| Halo:
Combat Evolved – PC
Unlike waaaay too
many first-person shooters these days, Halo has a good stab at
being a damned good first-person shooter. No pretensions. It doesn't
try to be some kind of military combat simulator. It's got your
PC dressed up as Master Chief Ubermarine with a placky gun made
by Mattel in one hand, a bottle in the other… and it's ready
to party.
In short, it's a blast. It eases you in gently,
nudges you through the various controls, and generally says: "Here's
a shitload of bad guys. Here's a pile of ammunition. Here are
the car keys, son - have fun." There are times when you'll
only have one or two bad guys to shoot at, and that's fine. There
are times when it's throwing 250 screaming meanies at you in wave
after gibbering wave.
“THIS IS THIS, ALIEN MATHAFACKAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!”
That's fine too. The only point of using the
rocket-launcher is to marvel at fountains of carbonised parasitic
squid-thing arcing through the air. And it's fun! Wade on in,
or be a big girly-wuss and pick 'em off from afar. It's all good.
The game is balanced, gets progressively tougher,
and there's a sense of real achievement to be had from standing
amidst the steaming, oozing corpses of 70 slavering alien horrors,
the tinkling of spent brass merrily playing counterpoint to the
squit and squelch of organs under your boots. Even Mr. I-Don't-Like-Single-Player-Games
will find himself howling abuse at the screen as he flings down
another fusillade of fire like the voice of God scored in 4/4
time scored for 7.62mm autocannon.
Who’s laughing, now?
Still, it's a resource hog-and-a-half*. There's
no excuse for this. This game is ancient in terms of nVidia and
ATi hardware - it should fly. Gearbox have either done no optimisation
at all, or they're massively incompetent, or someone, somewhere
doesn't want it soaring along at higher resolutions than an XBox
will give you on a TV.
Anyhoo... It's worth 30 quid a hell of a lot
more than Rainbox Six #43: Fatima Badger, or whatever.
One more thing. Multiplayer on this is a hoot.
I don't know which is more fun - running yer mate over in a jeep,
or blowing him 400 feet in the air by fratricidally detonating
a large pile of grenades under him. Heehee. Dribble.
RODENT CASH RATING -
£30
 "Macintosh?
No-Halo-tosh, more like"
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