"3 Great Games in one great Value Pack. Alien killing Galore"
Graphics
In both games, the graphics are superb. There are some awesome blood splatter effects, and it is even possible to write your own name on the wall. But not always given that there is only so much bullets, or blood, allowed on the screen at one time. The players and enviroments look great and they are really animated and detailed in both of them. For example, watching a Spaceship blow up in this game is a thing of beauty as they really go all out with it. There is also quite a lot of mirror effects, such as seeing yourself in water. In addition to this, when something explodes, debris is left around for a bit, floating in space and I quite like this because it sticks to reality, despite being a fantasy game.
Sound
"Get Back Here Marine!"
"Are you my daddy?"
No matter who speaks, the speech is great. Each character, and alien, have their own unique voices done by different people. The environment sounds, e.g, water, gun fire etc, are awesome as well. If you close your eyes in a battle, you can actually imagine that you are in a battle field fighting for your life, that is how realistic the sounds are. And try going into water, the splashes are comical, yet serious at the same time which is something that I really respect and enjoy about this game. But sadly, they could have spent some time working on realistic battle sounds, instead of beam sounds and death sounds that are completely unrealistic. But then again, it is a game set for the most part in space in the future so they may have a different way of dying and those weapons. The sounds from Halo 1 have also been redone so they sound a lot better than they did in the original version.
Gameplay and replayability
Both games have extra features to longetise them. Halo 2 has the skulls, and Halo 1 has all the extra missions. Halo 2 also has online, which the Map Pack can also help with as it features a lot of new maps for Online. Some of the skulls can blind you, make the enemies invisible, make them fire more or just plain make the game quite silly. Halo focuses more on Missions whereas Halo 2 focuses more on the plot. Also, they both have some form of multiplayer. Halo has LAN, and of course, Halo 2 has Online mode. But they are both as good, and they have standard multiplayer if you have 2 controllers to play it with.
Now, onto the actual reviews. I briefly gave plot summaries, but here I will go more indepth. I will also be giving plusses and minuses, as well as some thoughts and why I think certain stuff. The sections here are Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2 and Halo 2 Map Pack.
Halo: Combat Evolved
This game was the first in the Halo series. When it first came out, people said it was a rip off from Half-Life. But it is not. It is so much better and it flows a lot better as well. Plus, it is set in the future whereas Half Life was set in Present Day. I personally feel that they are both the same really, in terms of Gameplay and fun levels. But there should not be as much fighting over which is better, because they are really just as good as each other, neither of them are better than the other.
You play as Master Chief, a cyborg. You were created because Earth’s forces were being destroyed by the Convenant fleet, who are a bunch of Aliens with a really bad attitude. You also have to destroy their source of power, the Halo ring. You will have to go through a lot of levels to do this, fighting all of the troops. You are revived when you are needed. You were created ages ago and were frozen until needed. Whilst that has some elements of Half Life 2 in it, it is completely different when you get into the game.
The graphics in this game are awesome. I said it before, but it looks great. Every little detail, dust, faces, guns, enemy bodies etc are finely detailed. It does not look like much other games because they use a unique pixel shading effect which makes it look very realistic and that is great. This was one of the first games to have the Pixel shading effects. And I mentioned unique character detailing, they do have this for the humans. No two humans look the same in this game, they are all unique and different and this is perhaps the first game to do this. I am not sure what this effect is called, but I have not seen much other games use it. The WWE series comes close, but they crowd are a bit repetitive so the Halo series is the only series I know to use the, for want of a better word, Unique CPU value effect.
This game, apart from some cutscenes, is set entirely in 3D. This really adds to the realism effect, if you take realism to be an alien holding a pistol, to a whole new level. It is great, because you have nothing blocking your Point Of View (POV) when you are trying to do things, such as fire a gun, or punch an Convenant troop completely to death.
The game play is also awesome. Where Halo 2 focuses more on the Storyline, Halo: CE focuses a lot more on the missions. While there is not that much of a plot in this game, the amount of missions make up for it. There are about 10 levels which is less than Halo 2, but this game’s levels have more quantity to them. They are all very long, and all involve beating a challenge, and loads of enemies, before you can actually go on to the next level. Sadly though, when you are done, there is not really much else to do. Sure you have 4 different difficulty levels, but after those, there is no originality already put in. You can play different rules for yourself, such as no grenades, or minimal bullets. And trust me, without those, the game will be a whole lot harder than it would be normally. And the game is quite hard, even when it is on the easy level.
There are also some quite unique alien weapons in the game. The Plasma Pistol is quite a favorite as it does not need reloaded, you just pick up a new one and you drop the old one. But you have to be careful with the alien weapons because they can overheat if they are fired for to long. Plus, they have ammo, just like normal weapons, so you have to be conservative about how you use their weapons, because there is not an unlimited supply of bullets.
This game does not have XBOX live. But it has a LAN network so you can play with your friends if they live close enough to you that they are connected on the same LAN. And there is no lag at all, though it would be better if they had actually included Live since they released this with the set, but alas, you have Halo 2 for Live, and some of the maps from Halo are now in Halo 2. But it does have a great multiplayer same console mode. Split screen, but done in a way so it is hard to work out where the opponent is just by looking at his part of the screen. It is also dark in most of the levels so you will have to look very hard to actually find the opponent.
So here are some plusses and minuses before the final thoughts
Plusses
Long. This is good if you want a game to play when you have nothing else to do, or you have a lot of time because it is a weekend or holiday or suchlike.
Great Graphics. This can really make you feel that you are actually playing as the Master Chief, especially if you have a big enough screen. As I said, it is good because you have nothing obstructing your view.
Variety. You have a ton of variety in this game, and then you can make some variety for yourself.
Minuses
No Online
No stuff to enhance Gameplay
So here are my thoughts on CE
Graphics: 10/10. As I said, they are unique. They look awesome and the game is one of the first games to use the XBOX’s graphic abilities to the full. And the fact that each character is uniquely detailed also helps this.
Gameplay: 10/10. You fight aliens. There are lots of games like that, but this game is unique in that there is not any repetitive alien AI. So this means that you are always having to perhaps make new strategies.
Overall: 10. It is perhaps one of the best XBOX games to ever come out. It is perhaps rivaled by Halo 2. And it’s length is cool considering that there is little to no lag whatsoever during Gameplay.
Halo 2
This game is a major improvement from Halo CE. It has an online mode this time, and it has a lot more weapons. It also features quite a cool story mode. But just for the record, it still features LAN (Local Area Network) play, but you get Online Play as well. You can also download stuff from online.
You get to play as 2 people in this game. The Master Chief, and a new guy, the Arbiter. The Arbiter is part of the Convenant fleet, but he is not a bad character. The Convenant feel that Arbiter has betrayed them so they punish him. The Arbiter can go invisible so he does not have exactly the same strengths and weaknesses as Master Chief does.
Graphically, this game is excellent. As I said before, the water effects, and the laser effects are breathtaking and stunning. Every little detail has been done here, and each enemy has their own unique face. This is quite cool because they dedicated a whole lot of time towards the game’s graphics. They could have just used generic models for each human character, but they did not. Each character has his or her own feature, spot on body, longer arms etc. But the aliens are not as detailed so we are led to believe that the aliens were added in but not detailed very much.
The Gameplay is also awesome. You get 15 or so missions to fight in, and they are all very lengthy. You also get 4 different difficulty levels. Each mission is unique in that it has its own different challenges and enemy AI. None of the challenges or AI are repeated in the different levels so you have to constantly get new strategies if you wish to beat the levels. But sadly, the levels are not as lengthy as the original Halo, and there is some lag when there are a lot of people and aliens on screen. And while playing as the alien, you can actually go invisible which is cool, even though it is temporary. And the Master Chief is quicker and stronger. So each character has it’s own plusses and minuses, which is what should happen as no two things are the same in real life.
You also get the online mode here. This is good because you could only previously play over a Local Area Network (LAN). You can fight anyone in the world who has live in this game. Plus, you can make your own games with their own rules over online. There are a lot of cheaters online though, but Bungie, who made the game, along with Microsoft, are working to stop this. But for you old school fans, there is still a LAN network in play.
And so as I am not biased, here are the Plusses and Minuses
Plusses
Lots of Levels. Just like with Halo: Combat Evolved, this is great if you have a ton of time on your hands. This game can be done in one go, but it will take a minimum of 3 hours of your life away.
Decent sized levels. Same as before, it gives you something to do when you are bored or you have a ton of time on your hands.
Online Mode. What more can I say? You get bored with what is already in the game, so you just sign onto XBOX live and go to Matchmaking and hey presto, you are playing with players who have your skill
You have lots of weapons. You do not have to be stuck firing the same gun or alien rifle over and over again. The variety is great, because it does get a tad boring firing the same weapon constantly.
You have the ability to play as human and alien. Again, this is good for the variety element, because you have to use two different strategies for each person, so you have to constantly think about what you are doing, otherwise you could get seriously stuck in the game.
Minuses
Cheaters online
Overall, I would say that Halo 2 is a major improvement from CE. It has a far better storyline to it, and it also has the addition of Online fighting. So I would say for Halo 2
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Gameplay: 10
Overall: 10
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Halo 2 Map pack
There is not actually a story to this. But it is noteworthy because you have 9 maps here which can then be transferred to Halo 2. The maps are all different, from their sizes to their difficulty.
One map is long whereas one is massive. It costs a lot the map pack on its own so I recommend that you either get Live, or get it with this.
Overall?
I rate this 10 out of 10. It has everything you could possibly want for an XBOX game. It makes full use of all the XBOX features, most noticeably, the graphics, and the sound. They both offer loads of options, fights and levels. It is going for £40, or $45, which is awesome considering that that is how much each was when they first came out. You also get a map pack added in so that makes it so much better. Buy this if you can, it will save you buying them individually. Plus, you do not have to buy Live if you want the new maps. But you will have to have a LAN network set up. So it is well worth the money.