Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Gold Standard for FPS
A completely satisfying gaming experience. The graphics, sound, cinematics, plot and missions are all outstanding. The thing that puts this game way over the top is the AI. You have to use some serious strategy to make it through most of the battles. Smart enemies and sparse distribution of weapons, ammo, and power ups make it extremely challenging, but never overly frustrating. One of the last levels involves a battle with you versus two enemy tanks (each with the ability to take you out with one shot), four cloaked elite aliens, and three dozen other aliens in a huge frozen gorge between two mountains. Your strategy must be perfect. It takes about twenty minutes of play before you can advance to the level's checkpoint. You can't use the old "show yourself and all the enemies will line up and chase after you" deal. I had to sneak around and pick off the tanks with the rocket launcher, throw grenades to the left and attack on the right. Use an enemy hovercraft as a decoy and flank the turret gun....crazy stuff. It took me a dozen tries before I got by. Several of which I got down to the last line of defense and got killed by a stupid little grunt or killed myself with my own grenade during an ambush. Usually these kind of levels tick me off (i.e. the train in Bond). With this, I enjoyed it all. Other things about the game that seemed annoying at first actually turned out to be very cool. 1) No boss monsters. The game is linear for the most part but each level ends usually ends with particularly challenging fight with either a ton of enemies or a few enemies in a very strategic position making it difficult to take them out. 2) Only seven different enemies. There's two races of bad guys, each with 3 or 4 different soldiers. Not a lot of variety, but more realistic. Each type of enemy has its own detailed AI. Example - One type charges you when they're out of ammo, the other runs away. 3) Weapons - First, you can only carry two at a time and there is virtually no ammo lying around. If you are low, you gotta kill something and steal its gun. Each weapon has different effects on each enemy. The shotgun takes out a Flood Elite with one shot but has virtually no effect on a Covenant. You need to have a solid strategy on which two guns to carry at any given point on a level. Again, more realistic. Unlike Bond where you can carry 5 or 6 weapons. Second, there are only seven different weapons but the whole "which gun, when" thought process keeps it interesting. 4) Saving - You don't save just anywhere. The levels are broken up into multiple checkpoints and the game saves after each checkpoint. Not really annoying, just different. 5) Health - You have Shield and a Health meter. The shield depletes first, then the health. The cool thing is the shield regenerates after a few seconds if you aren't being hit. So basically, when your shield gets low, hide and wait for it to regenerate. Once the shield is gone, health drops quick. The shield will regenerate, but health stays low until you find a health pack (sparse). Not annoying, just different. Other High Points
-A jeep with a huge Gatlin gun. Two marines can ride with you, one in the gunner seat and one in the passenger seat.
-A tank with a Gatlin and missile launcher. Four marines can ride along on top.
-A hovercraft with plasma cannons
- Mini-jet with plasma cannons and a plasma missile launcher.
-Cool death sequences.
-Melee attacks (pistol whipping, jamming the butt of rifle into the back of its neck, etc.)
-Sniper rifle with night vision.
-Motion tracker ala "Aliens"
-"Sticky" grenades
-Carcasses - When you kill something, the body will be there the rest of the game (no "fade away" ala Bond). You can continue to smack it with your gun and spray blood everywhere. If a grenade goes off nearby, all the carcasses fly in the air and land somewhere else. Final thought:
You must try this game.
Rating: - Gouf's Review for Halo
Well, let's see where we can actually start. Maybe we can start with Halo's beautiful graphics, complete with bump-mapping, rich scenery, sharply modeled characters, smooth animation, and a solid frame rate that hardly hiccups, all thanks to the Xbox's powerful hard drive. We could move on to Halo's rich soundtrack. The stirring music and great sound effects make for an audio package both stunning and involving. It even has *gasp* really good voice acting. Lastly, we could go to the controls of Halo. Put simply, they do what controls are meant to, run smoothly and tightly, even on the cumbersome Xbox controller. The only real problem is the way the vehicles handle, but that's something you can overlook. Halo is a grand game that surpassed the hype completly. Immersive combat, expansive story, and a great multiplayer that supports up to 16 people through a LAN connection. What sums Halo up best of all is that little sticker in the upper-left corner of the box. Know what it says? Game of the Year.
Rating: - Remember that scene from the movie Aliens....?
Got a chance to demo this game at Xbox Odyssey in SF, and I must say I was pretty impressed w/ the gameplay. The graphics are on par w/ what you would see on PS2, e.g. Red Faction. But the multi-player team mode is a little more engrossing than the solo missions in RF. During the game there are always a few other troopers who are fighting the enemy and you'll hear radio chatter, which make you feel like you are part of an assault team. The game had the usual number of weapons capable of inflicting varying amounts of damage. The controls for changing weapons, reloading, jumping/squatting, etc. were pretty standard. In my limited playing time, I didn't notice any puzzles that needed to be solved to complete a level, but that didn't bother me much since puzzles tend to slow down the action anyways. Overall, I think Xbox has a winner here. After a long day's work, there's nothing like coming home and emptying an entire magazine of bullets on an alien and watching it go down in a cry of pain!
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