Halo (XBox)

10/16/08 - The day Halo 3 came out, I decided it was time that I got my butt in gear and actually played through Halo 1. As of this writing, that was over a year ago. I played the beginning of the game a few times before; a couple of starts on the Xbox and one on the PC version. In both instances, I remember having a terrible time controlling the vehicles. Ultimately, I think that's what made me stop playing it. It's not a difficult game, thanks to plenty of available ammo and frequent check/save points.

For some reason, I didn't have any problems with the Warthogs this time. Maybe I'm getting better at handling gamepads. As I got deeper into the game, I remember feeling a bit chagrined when I got to the point in the game where Cortana says the structure is called *gasp* Halo! Sad that I hadn't ever even gotten to that point on my previous runs.

If I have any criticisms of the game, it's that at this point, I'd have liked to see more outdoor environments. I've been cooped up in concrete structures for what seems like forever. I want to see more of the "Ringworld". However, I did have one cool point fighting in the "bunkers": I was in one of the hanger looking areas, coming around a storage box, when 3 or 4 Covenant's started firing at me from behind two shields. At first, I thought they were piled in a doorway, so I lobbed a grenade toward the door. But it was actually a wall. The grenade ricocheted off the wall, landed behind the shields, and blew all of them up! Bodies flew everywhere! It reminded me of the first time in I put a rocket through window in Doom. Ah, good times!

I just got to the point in the game where I'm finding out that the Covenant is being attacked by something on Halo too. Those sort of walking fleshy, creepy things are disturbing, as are the little floor crabs. (What? Silent Halo? Halo-Life?) At the start of this area, there was one of those instances where you're not really sure what you should do. You open a door and sitting against a wall is a soldier (I think he was, anyway) who is clearly nuts. He shouts that he doesn't want to "become one of those things" and warns you to stay back or he'll shoot. Well, you have to go past him and, true to his threat, he starts firing. Now, Master Chief is a "good guy", this dope is not in his right mind, and the bullets aren't exactly doing any damage since you have the power armor. So, what do you do? And does it make any difference later? Who knows? Well, I decided to leave him alone. Chances were pretty good, I figured, that he was going to be killed and/or eaten by something running around there. These are not the kind of moral decisions you had to make back in the days of Berzerk.