Now I know what all the hype is about

I have always liked playing first person shooters (FPS). I have played Doom and Duke Nuke'em 3D on the PC ad nauseum for years. I have always been told the PC is the place for FPS games and I believed it. However, the gaming console has caught up to the PC somewhat, and when my son asked to buy Halo 2, I figured why not.

Now some of you might be wondering why I am writing a "Halo" review when I bought "Halo 2". I am getting to that. After playing Halo 2 for about a month, I liked it so much, I wanted the origional so I could see the differences.

Now to be honest, I like the origional better. This is not going to be a comparison review, because I did that with the 2005 football games and got jumped on. So, I am going to give the good and the bad of the origional Halo and then go write a Halo 2 review.

The story is thus. You are the Master Cheif. A genetically engineered human brought into a war against The Covenant. A race of aliens that is hell bent on destroying the human race. They have invaded and you must stop them.

Now the single player mode was a little bland and I found it boring at times. The levels were to open. You spent a lot of time just walking around to get to the next area of combat. Yes, in a true war, you waste a lot of time preparing for battle, but if my video game is going to do it, I don't want any part of it. 90% of the time however, I am playing with one of my kids in a co-operative mode. It takes you through the story, but you are a two man team. There are more bad guys and you get to help each other like a marine unit would.

The weaponry is quite realistic. I love how the pistol gets flipped after smashing someone. You also have a battle rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, and rocket launcher. The shot gun is my fav. I love the close hand to hand fighting and love using the shotgun to smash someone in the face or blow them away. The blood is realistic, but is different colors to take the gore out of it. You have comparable weapons from the aliens and can take their weapons after you have dispensed of them. Their weapons are somewhat better in my opinion, because they do not need to be reloaded. They do run out of power, but can be used for quite awhile. I like the realistic sounds of the human weapons and how they have to be realistically reloaded after your clip is used up. The rocket launcher is the most realistic. After each rocket is fired, you have to reload. It makes you think before firing because you need cover at times to reload.

The best part of this game is the graphics. Everything looks as real as it can. The scenary is awesome and the aliens all have their unique looks. I am amazed at how little the game needs to be loaded when on a board. This makes the XBox worth it. The sounds of battle are great to. You hear radio chatter and wails of agony when someone gets it. Your co-horts yell at you when you shoot them, and if you do it enough, they will turn on you. The boards are well lit and you can fight in many vehicles, enemy or your own. It is fun taking over a vehicle of the enemy. Get near it, press "X", and the "B" once your on, and you have either kicked your opponent off their vehicle or killed them up.

Another fun part of the game is the splitscreen mode. 4 players can participate and it makes the game a lot of fun when you are hunting each other instead of bad guys. The boards are large and hiding and sniping someone can be done easily.

As far as complaints, I really don't have any. The single player mode is the only thing I can complain about. There are times when you have no idea what you are supposed to do, but a lot of FPS have that problem. The voice that tells you what to do, comes on during battles, and I am not very good at listening and fighting at the same time.

Halo is a great FPS. I never thought you could play a good one on a console. However, this game allows you to do so and have fun at it. I really want to try playing in the interactive mode where you can have up to 16 players at one time. However, I have a wife that hates video games and thinks her husband should grow up and get a life ;o)