Let’s just come out with it, I’ve never been a massive fan of the Halo games. Call me ill, mental, or not a proper gamer, call me anything you like, but they just don’t do it for me.
My main problem with the first game was that the guns didn’t feel meaty enough, the aliens weren’t scary and there was no sense of urgency. So much was that problem I didn’t even play the second one.
A few years on and I’m approaching this one without listening to the hype and trying not to prejudice it with what I thought about the first game.
So before I begin, I’ll tell you now this isn’t getting 9 or above out of 10. Let me tell you why.
So, if you don’t know the back story, Master Chief, the badass super soldier has now come to Earth to save the world from the comedy aliens and the slightly scarier aliens The Flood. After the summer the Uk’s had we all don’t like anything to do with floods. Cue lots of shooting, ducking for cover, weapon switching and vehicle riding for not more than 10 hours gameplay.
I’m sorry to say that for the initial 2 hours of gameplay I just plodded through the game, unmoved by anything, going through the motions of a standard FPS.
Being on the 360 and considering the amount of time they spent on this, the graphics are stunning. The first levels are set in a forest to show off just what they’ve done and the grass, trees and water are beautiful. It almost spoils a good walk in your wellies having to shoot things round every corner.
I then encountered the bugs. When you’re a passenger in a Warthog your AI team mates sometimes just sit there leaving the engine running as if someone’s just popped to the garage to get a pasty, other times your AI friends just hang back and let you do the fighting like you’ve invited the Golden Girls to fight with you and I got stuck on a wall.
This just shouldn’t happen in the game of the century or whatever the Sun said so they could get a ticket to the party that even Pharell thought was a bit pants.
Despite the moans, after about 3 hours the gameplay does ramp up and become more engaging thankfully and what you get here is an accomplished FPS with fantastic graphics and a fantastic orchestral score.
Although the single player campiagn’s a bit short, multiplayer will keep you going for much longer and you’ll probably think it’s the best thing ever if you haven’t ever played Counter-strike or Battlefield on the PC. Due to keeping this review short, sorry but I can’t go into more multiplayer detail.
So when all’s said and done, it gets 8 out of 10. In my books that’s 8 for excellent. Microsoft, I’m sorry I didn’t give it 11.
