Way back when the Xbox debuted there was one game that stood head and shoulders above the rest; the once PC-only game Halo. Since then there have been a slew of first person shooters, and still Halo reigns above them to this day. The reason? Its just fun, enthralling and exciting; an experience not to be missed. The story of HALO takes place in the far future, as humanity fights for survival against the onslaught of the Covenant; a collective race of alien beings who deem humanity an affront to the gods and are annihilating each human world one by one. You control Master Chief, the sole surviving member of the elite SPARTAN-II group, a combination of intense training and genetic enhancements. When your starship crash lands on the ancient ring world HALO, you and your fellow marines fight a desperate guerilla war against them. You are accompanied by Cortana, a spunky artificial intelligence that will provide you with tactical combat data. The game begins as your spaceship, The Pillar of Autumn, is under siege by Covenant troops and you and the squad of Marines on board are forced to abandon ship and land on Halo.

    The biggest difference when comparing Halo to other FPS games is that Halo manages to keep to its futuristic sci-fi setting, while remaining eerily realistic. Somehow, the alien weapons are completely believable. There are a number of weapons to aid you in your guerilla war against the Covenant; the humans have the assault rifle, fragmentation grenades, a pistol with a 2X scope, a sniper rifle, a shotgun and rocket launcher. The Covenant arsenal consists of a plasma pistol, plasma grenades, plasma rifle, and the needler(shoots razor-sharp homing projectiles). You can only carry two weapons at one time and this adds strategy to the game; using a fully-charged plasma pistol to destroy an alien’s shield and then finishing him off with an assault rifle blast is one of the many tricks in the game. One of the games big draws is the vehicular portions of the game, which is a real blast. You can man the wheel while letting the AI Marines man the gun and ride shotgun, and while thats fun, its even better having a buddy manning the gun while you drive, or vice-versa.    The game takes place over many different levels, and they all look utterly fantastic. The amount of detail in this game is staggering, from the sunlight filtering down through trees to the individual spent bullet casings, to the bump-mapping has to be seen to be believed. The graphics are still utterly gorgeous. Control is extremely intuitive and quickly becomes second nature. The only knock against control is trying to maneuver the Warthog jeep; it seems to bounce around WAY too much, but that’s only my opinion. Its still a blast to drive. The main campaign will take awhile to complete, and about a month or so if you dare to challenge the uber-tough Legendary mode; only true SPARTAN’s need apply.

    Multiplayer is another high point in Halo. System link allows you to hook up to 4 Xbox’s together for some 16-player deathmatch’s, capture the flag, and the like. The size of the multiplayer maps range from bizarrely small to medium in size, and yes you can use some of the vehicles (sorry, no Banshee aircraft; the PC version of Halo gets that). All in all, Halo is a game that you bought an XBox for, and should be in everyone’s library. The best XBox shooter ever and one of the best games ever, well, until Halo 2 comes out.