So Derek Lavigne asked us to talk about our favorite games from our past. I meant to play Marathon, a supposedly timeless trilogy of FPS developed by Bungie Studios, which was immensely innovative in the past, but it definitely has not aged well. I tried the original game scenarios using the freeware release engine of it, and it wasn't very fun.

So I played Halo.

The Marathon Trilogy proved to be an amazing game that had not aged well at all. From large confusing map designs, broken online systems and a lack of any fun in all of it, I decided to play another one of Bungie's shooters, Halo: Combat Evolved.

Since the game was released on Xbox in 2001, I also thought it might be fitting to have a playthrough of Halo on its 8th birthday. Staying true to the release date, I played it on the original Xbox, since the PC and Mac versions followed two years after. I pulled out my exclusive-to-Canada Blue Halo Xbox and whipped out my launch-party Xbox controllers and played it the way it was meant to be played. 

With those big-ass bear-paw sized controllers that only existed for a few months.

The first memory that comes back to my mind is how tight the controls are. The default sensitivity is brilliant to me, and each button is conveniently placed on the controller and it's just great. Shooting bad guys is as easy as pointing and shooting.

Another memory that came back to mind; the game is pretty hard, even on Normal. I expected a no-challenge brute-force FPS like the later games. Watch that health bar under your shield, cause it's going down- fast. Halo: Combat Evolved was the only Halo game with Health Packs. Why is that? I felt it added a layer of strategic depth, having to monitor two life systems in the heat of battle.

Well anyways, in the single-player, Master Chief is taken across a 10-mission span campaign that lasts at about 10 hours for me and my bear-controllers. It goes from being an alien shooter, to a zombie shooter (the Flood zombie enemies) to being a fusion of both, with the occasional vehicular manslaughter spree of a game. 

The levels are long and have quite eye-pleasing locales, with great use of lighting and color. With the exception of the infamously repetitive Library level (which has you fighting through at least a billion building floors that look exactly the same, fighting the same enemies), the levels come in great varieties, from stealth sniping in the dark, to escaping an giant self-exploding spaceship, it's just a memorable 10-missions, for better or for worse.

The weapons come in a small amount of human and alien weapons. The humans have a standard assault rifle with 60 bullet clips, as well as the most overpowered pistol in all of gaming (which is awesome). They also have rockets, shotguns and snipers, but they are less frequently used in the campaign. The Covenant alien forces have access to explosive needle-firing Needlers, Plasma Pistols and Plasma Rifles. The Covenant Pistol and Rifle have a different ammo system than the humans; they have no reloads, just heat limits, and when these two weapons overheat, they can't be used for a brief moment in time. Overall, the amount of weapons are unacceptable in this day and age (where you can use anything in a mall to kill stuff), but it's still pretty cool.

Multiplayer is where the real fun is at. While there is no Xbox Live support for the first game, there are System Link capabilities, local 4-player games, or local 2-player Campaign Co-op games. The co-op is simply playing the campaign with a friend, who is neglected from cutscenes and ultimately always left behind to die as Player 1 escapes to the next level. However, the highlight is the System Link.

I managed to get a few friends to bring their Xbox consoles, and we played with 4 Xboxes linked together for 16-player action on one map. The result is explosive high-adrenaline gunfests and frantic trigger fingers going around, as vehicle projectiles are being thrown around like beanbags. Having so many teammates back you up as you run home with the enemy flag, with the enemies closing in on their vehicles is such an exhilarating moment, even 8 years later.

I also checked out the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved and found out that there are still 1000s of player-filled online servers online. Quite impressive, considering it's a five year old game on PC.

Overall, it's a tight-controlled action-packed shooter that is great at parties. It's still the same fun FPS I played when the game came out.