First off, yes, I know I am extremely late to the party. I just heard a lot a crappy opinions about the Halo games from people who enjoy the same types of gameplay asI do. Consequently, even though I had a rather extensive Xbox game collection (75 games at the time) none of the games had the word Halo in them.

It took until last week to get up the courage to say 'Screw it' and just try them for myself. I bought both Halo 1 and 2 on ebay.

Halo 2 came first. I didn;t want to play a whole heck of a lot of it, as I want ed to play the 1st game fairly fresh. I ended up playing about an hour or so of it (and another 45 minutes of multiplayer 'Slayer'). I wasn't terribly impressed. It wasn't 'bad' per se, it just didn't 'click' w/me forsome reason. My initial impressions leave me feeling like it is a bit overrated, but more time w/it will allow me to decide once and for all.

Well, Halo finally arrived in my mailbox a week later. Wow. That is all I can say. What a great game. The 1st Halo is definitely worth all of the praise that it gets. The combat is incredibly satisfying, and the weapons are fun to experiment with. All of the weapons are extremely well balanced to one another, and it is fun to experiment w/the various Covenant and human weaponry. I typically despise 'laser guns' and the like in games, but the various plasma guns in Halo grew on me. I quickly learned that they are almost twice as powerful vs. the Covenant as the standard issue weapons. Especially the shielded foes. I also thought the 2 types of grenades was cool as well. The frags and plasmas both have their uses, and I love the strategiacal options when choosing which one to use and when.

My only gripe, so far, is the repetetiveness ofsome of thelevels. Several times, I felt like I was going through the same room every 5 minutes.

Anyway, so far, so good. I am currently on Guilty Spark 343. I had a frustrating moment when approaching the control room, namely climbing the winding path up the tower (most notably the battle at the top before entering the door) but felt really good whe I found an effective strategy and made my way past it.

In summary, this is a really nice change of pace for me. It gives me a break from the WWII shooters, GTA's, FC:Instincts, and the various Tom Clancy games like the Xbox Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six games. Highly recommended for anyone who:

A: has not tried it YET

B: is even mildy interested in shooting stuff

and finally

C: those who like an immersive game w/a compelling story to pull you along.

Forgot to mention that I got Ghost Recon:Advanced Warfighter on XBOX as well.

Ha. I had a few beers and found my way to E-bay. I ended up buying a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise.

(all Xbox games)

Without Warning

Pariah

Halo 2

FarCry Instincts Evolution

I bought Halo-Combat Evolved as well, but haven't received it yet.

Yes, I have ~ 80 Xbox games, and have never owned or even PLAYED a Halo game. I dicked around for 15 minutes on the Halo 1 PC port, and that is it. Strange but true. I don't know what it is, but I don't tend to like the really Sci-Fi shooters. I just don't like 'laser gun-type weapons' over the traditional bullet based ammo.

I thought the whole game was full of **** like the Needler and Plasma guns. I was lad to discover that the Master Chief and his teammates (Spartans?) all have fairly familiar weapons. Needless to say, I tend to stick w/my starting weapons and occasionally 'borrowing' one from a teammate

Anyway, I unfortunately received Halo 2 before Halo:CE. So, I started playing it first. I admit to being lost on the plot, but the gameplay is solid enough. I mean, I see and feel the pull this game has, I just don't think Halo 2 (not speaking on Halo:CE, as I haven't given it a play yet) is completely deservant of the extremely high ratings it received. It is certainly deservant of an 8.5 +, but the ones well over 9.0 are a tad skewed. I only hope Halo:Ce is as good as its review numbers say.