once more with feeling

Halo is not the “best” game out there, at least for those using their PCs or Macs. But it is still better than any of the others.

I know that makes no sense but I had to say it anyway.

Unreal Tournament and Battlefield 1942 both come to mind as alternatives, and I’m sure there are many others. America’s Army and Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory are both free multiplayers that are high quality. But I found myself more and more playing the Halo demo’s single capture-the-flag map rather than any of these others. Finally, I could resist no longer. I had to buy it.
Halo is made by Bungie and has the look and feel of the old Half-Life game, to which they contributed back in the nineties. The most distinctive shared trait, to my mind, is that if you are inactive for awhile your alter ego’s hands fiddle with the weapon–tighten the screws on the pistol or double-check the scope on the sniper rifle or just impatiently slap the grip on the pump-action shotgun.

It looks decent and the environments are somewhat interesting, but there are better graphics in many of the new games.

Halo does is gravity, momentum, and bounce in a way that no one else does. You simply haven’t lived until you surprise the warthog (jeep) that is about to run you down–by switching from a pistol to a rocket launcher–and watch it tumble end over end over your head from the blast. Even getting shot down is entertaining since the point of view switches from first-person to third- and you get to see yourself fly into the air. It’s similar to what happens in Unreal Tournament, but UT is not remotely as entertaining.

Apparently the Xbox version is different, but on multiplayer using the Mac, Halo is entirely lacking in any blood or gore. The main reason one shouldn’t let one’s children play multiplayer (aside from the usual point that they are better off doing something else) is that you can often run into the use of abominable language on the part of the other players (you can often avoid it if you try in the full game; the demo is infested with bozos).

(By the way, if you download the demo and find you can only play with a few players before getting overwhelmed with lag, for what its worth, I stopped having any problems when I started using the full game. I could play with the maximum sixteen players–something that was impossible for me on the demo.)

Halo works as a cross between a sci-fi game like Starsiege Tribes and a contemporary military game. In the singleplayer game your alterego is a bioengineered cyborg in full body armor (which explains why you survive while your fellow marines tend to die off). Thus, in the multiplayer, everyone has force fields and full armor (eliminating the crude character choices present in Unreal Tournament and Quake Arena). But many of your weapons (machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher) and vehicles (jeep and tank) are recognizable. Knowing that your character is more or less a superhero helps make the multiplayer more understandable. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand why many of the weapons seem so lacking in the power to kill. It takes more than a clip of ammo from a machine gun to get through the shield of an enemy and actually do real damage. The problem is simple: everyone is a superhero in multiplayer. You are all playing some version of the unique Halo protagonist.

It turns out that other weapons are actually more valuable when they are used right. The rocket launcher is obvious, but once you learn that the pistol has a 2x telescopic sight and that the game tracks whether or not you aim for the head, all sorts of new possibilities are opened up for you. In fact, grabbing a big weapon often leaves you overconfident and vulnerable, especially if you are taken by surprise.

On Xbox (perhaps only Halo II) you can play an alien in multiplayer, I have heard, but that option is not available on the computer (which, sadly, only has the first game). I don’t miss that since you do get to use the alien weaponry. They are lying around the various maps. Some of the projectiles (energy or exploding needles) track their targets–making combat especially interesting. Personally, I love the needler. It requires no great skill in aiming and, if you get the whole clip embedded in your opponent, it is the equivalent of a direct grenade hit. It works great on vehicles unless they are speeding away.

There are several different games, though the only ones I find interesting at this point are capture the flag and team slayer. Occasionally, I find Team King of the Hill entertaining and the racing games are always fun. I simply have no taste for every-man-for-himself games. In general, capture the flag is easier to play since dying can serve the interests of the team. Slayer is won by sheer number of kills which means, if you don’t inflict more than you suffer you’re dragging down your team.

The vehicles in Halo are a great deal of fun. If you jump in the gun or driver’s seat you your viewpoint switches to third-person, giving you a great deal more entertainment. Riding shotgun, on the other hand, almost makes you carsick. Weirdly, in the multiplayer game the vehicles do not take damage. When you shoot them you only shoot the player. This allows you to take the vehicles of those you kill, but it leaves you with a rather strange vulnerability even when you are driving a full fledged tank. Instead of being armored you simply make a bigger target. The alien vehicles are much more fun since that allows you to use antigravity. There is both a single flyer and a hovercraft that you ride like a motorcycle. It is like fighting with stormtroopers on the Ewok planet.

Granted, none of this is as healthy as playing paintball. But you couldn’t dive bomb from a Banshee in paintball either. Halo is hours of entertainment for anyone who likes computer games. My iMac sometimes freezes and has to be restarted, but for the most part it has no problems playing the game. (I have no idea what the PC requirements are.)

A word to Xbox snobs: you have the second game and for those who bought the Xbox 360, even a third. I salute you. But to all those who think aiming with a thumbstick is some great privilege, rather than a mouse, I remind you that, on the computer, you get to play online for free. There are no yearly charges. You can play multiplayer without having to look at one fourth of your TV screen and try not to spy on what the other players are doing.

The Campaign

I wrote this review mainly to recommend the multi-player game but I should say a few words about the single-player game. First of all it is the reason for the M rating. I wrote above that the multiplayer is quite tame as far as blood and gore are concerned. Much of the single-player game is the same way. Occasionally you notice a flash of purple when you shoot an alien, but that is it. However, the narrative suddenly turns into a horror story out of the alien movies midway through the adventure and becomes a great deal more gory. Fair warning.

In the game, you, as the cyborg clone, Masterchief, are stranded on a mysterious artificial station–an artificial outdoors on the inside of a giant ring. You must deal with alien enemies who attacked your starship, rescue marines and other crewmen, and solve the mysteries of the station.

In general, the appeal of the campaign is that it is set in a military, scifi, universe. It has all the draw of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers or the recent version of Battlestar Galactica. Additionally, there are plenty of outdoor environments that are visually appealing even if they are simple. Like a portion of the original Half-Life game, you get to go through environments that look like they contain many secrets, and then, later, go back through them in such a way that new areas are open to you in those places where you have been.

Halo is simply an excellent game, if you are one of the few people who haven’t discovered it yet, you should buy it.

Precious Moments (my kind)

Why is it great to have young boys in the house? Because when you report that your kill score was double your death score, because you were Masterchief incarnate on a ghost in the sidewinder map, and that you got the flag and were the top scorer, your sons lack any inhibitions about doing a victory dance in your honor. It is great!

A ghost is the hovering motorcycle armed with plasma guns and the sidewinder map is mostly a valley of ice. The ghost is incredibly maneuverable while the Jeeps and tanks tend to slide and lose traction. Plus, the terrain is so flat that you can go backward and sideways without too much chance of crashing. A ghost can travel in any direction no matter which way it is facing. On rocking or hilly surfaces one can easily wreck trying to move about blindly. But in the sidewinder map, you can use landmarks to know where you are, and the surface beneath you is utterly flat.

You just have to keep moving so no sniper is able to put you down.

Keep in mind, plasma guns paralyze the target. If you keep shooting they can barely move. I found myself spiraling around warthogs as their turret gunners tried vainly to get a shot at me. It was amazing. Even when I was teamed up against another ghost rider and a warthog crew I managed to keep the warthog between the other ghost and myself and use the friendly fire to help me make kills.

It was an amazing rush.

This will give you an idea of the awesomeness.