Halo? This game is overrated to some degree, but it did spark today's great FPS like HL2...
Halo is in itself one of the greatest FPS' off all time; I can't imagine what the First-Person-Shooter genre would be like if Halo had never been released, or if it was that turn-based game it was supposed to be originally. Halo simply is "legendary"...
Halo evolves around Master Chief, the last known cyborg (if you will) of his time. No one knows what Master Chief is, maybe he's human, maybe he's a machine? No one really knows, but Bungie has certaintly created a pretty unique character. Chief is almost the brother of Solid Snake, he's very carelss and ambitious, and blind sometimes of the truth, but when it comes down to the mean and gritty, he's all for it.
In this game, you fight the Covenant, an advanced alien race bent on destruction, or maybe it's a little bigger than that? The Covenant come in all shapes and sizes from the small and quirky Grunt, to the highly-intelligent/dangerous elites. You'll fight against them all, and use every ounce of you aresenal to despose of...
You start the game awaking from your cryo-tube, and immedietly are put into the action aboard the Pillar of Autumn. In Halo, you have bars of health, but a recharable shield as well. You can only carry two weapons, which warrants alot of realism. Your weapons are among the varietic kind, everything from the underrated pistol to the Covenant's plasma pistol, this game has plenty of weapons and plenty of strategy. Your often presented with choices in the game about which weapon to use, which one you want for a certain enemy and or group. Your pistol can handle pretty much any enemy on screen, but why not get the shotgun out in this little tight space? Or how about a rocket launcher to take out those ghosts? Weapon choice and strategy play a huge role in this game. There's only two type of grenades, both of which you can carry, so it eases combat heavy crowds every now and then, and in legendary mode, are life-savers...
Among fighting with your fellow marine soldiers, you'll also receive the opportunity to pilot and drive all kinds of vehicles in this game, what a joy it is. You'll drive the Warthog, a jeep-like vehicle but with a chaingun mounted on the back, throughout alot of sequences in the game. The Banshee (the Elite's choice of flying) proves a great vehicle when going from one far place to another, and also holds it's own in air combat. You'll also be able to ride ghosts and the ever-powerful tank, which is a juggernaut throughout the sequence you play it in...
You can't really say anything bad about the graphics in Halo, even today, these graphics prove to be, still, some of the best in the business. You can zoom in on the rock and grass textures and really see the detail of all of the environments in which you play; it truly is a great graphical achievment, and Halo pretty much set the bench mark for Xbox games today in terms of graphics...
The sound isn't as impressive, but it immersses you in the game pretty well. All the weapons sound like what they look like if that makes sense. The grenades serve the same difference...
All in all, Halo, even today, is a great game. This game came out in 2001, but even in 2006, it still looks and plays beautifully. Most people have this game, but i pride myself on writing reviews like this, and will have plenty more...