2 Gameplay

2.1 Summary

Halo's gameplay is characterized by several features which set it apart from less acclaimed first-person shooter games:

• Storyline execution: Halo's gameplay and storyline have been known to be tightly interwoven, and delivered in a convincing manner which is consistent with the flow of the game.

• Vehicles: Halo incorporates many vehicles into its single and multiplayer games, including flying ones.

• Weapons system: Halo's weapons system is unusual in two respects. First, it allows one to carry only two weapons at any given time, forcing the player to switch weapons often and make trade-offs when choosing which weapons to carry. Second, Halo has an independent button for throwing grenades.

• Artificial intelligence: Halo's AI was quite sophisticated for its time. For example, the more cowardly types of enemies would panic when one of their superiors was killed. If a speeding vehicle came at them, they could dive out of the way, and they could take cover from explosives or suppressive fire.

2.2 Movement and aiming

Movement in Halo is similar to other first-person shooters, allowing the player to move forwards, backwards, and strafe left and right independently of their aim. On the Xbox, strafing and aiming are normally separated between the two joysticks; and on the PC, between the mouse and the keyboard.

Halo also allows the player to crouch and jump, although jumping from a high ledge will often result in death.

2.3 Damage system

• Health: The player in Halo has a finite, non self-regenerating health which can be fully restored by picking up health-packs. Running completely out of health will result in death, but having lower health does not impede player actions. A player's health can only be reduced if his shields have failed.

• Shields: The player carries a shield which protects all parts of his body from damage. The shield will decrease in strength every time it is hit by a weapon, and will fail after taking enough hits, but will quickly regenerate if it is not hit for a period of time. The shield represents a marked departure from most first-person shooters, in which one's health bar is basically augmented by picking up "armor," and it is entirely possible, in the single-player campaign at least, to simply not have enough health points to survive the next section of gameplay. Halo players, on the other hand, have a more-or-less permanent buffer of health at their disposal (assuming they manage to find time to regenerate the shield), making it less of a disaster to take hits in combat.

2.4 Powerups

There are three types of powerups available in Halo:

• Health packs: Fully restore the health of the player.
• Active camouflage: Drastically reduces the player's visibility for a period of time, making all but a faint outline of him transparent. This effect is reduced if the player is hit by weapons fire, if he or she fires a weapon or throws a grenade, or in some cases if he or she switches weapons.
• Overshield: An enhanced, non-regenerating shield which is three times the strength of the normal one. The overshield functions on top of the regular shield - when it is active, the normal shield does not take damage. In the single player game, the overshield is reduced only when the player is hit, while in the multiplayer game, it also weakens gradually with time.

2.5 Enemies

Three factions of enemies are encountered on Halo: the Covenant, the Flood, and the Sentinels.

• Covenant: The Covenant appear to be an alliance of different species, including the cowardly Grunts, the weak Jackals with their visible energy shields, the Elites with their personal energy shields, and the huge, tough Hunters with strong armour. The Covenant mostly carry plasma weapons of varying power. They also make extensive use of vehicles.

• The Flood: The parasitic Flood are encountered in 3 forms: the lowly parasitic spores themselves, which usually die from a single shot; walking forms of former humans and Covenant whose nervous systems have been taken over by the parasite, which are tough and may carry either human or Covenant weapons; and exploding carriers, which cause splash damage and release spores.

• Sentinels : Part of Halo's defense system, the Sentinels, led by the probe 343 Guilty Spark, are hovering robotic drones, and will attack Flood, Covenant, and (depending on the point in the story) the Master Chief. Although possessing a powerful beam weapon, they are not particularly resistant to damage.

2.6 Weapons

See the main article List of weapons in the Halo universe

2.7 Vehicles

The vehicles available to the player are the Warthog M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, the Scorpion main battle tank, the Ghost reconnaissance and rapid attack vehicle, and the Banshee ground assault aircraft. Note that the Banshee is unavailable in multiplayer in the Xbox version.

The Warthog is a human vehicle that, like other human vehicles, does not take its own damage, and holds three total people: a driver, a passenger, and a gunner. The gunner uses a large, precise gatling-style automatic gun with infinite ammunition. Like all human weapons, it is more suited to eliminating health than shields, but with its high rate of fire, high damage per hit, and high precision it can dispatch most anything relatively quickly. While the gun is precise, it is often difficult to aim, especially for beginners and especially while the Warthog is in motion. In the PC version, there is a "Rocket Warthog" which has a rocket emplacement rather than the gatling gun. The person in the passenger seat of a Warthog rides shotgun, able to use whatever weapons they currently have on them to attack enemies from the Warthog. This is somewhat ineffective, as it is often difficult to aim in a moving Warthog, though experienced drivers can line up shots for the passenger and gunner. The driver has no armaments other than the bumper of the Warthog, which can be very effective as it kills any enemy on foot instantly. Experienced players can dodge a Warthog attack effectively, however.

The Scorpion Tank is a human vehicle so named for its shape, with its main gun resembling a scorpion's stinger. The tank can hold a total of 5 people: a driver and 4 passengers. The driver not only controls the movement of the tank, but also its two guns: a main explosive cannon and a coaxially-mounted machine gun. The main cannon fires high explosive rounds that are more powerful and much faster than the shoulder-fired rocket launchers, and are also not limited by ammunition restraints. The disadvantages to this are the long cool-down time (four seconds between shots) and that the projectiles, although very fast, are not quite instant, calling for a slight lead on the target. This gun will destroy any Covenant unit in one shot, with the exception of the Covenant Wraith tank, which requires two shots. The secondary machine gun is very powerful and has a high rate of fire but is extremely imprecise. This is a major disadvantage, but with its infinite ammo and zero cooldown time, the gun can just be fired at all times to pin down enemy units in between bursts from the main cannon. Passengers of the Scorpion tank can fire whatever weapons they are carrying in the same fashion as the Warthog, but are much more exposed to danger than Warthog passengers.

The Ghost is a Covenant vehicle, and like all Covenant vehicles the Ghost takes its own damage and has its own health bar independent of the driver's. It can only take a certain amount of punishment before the Ghost itself explodes, invariably killing the rider. However, in multiplayer, the Ghost sustains no damage of its own. The Ghost is the only usable vehicle with the same movement options of the normal player: that is, it is the only playable vehicle with sidestrafing. The Ghost is equipped with plasma cannons that have relatively the same properties as the Covenant plasma rifle, with a higher power, higher of fire, infinite ammo and no cool-down time. This, combined with the Ghost's ability to move quickly and over many obstacles, lead to the ghost's main role as a fast attack and scouting vehicle. The Ghost can be easily destroyed by any explosive fire, grenades, or relatively few shotgun blasts.

The Banshee, so named for the characteristic wail of its engines, is a Covenant vehicle and is the only playable flying vehicle. It is similar to the Ghost, except that its flying lends it more of an attack role as it can evade most fire with its speed and flying abilities. In addition to its plasma cannons, the Banshee also sports the Hunter's fuel rod cannon, which has infinite ammunition but a four second cool-down time, similar to the Scorpion's main cannon. The fuel rod cannon is the only player-usable weapon in the game where the projectiles travel parabolically, and as such aim adjustments must be made. Banshees are unavailable in the Xbox multiplayer.

There are also several vehicles that are not player controllable, like the UNSC Pelican dropship, and the Covenant dropship. The only tactically interesting of these vehicles is the Covenant Wraith Mortar tank, which fires large 'plasma bombs' in parabolic arcs towards its enemies. These bombs, if they score a direct hit, will often destroy vehicles or kill if the spartan is not equipped with an overshield. They can be taken down most effectively with explosive weapons such as the Scorpion's main cannon, the rocket launcher, or the Banshee's fuel rod cannon.

2.8 Environments

Halo features a wide variety of environments in which combat occurs, including the human starship Pillar of Autumn, the Covenant ship Truth and Reconciliation, ancient buildings on Halo itself, and vast outdoor expanses of varying climates, including the temperate lands of the levels The Silent Cartographer and Halo, the desert in the first half of the level Truth and Reconciliation, the winter wasteland of the levels Assault on the Control Room and Two Betrayals, and the spooky forests and swamps of the level 343 Guilty Spark. Six of the ten levels feature a substantial amount of combat outdoors.

2.9 Multiplayer

16 players can play together in one Halo game over a local area network, using four Xboxes that have been connected through an Ethernet hub. The game's seamless support for this type of play, as well as a few large maps that can comfortably hold up to 16 combatants, is a first for console games. The PC version of Halo adds online play, and also new vehicles (the Banshee which previously only featured in single-player, and a version of the Warthog which features a tri-barrel rocket launcher) and weapons (the Fuel Rod Cannon, sported by the spec-ops grunts on the last level, and the never seen before Flamethrower) for multiplayer.

Blood Gulch is one of the most commonly played multiplayer levels. The level contains two buildings at either end of the level, with open desert in between. Some of the features include a cave, in which experienced players may store vehicles, and cliffs that players can use to sniper their opponents. This level is also the location for the situation comedy Red Vs Blue. The level reappeared in the sequel, Halo 2 under a different name, although many of its features are similar if not identical.

3 Storyline

Halo's storyline is linear; there is only one ending (in contrast to other first person shooters such as Deus Ex). It is presented to the player through an instruction manual, scripted events and conversations during the game, and a number of cut-scenes rendered using the game's graphics engine. This method of storyline delivery is common among modern video games.

3.1 Brief summary

Halo, like previous Bungie releases such as the Marathon series, has an intricate plot.

The "Halo" in the title refers to an enormous artificial space habitat similar to a Culture Orbital discovered by the warship Pillar of Autumn, which the central character, the Master Chief John-117, is aboard. With the help of his fellow marines and the ship's artificial intelligence, Cortana, the Master Chief discovers some of the secrets of Halo while fighting off members of the Covenant, archenemies of humanity who, presumably, wish to find Halo's secrets for themselves.

3.2 Backstory

The events which transpire in Halo's gameplay must be understood in the context of its backstory, created by Bungie and elaborated in several novels written after the release of the game. A summary of this backstory is presented below.

3.2.1 The human colonization of the Orion Arm

In the year 2291, the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) successfully develop humanity's first faster than light drive, the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. For the first time in history, the rapid colonization of other worlds is made possible. By 2390, 210 worlds have been occupied by humans, and are being actively terraformed to suit man's needs. These worlds are to become known as the Inner Colonies. By 2490, the UNSC's fledging interstellar empire has expanded to over 800 planets throughout the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. During this period, the planet Reach becomes the headquarters of the UNSC military, and is destined to become the most heavily fortified world under human control.

3.2.2 The Covenant Wars begin

On April 3, 2530, first contact is made with an alliance of alien races that refers to itself as The Covenant. On that day, a single Covenant Warship exterminated the surface population of the Outer Colony Harvest. Three UNSC battleships are sent to investigate this incident, engage the Covenant ship in battle, and are subsequently routed. Only one, the Hercules, manages to return to Reach badly damaged. By December of the same year, the UNSC has mobilized a massive fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Preston Cole, with orders to reclaim the Harvest Colony and stop the Covenant advance.

Covenant ships possess several technological features which make them far superior to their human counterparts. First, they have superior manuvering and tracking abilities when employing faster than light travel (ships in Halo, like many other science fiction titles, achieve faster than light speeds by moving through an alternate realm. In Halo it is called "Slipspace").

Covenant and humanity use essentially the same technologies to enter Slipspace, but the Covenant are unaware that their engines can be used much more precisely than their human's counterparts.

Second, Covenant ships possess strong recharging shields which must be destroyed in order to physically damage the ship. While humans have managed to replicate this effect on a small scale (ie: protection for individual soldiers), they are unable to create shields large enough to protect an entire ship.

Third, Covenant ships employ more powerful weapons, including a form of guided plasma which can often destroy human vessels in a single hit. It should be noted that the Covenant also use plasma to exterminate the surface population of a planet (a process known as 'glassing').

3.2.3 The fall of the Outer Colonies

Cole's fleet manages a victory at Harvest, but at a high cost - two thirds of his ships are destroyed. Despite significant tactical brilliance on the part of Human commanders, Covenant technology guarantees a four to one kill/loss ratio in most battles. One by one, the Outer Colonies fall below the onslaught, and by 2535, virtually all have been destroyed.

3.2.4 The Cole Protocol

To protect the location of Earth, the UNSC establish the Cole Protocol. When human forces are forced into retreat, they must not execute a Slipspace jump in the direction of Earth, even if this forces them to jump without the necessary navigational calculations (a "blind jump"). If such a jump is not possible, and if capture is imminent, the captain must order a self-destruct. The onboard ship AI construct, normally imperative to navigation and tactical decisions, must either be destroyed or removed.

3.2.5 The SPARTAN Project

Several decades before contact with the Covenant was made, the UNSC military embarked on a secret project to create a group of elite soldiers that would deal with occasional unrest in the Colonies. Codenamed SPARTANs, these genetically enhanced troops were trained from birth into a life of battle, and became a great asset against the Covenant. While humans suffered defeat after defeat in space, they could almost always prevail with the help of the SPARTANs in ground engagements. The main character of Halo's gameplay, the Master Chief, is a veteran SPARTAN. All SPARTANS were given special armour designated MJOLNIR, which can increase their strength and speed. They were the only ones who could wear it as those without special genetic enhancements (like the SPARTAN upgrades) killed themselves with strength enhanced convulsions.

3.2.6 The Battle of Reach

By 2552, many of Humanity's Inner Colonies have been destroyed by the Covenant. In a move of desparation, UNSC orders a secret plan to capture a Covenant ship using a SPARTAN task force and find the coordinates of their home planet. A group of SPARTANs, led by the Master Chief, are chosen for this mission, and board a specially outfitted ship known as the Pillar of Autumn (under the command of Captain Jacob Keyes). This plan, however, is interrupted when the Covenant launch a surprise attack on the fortress world of Reach.

During this battle, Reach is overrun and glassed, and the human fleet is obliterated. Worse still, the master chief thinks that all of the SPARTANs but himself are killed on the surface of the planet. The last remaining SPARTAN, the Master Chief, escapes with the Pillar of Autumn. In accordance with the Cole Protocol, the Autumn makes a blind slipspace jump, and emerges in the vicinity of an unexplored and remarkable world.

3.2.7 Arrival at Halo

The Pillar of Autumn exits slipspace to find a mysterious ring shaped moon orbiting a gas giant. The ring, quickly named "Halo", is obviously artificial and teeming with life. A Covenant fleet, however, is also present, and a subsequent battle heavily damages the Pillar of Autumn. Captain Keyes initiates the Cole protocol - all records of Earth's location are erased, and the Autumn is crash landed onto Halo. The ship's AI construct, Cortana, leaves the Autumn with the Master Chief in an escape pod which also crash lands on Halo.

Gameplay begins in earnest with the Master Chief's escape from the Autumn, and continues upon landing. The player will soon discover the origins and purpose of this world - and uncover a threat that forces even the Covenant into retreat.

As a literary sidenote, the ring, "Halo", borrows heavily from the Ringworld of Larry Niven and the Culture Orbitals of Iain M. Banks.

3.3 Characters

• The Master Chief: The only SPARTAN thought to have survived the battle of Reach. He is the character the player assumes during gameplay.

• Cortana: The Pillar of Autumn's AI construct, removed from the ship by the Master Chief in accordance with the Cole Protocol. During most of the game, Cortana is connected directly to the Master Chief's neural interface, and acts to deliver tactical information and mission objectives.

• Captain Jacob Keyes: The distinguished Captain of the Pillar of Autumn, renowned for his tactical brilliance in key battles prior to the fall of Reach.

3.4 In-game plot

The first levels of the game deal with an attempt to reach Halo's control center to uncover its purpose. It is soon discovered that the Covenant have accidentally released the "Flood", a parasitic race which gets its name from the way it devastates potential hosts with sheer numbers. The Flood then sweep across Halo and devastate human and Covenant forces positioned on it. The release of the Flood prompts 343 Guilty Spark, an eccentric Artificial Intelligence, to try to activate Halo's defense system, a pulse weapon that, when fired, would wipe out all life in the galaxy large enough to be hosts for the Flood. Technically, that installation only has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light years, but the pulse would trigger other installations as well, effectively killing all life in the galaxy. This system is designed to stop the Flood from spreading through the universe if they escape confinement from Halo by the only way possible: starving the Flood of any life source large enough to sustain them.

Naturally, this would wipe out Humanity as well, and so the final levels of the game revolve around the Master Chief's attempts to destroy Halo before it fires.

The game leaves the story open to further developments, with the revelation that there are most likely several Halo ringworlds in the galaxy, due to Halo being numbered "Installation 04" by a robot named 343 Guilty Spark, the Monitor of the installation. (it is revealed in HALO 2 that there were 7 HALOS before installation 04's destruction)

4 Books

As of 2004, three books have been written based in the Halo universe.

• is a prequel to the game, written by Eric Nylund .
• is an adaptation of the game's story by William C. Dietz .
• is the story between the first game and its upcoming sequel by Eric Nylund .

5 Future developments

The next episode in the Halo story, Halo 2, was released on November 9, 2004. [1] Like the previous fan-beloved Marathon, Halo 2 has a return of old characters and new technology in attempt to further a complicated plot line, the object of which is to be deciphered by the end.

A free mod for the computer game series Battlefield 1942/ Vietnam called Homefront features Halo-esque and original content for online multiplayer games with up to 64 players. [2]

Not only this mod, but many, can be found at various sites on the Internet at places like halomods.com, halocity.org and more. The customizable map option has become quite popular with the downloadable custom edition of the PC version, many maps can be found on these sites, ready to be opened and played. These maps can be made with 3D Studio MAX.

6 External links

• Official site
• Official Xbox.com site
• MobyGames' entry on Halo
• Halo.Bungie.Org Halo fansite and resource center
• Subnova.com Halo information & FAQs
• Klik Gamers' Halo review
• Red VS Blue - Machinima using the Halo engine
• Halo for Mac OS X

First-person shooters Halo Microsoft games Xbox games Windows games 2001 computer and video games 2003 computer and video games Multiplayer online games

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