Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:

(This review originally written on October 28th, 2003, and posted to Caltrops.com so Jonsey can get the front page short review section going.)

Here's my take:

IT FUCKING SUCKS.

I like it, played through it twice.

The controls are sloppy. The vehicles (especially the flying ones) are extremely difficult to control. You can't save anywhere. It's repetitive beyond belief (I mean, it makes Pac-Man look fresh and inventive game after game.) Worst of all, the checkpoints are sometimes too far apart. Key example: I'm, I believe, right at the end of the game, about to blow up the last thing needed to destroy the Halo.

Vehicles are easy to control. Move your mouse to the left? Vehicle moves to left. Move your mouse to the right? Vehicle moves to right. I know, it's innovative and takes some getting used to, but keep concentrating and I'm sure you'll get it.

I travelled distances much further than any other break between checkpoints in the whole fucking game. I restarted at least ten times. Every time, something different got me. The last time, I got way, way, way further. Like, I even got past a fucking cutscene - and it stil didn't count that as a checkpoint. I had successfully snuck past or killed countless dudes with rocket launchers who can kill with one shot, and swarms of baddies who will run up and kill you if you let them get to you. Of course, they all run much, much faster than your character, and you run out of ammo constantly, so you're guaranteed to be stuck in a long "reload" sequence while being surrounded by enemies. Anyways, after dying at what seemed to be the final bit, it wanted to restart me much earlier. FUCK THAT. I'm done with this shitty game. I've been swearing and getting pissed too much, and my wife's probably in the other room packing her bags. I don't need a game with so little fun and so much frustration.

I disagree with what you wrote. Savepoints are everywhere and reusable. If you've made progress before a checkpoint and are too afraid to go on, trek back a little and trigger the savepoint again. Voila.

Hey, Halo developers. Here's ten important tips for you:

1) Don't make the PC version two years late.

Granted.

2) Don't give the PC version shitty framerates and mediocre graphics.

I have fantastic frame-rates but yes, you need a good graphics card. Even the NVidia FX series of last gen were shit for shader performance, of which Halo makes extensive use of. The 6800GT cuts through it like butter at 12x10 (probably higher, flat panel's max though) with every bell and whistle turned on.

3) Work on the control. FPS games are all about responsiveness, and Halo feels sloppy as well.

Handles fine for me. Crank up the responsiveness of your mouse. Also, if you have shit framerates you'll get shit responsiveness.

4) Try making the vehicles behave in some kind of controllable manner. The radio-control helicopter in GTA: VC is almost easier to control than the Banshee. While we're at it, don't make the vehicle weapons so wimpy. Even the turret sucks - it's OK when the enemy is two steps away, after that, you might as well be shooting spitballs. Even the Banshee, with a fairly powerful weapon, kind of sucks because you end up flying overhead, taking five minutes to shoot three dudes on the ground. (Aggravated by #8, as listed below.)

The banshee is especially easy to control. Your walking control keys do nothing. It's all about the direction you turn with the mouse. It's not hard.

5) Two weapons at a time - ehh, don't pat yourself on the back, especially when most of the weapons suck ass, especially the worst rocket launcher in the history of FPS games.

That rocket launcher is an extremely powerful weapon that can smoke the mega tanks with two shots and those huge baddies in one. Hardly a shitty weapon.

6) The health system sucks fucking ass. A rechargable shield - fine, that's all good and all, but there's not nearly enough health. It's way too easy to just die.

I was running past plenty of health packs that went unused.

7) Checkpoints are for console games. Never put checkpoints in a PC game. And, whatever you do, never, ever, ever make the checkpoints in a difficult part of the game so fucking far apart.

Never had an issue.

8) The enemies that, no matter what you're packing, take a minute or two to kill because they "shields up" every time they're hit - that's a shitty idea. I don't want the "strategy" of timing my shots when there are 10 of the fuckers coming at me and I'm unloading my machine gun as fast as I can, and most of them are useless because of the enemy shields.

Try using that "shitty" rocket launcher.

9) Level design. Work on it. Hell, Q3's endless corridors are more interesting than most of the slabs in Halo - and there are way too many obstructions that keep the player from backing away from enemies. Many times you're nearly killed because you get backed up against something dumb.

Graphics look nice on good hardware but yeah, especially that level with the floaty globe dude and endless amounts of the "flood" guys.

10) Fuck you, you bitches, you were too busy believing your own hype to make the PC version look better, have a better framerate, have better control, have co-op, and have save anywhere capabilities. If those were there, it'd be a far more enjoyable game.

Play it again on good hardware, it's much more enjoyable.

There's no excuse for it being as frustrating as it is at the end (or throughout the whole damn game.) No excuse for it taking two years or having such a shitty framerate or having two patches released in short succession when the game is virtually identical to the X-Box version.

Shitty port that relied too heavily on shaders which were a little advanced for their time, agreed. Great game, though. I seriously miss being able to melee-thwack enemies with my rifle in Doom3.