With Halo 3 just around the corner, I decided I'd play Halo 1 and 2, just so I know what the hell is going on in Halo 3.

So I've had Halo 1 for PC for quite a while now. I picked the game up at Blockbuster for 10 bucks new (I didn't even know Blockbuster sold PC games). But anyway, I bought this game for the online multiplayer, 'cause I thought it was fun. I gave the single player campaign a small whirl, and I got bored quickly...but multiplayer..online..yeah. That's worth 10 bucks.

But years later, I decide to play through it so I could understand what the Covenant was, what the big deal was with the Flood, and find out what's so horrible about The Library. Well, now I know. (obviously, SPOILERS)

I can accurately describe Halo 1 with one word: repetitive. Jesus moose, this game's single player campaign is one thing over and over. In fact, as I've heard many people say, but didn't fully understand before, this game's last half is just the first half backwards. It's true! I'm like, "WTF?"

But yeah, the worst offenders of repetitiveness are the levels Assault on the Control Room and The Library (and also Two Betrayals, because it's Assault on the Control Room backwards). Assault on the Control Room is basically one room over and over, and a few hallways connecting them, with like, one or two open snow areas after each section of rooms. Seriously, that one room over and over is not an exaggeration. This room, this grey, boring, and geometrically simple room is gone through at least 10 times (and then 10 more when you have to go back in a later level). The only difference is the enemy layout in each room, but if you're just get tired of it like I was, you'll just run for the exit almost every time, 'cause that exit is always in the same place...Seriously, before I played the game, people would always tell me "The Library" was the worst part of the game due to its repetitiveness, and during Assault on the Control room, I was thinking, "Is this the Library?" Then I got to the actual Library and I was like, "Oh..THIS is the library...shit."

Yeah, the Library. God, that place was stupid. I thought the Flood would be cool, 'cause they're essentially space zombies, right? And killing zombies is fun? Hell, I loved Dead Rising, and all that was was basically killing zombies. But the Flood? TERRIBLE. Annoying. Especially those exploding ones that appear out of nowhere and you get to close to them, and when they explode, they detonate all the plasmas grenades on the floor and you die and have to start that whole section of the Library all over again? And you can't just run through the level like I tried to do the first few times, 'cause the Flood will overwhelm and kill you, and the game won't set a checkpoint until you kill them all. GAH.

And then Two Betrayals, like I said earlier, is just Assault on the Control room backwards. Horrible.

And then you end up going back to the first level of the game, even! Gah! Did they really get that lazy? If they wanted to re-use maps, they should've just thrown some multiplayer maps in the single player campaign.

But yeah, Halo's single player is boring as hell, and I really don't get how it was rated so high. It was probably because of the multiplayer, 'cause that's really fun. Though I guess I'm being a little unfair, because this game is OLD, so my standards for FPS single player campaigns might be a little higher..but still..

The one thing that Halo did seem to "excel" at is the combat...I guess that's what "Combat Evolved" means. The AI is really good in this game, even by today's standards, I think. The enemies will go to cover and stuff, and even try to move behind you to get you. But no, they're not crawling under tables like in FEAR (are there even any tables in Halo?). And I guess 95% of the time, you're shooting something...but once the Flood get involved, the AI just goes away, and combats not fun anymore because they're super space zombies.

I really just didn't have that much fun with Halo's single player campaign. So Halo's single player gets a 6/10...or something like that. Whatever score says "single player is boring and repetitive, but the AI is good.

Anyways, now I'm playing Halo 2, which I got to work on Jessica's computer running Windows XP. Neato. So far, Halo 2's single player is kicking Halo 1's ass all over the place. But is Halo 2 kicking ass in general? Find out when I'm done playing it and decide to write a blog entry about it.