Possibly the greatest FPS game of all time!
MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!
Gameplay: 10
Halo's gameplay is a rewarding experience. The levels can be linear at some times but theres so many different ways you can do that path that the game can almost always be different than the last time you played it. The weapons are balanced and can always provide a great firefight. The enemies in Halo are alien but not so alien as to make you feel like anyone could have come up with them. They are a group of races called the Covenant. The grunt is one of these alien troops, and is also sometimes very cute. This helps you feel a pang of guilt in killing them, which I believe helps to make it so the game's players won't turn out to be homicidal maniacs. The flood are very strange but can be related to zombies. The AI in the game is superb. It isn't as good as Halo 2's but is still very believable. The marines you fight with most of the time also add to the game with their dialogue and behaviour, though they have a tendency to shoot eachother by accident. The marines can respond to the game's environement. Sensing ledges of a cliff, thrown grenades, or even when another marine is wounded or killed. They are impressively programmed.
Graphics: 9
The graphics for Halo arn't amazing by today's standard, but being an X-Box launch game, you have to appreciate what Bungie could do on their first X-Box game. The marines' mouths move when they talk, as do the covenant's mouths. The marine's also blink from time to time, with rendered eyelids. The environment's and weapons look real, and everything responds in a realistic way to what happens. There are some glitchs for dead models however. If let's say an elite is killed by a grenade and he lands half off and half on a ledge, the side that's off will sag a bit from the gravity. The glitch shows there is good physics in the game but also that bungie forgot to make the NPC models completely solid. This glitch was fixed in Halo 2, with the entire model going over as opposed to strecthing.
Sound: 9
The game's sounds really add to the experience of Halo. The marine's have witty phrases and also more serious dialect as well as there being different accents and phrases for each marine. Theres Chips Dubbo (australian), Mendoza (mexican), Sargeant Johnson (african american), and Sargeant Stacker (texan/southern), and Bisenti (amreican). As well as some more marine voices and personalities. The covenant have individual sounds as well. And the other sounds are done very well. The game has an excellent soundtrack with music that goes beyonf the standard music found in games. This music doesn't follow the sytandard FPS music steriotype. Even if you don't own the game the soundtrack is worth picking up.
Value: 10
Halo is very cheap now, and is a very good value. But, if you can't get Halo by itself then you should try to get the Halo Triple Pack. It comes with Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, and the Halo 2 multiplayer map pack. The bundle is also a very good deal.
Overall Halo is a very good game that can prove fun for even people who don't like the FPS genre. I didn't even begin to talk about the multiplayer in Halo but it's also great fun. i give Halo a 9.8/10.