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Halo: Combat Evolved
For Xbox

I'm sure you've heard about Halo. I'm sure you've heard how great it is. I'm sure I don't really even need to write this review. Oh well, I will anyway.

Okay, so here's the story: a group of aliens known as the Covenant have attacked the humans. You play as Master Chief, the last of his kind and a super-cyber-clone-warrior-guy. Your job: kill the Covenant. To do so, you have plenty of tools.

A: Your friends the marines, who can help you out by shooting the baddies, throwing grenades at them, or manning the turret in your Wathog (more on that later). They're also handy if you're, uh, out of ammo, if you know what I mean...

B: Guns. There are plenty -- some human, some Covenant. From a rocket launcher to a sniper to a machine gun, you're all set in that regard. One interesting part of the game is that you can only hold two guns at once, which certainly makes you think more strategically when running around saving the world. Also, you can whack people with your guns if you're out of ammo, or if you want to conserve ammo, or just because it's fun. I suppose it can be useful too, since it's a one-hit-kill to the back of the head. Remember that.

C: Grenades, which come in two varients: plasma (Covenant) and fragmentation (human). You can carry four grenades of each type at once. The glowing-blue plasma grenades stick to things, like people and vehicles, and take about three seconds (after hitting the target) to go off. Frag grenades are harder to see, don't stick, are slightly more powerful and have a shorter fuse.

D: There are four drivable (or flyable) vehicles in the game -- two human and two Covenant. On the human side, first there's the Warthog -- a sort of jeep that can hold one driver, one passenger (who can shoot his/her own guns & throw grenades) and a gunner (who uses the rear-mounted swiveling machine gun turret with infinite ammo). Then there's the Scorpion, a great big tank with capacity for one driver/gunner (the driver has control of the big gun and the smaller machine gun) and four passengers, who sit on the tank treads. On the Covenant side there's the one-seater Banshee (great big purple flying thing) and the one-seater Ghost (little purple hovering thing).

The single player sure is great and all, but it's only have the game. Multiplayer's also a blast, and all your "tools" from above carry over into multiplayer -- minus the Banshee and marines, sadly (although the PC version does has the Banshee). You can play with up to four people on one Xbox, or you can link up to four Xboxes together for 16-player mayhem!

Unfortunately, that's very different from playing online -- you have to wire the Xboxes together with your own wires, and you're not connecting to Xbox LIVE or anything. Still, it's a start.

For Xbox LIVE and tons of other features, I suggest you look into Halo 2 instead. Still, the original is still a worthy game, certainly worthy of a review. Five stars out of five.