Halo Combat Evolved

Unlike other science-fiction video games, Halo Combat Evolved provides an interesting storyline of very high quality.  The story drags the gamer into an alien world and presents enough background and information to allow for surprises whilst still keeping things very interesting.  The gamer is swept into the life of an elite soldier as his ship is bombarded and attacked by an advanced alien force known as the Covenant.  The gamer is forced to crash land on an alien planet and find the purpose of the strange ring world.  Unlike most video game storylines, the whole presentation and style of the storyline of Halo Combat Evolved is good enough to stand on its own.

Interface:

The controls in Halo Combat Evolved are simple to learn and master.  Whilst very comfortable, they are still very effective.  Though vehicle controls are a little different to those found in other games, they work well and are easy to adjust to.  All the vehicles are simple to control and can be easily used as tools of war.

The shortage of options in the options menu can be quite frustrating, though much can be accomplished provided you are running the PC version and know the appropriate command line parameters.  This, however, can be a huge inconvenience.

Weapons:

Halo Combat Evolved does more with 10 weapons than many other games do with 20 or more weapons.  Each of them has a distinctive role, and whilst players will develop different preferences for a small subset of weapons, the full collection is so well designed that every weapon must be tried for at least a few minutes.

The range of tactics that all the weapons require provides one of the biggest surprises in the game.  Even more surprising, is the fact that Halo Combat Evolved avoids the aged convention of duplicating weapon roles on either side.  Even the differences between the basic pistols used by the humans and those used by the Covenant are tremendous.

Enemies of the Covenant:

Halo Combat Evolved has a large range of enemies who all display very different and distinct behaviors.  The basic units of the Covenant are tiny, grunt-like aliens who rely on their large number to overcome the gamer.  Another example of Covenant enemies are shield-wielding jackals.  Their forward protection and their tendency to roll from side-to-side forces the gamer to adopt entirely different tactics when facing them.  The large Elite troopers, which are found in various colors, offer more of a challenge to the gamer.  Being protected by heavy armor and being able to beat the gamer if too close, make these troopers a scary opponent.  Various other opponents included in Halo Combat Evolved, along with these enemies, make for an intriguing variety in combat.