This game is over two decades old and it holds up perfectly well today, on all fronts. If what I’ve heard about some more modern shooter campaigns is true, then this even stands above some of them despite its age. Beyond impressive, that. Though, that may just be my strange born-in-the-wrong-generation taste speaking, because there are a handful of old games I’ve discovered long after their popularity and love faded, unable to understand what so many other people in my age group may be complaining about. I am often unbothered by antiquated game design, except when it outright wastes my time or harms the game.
This isn’t coming from a place of absolute unfamiliarity with FPS games either. They’ve never been my favorite, but I’ve played enough of them, including some modern ones, to have a decent idea of what makes them fun to people who aren’t sweaty. Not being able to aim down sights in this game stuck out to me, but I’ve never been a fan of that mechanic anyway since it’s so often used not to increase accuracy further, but to bring it up to a reasonable standard, simultaneously making hip fire feel worse and adding a second action to what should only take one. The lack of a sprint button also sticks out, but I still can’t complain because the movement speed is fine and the game was designed around it. Movement and especially jumping is very floaty, but I still feel like I’m in complete control, so I don’t care.
Even if I didn’t already know just how unfathomably influential this game was on the industry when it came out, I would probably be able to assume it was as such by playing through it normally. I’m playing this at a resolution that people in 2001 couldn’t even dream of, and the MCC apparently has “enhanced” graphical fidelity somehow, these facts are not lost on me… but it looks so great! The age is showing, yes, obviously, but it has aged much better than many games of the time. Objects and textures definitely lack the kind of detail that newer games have, but the anniversary graphics prove very well that detail can sometimes do more harm than good, because by “updating” the look of the game, they increased the detail while also completely destroying every other aspect of the visuals. This game has a lot of atmosphere, just in the look. It conveys a lot purely through visuals and takes great advantage of darkness, both more effectively than many newer games I’ve played. It does all of that while also maintaining incredible visual clarity, another thing many newer games struggle with. Important things are bright and obvious, enemies are all brightly colored and extremely visually distinct from the environment, friendlies, and other enemies. Nothing ever gets lost in a mess of visual noise, because everything visible is simple and has simple purpose.
The atmosphere is already established as excellent and I haven’t even mentioned the music and sound design yet. Ambient noises are ever present and fully sell the atmosphere of whatever location you’re in at the time, which is great considering how much time the game spends with no music playing. When the music does play… it’s always perfect for the situation as it responds dynamically to the action, it hits hard even when the action isn’t there, it never fails to create a strong feeling, and it’s always exactly what they wanted players to feel. The people behind this soundtrack have their fingers in my brain and I think I’m okay with that. I could probably say more, but do I really need to? You don’t have to know anything about Halo or video games in general to know that Halo has good music, it’s a fact that is omnipresent. On earth, at least. Anybody who doesn’t know that the Halo soundtrack is really really good is an alien. Any aliens reading this, now you know how to better stay hidden among the humans, I got you covered.
The campaign itself is structured so nicely too, both in terms of gameplay and narrative. What surprised me the most was the amount of downtime there was. The game goes to great lengths to ensure that you’re never overwhelmed or fatigued by nonstop action, but also never bored by extended downtime. The total length of the campaign from start to finish is also right in the sweet spot, striking an impressive balance between taking its time and keeping it simple. Enemies are also more than just visually distinct, they are tactically distinct; Sometimes plasma weapons are the best bet, other times it’s a shotgun, some require you to get up close, others require distance. Enemies are also very well placed on the maps, always in just the right spots in just the right numbers to create a challenging experience and support the atmosphere that has been set.
On the narrative side, the majority of the storytelling is environmental and interactive, focusing more on creating a specific mood than compelling narration, conveying a story in the way only a video game can, and I loved every second of it. The story itself is pretty barebones and a bit silly at times, but I don’t care, the presentation is what matters most here and it does not disappoint. I was not expecting the introduction to the flood to be as tense as it was, considering the tone prior to that point. I also love the charm baked into all the characters. Marines that bicker about kill stealing and mock the enemy, grunts that scream and flee in terror if you kill an elite, or run towards their allies if you stick a grenade to them while doing so to an elite will cause them to charge at you instead… it’s so little, but it adds a lot.
None of this is to say or even imply that the game is without flaw. It may have changed the industry forever, but causing a revolution is not what makes a masterpiece. There were some areas that felt pretty repetitive, clearly padding for time. There were missing sound effects here and there. Many of the guns have an insanely wide firing pattern even at very close range – including the sniper rifle! – which is a pain to deal with on mouse and keyboard where aim assist is disabled. There are some enemies that felt a little cheap, since they could kill me in one hit with an energy sword or a rocket before I even knew they were there. Everything looks extremely similar while indoors too, so I had a hard time navigating in some places, even when the way forward was marked with a mysterious flashing light. Being the first in the series means that there was a lot of experimentation happening, and a lot yet to be figured out, and considering the time period and development circumstances, there were also hardware limitations to work around, so flaws and missteps are to be expected, but I do believe that the relatively small amount of them is impressively less than I would reasonably expect. I also suck at FPS games and died a lot in the later hours, but at least that exposed another quality of the game, being the frequent checkpoints and extremely fast respawn times getting me straight back into it without so much as a fade to black, let alone a loading screen.
I enjoyed Halo CE more than I expected, and may even play it again sooner rather than later.
Also, the assault rifle sucks.
(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/oh-yeah-halo-exists/#halo-1)
This isn’t coming from a place of absolute unfamiliarity with FPS games either. They’ve never been my favorite, but I’ve played enough of them, including some modern ones, to have a decent idea of what makes them fun to people who aren’t sweaty. Not being able to aim down sights in this game stuck out to me, but I’ve never been a fan of that mechanic anyway since it’s so often used not to increase accuracy further, but to bring it up to a reasonable standard, simultaneously making hip fire feel worse and adding a second action to what should only take one. The lack of a sprint button also sticks out, but I still can’t complain because the movement speed is fine and the game was designed around it. Movement and especially jumping is very floaty, but I still feel like I’m in complete control, so I don’t care.
Even if I didn’t already know just how unfathomably influential this game was on the industry when it came out, I would probably be able to assume it was as such by playing through it normally. I’m playing this at a resolution that people in 2001 couldn’t even dream of, and the MCC apparently has “enhanced” graphical fidelity somehow, these facts are not lost on me… but it looks so great! The age is showing, yes, obviously, but it has aged much better than many games of the time. Objects and textures definitely lack the kind of detail that newer games have, but the anniversary graphics prove very well that detail can sometimes do more harm than good, because by “updating” the look of the game, they increased the detail while also completely destroying every other aspect of the visuals. This game has a lot of atmosphere, just in the look. It conveys a lot purely through visuals and takes great advantage of darkness, both more effectively than many newer games I’ve played. It does all of that while also maintaining incredible visual clarity, another thing many newer games struggle with. Important things are bright and obvious, enemies are all brightly colored and extremely visually distinct from the environment, friendlies, and other enemies. Nothing ever gets lost in a mess of visual noise, because everything visible is simple and has simple purpose.
The atmosphere is already established as excellent and I haven’t even mentioned the music and sound design yet. Ambient noises are ever present and fully sell the atmosphere of whatever location you’re in at the time, which is great considering how much time the game spends with no music playing. When the music does play… it’s always perfect for the situation as it responds dynamically to the action, it hits hard even when the action isn’t there, it never fails to create a strong feeling, and it’s always exactly what they wanted players to feel. The people behind this soundtrack have their fingers in my brain and I think I’m okay with that. I could probably say more, but do I really need to? You don’t have to know anything about Halo or video games in general to know that Halo has good music, it’s a fact that is omnipresent. On earth, at least. Anybody who doesn’t know that the Halo soundtrack is really really good is an alien. Any aliens reading this, now you know how to better stay hidden among the humans, I got you covered.
The campaign itself is structured so nicely too, both in terms of gameplay and narrative. What surprised me the most was the amount of downtime there was. The game goes to great lengths to ensure that you’re never overwhelmed or fatigued by nonstop action, but also never bored by extended downtime. The total length of the campaign from start to finish is also right in the sweet spot, striking an impressive balance between taking its time and keeping it simple. Enemies are also more than just visually distinct, they are tactically distinct; Sometimes plasma weapons are the best bet, other times it’s a shotgun, some require you to get up close, others require distance. Enemies are also very well placed on the maps, always in just the right spots in just the right numbers to create a challenging experience and support the atmosphere that has been set.
On the narrative side, the majority of the storytelling is environmental and interactive, focusing more on creating a specific mood than compelling narration, conveying a story in the way only a video game can, and I loved every second of it. The story itself is pretty barebones and a bit silly at times, but I don’t care, the presentation is what matters most here and it does not disappoint. I was not expecting the introduction to the flood to be as tense as it was, considering the tone prior to that point. I also love the charm baked into all the characters. Marines that bicker about kill stealing and mock the enemy, grunts that scream and flee in terror if you kill an elite, or run towards their allies if you stick a grenade to them while doing so to an elite will cause them to charge at you instead… it’s so little, but it adds a lot.
None of this is to say or even imply that the game is without flaw. It may have changed the industry forever, but causing a revolution is not what makes a masterpiece. There were some areas that felt pretty repetitive, clearly padding for time. There were missing sound effects here and there. Many of the guns have an insanely wide firing pattern even at very close range – including the sniper rifle! – which is a pain to deal with on mouse and keyboard where aim assist is disabled. There are some enemies that felt a little cheap, since they could kill me in one hit with an energy sword or a rocket before I even knew they were there. Everything looks extremely similar while indoors too, so I had a hard time navigating in some places, even when the way forward was marked with a mysterious flashing light. Being the first in the series means that there was a lot of experimentation happening, and a lot yet to be figured out, and considering the time period and development circumstances, there were also hardware limitations to work around, so flaws and missteps are to be expected, but I do believe that the relatively small amount of them is impressively less than I would reasonably expect. I also suck at FPS games and died a lot in the later hours, but at least that exposed another quality of the game, being the frequent checkpoints and extremely fast respawn times getting me straight back into it without so much as a fade to black, let alone a loading screen.
I enjoyed Halo CE more than I expected, and may even play it again sooner rather than later.
Also, the assault rifle sucks.
(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/oh-yeah-halo-exists/#halo-1)