Halo: Combat Evolved [Game of the Year Edition]

Honest and Unpopular Reviews No. 46 Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox) Have you ever played a game out of order or watched a sequel to a movie before seeing the original? That's what I did with Halo. Halo 2 was my introduction to the franchise thanks to one of my best friends, whom I've known since 1997. He rented Halo 2 from Blockbuster in late 2004 and we pulled an all nighter playing it. Shortly after this life changing experience, I went out and bought my own Xbox along with Halo CE. It's been my favorite franchise ever since. There's only been a handful of games as revolutionary as Halo was. Bungie put out one of the biggest games in pop culture history with it, on a brand new console from a company that had never made one before. Halo launched with the original Xbox in November 2001. The marketing for the new console was through the roof. Microsoft did everything they could to get people to take the Xbox seriously, and Halo is the biggest reason why anyone did. Nearly every first person shooter since has copied what Halo did. Carrying only two guns meant every weapon you picked up cost you one you already had, but the real ones know you only need the magnum to run through this. The shield Master Chief had was something shooters hadn't really done before. It came back on its own if you backed off for a few seconds. Grenades had their own button, something console shooters before it mostly didn't bother with. Then it hands you the Warthog, a jeep with a turret on the back where one guy drives while the other stands up there shooting, on levels big enough to actually drive it through, or some that aren't but you're going to make it fit through this really narrow hallway anyways. One of my favorite things about Halo is how it's multiple genres in one game. It's a futuristic science fiction war game but about halfway through, it turns into a horror game with the Flood showing up. You go from fighting religious alien zealots to fighting zombies. The release of Halo CE had a massive impact on pop culture, big enough that it led to Red vs Blue, an internet comedy show filmed inside the game that ran for over twenty years. Bungie opened the decade with Combat Evolved and closed it out with Reach in 2010, showing us what first person shooters should actually be. I rate Halo: Combat Evolved a 5 out of 5.