Yes, there are in fact some people on this planet who have not yet played Bungie Software’s smash Xbox hit, Halo; up until recently, I was one of those people. Luckily for those of us too stubborn to be pried away from our precious mouse and keyboard, renowned developer Gearbox Software, most notable for the popular Half-Life expansion packs, recently completed work on Halo for the PC. First released in November 2001 as a launch title for Microsoft’s first console, Halo: Combat Evolved was lauded for its cohesive gameplay, interesting story, and great multiplayer features, and the PC version shows exactly why Halo earned the legacy it did on the Xbox. Now that all the hoopla has died down, it’s clear that Halo isn’t perfect; some drab level design hacks away at Halo’s otherwise frenetic pace, and two years after its initial release it doesn’t stack up as well graphically when compared to today’s PC titles. Still, Halo is a nice port of a fantastic game on any platform--console or PC--and is worth a look by any first-person shooter fan. Halo sets out from the beginning bound and determined to deliver a compelling story. Set 550 years in the future, humanity has expanded its horizons across the galaxy; in doing so, it comes has come in contact with a fanatically-religious, hostile alien race known as the Covenant. Your role as the legendary Master Chief--one of Earth’s highly-developed cyborg soldiers--picks up immediately after a Covenant ambush on your intergalactic war vessel, the Pillar of Autumn. After surviving the initial wave, your immediate goal is to divert the Covenant’s attention away from Earth to insure its security. A few cut scenes at the beginning of missions are used to progress the plot, but Halo’s story is largely developed in-game and relayed back to you via your personal AI unit, Cortana. You’ll frequently receive information from Cortana during intense Covenant firefights, so if you’re not attentive, you may miss out on much of Halo’s story. Like any great game, though, Halo encourages repeated playings, so any storyline elements you missed the first time through can be soaked in later. Being a first-person shooter, Halo’s combat is obviously its main gameplay component. You’ll square off against a variety of Covenant forces in several different locations on foot and by vehicle, and the Covenant puts up a tenacious fight each time. The enemy artificial intelligence exhibited is excellent; enemy forces will work together, group up, take cover, and use flanking procedures on you and your fellow marines, who frustratingly aren’t as competent as your foes. Amazingly, most of Halo’s enemy AI is not scripted. Though scripted events are certainly used to trigger some scenes, the AI handles most of the work itself; there are no patterns to memorize for each battle, as multiple playings evoke different results each time, helping to push Halo’s replay value through the roof. On harder difficulty levels, the challenge rises exponentially; you won’t exactly waltz through your first run in the game’s legendary difficulty setting, the true test of any gamer’s mettle--and patience. Luckily, Halo introduces a couple twists to the standard run-and-gun formula. First of all, you’re limited to carrying a maximum of two weapons at any given time, meaning you’ll need to strategically choose which guns to bring into battle. This may seem overly restrictive at first, but in reality most weapons are powerful enough to get the job done; choosing a Covenant plasma rifle over a human machine gun, for example, won’t necessarily spell disaster. All the while it adds an extra element of believability, and in the process makes other games that claim to be based firmly in realism, yet allow the hero to carry six or seven weapons at a time, seem a bit silly by comparison. In addition to your two primary firearms, you’re also equipped with two secondary offensives: grenades and a melee attack. Both are seamlessly integrated into the game and can be used in conjunction with one of the main weapons; that is, rather than firing a machine gun and then having to switch to the grenade, you can simply toss the grenade while firing your gun. A small delay to throw the grenade is of course necessary, but you’re back to firing your primary weapon much quicker than in other games. The melee attack, though weak, can be used quite effectively as a defensive mechanism up close, and also scores a one-hit kill if you sneak up from behind. Despite seeming miniscule, these gameplay variations truly play a large role in molding Halo’s own distinct feel. While Halo on the Xbox clearly stood out graphically, Halo on the PC isn’t so groundbreaking. The visual style is a cross between Aliens vs. Predator 2 and Unreal II, though the graphics quality doesn’t reach the precedent set by either. Some of Halo’s bland and repetitive textures are only exemplified during later levels as you trudge through corridor after identical corridor. That’s not to say Halo is slouch in the graphics department, though. Overall, the game’s visuals are quite impressive due to the higher resolutions supported by the PC platform. Halo looks beautiful at a resolution of 1280x1024 with maximum graphics settings, though it will require a stronger computer to run it comparable to a better-optimized game like Unreal Tournament 2003. Still, Gearbox did wonders keeping the graphics of a two-year-old console game competitive with today’s PC heavyweights. Similar to the graphics, Halo's audio is good, but not great. Most of the sound effects, from the fire of a machine gun to explosion of a grenade, come off as a bit weak, but they certainly get the job done. This is just nitpicking, however, and Halo’s music picks up the slack. There are multiple riveting and orchestral tracks to accompany you on your epic journey, though they are few and far between. The greatest addition to the PC port is online multiplayer. Along with the requisite Slayer (deathmatch), team Slayer, and capture the flag game types, a few novelty modes have been thrown in for good measure. Oddball certainly lives up to its name; set in a free-for-all environment, each player attempts to first find and then carry a single skull object around the level for the greatest amount of time without dying. King of the Hill works similarly, except instead of carrying an object, teams must occupy a given section of the map for as long as possible. Race is easily the strangest of the bunch; in order to score, you’ll need to travel to various checkpoints to complete an entire lap around the level. Fast-moving vehicles, such as the Warthog jeep and Ghost speeder, are the preferred methods of transport in Race, though covertly sneaking across the terrain is a viable option as well. Lastly, Assault is a simple variation of capture the flag with teams alternating offensive and defensive roles. Unfortunately, most of these extra modes feel more gimmicky than fun; while King of the Hill is arguably the strongest of the bunch, don’t be surprised if you find yourself playing the regular capture the flag mode the majority of the time. For a port released two years after the original game, Halo sure doesn’t always act like it. Dishearteningly, cooperative multiplayer, which allowed two players to play the single-player game together in split-screen mode on the Xbox, is nowhere to be found in the PC port. Gearbox blamed technical difficulties in porting the game to the PC for co-op mode’s exclusion, but nevertheless a major part of the original game has been left out. Also, in a time when a 32 player limit is the de facto standard for multiplayer games, Halo only comes equipped with a meager 16. As a result, even full multiplayer games in Halo feel under populated, especially when compared to Battlefield 1942’s grandiose 64 player battles. To add to the multiplayer woes, the latest version of Halo, 1.02, does not have a voting system in place to change maps, game types, or kick players from the server. Since friendly fire is on by default, all it takes is one team-killing player to seriously disrupt a match. A little more polish would have gone a long way in solidifying Halo’s place as one of the current top multiplayer games, but as it is, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in spite of these oversights. “Revolutionary” isn’t the correct word to describe Halo; “evolutionary” is. Halo doesn’t do anything particularly new or different from other first-person shooter games out there, but it does do everything a bit better. From its well-integrated vehicle- and infantry-based combat to its phenomenal AI and single-player game, Halo is one all-around tight package. Admittedly, the new multiplayer features aren’t as well-developed as they should be, and the omission of co-op mode is tragic, but those who passed on the Xbox version will find a lot to like in Halo for the PC.