The Campaign Mode is where you'll be spending the majority of your time, fighting your way through ten extensive levels of alien-blasting fun. FPS veterans will already know that playing this type of a game on a console is a bit of a crapshoot, as analog thumbstick control is much less responsive than the mouselook used in PC shooters. Bungie has done a remarkable job with the play mechanics in Halo, however, and the title plays quite well with the standard Xbox joypad. There are a number of controller setups in addition to the default settings, and the analog sensitivity is highly customizable. Moving the Master Chief with the left analog stick is pretty responsive (although walking speed is on the slow side), while aiming with the right stick is surprisingly nimble and effective. You shoot with the right analog trigger and toss grenades with the left trigger, a setup that works remarkably well. Bungie has included a melee attack for each weapon, which is great for stealthily dispatching unaware enemies.

You can only carry two weapons at a time, so weapon and ammo management becomes much more important in Halo. I personally love this aspect of the game, as it eliminates those awkward moments when you have to cycle through 14 different weapons to find the one you want. You can pick up any weapon off the ground, even the battery-charge Covenant weapons, which are the most effective weapons you can use against them. Your marine issue weapons require ammo pickups to use, but once a Covenant weapon runs out of juice you can't replenish it any further. No one weapon dominates combat, so you'll want to use a variety over the course of the game. Indeed, the lowly pistol is the most effective weapon you can use against the armored Hunters, while the usually deadly sniper rifle has no effect on the Combat Flood. Grenades play a prominent role in combat, as you can throw them while you continue to use your main weapon. You can even use a grenade to detonate a pile of unexploded grenades on the ground, which often creates a satisfying chain reaction of carnage. Enemies usually carry grenades, so I find myself using them in every single battle (they're great in crowded hallways).

The enemy AI is simply fantastic at times, as the Covenant forces will weave in and out of cover and retreat when their shields are depleted. These guys don't just let you stand there and shoot them, as they know enough to form viable battle plans, and you'll often have to replay a battle several times to develop a workable counter-strategy. There are four classes of Covenants (Grunts, Jackals, Elites and Hunters) who differ in their intelligence, speed, battle tactics, weapon preference and piloting skill, so you'll have to figure out how to deal with them both on their own and in mixed groups. The core gameplay in Halo is strictly combat, as you won't be required to solve silly puzzles or play any mini-games to advance (thank Jeebus!). Your success depends solely on your ability to out-gun and out-think your opposition, which becomes very challenging on the harder difficulty settings. Your battle suit possess a personal shielding device which automatically replenishes after a few seconds. This helps keep the game balance in order, as it never feels impossibly difficult or too easy.

Perhaps the coolest gameplay feature is the extensive use of vehicles, and indeed the visage of the Warthog jeep is virtually synonymous with Halo. Vehicles appear in most of the levels, with the Warthog being the most common and useful. Driving the Warthog is a bit of a challenge, as you use first-person controls to drive the vehicle in a third-person perspective. After some practice it becomes second nature, but it could be a lot simpler. Marine AI is fairly good with vehicles, as members of your squad will promptly pile onboard your Warthog or Scorpion Tank, though you'll be required to actually pilot these things. Marines can pilot the hovering Ghost, however, but I found they ran me over way too much while doing so. (A few rockets gave them a much-needed dose of respect.) Then there is the Banshee, which is the only ride with flight capabilities. Although it sees limited action (and is unusually easy for enemies to target), it's a lot of fun to mess around with. All told these vehicles add an extra layer of depth to the play mechanics and truly make Halo stand apart from the crowd. I only wish the Scorpion Tank was used in more than one level.

In a stroke of brilliance, you can play through the Campaign Mode with two players, vastly increasing the lasting appeal of the game. The co-operative play is just the tip of the multiplayer iceberg in Halo, as its dedicated Multiplayer Mode is staggeringly deep. There are five main game types (Slayer, Capture the Flag, Oddball, King of the Hill and Elimination) that contain unique sets of rules and parameters. There are a number of variations on the basic game types, like Iron CTF, which throws Scorpion Tanks into the mix. If you tire of the built-in game modes you can simply create your own, mixing and matching a bewildering array of rules and options to suit your needs. Want to play invisible Oddball with nothing but rocket launchers? Or how about a GoldenEye-style one-hit-kill game of deathmatch up to 50 kills? Whatever your preference, there is likely an option to cover it in Halo. The inclusion of vehicles in the Multiplayer Mode is also much appreciated; driving a Warthog full of your buddies into battle is a lot of goddamn fun, as is loading up a Scorpion Tank with a full compliment of player-controlled marines. The only thing missing is the airborne Banshee, which, for the sake of game balance, is probably for the better.

Up to four players can go head-to-head on a single Xbox, but the game makes use of the link cable to enable up to 16 players to battle it out across 4 Xboxes (and four televisions). While this is completely impractical for 99.9% of game players, it's still a great option to have available if you're the rich bastard who can take advantage of that setup. Sharing the screen with other players tends to take some of the majesty away from the game, I'm sad to say, as Halo just doesn't look as good crammed into a small viewing area. The frame rate tends to fluctuate when four people are crowded in the same area, taking away some of the fluidity of the game as well. But the multiplayer games work well enough and can be a huge amount of fun with four or more players. My only real complaint about the multiplayer is that you're stuck using the Master Chief model all the time. It would have been very interesting to mix up the character choices a bit; choosing a Covenant Elite or Hunter would have added a lot more depth and challenge to the multiplayer games. Two Hunters and an Elite versus four marines? Now that I'd like to see. Perhaps in Halo 2.

My thoughts on Halo have been overwhelmingly positive up to this point, and with good cause. There are a few notable problems with the game, however, that really hold it back from being the experience it could have been. For the sake of objectivity I'll discuss them in detail here.

Halo is primarily a solitary affair, in that you will be fighting Covenants on your own much of the time. There are a number of occasions, however, when you will be joined by other Marine squads who fight along side you. While the human AI is fairly good and the Marines tend to make good decisions, I found myself desiring some level of influence over their actions. For instance, while trying to covertly snipe Elites and Shade gunners on the Truth and Reconciliation level, some of the Marines in my squadron were running around yelling, flashlights blazing and firing indiscriminantly into the air. This alerted the nearby Covenant forces, forcing me to revert to my last saved checkpoint and try again on more than one occasion. It's times like these that I wanted to press a button on the joypad to tell them to lay low and keep quiet.

Factor 5 did exactly that in Rogue Leader for the GameCube, assigning simple squad commands to the four cardinal directions on the otherwise-unused D-pad. It would have been great to see a similar system in Halo, and combat would have been a little more enjoyable because of it. In open-area skirmishes, the Marines tend to bunch up and leave themselves open to massive damage at the hands of a Plasma Grenade. Issuing a simple "spread out" command would prevent that from happening, while simultaneously allowing them to flank the enemy and increase the odds of success. Much of the time I made greater progress eliminating my allies to prevent them from alerting the enemy (I'm a bad soldier, but it did work). Granted, Halo was never designed as a squad-based combat game, but adding a rudimentary amount of control over ally actions would have given the game an extra layer of depth that would have been much appreciated.

While the level design is interesting and novel up until the seventh mission, it quickly becomes redundant and tedious after that. After reaching a certain point in the jungle installation there is nothing new to see. The rest of the game finds you backtracking through previously traversed areas, which are now filled with tougher enemies and much more difficult encounters. This isn't too bad (the one level is at night, which at least looks cool), but the very last level is essentially the first level in reverse. It was fun fighting my way off of the Pillar of Autumn the first time, but do I really have to blast my way back through it? I understand why I have to do it, but why are the Flood and Covenant waging a war inside a target that has no military significance and is of no value to either side? While the level is fairly enjoyable and brings the game full-circle, I can't help but feel that it would have been a better experience to blast through a completely fresh final area rife with surprises.

There are episodes of tedium and repetition smattered throughout a few of the earlier levels as well, killing some of the momentum the game tries to build. To illustrate my point, consider the level The Silent Cartographer. Everything about this level is well-orchestrated, right down to the pacing and combat variety. In fact it's an excellent experience right up until the point when you complete the level objective of retrieving the map of Halo. But instead of finishing right there on a high note, the game forces you to retrace your steps to nearly the beginning of the stage, fighting hordes of new enemies along the way. While I like blasting those Covenant bastards as much as the next guy, a simple cutscene showing the Master Chief escaping the compound would have been preferable. I understand why Bungie is forcing me to do this, but it still feels like a cheap way to artificially extend the life of the game. I should be going forward, not backward.

These issues don't completely ruin the achievements Bungie has made with Halo, however, as it is still a fun, engaging and well-polished experience that comes highly recommended. It feels like the spiritual successor to both the Marathon series and GoldenEye 007, as the combination of an excellent single player mode and insanely deep multiplayer options elevate this game to lofty heights among first-person shooters. It's a damn shame that much of its story and design is lifted from other sources, so it doesn't win many points for originality. This is undeniably the best game you can get for the Xbox (still), and stands as one of the finest shooters ever crafted. Halo should also serve as a reminder to Japanese-obsessed fanboys that American companies make great games too. If you've got the money, an Xbox and a copy of Halo will treat you right.

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