Halo: Combat Evolved scores 9/10 in the verdict of The Games Market editorial team.

Once Upon a Time

Halo Redefined the Standards of FPS in the New Millennium

Name: Halo Redefined the Standards of FPS in the New Millennium
Item: Halo: Combat Evolved
Rating: 9
Author: Simon Larocca

by Simon LaroccaMarch 12, 2024

The history of first-person shooters, or FPS in gaming jargon, is full of stars that have lit up its firmament, but also of meteors destined to crash into the desert of forgotten games.

Non is it the case of Halo: Combat Evolved, the progenitor of the saga that redefined the standards of the new millennium for shooters. Halo saw the light in 2001 and is still considered today the magnum opus of Bungie Studios, a team made up of visionary developers raised on Doom.

Halo drew a clear line between what came before and what would come after: it became the new Year Zero of FPS games. Set in a distant future where interplanetary travel is the norm and the discovery of new planets and sentient species is now routine, Halo takes its name from the artificial-matrix world with its distinctive ring shape, which has become as iconic as the protagonist of the saga, that Master Chief who inspired comics, novels, and even a successful TV series.

Halo, in addition to giving its name to the entire saga, is what in narrative and in the Hero’s Journey is called the object of the conflict, between the human alliance and the Covenant, the union of several alien races who see in the Ring the keystone for the conquest of the universe in the name of blind religious fanaticism.

When you pick up the joypad to play Halo, you enter fully into a legend, fortified by a narrative structure with a sturdy and at the same time thrilling backbone: shooting aliens has never been so much fun, but the leap into space that clearly sets it apart from other productions is not just the “shoot and hide” method, the basis of every good alien-themed shooter: the music underscores the most epic and bloodiest clashes, elevating the player as well as Master Chief himself, for whom we will become eyes, ears, and armor, ready to be scratched but not defeated.

Halo introduced groundbreaking changes to the genre, introducing the lifesaving auto-save and eliminating medkits and food rations to restore health, which instead regenerates automatically after a while, thus emphasizing the tactical aspect when approaching battles; so not just shoot, but hide when you can and do it well, otherwise you will become cannon fodder.

As we were saying, Halo represents the ideal watershed between the shooters that preceded it and those that, later on, were inspired by it. If we think that immortal video games like Quake and Half-Life, just to name two at random, came out only a few years before Halo, we can get a very clear idea of its influence on mass culture and beyond.

Quake had already taken it upon itself to change the video game landscape with gigantic upheavals through a revolutionary 3D graphics engine, excuse the pun, while Half-Life, with the legendary avatar Gordon Freeman, had introduced the value of a good plot and better integrated characterization of the main characters.

The explosive importance of Halo thus acquires a greater significance that ennobles its innovative intentions. Mission after mission, you and Master Chief will make your way through hundreds of aliens of the most varied shapes, wielding powerful futuristic weapons and exploring Halo to discover its evocative ecosystems and incredible secrets. All this with the support of Cortana, a simulacrum of Artificial Intelligence endowed with a fascinating and mysterious human form, a sort of evolved GPT in ways we cannot even imagine. Or can we?

Pro

Wonderful gameplay and total fun when you learn to move our hero

Satisfaction bordering on ecstasy at the moment you manage to finish a level, whether in armor or in your underwear makes no difference

Sublimation of the concepts of "jump" and "timing

Contro

The learning curve is not immediate; you have to sweat a lot to learn how to play.

The game's difficulty is almost supernatural, and frustration will be your companion at all times.

Difficult, difficult, difficult

Complete

33,25 €

New

149,48 €

Graded

164,43 €

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Simon Larocca

My name is Simon Larocca, and I am a gamer, collector, and lover of pop culture in all its forms. I go to the cinema whenever I can, I have been reading since I started wearing glasses, so, basically forever, and I have a passion for storytelling in all its forms, so powerful that it became my profession. But as Doc from Ritorno al Futuro would say, there would be no present if one did not look at the past with respect and admiration, and it is the Simon child of more than thirty years ago, give or take a year, who is to thank for that.

Simon Larocca

Halo Redefined the Standards of FPS in the New Millennium

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