Game Insights – Halo 1 – Combat Evolved
The game I want to talk about is Halo. I will discuss the storymode in this gaming insights paper.
This game is one of my personal favourites.
You play in the character of ‘Master Chief’, a cyborg who has to protect the human race from extinction. All hope depends on him because he has special capabilities that help him fight the aliens, the covenant, who are after exterminating human life. These aliens want to wipe out humans because of their religious believes.
The game is really fun to play. If you like shooters I would certainly recommend playing this game (Although it’s maybe a bit outdated on this moment, as the game was published 14 years ago).
What made the game such a success was:
+ It was easy to control your character, you really would get the feeling you were in control
+ You really had to outsmart the enemy. Therefore it was really challenging.
+ The enemies (or aliens) seemed to communicate with each other. The bigger aliens commanded the rest of them and this made the game realistic. Also, there were many kinds of aliens, all with their own strengths and weaknesses.
+ Also all the characters in the game had realistic emotions. This was something what also contributed to the realism of the game.
+ There was a huge amount of variation in the game. You had all kind of weapons and vehicles you could use. Also the firefights were never the same. The environment changed all the time.
+ It seemed like you wasn’t limited in the places you could go in the game, even though this was the case.
+ If you were lost you would get help of Cortana, the computervoice inside the masterchief’s head. She would give instructions on how to get back on the right track again.
+ The levels were challenging and huge, this contributed to the he game fun for everyone to success of the game I believe.
+ The music in this game was great.
+ You could play the storymode in different difficulty levels, this made the game fun for both skilled gamers as for people who almost never play videogames.
The things that could have been better in in the game were:
+/- When ‘the flood’ appeared in the game, it was less fun as it was before their appearance in my opinion. I think this was the case because these enemies didn’t play as tactical as the covenant. It did give a surprising twist to the story
+/- Some aspects in the storymode were over the top.
– There was one level (‘the library’) that was really long-winded. Also, the chance you would get lost in this level was greater than in the other levels.
Overall, this was one of the games I liked best. I could never get bored playing this and there were almost no parts in the game that I found annoying.
