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Halo for the xbox console stands as one of the greatest games of all time.

Testament to this is that only 10 games have recieved 10/10 from Edge magazine (one of the worlds most respected games journals) to date and Halo is one of them. (Well actually it's 2 of them as Halo 3 got one as well)

What makes it so good?

Halo is an example of a First Person Shooter or FPS; a type of game where the player is involved in combat and experiences the game through the eyes of their avatar (character). In halo this character is the Master Chief, a Spartan cyrborg charged with protecting Earth and it's colonies from the unstoppable Alien hordes of the covenant.

So far so obvious. The joy of Halo though is in the unexpected and the unrepeated. The main reason for Halo's popularity is that the game engine (the core design of the interactions in the game) provide the opportunity for emergent modes of gameplay.

What does that mean then. Well to put it simply if you wonder into an area with a bunker in it and some bad guys sometimes those bad guys will come out and attack you with assault rifles. Sometimes they'll sit tight and lob grenades at you. Sometimes they'll distract you while their friends flank around and attack you.

Halo is able to achieve this through the genius combination of 3 key elements.

The first is wide and expansive play areas with varied topography and entry points. These allow for a wide range of routes across a play space which provoke differing responses from enemies.

The second element, the varied yet restricted weapon set, also feeds into provoking differing responses. Halo took a brave step compared to it's predecessors in the FPS genre of making the player select their arsenal rather then having access to every weapon they stumbled across once they had stumbled across it. The halo experience is one of constant choice as to which two guns to use on a given section. This constant choice of toys as tools produces vastly different approaches to attack thereby vastly different responses from the enemies.

The amazing emphasis on the simulated AI (artificial intelligence) of the enemies in the campaign mode is the third strand to Halo's overarching success. The different enemies have visable hierachical structures and clearly different responses to the player entering and passing through a play area. This produces a constantly changing and highly believable interpretation of battlefield dynamics.

These key elements are added to by other examples of design genius.

The balance of the weapon set is second to none providing genuine variety without forcing certain options on players. There is always a truly free choice as to how to tackle an area.

The character personality design is astounding. The chatter of the human and alien grunts and officers adds much depth to the game and provides comedy, tragedy and real emotional depth to what is overwise a game of simple running and gunning.

The world of Halo is one of real artistry and breathtaking beauty.

The plot of Halo is one of the finest in videogame history and while plagurisitic is a wonderful example of when films and videos games can cross pollinate in a positive manner.

The final genius of Halo is that all of what applys to the single player mode also transposes to the multiplayer. There are never two games the same, your approach afects your enemies and teamplay is genuinely team based with different players taking different weapons and roles.

Many of these touches of genius have appeared in many games since. Halo remains a fantastic video game because it can clearly claim to have had them first.

Learn more about this author, Scott Bennett.
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