Halo Combat Evolved _VERIFIED_
Halo: Combat Evolved features a wide variety of environments including human and Covenant starships, ancient buildings on Halo itself, and expansive outdoor climates. The first level, Pillar of Autumn, is fought entirely on the human starship of the same name. The next level, Halo, takes place in a temperate highland climate with open-air Forerunner structures scattered about. This level also contains the famous "Blue Beam Towers". Truth and Reconciliation begin in a rocky desert, but the setting changes to the titular Covenant cruiser about one-third of the way through. The Silent Cartographer occurs on a tropical island, with substantial combat both outdoors and inside futuristic Forerunner installations. Assault on the Control Room takes place in a snowy, icy area of towering cliffs and underground tunnels as well as high-tech suspension bridges and oft-repeated Forerunner structures built into and through cliff walls.
Halo Combat Evolved
343 Guilty Spark is a significant departure from these majestic environments, with combat in gloomy, exotic swamps and equally gloomy underground complexes that host the player's introduction to the Flood. The player is then teleported to the second of three entirely indoor levels, The Library, encountering repetitive, forbidding hallways and massive elevators. Master Chief returns to the snowy climate of Assault on the Control Room for Two Betrayals, visiting almost no new areas but, interestingly, travelling in the opposite direction. Keyes occurs in the same Covenant ship from Truth and Reconciliation, albeit now heavily damaged, but this time the Flood are present in huge numbers. Finally, The Maw is set on the Pillar of Autumn with three major differences: the presence of the Flood, the heavy structural damage, and access to the Engineering section and service corridors of the ship, which were previously off-limits. In total, six of the ten levels feature a substantial amount of combat outdoors.
Up to four players can play together using the same-console splitscreen mode. It is also possible for up to 16 players to play together in one Halo game over a local area network, using Xbox and/or Xbox 360 consoles that have been connected through an Ethernet hub, or via XB Connect. The game's seamless support for this type of play, and a few large maps that can accommodate up to 16 combatants, is a first for console games. Since the game was released before the launch of Xbox Live, mainstream online play was not available for this title.
Halo received "universal acclaim", according to review aggregator Metacritic, based on reviews from 68 professional critics.[2] Ste Curran's review for Edge praised the game as "the most important launch game for any console, ever" and commented, "GoldenEye was the standard for multiplayer console combat. It has been surpassed."[11] GameSpot claimed that "Halo's single-player game is worth picking up an Xbox for alone," concluding, "Not only is this easily the best of the Xbox launch games, but it's easily one of the best shooters ever, on any platform."[10] IGN remarked similarly, calling Halo a "can't miss, no-brainer, sure thing, five star, triple A game."[7] Gary Whitta of Official Xbox Magazine calling Halo as "a stunning achievement."[83] AllGame editor Jonathan Licata praised Bungie for doing "a remarkable job with Halo, taking many successful elements from previous standouts in the genre to make one very playable game".[80] Among the specific aspects that reviewers praised were the balance of weapons, the role of drivable vehicles,[5][7] and the artificial intelligence of enemies.[5][11]
Halo features a wide variety of environments including human and Covenant star ships, ancient buildings on Halo itself, and expansive outdoor climates. The first level, Pillar of Autumn, is fought entirely on the human star ship of the same name. The next level, Halo, takes place in a temperate highland climate with open-air Forerunner structures scattered about. This level also contains the famous "Blue Beam Towers." Truth and Reconciliation begins in a rocky desert, but the setting changes to the titular Covenant cruiser about one-third of the way through. The Silent Cartographer occurs on a tropical island, with substantial combat both outdoors and inside futuristic Forerunner installations. Assault on the Control Room takes place in a snowy, icy area of towering cliffs and underground tunnels as well as high-tech suspension bridges and oft-repeated Forerunner structures built into and through cliff walls.
343 Guilty Spark is a significant departure from these majestic environments, with combat in gloomy, exotic swamps and equally gloomy underground complexes that host the player's introduction to the Flood. The player is then teleported to the second of three entirely indoor levels, The Library, encountering repetitive, foreboding hallways and massive elevators. John-117 returns to the snowy climate of Assault on the Control Room for Two Betrayals, visiting almost no new areas but, interestingly, traveling in the opposite direction. Keyes occurs in the same rocky deserts and the same Covenant ship from Truth and Reconciliation, albeit now heavily damaged, but this time the Flood are present in huge numbers. Finally, The Maw is set on the Pillar of Autumn with three major differences: the presence of the Flood, the heavy structural damage, and access to the Engineering section and service corridors of the ship, which were previously off-limits. In total, six of the ten levels feature a substantial amount of combat outdoors.
Up to four players can play together using the same-console split screen mode. It is also possible for up to 16 players to play together in one Halo game over a local area network, using Xbox and/or Xbox 360 consoles that have been connected through an Ethernet hub, or via Xbox Connect, which is a way of tunneling a connection via a PC. The game's seamless support for this type of play, and a few large maps that can accommodate up to 16 combatants, is a first for console games. Since the game was released before the launch of Xbox Live, mainstream online play was not available for this title. The PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved officially adds online play, also new vehicles (Banshee and Rocket Warthog), weapons (Fuel Rod Gun and Flamethrower) and maps (see list below) for multiplayer. The PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved does not support split screen multiplayer.
On May 5th, 2004, Halo: Custom Edition was released for free. It is a multiplayer only, 170MB standalone version of Halo PC which enables gamers to play user created content created with the halo editing kit. It requires the original cd and a valid key to play. Download it here.
The controls also feel strange when doing anything other than combat. The vehicle control in Halo feels out of place and dated, and while having vehicles in a First Person Shooter at the time was a major accomplishment, in 2021, those controls just feel hideous. Rather than pressing an accelerator or brake like almost any game, the vehicle controls based on the direction the player is looking and if the player is holding forward or backward on the analog sticks.
I mentioned earlier that the story of FPS games was evolving, and Halo equally evolved, but never reaches the same level of quality as Deus Ex or Half-Life. Numerous cliffhangers make no sense, and much of Halo is focused on the combat, or walking around in dead silence aboard ships. This might make sense if our main character was forced to be by himself for the entire game, but at the beginning of the game, an AI is given to Master Chief, named Cortana.
Various accomplishments open up new biomes and facilities. Backtracking is required to revisit areas in which your actions have changed the enemies encountered within and enabled access to explore further. Throughout this world are various collectibles. Some serve to upgrade either your combat abilities or your suit while others are terminals or other, assorted items. The story is told entirely through the environment and the text of the terminals you encounter throughout your journey.
The Multiplayer also takes place within this open world in which various multiplayer maps from Halo: CE, Halo 2, and Halo Custom Edition are featured. The majority of the open world is in fact made and composed of these maps, but tailored for single player combat first and foremost. Because the world of Legacies was designed so certain barriers can be removed (as seen in the Campaign), the Multiplayer maps can be enjoyed in a PVP environment as per the original intent of the maps.
Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary's campaign maintains the same story as Halo: Combat Evolved, with the addition of Xbox 360 achievements, in game terminals, skulls, and online Co-op. It also has a new feature: when the player presses the back button on the Xbox 360 controller, the game will switch from the updated graphics engine to the original, and vice-versa. For the story, see Halo: Combat Evolved. Anniversary also has subtitles available for in-game and combat dialogue.
A feature of the Library is its Analyze Mode. When the player so wishes, they can order the Kinect to 'analyze', which will activate Analyze Mode, and give them free reign to scan objects around them and add them to the Library. However, the player can still be attacked while in this mode, so it is not recommended to use it during combat. When in use, any scannable objects will appear as thermal signatures, and will be a deep, orangey red. When the player wishes to scan them, they must order the Kinect to 'scan' it, and the object will be added to the Library. If an object is already added, it will not appear as a thermal signature. 041b061a72