As you may or may not know, I recently got my PC for college. While I am loath to use a Microsoft machine, there was one upshot to this scenario: I could finally access that backlog of PC games that wouldn't work on my Mac.For the past few weeks, I have been playing Half-Life, Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, etc. whatever would run.
Just today, I got a PC copy of Halo.
I hadn't played Halo in a while (what with the broken Xbox and all), but coming back to it after a run of pre-1999 games, it was shocking how different Halo seemed. I was reminded of the first time I played it: The setting drew me in, the story seemed fresh, but most of all, the gameplay was totally different, which brings me to my point.
The way games are today, you forget what a game changer Halo was. The AI squads, the regenerating health, the two-at-a-time weapons: we expect most of these features in games today, but back then it was crazy stuff. Players had become accustomed to carrying upwards of 10 weapons at a time. What kind of person would think a limit of 2 was a good idea? Health packs were an idea that had been accepted for years. Nobody even bothered to think of removing them. As it turned out, these touches not only worked, but were copied by nearly every new game since.
Now, mostly, I just wanted to mention how cool the first Halo was. The series has become a standard , and many (like myself) had become tired with it. It's easy to forget, though, what a huge leap Halo was back in the day. If I were to drop some obligatory moral to this tale, though, I would just emphasize how important it is not to get constrained by what is "current" or "standard". When Bungie released Halo, they changed nearly every accepted aspect of shooter games, something I'd like to see more of in an age where games are classified based on how similar they are to COD or even Halo itself. If somebody hadn't bothered to switch things up, who knows what kind of games we'd be playing right now. I'm glad someone decided to reinvent the wheel.
