, you cannot just run at them and kill them; get too far, and they'll blast you, get too close, and they'll squish you; these enemies would be a great challenge if it weren't for a bug which basically allows you to one shot them.
There are many more enemies but i will not be listing them all here, but essentially the first four i mentioned are the min ones you will be seeing around, excluding variants.
Weapons
The game's weapons are all kind of unique, they do not look like they were just real life weapons but recolored, like you'd see in games like Fallout's games (may God have mercy on that series' weapon designers), they instead all look different and again, unique.
The first weapon you are blessed with is the Magnum, a pistol that you will pretty much be using for the entire game, either because you'll spawn with it or because you'll drop whatever you have whenever you find it on the ground; it is GOOD, it can one shot grunts in the head, can one shot elites in the head when they don't have shields, can one shot hunters in the back (bug), can one shot jackals in the head... It's basically your swiss knife of weapons, can engage from a far or from up close with ONE SINGULAR DRAWBACK: it has the worst melee attack in the game, as it has a stupidly short range and a very long melee animation.
The other weapon you'll be finding immediately after the Magnum, is the Assault Rifle, another stupidly good weapon, but this time, more malanced: it's good for melting shields and for getting rid of very small enemies (foreshadowing that one swamp level) and it carries a ton of ammo AND it has one of the best if not THE BEST melee attack with it's short animation allowing you to beat up elites without expecting them to kick you in the teeth between melee animations; drawbacks? range; it has a pretty short effective range as it has a pretty large fixed spray pattern.
While killing aliens, you will inevitably stumble upon alien weapons, however, i will not go over them as, i think you should try them yourself and experience them since they are all unique and serve a specific purpose each; the only weapon you will NEVER be able to use is the Energy Sword, wielded by a miniboss, as it will disappear moments after killing said miniboss; as for the Fuel Rod Cannon, that is only usable in Multiplayer, which, i will not cover as it is pretty simple and also because i do not know multiplayer as good as i know the rest of the game.
Now there's the long range option: the Sniper Rifle; think of it as the Magnum but on steroids; while yes, it carries a pitiful amount of ammo compared to the magnum as well as having a shameful 4 round magazine, it can one shot headshot pretty much any alien, even when shielded (especially normal elites) and if it does not kill it in one shot, it does so in two (except for a particular type of enemy which i omitted from the Enemies section of this page).
And of course, you can't have long range options without having a short range one: the Shotgun; a stupidly good shotgun and also a very balanced one at that, compared to many other games; for example, it's pelelts still do damage even when you are not in sneezing range of the enemy, unlike most other games where once you are 1 foot too far, the pellets magically disappear; it is formidable at close range (who would have thought so) and can pretty much melt ANY enemy in the game so long as you are relatively close to them; you'll be able to take down ANY enemy in 1 to 3 shots of your TWELVE ROUNDS SHOTGUN WITH 60 IN RESERVE, OH MY GOD.
Conclusion
So, the game is pretty old, but it it still holds up to this day, despite being a game that had to be scrapped to be remade from the ground up in very little time, it is still VERY ENJOYABLE to play, thanks to the enemy AI which is not your usual "i stay here and shoot my gun every now and then until the player kills me" type of AI, instead it reacts to what the player does, how the player moves, where the player goes and how it gets to where it's going, wether by vehicle or on foot.
This is another one of those games i suggest you buy during a sale, as it sells for stupidly cheap, especially if you buy it with the "Master Chief Collection" on platforms like Steam.
The game does have it's defects, the main one being that GOD. DAMN. LIBRARY, some of the later enemies being a bit overtuned at higher difficulties and some bugs that make enemies easy to "cheese" along some very poor level design where the developers ended up putting arrows along the path to guide you through some sections which feel like a labyrinth due to the massive reuse of assets and desaturated color pallette of some sections such as the inside sections of the snowy level or the inside sections of the alien buildings and the entirety of the AHEM AHEM LIBRARY AHEM AHEM.
Overall, a nice game i recommend playing on the couch, maybe on console instead of PC for the comfiest experience; i played this game both on PC and Xbox and when playing on console it does not feel like you are playing on an Etch-a-Sketch like many other games.