Halo Preview

Halo’s bandwagon has been steadily growing over the past few years. There was a quiet murmuring about it’s quality’s two years ago when it was being touted as something a bit special on the PC. Since then the murmur has got louder, it’s been made an X Box exclusive and the anticipation, well quite high I’d say for Bungie’s FPS and Microsoft’s key debut title, it’s fair to say that each company has a lot riding on the end result.<br><br>It’s the future an alien menace simply called ‘The Covenant’ has destroyed the colony worlds, leaving the human race in jeopardy. A small group of surviving soldiers, weak from the battle, has crash-landed on Halo, a giant planetary ring 10,000 KM in diameter. The origin of Halo is unknown, but its history is critical to the survival of the human race. You, along with the other survivors, must battle against the members of The Covenant to unlock the world’s secrets before the enemies harness its power.<br><br>Halo unsurprisingly is a FPS, one with a very cool difference; it plays like Rainbow 6/Hidden & Dangerous but with the heavy tactical elements in those games exchanged for the all out action of Quake 3/Unreal Tournament. <br><br>Fighting alongside fellow troops brings up a feeling of being in that opening scene from ‘Saving Private Ryan’, whilst holding out against alien attacks and maintaining control of an assault tower feels like you should be in ‘Starship Troopers’. On paper the comradeship angle may sound nothing more then a novel idea, but play the game and you’ll soon realise that Halo is a radical idea.<br><br>The opening level sees you descending onto a hostile planet in a drop ship whilst being debriefed (in real-time), upon touchdown you and your squad take up firing position to take out the impending threat of an alien attack. Over the hill you can see the first and then soon dozens of aliens storm over the brow, guns grenades, cannons let loose, it’s a myriad of bullets, noise, gun-flare, screams, it’s chaos, it’s war…<br><br>Staggering through fallen comrades you take control of a jeep, vehicle action swaps the view to a third person perspective, allowing you easier controls whilst in the middle of heated gun-fire and a chance to grab a look at how great everything looks, just don’t spend too long admiring things you could end up regretting it. Two teammates surprise you and hop onboard, you’re driving they’re taking out aliens with the on-board cannon. By this stage you can feel the adrenaline pumping and the sweat dripping. <br><br>The environment looks beautiful, not to mention vast, open and full of life. Clouds change shape and cast realistic shadows, thanks to the 4x pixel rendering textures remain crisp and perfectly defined no matter how close you get to them (well that was my excuse for crashing so many times). <br><br>After a short time climbing up a hill in the jeep we reach an alien settlement, clear out the guards and sneak inside, an outdoor environment seamlessly changes to closed corridors, walls and rooms, the change happens so naturally yet you know your gaming style will have to change. The darkened rooms give you the ability to switch on your gun-mounted torch, a chance to appreciate the subtle yet sublime lighting effects.<br><br>A lot has been said about Halo’s graphics so I don’t need to go over what’s already been said a hundred times, suffice to say the game is stunning; features bump-mapping on every texture in the game; stunning real-time lighting effects; some particle effects that will leave you mesmerized, and tides that run up the beach, nice and relaxing when you want to get away from all that gun fire! The last version we played had some issues with slowdown but I fully expect this to be remedied by launch.<br><br>Halo will feature multi-player support although at this point that looks like it will appear in split-screen and LAN modes only. Broadband play was expected but Bungie themselves complained about the lack of tools available, and recently Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stated that the lack of broadband access in many areas was going to be a big problem for Microsoft. So looks like its mates round your house instead for Halo.</p> <br /> >It’s a hard thing to pitch, Halo has found numerous critics (most of whom haven’t played it yet) most saying that it’s just a FPS, well yeah I have to agree but play it and you’ll soon see what all the fuss is about. The ideas may sound trivial but add significantly to what is shaping up to be a sure-fire killer game. <br />  </p>