Halo: Combat Evolved Review (Captain Crash)
Before you buy Halo: Combat Evolved, understand that it is by far not a perfect game. It has a lot of flaws, but most of them are pretty easy to excuse as being a product of it's time.
To start off, the gunplay is great. It's what made Halo into Halo, and set the standard for many games to come. Each weapon feels powerful in the right situation, and you will likely find use for them all when playing through the campaign. My personal favourites are the pistol and the sniper rifle. While the weapons are all satisfying to use, there are significantly fewer weapons than the newer halo installments, so there's that.
I'm going to be completely honest, the level design leaves a lot to be desired. There are a lot of reused environments, rooms, and textures which give some of the areas a very bland, labyrinth-like feel which gets very confusing to navigate, especially when there are no objective waypoints. Ammo is scarce, and health is even scarcer. Fighting with a slow and methodical approach will usually ensure you don't need the extra health, however.
Enemy placement is hit-or-miss, with some areas feeling properly populated with baddies for you to shoot at, while other areas can only be described as a never-ending onslaught of boredom and wasted ammo. In the second and third acts of the story, the game tends to throw hordes upon hordes of enemies at you at literally every engagement, which can ruin the flow of the game and get very repetitive. It does make some sense story-wise as to why there would be so many enemies in these parts of the campaign though, so I'll give it a pass.
The story is simple. While it isn't as lore-heavy as the Halo games that follow it, Halo: Combat Evolved's campaign outlines clear objectives for Chief and the UNSC to complete, with a few well executed plot twists thrown in. The few bits of banter we get to see between Master Chief and Cortana are well written and put a smile on my face. Furthermore, the design of characters such as Captain Keyes, Sgt. Maj. Johnson, and 343 Guilty Spark is well done and a great introduction to the characters themselves.
The soundtrack is one of my favourite parts about this game. Marty O'Donnell really blew it away, as he did with every other Halo game. The OST is atmospheric, intense and suspenseful, and just overall makes you feel like a badass exploring a strange and hostile world.
Overall, I'd say this game is certainly flawed, but is also a timeless classic. The gameplay and graphics hold up surprisingly well by today's standards, and the soundtrack is nearly unbeatable. I would reccomend playing it.