Slayer. This is a game about skill. This is a game about savvy. This is a game about memorizing every gun and health location. This is a game about dexterity and reflexes. This is a game that pumps you full of caffeine and sugar until your eyes are so red rimmed from lack of sleep your parents think you're a drug addict, which you are. This is not a game...it's HALO.That was what the trailer for HALO:CE should've sounded like. All recorded in the deep, movie guy voice. AND THEN THERE WAS ONE (aaaaa aaaa oooo... ahhhh ahhh aaa) MASTER CHIEF. I know what WOW fans feel like, minus the shyness bordering on paralysis and the carpal tunnel from mashing Z to kill goats in the forrest. YES, 10 XP! This game was my first addiction. Now it's smoking. Man, If HALO would've been multiplayer online I might not have lung cancer in 30 years. But I had to start something to fill the void! Actually, I think I already said another game was my first addiction. Pokemon I think. Well, this was my more adult fix. It's like graduating from weed to cocaine. Life just forces you to grow up.
HALO had pristine graphics, tight gameplay, a controller setup that has been copied by every FPS since and an iconic character. It took things we know (aliens, sniper rifles, vehicles) and shifted them into perfection. Who is more important? The person who does it first or the person who perfects it? Halo might be both. Yes, I realize they did not invent the FPS but they said, "OK, let's class this up. Let's throw out the Natural Light and get some Heineken." And once you started playing you were like those guys in the Heineken commercial screaming like ladies because they had a cooler full of ALL Heineken.
Let me go ahead and name all the HALO multiplayer maps without Googling. Ahem. Chill Out. Sidewinder. Bloodgulch. Rat Race. Battle Creek. Prisoner. Hang Em High. Derelict. Wizard. Longest. Chiron. Boarding Action. OK, FINE! I googled Boarding Action! But c'mon, did anyone ever play that board. Oh, great, I got spawn raped. Awesome. Love this map.
Almost everyone had their speciality, despite their skill level. I was run and gun. Give me an assault rifle, grenades and a shotgun and I'll shoot melee my way to 25 kills and 25 deaths. I was a liability. There was always a friend who would only snipe. He'd stalk the invisibility and crouch behind the cement blocks on Hang Em High. You'd see your body go limp and hear a snicker from across the room. TIM! You fucking screen looker. I was crouched in the passageway with an overshield. You couldn't have known. No way! Then an outline of Master Chief would be humping your body.
One friend just railed off clips of the pistol from one end of Bloodgulch to the other and still killed you. 3 shots...dead! Then there were your campers. I like to refer to them as Opham from Saving Private Ryan. You're getting stabbed in the chest by a pissed of German with no machine gun rounds and Opham is downstairs talking to himself. There were vehicle whores and sticky experts and people who constantly boasted about their 15 rocket launcher kills. I have never used nor heard the phrase "no way" more often than in my HALO LAN parties. "How did I...with invisibility...NO WAY". Campaign Co-Op, a gritty, exciting and addictive multiplayer helped prop xbox up on its wobbly legs and pull Microsofts chestnuts out of the fire. Master Chief should be their CEO. Those board meetings would be intimidating. Game Over.
Much love to The Trooper for the vid.
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